<<set $stick to false>>
<div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text"><h1>The Guernica Engine</h1></div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Begin Game|It's dark and wet]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Your eyes are closed under the heavy weight of something horrible. You feel it all around you, pressing its slimy self on you, trying to force its way in.
It finds a way in through the canals of your ears and from in between the crevices of your eyelids.
You feel weak.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Something whispers to you...]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
The voice is quiet, barely even heard over your own thoughts.
But it is right,
You need to get out.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|You need to get out]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text">''GET OUT''</div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|Something speaks to you]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
It's dark and wet. You are suspended somewhere...
Maybe no where...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|Your eyes are closed under]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You exert your body to move with all that you have, but you feel a fatigue that's not shakable.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|There it is again1]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
There it is again...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Relax (listen to the voice)|Relax]]
[[Swim up, now! (there isn't time)|Swim Up, Now!]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
As you listen to the voice and slowly let let go, the tenseness in your body wanes, and for a moment the pain is dulled,
then the thoughts begin to slip in -
Where are you?
Who are you?
They echo through your mind as you try to grasp your situation.
However, there isn't time to think, you feel the overwhelming pain of suffocation worsening. It's becoming harder and harder to tolerate with each passing second, but then, you finally feel your legs move.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Swim Up, Now!|jolt up]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
There isn't time to think, you feel the evergrowing pain of suffocation. You need to get out as quickly as you can.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[..|jolt up]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You jolt upwards with both your arms, clawing back at the darkness with all the might you have.
It's heavy.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|Viscous]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
The viscous forces push against you, trying to keep you in, but you feel the end near...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Breach!]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text">''Relax''</div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|There it is again]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You breach through the tarry surface, out into the open air, spitting out bitter tar and gasping loudly to take in all the air you can.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|Tar]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You wipe the tar off your face and open your eyes.
They are greeted by ashen clouds spilt onto the sky, thunders raging within and out.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[..|Dusk]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
In the dusk light, you see that you are in the middle of an ink black pool within a depression that blocks any view of beyond.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|trudge]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You trudge through the pool to its bank and free yourself from its hold, collapsing head-first into the red sand, crying and laughing.
</div>
<div id="special-text">This isn't your victory, pull yourself up.</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|garbled mess]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You ignore the voice.
Free and out of that tar, you can finally think.
Even as you try, your thoughts are but a garbled mess.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|no answers]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
There are no answers to who you are, or to what you are doing here. It's all blank.
But you know how to breathe, how to walk, move your hands. You can also think abstract concepts and feel emotions.
You aren't completely lost.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|feel weak]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Right now, You feel weak, your body is naked and cold, and your hands shake with a terrible tremor.
You realize that except for the hot tar, nothing protects you from the elements.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|embrace]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text">Embrace it</div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Embrace the cold naked world]]
[[Cover yourself with tar]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You are strong, your body can handle it.
For now you just look around.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|look around]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
It's really cold, you rather not take any chance.
You scoop up some of the hot tar and apply it over the rest of your body. It stinks and doesn't apply well, but at least it's warm.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|look around]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You look around for anything useful or distinct. Other than a few brittle rocks and drift-sticks, you find nothing.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|stgian]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You turn back to see what you escaped from.
A pool of black tar as dark as the stygian abyss with nothing decorating its top, but the slow ebbs of heavy viscous waves.
Even as the clouds rage above, you cannot see any reflection in its insidious and dishonest waters, just the void...
You wager that if you stared at it any longer, you will find something staring back.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|drops]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You feel cold water drops on your forehead.
<div id="special-text">It will rain, find shelter</div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|shelter]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Even as it hurts, you stand on your toes and take a look beyond the sinkhole.
On all sides, you are surrounded by sights that need a careful study to make sure they are right for shelter. You can start by looking just ahead, north of you.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[1. Look North|North]]
[[2. Look South|South]]
[[3. Look West|West]]
[[4. Look East (progress forward)|East]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
A sudden gust of grit clogs your eyes and as you rub your eyes open again you notice them... The vines! Rusted red in colour and crooked in nature.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|swirl]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
Swirling through the ruins and even in the wastes where there is nothing to climb on to, they cover absolutely everything!
