Hi everyone,

the most talented and wonderful person in my life told me I inspired her for the theme of the game she submitted to the current Ludum Dare entry. I have a thing for the smart undead, you know, and so I couldn't help myself but offer assistance.

Within the first hour, it was clear we needed some storyline to keep the gameplay mechanics engaging and interesting, and motivate people. I not only have a thing for Lichs, I also have a thing for replayability, so I immediately set out to write several branching storylines our undead champion would be able to travel along, with meaningful choices affecting gameplay.

A story is only half fun if the mood doesn't match, though. Within the first day I recorded over 100 lines of unique text in the most gravely, death metal voice I could bring in such short notice, and two days later, my throat still hurts.

But it was worth it, so much worth it. Hear me complain about the bitter aftertaste of true love, claim godhood over the entire world (that was super fun to record) or eve, if you make the right (or horribly wrong) choices, intone a mad little poem of how magic is real.

This was my first game jam, but it wasn't my last, as long as I get to work together with these highly talented people again. And once my voice works again.

Please let me know what you think of it, and whether it was worth it! :v:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/lich-clicker

Hi everyone, I'm the voice behind the second-most rated game in this Ludum Dare - Lick Clicker.

I'm also the writer, and I want to share how we came up with the story and what's behind it.

I joined the team right after Fiction and Inka decided to try their hand at a Clicker game. They had never done this before, and they had no idea, and once we talked about it it became clear that we'd need some kind of story to keep the genre fresh.

Me, I like replayability and finding out things, so it was clear it had to be a branching story. The Lich-theme was already a given, and I felt right at home with it.

I jotted down some random keywords and assigned them to a branching story path which remained the same until the very end.

We already had the different stages in mind. Originally, we intended to have different mechanics for the different types of buildings, but this only made it into the game for the Soulcleanser / Soultrap after the second decision. The Soulcleanser will provide bonus points when finishing off a soul, while the Soultrap slows down the time between the souls jump around the screen significantly.

The temples do look significantly differently from each other, though, and sadly the different ritual stones never made it into the game, but the rest of the story remained the same.

I started with the end conditions. Here's my second favourite one:

Who doesn't want to become a cruel, undead god? I know I do, and I loved voicing that line perhaps slightly too much.

After writing the endings, it was just a matter of writing a short dialogue for every other instance. They're all unique, even if they're kept a bit vague. There are five different storylines to follow, and they should emerge slowly, becoming more and more clear what is going on.

According to some of the comments we received, not everyone understood these. But I guess that's fine - you can't write for everyone.

Saturday was spent writing and fleshing out the plots, Sunday I spent four hours of recording all the lines, and on Monday morning, 48 hours after we started, we called it quits.

The incredibly positive reaction to the game encourages us to consider putting a bit more work into it and then putting it up on the appstore - so if we ever get rich and famous, it's all thanks to you guys.

Tell us, what is your favourite ending, and why is it the one with the singing? ;)