Kindred Spirit
Game Details
- Type: Text Adventure
- Genre: Adventure, Puzzle
- Engine: Quest
- Released: July 20, 2022
Kindred Spirit
The second game I've made, starring a lively Pikachu lad named Claude and his ghostly Mimikyu twin brother Isaiah. It's your goal to help these two out with the grandest of goals: Let Isaiah truly rest in peace in the afterlife. Whatever it takes, have a heart and lend them a hand in this adventure!
This game is set within the Modern Fantasy character universe. If you wish to know more, that colored text will direct you to an in-progress version of a wiki documenting my works altogether.
Spoilers Beyond this Point
Game Features
Puzzle sequences, whether it's how a player gets an item or how a player enters more restricted areas.
A simple inventory system along with usable items, some of which are red herrings.
A map visible at all times, allowing the player to get a better idea of where they are during this text adventure. Along with that, the player can explore a portion of a big city and an adjacent town. Certain homes and businesses are enterable as well, with interactions and characters within.
A very generous saving system, allowing the player to pick off from wherever they were at last. Worth mentioning since other games from me required you to enter a certain room to save!
Real lived in world, with logical reasons for why you can't go EVERYWHERE. Good chunk of background characters to see, hear, and interact with alongside especially.
Decent feedback system, with the ability to ask your ghostly brother for his thoughts on a ton of things you may come across in-game.
Characters Featured
Clicking any of the listed names will bring you to their respective Toyhouse pages, which contains the characters' art gallery and any linked short stories they appear in.
- Claude Kindred (Playable Protagonist)
- Isaiah Kindred (Secondary Protagonist)
- Sigourney Merry (Supporting Character)
- Terry Shenz (Supporting Character)
- Violet Beretta (Minor Antagonist)
General Locations Featured
- Rubberneck Peak, Boreal (Primary Setting)
- Yellowrock Coast, Boreal (Optional Setting)
Trivia
Originally this was gonna just be a short story following the same sort of plotline. But honestly? The way stuff was panning out, it easily worked much better as a playable game.
In the early planning stages of this, I considered making this game about the Secure Trustees or the Kingdom of Bark Queen. Things like these would be TOO grand in scale from what I considered, so the smaller scale scenario of Claude and his ghostly brother Isaiah made the cut instead.
I considered adding characters from the DoveHeart Games team as cameos in this, but I chose not to as I want to prioritize their distinct, separate short story first.
There was going to be a mechanic of allowing the character to travel along both Rubberneck and Yellowrock by bus, but attempts to make that possible proved way too much of a pain. Instead, the mechanic was hinted towards in-game as a little joke of sorts.
Could've gone further with using Isaiah's ghostly powers to manipulate the environment, but I didn't wanna stray from the main story objectives too much - nor did I want to lengthen them even further.
At one point the player was planned to have to conquer the objective of getting a ticket for the train station. Options would've been to simply buy it, steal it, sneak in, or beg someone to buy a ticket for you (the player). In the end it just felt VERY unnecessary so I removed it entirely. Besides, you don't even HAVE to take the train in the final game if you don't want to, so why bother making so many extra mechanics for that?
From the start it was ALWAYS planned that Isaiah wouldn't be able to move to the afterlife proper, despite the player's efforts. The reason? A duo like this could be fun for a lot of possibly stories and games ahead! It also helped to make the ending a happy one, rather than a depressing or simply bittersweet one.
The player's parents were planned to talk about EVERYTHING you interacted with in their household. This was moved to just simply giving one unskippable but short conversation in nearly every room instead. I had to playtest this shit a lot, so seeing how boring that would be made me scrap the original idea for the player's-sake.
After the ceremony to lay Isaiah to rest would've finished, I originally had two possible ideas how to increase game time from there. The first was a sequence where you have to escape the construction site quietly, and then find the wizards again. The other was you'd be found and apprehend at the site, and the wizard Terry would be there to get you out of trouble. Shifting it too just being in your bedroom while Terry was present (Claude had him come over, off-screen) simplified things immensely.
Searching for change under the vending machines was inspired by the same mechanic present in Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon.
The game's cover art references the construction site that is the final area in the game. I was originally going to zoom out the photo, having bits of the site's beams and concrete structures shown. But nah, zooming in served the purpose a lot, lot better. Isaiah's face present on the sign was a silly way to incorporate one of the protagonists into the art.
Kindred Spirit as a title references a few things. The first is that kindred spirit as a phrase is used because the brothers are basically akin to one another, especially with the same goal present in the game. Second, Kindred is just the last name of both brothers. Lastly, Isaiah is a spirit, you know!
Like all my games released so far, I playtest the hell out of them from start to finish many, many times. I recommend you do this as well, cause it can help you prevent real frustrating parts for the players. The only things that I'm pretty sure might still be in the game are minor typos - which I definitely apologize for!