The Red Market
(Update [2019-05-17] - a major new release - the Traumatic Update! Follow development via the posts on this page, or on my blog, or follow me on Twitter!)
(Also, I have a Patreon now, so if you really like The Red Market please consider becoming my patron!)
The Red Market is a narrative, text-based monster hunting, trading, breeding, and eating simulator:
- Choose one of five characters with unique benefits (e.g. influence with high society as a result of your loveless cage of a marriage to a local captain of industry) and drawbacks (e.g. an empty, ravenous void where your humanity once was).
- Send out expeditions to capture dangerous and disquieting monsters.
- Cook them into disquieting dishes.
- Cross-breed them into arguably yet more disquieting offspring.
- Sell them for profit, or else be crushed, gored, dissolved, enveloped, consumed, or hollowed out and inhabited by them in turn; your limbs moving at their command; their eyes looking out through your own.
Made in Inkle's amazing narrative scripting language 'Ink'. It's currently mid-development, with new major updates going live every fortnight.
Status | In development |
Platforms | HTML5 |
Rating | Rated 4.1 out of 5 stars (7 total ratings) |
Author | Haruspex Games |
Genre | Role Playing, Interactive Fiction |
Tags | Meaningful Choices, Singleplayer, Story Rich |
Development log
- New Major Release - The Traumatic UpdateMay 17, 2019
- The Red Market Dev Log #6 (The Bishop-fish)Feb 10, 2019
- The Red Market Dev Log #6 (A New Release!)Dec 30, 2018
- The Red Market Dev Log #5 (October 2018, Part 2): Haunting Memories and Very Spu...Oct 27, 2018
- The Red Market Dev Log #4 (October 2018, Part 1): Building the Foundations, Cont...Oct 13, 2018
- The Red Market Dev Log #3: Pre-Production Round Two, or, Re-Pre-ProductionSep 16, 2018
- The Red Market Update #2 - Challeges, Art, and Some General FixesAug 17, 2018
Comments
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Very nice game. My story below. |
v
The Red Market
The Kingdom of Morley is home to markets in black, grey, and red.
In the black: counterfeiting tools, seditious texts, and certain alcohols of an overly prurient nature.
In the grey: foreign medicines, unlicenced machine parts, and suspiciously undertaxed wool.
And in the red: beasts of all shapes and sizes. Those that thrash fishing boats to splinters. Those that suck blood and marrow. Those that squirm across a full bed on a very still night.
The Red Market calls to all kinds of people, for all kinds of reasons.
They come seeking adventure, insight, the sating of aberrant tastes; of the stomach, or otherwise. And, always, money.
You are a source and purveyor of strange beasts - and what else?
Married off to a captain of industry at the age of fifteen. Years later, he entered politics, and you found your parlor full of Important Men and their various hangers-on. Your job became to mingle, to entertain - to refill drinks and laugh prettily at the jokes of others.
After a decade of hosting endless soirées, you searched out another, secret life. To this day your husband remains oblivious to it, even as your guests delight in hushed conversations regarding your charming little hobby.
(Unlocked Quality: 'Influence'. You are adept in matters of negotiation, and carry some weight among high society.)
(This is the end of the tutorial. You can continue to track down, capture, and sell monsters just as before.)
The quiet comfort of your office.
(Spend money to buy rumors. Rumors allow you to send expeditions to find and capture monsters.)
Shillings: 5
The quiet comfort of your office.
(Spend money to buy rumors. Rumors allow you to send expeditions to find and capture monsters.)
Shillings: 5
Player Stats:
Observation 2, Subterfuge: 2, Power: 1, Control: 1, Grace: 3, Flair: 3
Total Expedition Party Stats:
Observation: 6, Subterfuge: 6, Power: 6, Control: 6, Grace: 6, Flair: 6
A Bored Socialite:
Stats:
Observation 2 , Subterfuge 2 , Power: 1
Control: 1 , Grace: 3 , Flair: 3
Player Stats:
Observation 2, Subterfuge: 2, Power: 1, Control: 1, Grace: 3, Flair: 3
Total Expedition Party Stats:
Observation: 6, Subterfuge: 6, Power: 6, Control: 6, Grace: 6, Flair: 6
Headstrong and rather arrogant, Churchstoke is the sort who rushes into danger, with no shortage of harsh words for those less willing.
