World of Darkness Vampire and Mage interactive fictions

[LESS T_T]

The classic roleplaying games Vampire: The Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension enter the digital present with a dual-pack of interactive fiction by a few of today’s most interesting fantasy writers.


Vampire: The Masquerade: We Eat Blood And All Our Friends Are Dead is a chilling story written and illustrated by award- winning authors Zak Smith and Sarah Horrocks.

Told entirely from a mobile messaging perspective, We Eat Blood is a sharp, mature and often terrifying story about your first nights as unwilling predator and prey. Hunted by unknown enemies and driven by an alien hunger, will you sever your ties with the mortal world or try to cling to your former life? Will you join ancient conspiracies, or turn the tables on forces older than the written word? Terrible power lies within your grasp, but there is always a price to pay.

— The temptation is real.


Set in modern-day Sweden, Mage: The Ascension: Refuge by critically-acclaimed author Karin Tidbeck, lets you experience today's social and political upheavals while awakening to the power of True Magick - the ability to shape reality itself through your force of belief. Many will try to recruit you into a secret war where human consensus itself is the battlefield. Your actions and choices will have profound consequences on the world and people around you... assuming madness and paradox doesn't claim you first.

— Safety or sacrifice - the choice is yours.

So these are the mobile games they talked about, also released on Steam as a bundle:

 

[Rahdulan]

Who will take one for the team?

Set in modern-day Sweden

:selfhate:

 

[Infinitron]

lol

 

[Excidium II]

Seems realistic.

 

[laclongquan]

Who will take one for the team?

Set in modern-day Sweden

:selfhate:

WE NEED A VOLUNTEER!

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[LESS T_T]

https://blog.white-wolf.com/2017/02/17/a-howl-for-our-bloody-writer-artists/

A howl for our bloody writer-artists!

White Wolf Entertainment i proud to have Zak S and Sarah Horrocks join the pack as the artists and main authors of Vampire The Masquerade: We Eat Blood.

A Yale graduate, Zak Smith (aka. Sabbath) is an American artist known for his portrait, drawings, abstract art, comic books, and roleplaying games. His art has been featured in the MOMA, Whitney, Heller, and other world-class galleries. Zak is one of the foremost creative minds in the roleplaying game community, with multiple published books for some of the biggest publishers in the in the genre including Dungeons & Dragons and his own award-winning independent works based off his D&D campaign, including Red and Pleasant Land and Maze of the Blue Medusa. He recently illustrated The Worst Breakfast by award-winning novelist China Mieville.

Sarah Horrocks is an artist, writer, cartoonist and critic currently residing in Oklahoma. Her comics include Hecate Snake Diaries and The Leopard. She has done cover work for various Image Comics, and Boom Studios comics. She has done critical writing about comics for Fantagraphics, ComicsAlliance, Study Group Magazine, and The Comics Journal. and she forms one-half of the Trash Twins podcast.

Regarding the recent accusations made against our freelancers: White Wolf was aware of and investigated the previous accusations against Zak before contracting him to write and illustrate the game script. Fortunately, these accusations all pertained to alleged online behavior: each accusation is connected to an online discussion, and the digital records of these discussions can be located and reviewed. White Wolf’s investigation concluded that the accusations are false, and that Zak did not engage in the alleged behavior. We have full faith in Zak and Sarah and are excited to see their great work with the World of Darkness spread!

 

[Havoc]

Anybody played it?

 

[V_K]

Anybody played it?

I don't think we have people who are that masochistic here.

 

[Jubliante]

I have been playing through the Vampire game and I felt like this would be.. enlightening as to the quality of its content.

 

[Melan]

Edgelords gonna edgelord, but the attacks are coming from a different direction than WW would expect. To nobody's surprise, there is already blood in the water in as Zak's haters are descending on the game and doing everything in their power to poison its reputation.

I'd find this less problematic if the game was other than Vampire and WW's stuff. This feels like Democrats in the US hiring Trump or the "alt-right" neonazis for their next run.

I don't think we need to claim that everyone who defends Zak Smith is Zak Smith himself. His band of loyal followers willing to denounce every negative claim is a well-established fact, after all.

White Wolf hires racist/misogynist/transmisogynist/neo-nazi writer Zak S. to write a text adventure game for them.

I mean, yeah. The guy's an uncompromising (and for that, rather principled) leftist, but seems to have grown into this object of utter hatred among SJWs, so much so that he is not only fair game to slander without impunity, even defending him can get you banned on some forums.
More's the pity, because the guy is pretty much already a walking, talking White Wolf character who draws fairly White Wolf-style art, so this is a match made in heaven.

