Hope you're just as excited about this one as I am. hehehehehe

This month's devlog is about the narrative and mechanical structure used for the most punishing content in Catalyst: Blind Faith!

Though I'm keeping this devlog (relatively) short and sweet, it could be viewed as some spoilers by most people. If you want to play CBF utterly unspoiled, read no further!

Most of the narrative devlogs in the rest of this series will inherently contain spoilers. I've been hard at work on content that is excruciatingly difficult to share without spoiling the game, but making huge strides on script writing, art for the upcoming Steam page, programming, and oodles of surprise stuff I do not want to ruin the fun about!

Also if you would like some other reading, feel free to check out the earlier installments in this narrative devlog series! There will be 9 in all so we've got a few to pick from by now!

1. Narrative Design 101! <- Spoiler-free!
2. Common Route Mechanical Structure! <- Spoiler-free in the top half!
3. Merciful Game Design - The Mercy Hard Branch's Mechanical Structure! <- Spoilers start here!

⚠️⚠️💖LAST CHANCE TO TURN AROUND BEFORE POTENTIAL SPOILER TERRITORY!!!💖⚠️⚠️

ALRIGHT

LET'S DO IT

🔥🔥 MANDATORY CONTEXT HOOOOO 🔥🔥

If you have read ANY of my previous devlogs, you can safely skip ahead! You can also ctrl+f: "okay okay Alaric I understand the other narrative structure of CBF so that everything below this point makes sense, trust"

if you want a refresher or do not have any idea what I've been talking about, read ooon!

🔥🔥GAME BLURB FOR BASIC CONTEXT🔥🔥

Catalyst: Blind Faith is a dark fantasy and horror visual novel, set in an apocalyptic world where humanity is on the brink of extinction. You shape the fate of a young and troubled priest who is obsessed with finding a cure for the strange phenomenon turning mankind into demons: the Catalyst.

While you dive deep into the ruins that cover the land, you can channel the power of any God in the pantheon through your weakened and fractured body. Every choice you make carries favor with different aspects of reality and influences the nature of your journey, for better or for worse.

Control unrivaled power—at a cost.

Be true to yourself.

Conquer your demons, inside and out.

A hyper-simplified structure of the narrative structure for the full game of CBF is below!

This image has been scrunched to oblivion to fit on itch.io's teeeeny tiny file size. High res versions of this image and all other pics in this devlog are available for freeee in the crosspost of this devlog on Patreon!

In short (and I do mean such an excruciatingly simplified explanation it does no justice to it whatsoever in this vacuum), your choices throughout the common route have consequences. They carry beyond the common route into one of these ten "hard branches," which then has their own thematic structure. All of this is conveyed to the player transparently and in detail throughout the game. The player picks all of these things themselves too!

I do HIGHLY recommend checking out prior devlogs if you're interested in more detail about any of this and have yet to read them (links at the top of this post), but that's the basics!

"okay okay Alaric I understand the other narrative structure of CBF so that everything below this point makes sense, trust"

🩸🩸 THE MECHANICAL STRUCTURE OF THE VENGEANCE HARD BRANCH 🩸🩸

a little inspo music to set the stage https://youtu.be/Wa6vvYOq-gE?si=UWNmpMXS_miVbWFB

The fate of our troubled protagonist is shaped by the player's choices. Your choices!

In the most difficult and punishing branch in Catalyst: Blind Faith, at any time, any one of your choices can cause our dear antihero to stray from the path of righteousness.

we are using "righteous" generously

Following a straight and narrow path is NOT easy for a priest who is obsessed with a God of Murder and blood sacrifice, struggles with violent impulses, and is controlled by a player who has sworn themselves to explore the loftiest and most mature themes in an already very dark game.

Players who...

• opt to turn off our extreme content filter (more on this is future devlogs)
• read through the veritable book of content warnings (which MUST be viewed in-game before proceeding to this hard branch)
• are alright with this content NOT being intended for new players
• and engage in Vengeance's content by going "yes yes I understand it's the torment nexus"

are informed in advance that they will be adhering to the will of a deity of honor, justice, incarceration, retribution, and many other themes that frankly have no need to be explored elsewhere in the game. here, players who want to walk along the edge of a knife can!

Whether or not you uphold what is good and holy is up to you.

There are only four (4) choices in this entire hard branch that truly can shape your fate for better or worse, but every single action you take in the entire game can and will be judged.

I don't consider this spoilers, because players will know beyond a shadow of a doubt when they're on the path of the literal God of Judgment if they're about to do something that would damn them utterly.

🔥🔥🔥 BEHOLD! 🩸🩸🩸

There's truly only three mechanical design considerations at work here. The rest is months upon months of writing, research, blood, sweat, and tears.

Every devlog in the rest of this series is going to work towards talking in a meaningful way about the additional mechanical, narrative, and serious sensitivity concerns made for the most hectic content in the game...

but before we get there, we got three little pieces of narrative and game design to cover in this devlog!

The game design is punishing, but I don't like my devlogs to be. hehehe 😉

🩸🩸 THE GOOD 🩸🩸

🪜🪜 LADDER STRUCTURE 🪜🪜

You may have noticed in the hyper-simplified flowchart above that the Vengeance hard branch effectively has a "common route" all its own. This flowchart does not show anything other than the divides in the narrative which lead to WILDLY different continuities, as my flowcharts for every single variable in the game look like literal spaghetti from afar, and are only intended for my personal use.