Stats:
Observation 2 , Subterfuge 1 , Power: 3
Control: 1 , Grace: 2 , Flair: 0
Player Stats:
Observation 2, Subterfuge: 2, Power: 1, Control: 1, Grace: 3, Flair: 3
Total Expedition Party Stats:
Observation: 6, Subterfuge: 6, Power: 6, Control: 6, Grace: 6, Flair: 6
Quiet and industrious, Kowal takes the hard jobs others shun, in return for only the slightest extra remuneration. She speaks the language competently but seems anxious when trapped in direct conversation. The majority of her earnings are sent back overseas, to support her family there.
Stats:
Observation 1 , Subterfuge 2 , Power: 0
Control: 3 , Grace: 2 , Flair: 1
Player Stats:
Observation 2, Subterfuge: 2, Power: 1, Control: 1, Grace: 3, Flair: 3
Total Expedition Party Stats:
Observation: 6, Subterfuge: 6, Power: 6, Control: 6, Grace: 6, Flair: 6
The quiet comfort of your office.
(Spend money to buy rumors. Rumors allow you to send expeditions to find and capture monsters.)
Shillings: 5
The Harbinger Beast has been waiting for you.
Before you were arranged to be married there was a boy. Even before then he was a kind of contraband to be smuggled into your life - an hour after school here, a carefully fabricated dinner at a friend's house there.
One night, at fifteen years old, you stole out through your bedroom window and met him at a park on the corner. You remember that night like a person dying of thirst remembers water. He was the most beautiful person you have ever seen in your life. With a twinge of embarrassment, you realize that he still is.
You can feel the memory leaving you already. You panic - his name. His face. Oh, god - what was his name?
You are trying to remember a name, but you can't. There is not even a face, now, to match the memory. You can't forget - you simply can't.
And suddenly, you stop. Who's name? Who's face? You cannot for the life of you recall.
(Memory Lost: A Kiss)
A memory, a payment in kind:
"*UNFINISHED TEXT*"
One day at thirteen years old you showed your teacher a poem that you had written. You're not sure why, now.
The Sunday before you had given it to your father. He, bright-eyed and pleasant, had glanced at it, issued a light kind of praise, and set it, lightly, aside. A moment later some important news in the morning paper; a need for a peaceful breakfast for once; a diverting fragment of unfinished work carried home and waiting for him yet.
Your teacher, though - you continued to visit her. "Don't give up." She had said. "You have a real talent. One day you could even - well, just don't let anyone stop you."
And then you blink and it's gone.
(Memory Lost: A Conversation)
A memory, a payment in kind:
"Your quarry in the forests of Corthrop is not some wild, unthinking beast - it is as sapient as you or I. As such it can be approached with honesty in order to reach an amicable compromise, or goaded into violence with threats and lies. Either option may be worth exploring."
(You have no more Memories to trade.)
The quiet comfort of your office.
(Spend money to buy rumors. Rumors allow you to send expeditions to find and capture monsters.)
Shillings: 5
The Harbinger Beast has been waiting for you.
[Unknown Beast]:
-------
・Your quarry in the forests of Corthrop is not some wild, unthinking beast - it is as sapient as you or I. As such it can be approached with honesty in order to reach an amicable compromise, or goaded into violence with threats and lies. Either option may be worth exploring.
[Unknown Beast]:
-------
・*UNFINISHED TEXT*
The Harbinger Beast has been waiting for you.
(You have no more Memories to trade.)
The Harbinger Beast has been waiting for you.