They look dead yet they feel alive...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|contemplate]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You contemplate the ruins for a shelter, but get unnerved at the idea of crossing the vines and spending your days and nights in roofless ruins.
You could lie under the rubble... but for how long?
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Look in other directions|shelter]]
</div>
(set: $path1 to false)
(set: $path2 to false)
(set: $path3 to false)<div id="dialogue-box">
To the north, lie many destroyed buildings, Innumerable ruins - ancient, broken and wasted... surrounded by an unforgiving wasteland.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|gust]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
The south is banked by jagged hills. They aren't very tall but they also don't seem traversable.
There is not a tree or shrub in sight except for the ghastly red vines, coating every piece of land with their reach.
You see a passage out in between the hills, but you think dying would be easier on open land.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Look in other directions|shelter]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
On flat distant plains, far away, a lone ruinous pyramid stands amidst the barren land, covered with the red vines.
As you gander at the structure you notice a strange shimmer around it. With every thunder crack in the storm above, you see the pyramid disappear and then reappear within seconds.
The anomaly piques your interest, but it looks too dangerous to shelter in.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Look in other directions|shelter]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Amid all the disappointment, you see it... to your east, a few kilometres away. Your eyes now fixate on the only structure that adorns the land.
A Tower... doused in an angelic aura, the colossal tower soars so godly high into the sky that you cannot see it beyond the clouds,
as if disappearing into the heavens, piercing it, and making it bleed...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|tower]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text">The Tower</div>
<div id="special-text">It beckons you</div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|surprise]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
To your surprise you don't see the red vines around it. It keeps clean and even the surrounding wastelands aren't blemished by them.
This might be it. It's farther away than the other structures, but it feels like your best option, out here in the badlands.
There could be food inside or water... or even a person.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|still in pain]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
Your body is still weak, every step shoots a sharp pain through your legs.
Find something to support yourself, it may make the journey to the tower easier.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|weakness]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text">Weakness begets Weakness</div>
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Find something to support your climb (you need the help)]]
[[Climb the sinkhole as it is (the weakness is in your head)]]
</div>
<<set $stick to false>>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You keep slipping without any support, but manage to pull yourself up. You step into flaky soil, brittle at every step.
Pulling up, you notice more of this world. It is truly devoid of anything - not a tree nor an animal in sight, not even graves mark the land.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|jagged]]
</div><<set $stick to true>>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You grab a drift stick lying about and use it to force yourself out of the depression and away from the dreadful abyss.
Pulling up, you notice more of this world, it is truly devoid of anything - not a tree nor an animal in sight, not even graves mark the land.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|jagged]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
A few skeletons are sparsely strewn about near you, wrapped in the tangles of the crooked vines.
You see some rusted but jagged pieces of metal in the tangles of the vines, maybe you could grab one and fashion a weapon, but the vines...
Your intuition tells you to run.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Fashion a weapon (maybe you can defend yourself)]]
[[RUN!]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You make your way towards the tower and away from the vines as quickly as you can. As you march towards the tower, you realize a certain eerie beauty that's there to it.
With every inch that you get closer to it, with every dusty breath you take in, with shaking limbs and dull pain, you question its legacy.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|admire]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You walk through the clutter of skeletons of the long dead souls, some still in battle armour, others completely plain, but all wrapped within the grasp of the vines.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|walk]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You admire it for it endurance. For all you know, this world has been dead for far longer than you can imagine, and yet the tower alone still stands.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|go there]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You want to go there, you want to spend your last moments within its confines, die in its cradle and become a part of it.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|imposing]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
Maybe it is because of the imposing structure, or the celestial aura, or the immaculate carvings on it, or just the fact that it still stands there,
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|tilt]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
Without so much as even a tilt, even after the death of everything around it - the last standing bastion within the cremated remains of the world.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|reach]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You finally reach the gates of the immaculate nameless tower.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
<<if $stick is false>>
[[...|stickfalse]]
<<endif>>
<<if $stick is true>>
[[...|sticktrue]]
<<endif>>
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You find a rusted metal piece laying freely about, as you reach out to it, you notice one of the nearby vine tendrils beginning to throb and pulsate,
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|agitation]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
This agitation dominoes onto the other tendrils. They begin to move towards you, slowly creeping, like a hundred little hands reaching to grab you.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[RUN!|run]]
[[Grab the metal piece (confrontation will lead to death)]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You start your dash towards the tower, but still weak, you stumble over a rock, and crash face first into the ground.
