A farewell hike between two friends leads them to a long-forgotten grove that straddles the borders of spirit and time. The sweet fruit that grows there tempts all who enter, but does the seemingly empty house within welcome its visitors? Spend a night inside its walls and discover the secrets it holds. Reality bends and breaks, will your body and soul break too?
Dusk Grove is a horror romance and MtF themed work of interactive fiction that uses audio to enhance the text and provide a richer experience of the story.
Latest Update:
Alpha Version 0.0.22
Story Path Updates:
Seth explores the attic alone.
Seth follows David into the attic.
Seth and David explore the basement. David makes contact with an unknown entity.
Two young adults set out for one final hike after their highschool graduation. Directions recorded in an old journal lead them to a strange and mystical grove with no apparent means of escape.
Seth, the player, has just turned eighteen and graduated from highschool. As an avid hiker, he's thrilled to go on one more carefree adventure with David before the responsibilities of adulthood erode all their free time.
David is Seth's easygoing best friend and hiking partner. He shares a birthday with Seth.
Alpha Version 0.0.11
UI Update
An option to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode was added to the options menu.
The window can be resized in windowed mode.
"f"ast mode text speed was greatly increased.
Pressing the "r" key will now skip to the end of the current page.
Pressing the "r" key when already at the end of a page will automatically select the first choice in the choice box.
Button and text fade speeds were increased.
Buttons can now be clicked as soon as they start fading in.
Screen fade speeds were increased as permitted by loading and scene transition operations.
Menu items now highlight instead of changing icons. The fast mode and skip action icons also highlight when those keys are pressed.
Pages were broken up into smaller paragraphs to improve readability.
The story screen itself was updated to be more compact and easier to read.
Fixed a pathing error that was potentially preventing some choices from displaying even if prereqs were met.
Added a converter that attempts to automatically convert old saves to the new save format when they're loading. Old saves should still work due to this.
Alpha Version 0.0.12
Story Update
This update covers the start of Seth's second day in the Grove.
Alpha Version 0.0.13
Story Update
David and Seth discuss the previous night.
Alpha Version 0.0.14
Seth investigates the upper floors, with or without David.
Alpha Version 0.0.15
Seth's spirit inhabits another's body again.
Alpha Version 0.0.16
They descend into the basement.
Alpha Version 0.0.17
They find a strange machine.
Alpha Version 0.0.18
Seth investigates the study.
Alpha Version 0.0.19
Seth sinks deeper into a dream.
Alpha Version 0.0.20
Seth explores the attic alone.
Alpha Version 0.0.21
Seth's dream intensifies as his willpower fades.
Alpha Version 0.0.22
Story Path Updates:
Seth explores the attic alone.
Seth follows David into the attic.
Seth and David explore the basement. David makes contact with an unknown entity.
I was under the assumption that being made in Unity meant it would be more than just text, but I guess I was wrong.
Maybe it's just me, but I expect something like this to at least have some images to go along with it, otherwise it's just an ebook.
Maybe there could be a tag for "text-based" or "kinetic novel" or something similar.
What I read feels like it needs more substance, as well. I was truly bored after the first couple minutes.
Formatting is much improved over the previous version, it's now perfectly readable. The premise still hints at promise, but there's still something of a lack of content here (As of 0.0.12). The path up until the titular grove is elaborate and well detailed, but as for the content inside it there's still not much there. You can see the start of the TF, a still rather offputting dream sequence, then a couple of paragraphs in the morning before an end screen. Hints of a slow TG are a positive sign for me, but not when it ends so quickly. Not really enough to judge the game on as of yet, and not really enough to be worth the time in investing in to.
Consider keeping an eye on this one, check it out later if you find the premise interesting. Maybe take a peek if you're curious and have some time to kill. But as of now, there isn't all that much to see.