The Kingdom of Morley
-------
Corthrop:
・Your quarry in the forests of Corthrop is not some wild, unthinking beast - it is as sapient as you or I. As such it can be approached with honesty in order to reach an amicable compromise, or goaded into violence with threats and lies. Either option may be worth exploring.
The Dabrowan Sea
-------
The Ship Graveyard:
・*UNFINISHED TEXT*
The quiet comfort of your office.
(Spend money to buy rumors. Rumors allow you to send expeditions to find and capture monsters.)
Shillings: 5
Items:
(Click on items to receive hints about their possible uses.)
(Click on relics to learn more about them.)
Relics:
A shoulder bone of the Prophet John, who was murdered by defenestration in 781. He lived a blameless life dedicated to the purging of illness and corruption of the body. His remains are renowned for their ability to do the same.
(Click on relics to learn more about them.)
Relics:
A shoulder bone of the Prophet John, who was murdered by defenestration in 781. He lived a blameless life dedicated to the purging of illness and corruption of the body. His remains are renowned for their ability to do the same.
(Click on relics to learn more about them.)
Relics:
(Click on corpses to examine them.)
The quiet comfort of your office.
(Spend money to buy rumors. Rumors allow you to send expeditions to find and capture monsters.)
Shillings: 5
Are you certain?
Really really?
This is awesome!
hey i love this
Thanks! I really appreciate the kind feedback!
Highly interesting and I very much enjoyed it, would love to see more of this story. Played as the husk and really wanted to continue down that path. So I hope you get a chance to continue working on this game.
Hey, thanks very much for your kind feedback! I really appreciate it. As luck would have it, after a long time away from development, I'm going to be able to do more work on this from January!
is this still being worked on?
It's on hiatus at the moment, due to work/life stuff taking priority, but with plans to start work on it again later in the year!
Thanks for asking!
I like it very much! I have one question tho: Do you like potatoes?
I've been known to dabble...
im unable to play this, its just a white screen with the title text and any button i press does nothing :x
lol maybe its my laptop, who knows.
Really sorry about that! Not sure why that is - it's working fine on my laptop (in Chrome and Firefox), my tablet, and my phone.
Could you tell me more about your setup? What hardware, browser, etc.?
Sure, so I'm using a windows 10 vaio laptop. I tried playing on chrome, in hindsight I should have opened itch on explorer too.
Hi again. Sorry for the delay in replying - I was away for New Year's.
I'm still not sure why this is working. I've asked a few people with varying setups to try playing the game, and it works for them. I've now included a proper downloadable version on the game's page. Hopefully that works - if not, then I'm really sorry, and I'll make sure to look into it further during a bugfixing window I've got scheduled later in development.
It's alright man, it's good that it's playable on mobile for me at the very least. Would have been a real bummer if that didn't work either. Its a great game so far :p
Amazing start :) My game ended with Philips dying, and going to the rumor market leading to an obviously unfinished part of the game ^^; Oh well, happy to restart again and see what else The Red Market has to offer.
Again, an amazing start. You are taking Choose Your Own Adventure stories to another level with this game.
Thanks very much! I really appreciate the kind feedback :)
And sorry, yes - I think I know the unfinished part you're talking about! I'm planning on finishing that part of the game soon, then this prototype will be fully complete. After that i'll be working on the full game, which will probably mean that there won't be any updates for a while.
Thanks again for playing! Hopefully you'll like what comes next!
Nick
I never knew I wanted to be a merchant!
I like how it's basically a thought out DnD scenario with quite a few different ways to go about doing things. Fallen London is strong here! But it's fine!
It's fun! I like this, please make more! You got a knack for writing!
And whoops I managed to get myself stuck, with no options to choose! Paragraph -
In certain sections of the market displays of tinware and roasted chestnuts serve as a cover for a more illicit trade. Here, those in the know can acquire all manner of powerful relics.
Thanks so much for the feedback - I really appreciate it. And thanks for finding that bug - I'll get to it in the next update.
Definitely going to be continuing work on the game - have a lot planned out for it. Going to try to balance adding new content with working on an eventual Unity version.
Thanks again!