Breaking down half (this is not all of it!) of one (1) fight scene for you all from an optional portion of the game is not a good use of our time. Trust.

Allow me to illustrate with a coherent and simplified example!

Below is a giant ugly straight line drawn over the "straight" path [insert Richard being aggressively bisexual joke here] that leads to a good ending. 😉💕💜💙

To the right, I've greatly darkened the many horrific continuities that make up our torment nexus and its many endings. [Richard is still bisexual but much sadder] ☹️💕💜💙

Because of the number of ways the narrative permanently diverges in this hard branch, it might be hard to visualize why this is called a "ladder."

It's called this because the player can "step off" the ladder at any time, into any different continuity. 🪜🪜🪜🪜

If you look at any of these bad routes in isolation, you may more easily notice the visual similarity to a ladder too!

It's a loose term for the sake of simplicity. Bear with me. It's the best we have lol and I will continue to elaborate!

What this means for a player is that as they play through a morally upright path, they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that fucking around will result in finding out.

It's exceedingly straightforward in terms of mechanics, but a taaaaaallll order narratively. Things get more complex from here!

🩸🩸 THE BAD 🩸🩸

💀💀 GAUNTLET STRUCTURE 💀💀

Once the player steps off the ladder, they are in the torment nexus. The potential reasons for this are so plentiful, this hard branch has over a dozen endings!

Once this happens (making Richard very upset deliberately), it's not a matter of redemption. You blew off the Goddess of Mercy! You could have taken the hard branch for your cute party members! Players on the hard branch for Vengeance know they have chosen the way of pain, and that is extremely valid.

I hope those of you reading are excited to hear that any and every choice beyond this point is known as a "gauntlet" in narrative design terms. You simply try to survive for as long as you can,

if you want

You can die or have a fate worse than death at any time--and boy howdy! Are there a lot of fates worse than death!

These are also telegraphed EXTREMELY clearly in the narrative, in your choices, and obviously before ever going on Vengeance's hard branch.

The goal is for players to see these bad endings only if they want to go out of their way to see them, and only if they want to press on to see that content. You are fighting for these bad endings! You gotta know the torment nexus! You gotta love the torment nexus!

Do not be the torment nexus.

I've been writing this content for over seven months now due to its narrative complexity and difficulty out of love for making them hit just as hard as all the other content in the game but it's really not easy. 💖🩸

🩸🩸 THE UGLY 🩸🩸

🗡️🗡️ SPLIT AND MERGE STRUCTURE 🗡️🗡️

I still do account for every single choice the player makes throughout the entire game (including in the common route).

This is relevant for reasons:tm: near the endings.

Split and merge narrative structure refers to when the narrative can split, accounting for variables, and then merges again for reasons:tm:.

"What the fuck is she talking about? How is this relevant to seeing bad endings? It all looks like it just connects??? Is there any serious difference here???? iS tHiS tHe IlLuSiOn oF cHoIcE??? 🤪🤪"

Let's say, hypothetically, you got vanilla ice cream in Chapter 2. No other deity probably cares, but maybe Vengeance fucking hates vanilla ice cream.

We might address that Vengeance is a serious hater, and then move on to the time you went to the beach and wore some boxers with "I love Mercy" on both buttcheeks.

Vengeance is okay with that. he's a hater, maybe he's also a tsundere, maybe. Probably. We address that choice earlier which was totally relevant in this spoiler-free example, and then move on to another scene, and another.

Like, everything that could be relevant here--and with written permutations of all events in all possible continuities that could get us here.

So if you got chocolate ice cream and wore those stupid boxers...

Or ate vanilla ice cream and did not wear those boxers...

Or ate no ice cream and were a nudist the entire game...

Or for some reason you found a way to time travel and be a nudist eating two ice cream cones at once while telling Vengeance He should really learn to lighten up...

I'm not going to bother explaining how much work this is with such dark content (for now) but I assure you it is one of the most difficult segments in the entire game from a narrative and design perspective, and worth every single second of editing and playtesting to me. 💪 Just like all the other Vengeance content!

SPEAKING OF WHICH

🔥🔥 WHAT'S IN STORE 🔥🔥

gamers I've got 5 more devlogs in this series because as you might imagine this shit is absurdly difficult to write and I have been dying to talk about it meaningfully for months!!!!

To not melt your brain, I really hope you enjoyed this (comparatively) brief devlog about this involved narrative and mechanical design!

It's VERY different from the Mercy hard branch's narrative and mechanical design, which I hope you enjoyed seeing the differences with if you have read both devlogs.

while I'm plowing through writing these scripts, art, programming, and shitposting regularly about glorious fanart and memes, I've got our devlog coming up next month about how I manage the branching timelines for all these diverging continuities in CBF!!!! It's so much goddamn work it gets its own devlog, yippee!

I'll be using spoiler-free plot examples in that next devlog to not spoil the fun for you all!

This devlog was available to patrons at any tier a week early, per usual, as a token of my immense gratitude. Not worrying as much about food and med prices goes a very long way. 🫶❤️🧡💛💚💙💜✨

Thank you so much for reading. I have enclosed your official Torment Nexus conference tshirt below, and I have much more in store in the near future lol. Feel free to leave a like or any comments or questions here, or in our community Discord! I'm happy to answer questions and always love hearing what you liked most.

Have a wonderful month! Until next tiiime