Blade of the Overlord
Featured in Issue #47 of Indiepocalypse!
What would you do, if you pulled a card that was truly one of a kind?
Robin, Connie and Jake are a group of friends that have played the Void Wars trading card game since they were kids. Now, older and facing more grown-up problems, they are drawn back to the card game after a nostalgic edition gets reprinted, including a very special card that is very dear to Robin: the famed Blade of the Overlord. The catch? This new version of the card was only printed once, and has still not been found. The friends will try their luck in finding it, with different opinions on what they would do if they managed to pull it.
Developed for Single Choice Jam, which means that there is only one choice to make in the whole game. Choose wisely!
Credits:
Direction, programming, story and script: Nicolás Jaramillo Ortiz
Music: Cristian Rubilar
Card design: Jaji - Javiera Rivas
Changelog:
v1.5.1 (05/09/2024):
- Text fixes: Cleaned up some dialogue lines and removed some typos
v1.5 (27/08/2023):
- Text Options: Added an options bar on the text box, with two available options:
- Text log: Allows the player to view a log of all the lines displayed in a conversation, with color coded backgrounds by character.
- Auto Advance text: Each line will hold for a brief time on screen after being fully shown, and then will auto advance. Starts toggled off by default. Auto advance will not trigger for the current line if it is interrupted by actions such as opening the log or skipping the typewriter effect, but will again trigger for the following lines (unless interrupted again). The toggle's background will fill as the hold time passes, allowing the player to know when the next line will play.
- TV static fallback: Added an animated fallback for the tv static video displayed in the background at the start of the game, which sometimes does not play correctly on some browsers.
- Optimization: Various optimization fixes for the store scene.
v1.4 (25/08/2023):
- Card Gallery: After the credits have finished, there is now an option to view a gallery with all the cards made for the game.
- Restart: After the credits have finished, there are now three options for restarting the game: at the start of the game, after arriving at the store, and just before making the decision.
- Text: Fixed *more* typos in the english script.
v1.3 (21/08/2023):
- Restart: After the credits have finished, there is now an option to restart the game just before making the decision.
- Text: Fixed more typos in the english script.
v1.2 (20/08/2023):
- Options: Added options menu.
- Audio: Added character voice sounds, can be turned off in the options menu.
- Text: Fixed typos in the english script.
- Cosmetic: Relevant cards are now shown on-screen when they are mentioned in the first act.
v1.1 (19/08/2023):
- Localization: Added Spanish language.
- Cosmetic: Added visible cards in various scenes.
v1.0 (18/08/2023):
- Initial release.
Download
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Comments
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My brother played this a while back and it has been in my head since, so I wanted to play it myself. I love the story and how you can connect to the character's thinking and the dialogue feels very natural. I hope to play more games by you in the future!
Thank you very much, I'm really glad both you and your brother enjoyed it! If you're interested in similar games (dialogue-wise), we're going to be releasing an english translation + content update for La Maldición del Cruce pretty soon (by the end of the month at the latest), and there's also You're Next which has the most writing I've done on a single game (and has an easter egg or two for people that played Blade of the Overlord).
Once again, thank you for playing! 😁
Thank you for the recommendations! I have been meaning to play You're Next since I looked at your account, I hope to leave a review on the amazing game play I will have before summer ends. I cannot wait for La Maldicion del Cruce. Thank you again for responding :D
Just discovered this game through Indiepocalypse. It was the first game I tried from its issue; I found the summary very appealing, and it delivered! Wonderful short story. Thank you for making it!
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! Also very proud/relieved that it was your fist pick and it didn't disappoint haha
Also, just out of curiosity... what ending did you pick? (or which one did you pick first if you played both)
I played both, but the one I picked first was keeping the card :) It's not the "wisest" decision, but that's what video games are for :D
You're 100% right! I've been asking this question a lot and almost everyone keeps the card, despite (I believe) my bias for not keeping it showing in the text. I *did* try to balance the endings out as much as possible so that the one I don't like didn't feel like a "bad" ending, as a bit of an afterthought tbh, and in hindsight I'm really glad I did 😅
Given the submission rules you nailed it. As a stand-alone I know you can do more :)
Thanks for playing, glad you liked it! I tried to have fun and be as creative as possible within the single choice / action limit and I'm very satisfied with the result. However, I really appreciate the support - I think the game I just "finished" working on (You're Next) will be more satisfying for you :D
I'd suggest you wait until we update it first (we rushed a bit to meet the deadline and still need to fix some things), but it's still a complete experience from beginning to end as it is now.
Oh this was fun! Both endings were so neat. Well done game!
The Animal Crossing-like voices made me giggle xD
Don't know why, but the play on itch version seem to be stuck at the end of the apartment scene (didn't have that problem with the download version).
Thanks for playing! I'm really glad you liked it, especially regarding the endings - one of them is (evidently imo) my preferred one and I was worried I wouldn't be able to make the other one compelling enough, so I'm relieved that it doesn't feel so one sided. And yeah animalese type voices are great 8)
Also, thanks for the info on the scene loading bug! I had been tinkering with a lot of things from the first release until now and at the last moment I made a VERY silly misclick that ended up not including the store scene in the web version - it's fixed now!
And there I was hoping for a guest appearance from Post Malone to buy my card for 2 million dollars!
I love the amount of work put into this. The card designs look exactly like some of the ones I used to play, and the excitement of opening card packs (and the the disappointment when they didn’t contain what you wanted) never fades.
Small bug. The “Restart Game after finding card” link did nothing.
Thanks for playing, and for noticing the amount of detail! The vehicle / resource / weapon cards were a bit more generic because of time constraints, but I did try to make the character cards feel as authentic as possible - there's even one pair of cards that show the same situation from different angles! 8) I had a friend help me out with the cards (frames, borders, boxes and backgrounds) and she really did an amazing job. Sadly Post Malone was a bit out of my budget, but I did want to imply that the buyer in the game was also (seemingly) a pretty decent person.
Also thanks for the tip on the restart button! It should be fixed now ;)
This game is great! You've perfectly captured a very relatable moment in time. As we went through the booster packs I was both hoping and dreading pulling the card because I knew if I did I'd have to decide what to do with it! Really emotional and satisfying story. Also, the dude in the hot dog suit staring in the shop at the end cracked me up.
Thanks for playing, really glad you liked it! I was hoping that the little background details (such as the hot dog guy) wouldn't go unnoticed :D