 

[V_K]

Those look-at-me-i'm-so-creative types deserve all the hate they get, no matter where it comes from.

 

[Cromwell]

Edgelords gonna edgelord, but the attacks are coming from a different direction than WW would expect. To nobody's surprise, there is already blood in the water in as Zak's haters are descending on the game and doing everything in their power to poison its reputation.

I'd find this less problematic if the game was other than Vampire and WW's stuff. This feels like Democrats in the US hiring Trump or the "alt-right" neonazis for their next run.

I don't think we need to claim that everyone who defends Zak Smith is Zak Smith himself. His band of loyal followers willing to denounce every negative claim is a well-established fact, after all.

White Wolf hires racist/misogynist/transmisogynist/neo-nazi writer Zak S. to write a text adventure game for them.

I mean, yeah. The guy's an uncompromising (and for that, rather principled) leftist, but seems to have grown into this object of utter hatred among SJWs, so much so that he is not only fair game to slander without impunity, even defending him can get you banned on some forums.
More's the pity, because the guy is pretty much already a walking, talking White Wolf character who draws fairly White Wolf-style art, so this is a match made in heaven.

what? Nazi misogynistic scum? From the Pictures I get the absolute opposite feeling about him. If they hate him that muich maybe I should be playing it. What did the Guy do to piss off the social justice front?

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Those look-at-me-i'm-so-creative types deserve all the hate they get, no matter where it comes from.

I dunno, the guy incurred pretty serious outrage from SJWs, that's a point in his favour, dangerhair notwithstanding.
http://ettinjiggywithit.tumblr.com/post/106855388993/that-time-zak-smith-ran-a-harassment-blog
http://armsinthewronghands.tumblr.com/post/106857530323/that-time-zak-smith-ran-a-harassment-blog
Also he had quite a career:

Pornography In February 2006, Smith made his pornographic debut, under the pseudonym Zak Sabbath, in the VCA Pictures film Barbed Wire Kiss, by director Benny Profane (whose name is itself taken from the Pynchon novel V.). In the porn blog Fleshbot, Smith mentions working on a project to help fund a film student's NYU thesis project entitled Freaky Kids I & II in 1996, but declares, "Here's where I'm making the BIG money" (although most of the money he makes in porn is actually donated to activist group Food Not Bombs). He followed this up with an appearance opposite Pixie Pearl in Eon McKai's debut film for Vivid Entertainment, Girls Lie,[6] Bullets And Burlesque from Bad Seed Productions, with Sasha Grey, Marie Luv, and Satine Phoenix, and Vivid's Hospital, with Coco Velvet and Mandy Morbid.

Since March 2010, Zak Sabbath has directed I Hit It With My Axe, a weekly video series featured at The Escapist website. Starring himself, Kimberly Kane, Mandy Morbid, Satine Phoenix (all adult film performers) and 'Connie' and 'Frankie', a stripper and hair dresser respectively. Sasha Grey, Justine Joli and Gia Jordan have also featured. The show centers around the group's weekly Dungeons & Dragons game in which Sabbath is the Dungeon Master and the others are adventurers within a campaign.[7]

Smith lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York until October 2007, when he moved to Los Angeles. He has previously dated Varrick Robinson[8] and is in a long-term relationship with adult industry performer Mandy Morbid.[9] Smith is an anarchist.[10][11]

Varrick Robinson is on the left:

And Mandy Morbid is under the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

[V_K]

Typical narcissistic fuck with an MFA slash attention whore. As a part-time art critic I know the type all too well. Frankly, even SJWs are less obnoxious.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Typical narcissistic fuck with an MFA slash attention whore. As a part-time art critic I know the type all too well. Frankly, even SJWs are less obnoxious.

Nothing is more obnoxious than SJWs. Well, maybe radical Muslims. But apart from them - nothing and nobody.

 

[V_K]

You just don't know all those contemporary art people. They're less visible than SJWs because their numbers are much fewer, but they make up for it by being twice as full of themselves.

 

[lightbane]

Jesus, it's like they became a parody of their game themselves. Also, Mage doesn't let you play as a badass Technocrat.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like a drama is happening around this thing and its authors: https://blog.white-wolf.com/2017/02/22/breathing-the-same-shadow/

Breathing the Same Shadow

We have received many questioning or critical emails and comments over the last few days about Vampire: The Masquerade – We Eat Blood. Some of these are in relation to game writer and artist Zak Sabbath, others are about the content of the game. We continue to read them all; we welcome all feedback, and value this ongoing dialogue.

