(Cover image by Riley.)
Web, Linux and Mac versions available on itch.
TL;DR: Thread is a fast TGTF RPG Maker game that is VERY text heavy and uses an SRPG combat system.
Lucas never thought of himself as special, and, frankly, he isn't. He just moved into the dorms of his local community college after busting his ass to save money for the privilege.
After a strange incident in his senior year of high school, he and his friends have grown apart. Unbeknownst to him, this incident has changed something inside of him that is about to change his outside, as well. This change is permanent unless he is able to solve that same incident from almost 2 years ago, find a missing high school classmate, and learn how to fight against the dark supernatural elements threatening to cause more issues.
Also, he has his first day of classes on Monday and nothing to wear.
The plot largely centers on the, originally male, protagonist being MtF'ed.
As far as my current plans go, I don’t foresee writing any TFs beyond the one in the inciting incident.
Adult content currently consists of two text-only scenes. Art for these scenes will be added in a future update.
(In game sprite for Luca by SeiKo093)
Implemented:
A lot of writing. I think of this as a visual novel/RPG hybrid.
Characters react to your choices! Thread has lots of Dialogue variation hinging on the inner gender identity of the MC (Set by player choices in the prologue), social stats, and outfit choice.
Tactics RPG/SRPG combat.
Thread uses a combat system similar to fire emblem or final fantasy tactics.
There are no random battles, experience points or levels. Instead, engage in a few handcrafted battles that tie into the story.
Free-Roaming! Decide what to do with your free time.
Day of week and time of day system!
Learn new combat skills for use in battle!
Spend time with contacts and learn their stories!
Study Academics, work on your Charm, or build your Courage!
Study the enemy to gain an edge in combat!
Brew potions to help with difficult fights!
Work at the Video Zone to earn money and boost your social stats!
Buy a new outfit!
Music and sound effects to compliment both dialogue and combat, and are more than an afterthought.
A good variety of character expressions created with RPG Maker’s character generator.
Planned:
More art!
Full body pixel art for Sarah is coming soon and art for each Luca outfit is also on the horizon!
CGs for important (and adult) scenes.
3/6/25, 0.3.2, Bug Fix Release
- Zoey no longer steals from you at the Danger clothing store
- Added warning if you attempt to clear the river on days with important fights
- Fixed game over if Lucas is knocked out but Sarah isn't
- Status -> Passives menu now shows info about current states
- several typos fixed
- small additions/changes to week 2 Thu physics class
- slight expansion of week 2 fight debrief
3/1/25, 0.3.1, Bug Fix and Minor Content Release
New Stuff
- Scenes Expanded
- The post fight scenes for Week 1 and 2 have been expanded
- Graphical and UI Stuff:
- Full body Sarah sprite!
- Revamp of Status menu
- Displays elemental effectiveness
- "Day" timeslot renamed to "Afternoon"
- Added empty hearts to contacts menu
- Removed references to experience and levels from the UI
- HP is now green, TP is yellow
- Bug Fixes and Etc.
- Fixed missing sparkle on Sarah's door when she is available on Saturdays
- Fixed crashes relating to the pink blouse outfit
- Fixed softlock when accessing an unimplemented heart scene
- Many typos fixed
2/22/25, 0.3.0, major content update
UNFORTUNATELY, OLD SAVES WILL NOT WORK WITH THIS VERSION!
New Stuff
- New scenes for week 1
- Added optional adult scene in the week one shower event, and one other (non-adult) shower scene where Luc deals with using a public shower
- A full new week of content (up through week 2, Sunday)
- New class events
- New Video Zone shift
- New Heart Events!
- Spend time with contacts to earn relationship points and deepen relationships (increase heart level) and unlock future rewards
- Current contacts are Sarah, Roy, Eckhart, Amy and Kara (can reach heart level 1 with each)
- Rec. Center is now accessible (The cafeteria and gym are pretty sparse, but will be populated with NPCs in a future update)
- New minor artifact
- Combat Rework
- Kiting! Movement not used before acting is now usable after acting (enemies cannot do this)
- Combat UI improved (unit health bars on map and other stuff)
- Enemy AI improvements (smarter positioning, mostly)
- Every enemy and fight has been rebalanced
- Combat cursor improved (movement and animations)
- Potions are now generally more effective
- Completing enemy research grants a significant buff
- Graphical and UI Stuff:
- Full body sprite for Luca in a hoodie
- Cover graphic, new title screen
- Start of a general map revamp project, the riverside now has fog and improved lighting/shading and effects
- See week number, day of week and time of day on your save file
- Redone pause menu to show off full body sprites (Only hoodie Luca is in-game so far)
- New custom menu for Contacts (shows full name, where and when they can be found, heart level, and a bio)
- New facial expression sets for contacts
- Redone sprites for shades (less cute)
- Map name popups are fancier.
- Empty map tiles now match the color of map edge tiles (no more jarring black borders on inside maps)
- New sprites for map objects (phone and TV in the Loranger home, among other things)
- Adult Content
- Option to toggle off adult content at game start
- Two, currently text-only, adult scenes in game (possible CGs for these in the future)
- Bug Fixes and Etc.