The ground bruises your naked body and the tar starts to come off.
Your head feels concussed...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|towrads tower]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You grab the dagger but it is too late. You are quickly overwhelmed by the vines that then begin to cover you.
As they do, hundreds of secondary tendrils bud from the main branches and begin to puncture your skin.
You feel agonizing pain every where you feel the tendrils burrow. As they get deeper, the pain getting worse... until it all stops.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|heaviness]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You continue your hurried hobble towards the tower, even as a sharp pain shoots through your leg.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|bruises]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
After a while you look back, and to your relief, the vines seem to have stopped following you.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|wishing]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Not wishing to take chances you continue towards the tower.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|crawl]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
As you draw closer to it, you realize that there's certain eerie beauty to the tower.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|admire]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
<div id="special-text">Dissapointing...</div>
You close your eyes for the last time and let the horribleness envelop you...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Restart|Beginning]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You feel that uncomfortable heaviness again...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|dissapointing]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Taking your chance, you lean up against the wooden gates and knock, hoping for a just god to answer your call.
For a moment nothing happens, but then you hear strange hollow tunes ringing through the gates, lighting it up, followed by creaks in the stone and puffs of crushed stone winding out and then finally the massive gates swing open inwards, to let you in.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Maybe there is a god...]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You knock on the stone doors. For a moment nothing happens, but then you hear hollow tunes ringing through the gates,
followed by creaks in the stone and puffs of crushed stone winding out and then finally the massive gates swing open inwards, to let you in.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[that was easy...]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Another waft of dust greets your face and leads you into the giant hall. The gates close behind you. It smells of old and humid...
Made of the same material as the outside, the inner stone walls of the tower are marked with intricate carvings; some portraying events, others rituals and people, or at least that's what you could tell of them.
At the centre of the giant hall lays an altar, and circling it lay thousands of dusty corpses, all locked in different poses of prayer.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|altar]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
Another waft of dust greets your face and leads you into the giant hall. The gates close behind you. It smells of old and humid...
Made of the same material as the outside, the inner stone walls of the tower are marked with intricate carvings; some portraying events, others rituals and people, or at least that's what you could tell of them.
At the centre of the giant hall lays an altar, and circling it lay thousands of dusty corpses, all locked in different poses of prayer.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[find support to stand up]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You find a stone column luckily raised right near the opening, so you leverage it to stand up.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[altar]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
You walk through the dregs of skeletons lying around the hall, all facing the altar.
The altar is giant, not meant for anything your size.
It shares the same intricate carvings as the walls, and some runic formulae that you cannot understand.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|sudden noise]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
There is a sudden noise, something unnatural, something that sounds like its starting up.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[Investigate the sound]]
[[Take cover behind the Alter]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
The sonorous noises now emanate from all around you, yet you still fail to find any source.
You see the carvings on the walls glow with an ominous red and then fade.
Something speaks to you...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|something speaks to you]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
The sonorous noises now emanate from all around you, yet you still fail to find any source.
You see the carvings on the walls glow with an ominous red and then fade.
A voice echoes in the hall...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|a voice echoes]]
</div><div id="dialogue-box">
"This... is a surprise..."
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[mural2]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
"I can feel you behind the altar..."
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[...|mural]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
You take a peak beyond the altar, to see an illustration carved on the wall.
It is a depiction of a half man, half demon like figure leisurely seated on a divan.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[The mural talks...]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
Your focus shifts to illustrated carving on one of the walls.
It is a depiction of a half man, half demon like figure leisurely seated on a divan.
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[The mural talks...]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
It's the mural...
It talks...
</div>
<div id="choices-container">
[[End Demo]]
</div>
<div id="dialogue-box">
Thank you for exploring this demo for the project - The Guernica Engine.
If you’re interested in learning more about the full scope of the project or would like to discuss its further development, please feel free to <a href="mailto:your.email@example.com">contact me</a>.
Additional content and insights are available, and I'd be happy to provide more details upon reaching out.
If you'd like to play the demo again and explore different paths, feel free to [[restart|Beginning]] or you can also head back to the <a href="https://ramendratripathi.github.io/">Portfolio</a>.
</div>