First, we recognize that we need to clarify the wording of our blog post from last week. We realise now that it could be interpreted as a dismissal of people’s experiences, and that was never our intention. Nor did we intend to imply that we think anyone was being actively dishonest, and we are very sorry if that’s how it seemed. We understand how hurtful that could seem, and we regret it.

Naturally we are aware that Zak Sabbath is a controversial figure. Before deciding to work with Sarah Horrocks and Zak Sabbath on We Eat Blood, we read as deeply as we could about the historical conflicts around him. These issues seemed to be several years old, were debated exhaustively online, and were very complex.

Our reading and the conversations we had with people in the industry who have interacted with him in the past did not unearth any new or factual evidence in regards to the more serious allegations periodically made against him. It is however clear that Zak Sabbath is often abrasive, and sometimes his behavior has been perceived as hurtful or offensive. Going forward, we expect him not to engage in any such behaviors, and he has agreed.

The collaboration between Sarah Horrocks and Zak Sabbath brings a unique aesthetic to this work, and we felt Zak Sabbath’s participation would contribute more to the game than allegations about his past private behavior would detract from it.

This brings us to the second point of criticism. Both We Eat Blood and Karin Tidbeck’s Mage: The Ascension – Refuge feature personal experiences and social commentary as the authors explore themes of class, gender, and rising intolerance. Our choice to focus on these themes has led to some critical voices. This is criticism we are proud to receive. Relevant works in any medium are part of a global discourse and we welcome healthy and well-informed debate on these issues. We have said repeatedly that our games will examine contemporary issues through the lens of the World of Darkness, and we do not plan to shy away from this vision.

In addition to this blanket criticism of engagement with contemporary issues, there has been some concern about the inclusion of two transgender vampire characters in We Eat Blood. Given the history of transgender representation in popular culture, we are sensitive to these concerns. So is the game’s co-writer Sarah Horrocks, a noted comic artist and horror blogger, who is also a transgender woman. She writes about her views on her blog: http://mercurialblonde.tumblr.com/post/157431573538.

The criticized character, Avery, is perhaps the most helpful and kick-ass vampire in the game. She saves your ass and is (spoiler alert!) one of two main allies at the conclusion. Like Horrocks and Sabbath, we believe this character positively broadens the range of transgender portrayal in games. Naturally, she will not be the last transgender character in a White Wolf game, as we continue work with designers, writers and artists from a wide range of backgrounds.

White Wolf are dedicated to making games that feature mature, contemporary storytelling. We are already engaged with a network of partners from all over the world, of all genders and backgrounds, and we are working every day to increase that reach and diversity. We do that because we strongly believe that diversity results in the best stories, and that without representation across intersections those stories will not reflect the world we live in.

Brief search brought me a 42-page-under-a-week thread about this game on RPG.net. This must be something: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.ph...ude-We-eat-blood-and-all-our-friends-are-dead

 

[Anthedon]

What a fucking shitshow. Social commentary, diversity, engangement with contemporary issues.



VtM is about antediluvian clan politics, great lore, the old generations messing with the younger generations, the really old generations messing with the old generations, etc.

 

[an Administrator]

What kind of logic is this?

The screenshots could be faked, of course. The people who testify against Zak might be lying. But they're something. They're a good reason for the average person to assume that Zak is a serial harasser and a person who's dangerous to know

LOL

She is a vampire who feeds on people who discriminate against LGBTQ people because she can't bring herself to prey on people she doesn't have reason to hate or fear. She gets in cars with cab drivers who solicit her als a prostitute, then quizzes them on their opinions, finally revealing that she is a trans woman and gauging their reaction.

(In the context of the game vampires are either 'haters' or 'lovers' when it comes to feeding on humans, where haters channel their urges into a form of revenge to get over the cognitive dissonance of cannibalizing people and lovers consume with abandon what they are attracted to by romanticising the experience in their minds.)

I liked the character and found her sympathetic and layered. She is a flawed person, trying to cope with her needs as a vampire and puts up a front of cynicism and uncaring hedonism but she cares and tries to do right by her friends.

 

[Bester]

Sigh. Is this game ever going to be on torrents or what? 61 reviews on steam, yet 50+ pages of forum discussions. Is someone going to buy it or what?

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Bought it, almost finished it (the vampire part), rant-review incoming.
tl;dr - preview: Don't buy this shit, it's a shitty millennial tranny self-insert, it seriously got at least three trannies, maybe more. This wouldn't be so bad, but the story is a total fail, told in a most irritating manner possible. This game fails at plot, at lore, at WoD mechanics, at IF mechanics, and it's linear as fuck. Art leaves a lot to be desired too. Music is generic.

 

[Melan]

Thanks for taking the bullet for all of us.

 

[V_K]

Who'd have thought...