- Ice Lance can no longer hit all around Lucas in a crazy range
- Outfits are no longer free
- You can no longer access the fast travel menu from the right side of the riverside map before you are supposed to be able to
- Equip menu in pre-battle menu now functions properly
- Trimmed unused stock assets, reducing deployed game size by almost half
- Many typo fixes
- Aurora's name box text is now properly colored in the early game
1/21/25, 0.2.2A, hot fix release.
Bug Fixes:
- Ice Lance is learnable again
1/20/25, 0.2.2, bug fix release.
New Stuff:
- New optional event with Sarah, gives relationship point
- Secret mushroom fight
- Dialogue polishing
- Training events now tell you the steps remaining before completion/next level
- Trying to travel to closed locations now shows a "location closed" notification
- All of Luc's professors now have face sprites
Rebalance:
- Potions now useable in combat
- Ice Lance mana cost 6-> 8
Bug Fixes:
- Lots of typos fixed.
- Fixed missing collisions on Market Street
- Courage tracker now displays level accurately
- first time alchemy dialogue no longer repoeats
- fixed river background audio continuing to play after leaving the riverside
1/15/25, 0.2.1, bug fix release.
New Stuff:
- Links to Threads various socials are now available in the Content Waiting Room. Is this new content? Sure, why not.
Bug Fixes:
- You now actually learn Ice Lance if you learn Ice Lance
- You can now properly purchase outfits
1/14/25, 0.2.0, major content release.
New Stuff:
- Week 1 of Luc's college career is now available. This means:
- Free roaming! Spend your time as you like.
- New combats, including a boss fight! (2 - 4, depending on your choices)
- Learn a new combat skill from Aurora!
- Study Academics, work on your Charm, or build your Courage!
(These will have little effect in week 1, but will start effecting things in week 2.)
- Study the enemy to gain an edge in combat!
- Brew potions to help with after combat healing!
- Work at the Video Zone to earn money and boost your social stats!
- Buy a new outfit!
- Meet a few new characters!
- More visual novel style writing!
Bug Fixes:
- Minor bug fixes
12/12/24, 0.1.4, bug fix release.
New Stuff:
- Nothing since 0.1.3
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed crashing on high refresh rate monitors
12/12/24, 0.1.3, bug fix and minor content release.
Warnings:
- Save games from previous versions won't work with this version. I am working hard to avoid breaking save compatibility like this in the future.
New Stuff:
- New scenes post-deli
- New dialogue variations based on clothing and identity stat
- New skill for Lucas
- Tutorial text
- Lots of dialogue polishing
Bug Fixes:
- Minor bug fixes
11/26/24, 0.1.2, bug fix release.
New Stuff:
- Reworked swamp monster "fight" scene
- Some dialogue polishing
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed being able to leave dorm room after forest clearing fight.
11/24/24, 0.1.1, bug fix release.
New Stuff:
- Dialogue if Lucas or Sarah fall in battle in the forest clearing
- Safe room for saving when end of content is reached
- New sound effects during dialogue
- Some dialogue polishing
Bug Fixes:
- The game now properly "game over"s when you lose a fight
- Fixed several instances of wrong asset references (images failing to load, or wrong iamges loading)
- "victory" screen now properly displays at end of battle
11/19/24, 0.1.0
- initial release.
Now that's an impressive start.
More content than I expected for a first release.
Update:
Now that the daily cycle has been introduced the game feels a little empty. I tried visiting every location at every time to see wether there was some event to discover, but no luck. You just learn in the library or at your desk to pass time. And the learning of skills like charm and courage takes forever. I wish it'd go much faster, as you need to learn in the library 10 times for a single point increase. The restrictive opening hours don't help either. The only time you can get more is when watching a movie at your job, which gets you 3/10 progression towards a single stat point. But you can only work at your job once a week. Aside from that there is nothing to do but look at your dayplanner and go through enough days to trigger the next story event.
I just wish that you could for example learn everything at your laptop instead having to go to the library, as the learning itself is slow enough that I don't think it'd make a huge difference, aside of feeling less of a chore. Don't get me wrong, I realize this is a work in progress, and I do think it's a very good one, but right now it's forcing you to play through a very boring daily routine to get to the good stuff. I just wish there were some conveniences to make it less tedious to get the actual story, at least until the daily routine gets more fleshed out.
Great game! It has a lot of potential, I'll be looking out for future updates.
I don't get many chances to try games out on PC, but this? I spent all day on this one. Not joking, I got on and started playing around 11:30AM, I finished around 1 in the morning. Persona social systems meets fire emblem tactics, and classic RPG magic systems, with a story I'm so genuinely invested in, and the option to turn off NSFW so you can recommend it to vanilla friends? "Sign me up" is the wrong term, I'm signing YOU up, I'm outside the grocery store hassling for signitures.
Amazing concept, amazing writing, amazing system, amazing characters, amazing execution. My only complaint is that it's not done yet, because when I say "I need more," I mean it the way I say "I need my kidneys," it's a matter of life or death her, do NOT play with me.
This is doing some good stuff. I like it.
Very fun game so far, I'm certainly going to keep an eye on the future development of it.
There's not too much choice that changes stuff in the game just yet which makes sense, it's in development after all, lmao. Story writing is good and a bit interesting.
Combat in this game threw me off quite a bit, it took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do in order to start the combat, I was left clicking around in confusion. But that was my own brain being dumb and I found it out after a little bit.
Looking forward to the developer's next update of this game.
