Linux and Mac versions available on itch.
TL;DR: Thread is a fast TGTF game that is VERY text heavy and uses an SRPG combat system.
About the plot:
Lucas just moved into the dorms of his local community college after busting his ass to save money for the privilege. He never thought of himself as special, and, frankly, he isn't. 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.
About TF content:
The plot largely centers on the, originally male, protagonist being MtF'ed. I have nothing planned in the way of adult content, but that may change as I work through the dev process. As far as my current plans go, I also don’t foresee writing any TFs beyond the one in the inciting incident.
About features:
Implemented:
Tactics RPG/SRPG combat.
A lot of writing.
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.
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.
Free-Roaming!
Day of week and time of day system!
Learn a new combat skills!
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!
Planned:
Improved combat
No leveling.
Equipment system which drastically alters stats.
Each combat character has a unique “class” with different skills, but stats are mostly equipment based.
Even more writing.
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.
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.
For a first release, this has caught my eye. While the combat initially tripped me up with it being different than expected, it is fine, and does add a tactical aspect that definetly has some potential. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next.
So far, the game is pretty good. Wish there was more options and more free roaming, but I'm sure that will come with future updates. I like the combat style, it makes me want to go and play a fire emblem game. Overall great game so far and I am looking forward to future updates.
Now that's an impressive start.
More content than I expected for a first release.
Let's see where this goes.
I hope there'll be more choices in future updates, but I also get that each choice makes it exponentially harder to develop, so I hope the author doesn't bite off more than they can chew, which is probably why there are so many abandoned projects here. Fingers crossed, I hope this game will succeed.
I don't leave many reviews on this site despite being looking at and playing games on this site for 7 years. I've seen many promising projects get abandoned and I truly hope that that does not happen with this one. Whats here is already a strong start and I cannot wait to see more. The basic idea is strong combining Persona like day system and a Fire Emblem type of combat. While there is no free roam yet incorporated elements can be seen such as with Social Stats. The writing so far is strong with characters that make me want to learn more. The basic mystery is good too. Overall I think this might be the most promising game on the site. My biggest advice is to not get too big and make the project unwieldy. Afterlife was very similar and the project became too much and was abandoned. Best of luck.
