No Proper Thief – Progress

Here is a little bit of the progress on the reading based game I’m working on titled No Proper Thief. I’ve written most of the story, added the choices, deaths, and so on. Meanwhile David has been busy working on an animated title screen. The first two images below will give you an idea of that title screen. Upon loading the game, two gunshots are heard, and the Os in “No” and “Proper” become bullet holes. Immediately after the word Thief appears on screen, written in red blood. This blood leaks from the H, I, and E of the word Thief until it stretches to the position in the second image. On top of this, there are slowly flashing blue and red lights in the background to give the impression of police sirens. The water blobs that look to be on a window slowly rotate down giving the impression of a forever rising view of an endless window.

I collected royalty free sounds for the gunshots, a passing police siren, rain, and a short musical piece by the talented and generous composer Kevin MacLeod. I also collected quite a few other songs, and David and I are still unsure which one we want to use. We lean towards a jazz lounge hall vibe, for a noire feel, but have inserted the shortest song (26 seconds) to save space, and it falls more in the classic genre of music.

Below you can also see our initial set up of the text pages. It is subject to change, but it will be similar to what you see. The Identity, Health, Trust, and Conscience sections are also visible.

I’ve written a Google Play description for the ZebraFox Games website that you can read below:

You never wanted a life of crime, but it’s all you know. That doesn’t mean transitioning from a life as a simple, cocky con artist to a greenhorn bank robber on your first bank heist, doesn’t scare you. In No Proper Thief you are Clyde Lamm, the Rooster, and you have a choice to make. In fact, you have dozens of choices to make throughout your upcoming adventure. Everything has consequences, too.

You and your team, consisting of the leader Zebra, the muscle, Stag, and the heart, Marlin have many obstacles to overcome. For one, you have to convince them, as the new guy, that you’re trustworthy, and that you’ll watch their backs, for if one of you goes down the rest of you will too when the cops come knocking at your doors. Still, in the midst of all the dark chaos of the robbery, there is a flame of positivity: Bonnie Loren, a pretty young bank manager with flowing red hair. Sure you stole her gold heirloom ring a while back, but it’s a fair trade because she’s stealing your heart.

As a reading based game, No Proper Thief encourages the quickly vanishing pass time of reading. It’s a choose your own adventure style with plenty of choices to be made, making it an interactive story. With plenty of ways to lose and only one way to win (if you could call it winning) it’s sure to keep players on the edge of their seats. If any one of the player’s four stats (Identity, Health, Trust, or Conscience) fall to zero it’s game over. After all, you can’t get away with a crime if everyone know you’re face, if you bleed out, if your team turns on you thinking you’re a rat, or if you can’t live with an awful choice or choices you’ve made.

Written in second-person, making the player the protagonist, Clyde Lamm, No Proper Thief serves as a prequel to the ZebraFox Games upcoming project, BLAME, which will pick up where No proper thief leaves off, but over a different medium.

This, too, is subject to change.

I’ll share with you an in development banner with the app icon that’s in the style of the up coming game and sequel to No Proper Thief, BLAME. We has first thought to release no proper Thief with this logo, but thought it too cute later on, and instead decided we should try using the old art work for Clyde Lamm. The new (old art) icon is in an anime style, which some will love and some will hate, but it comes across much more serious and not as a kids game and fits with the transition from No Proper Thief to BLAME. As the material and situations in No Proper Thief are adult in nature, we thought this important seeing as the rest of our games are aimed more towards children. This icon is still bloody, but obviously has a cartoon, kid like look to it:

Finally, here is a side by side comparison of the tone and look of No Prper Thief (left) and the subsequent RPG game, BLAME (right). All art by David Dorn:

Stay tuned for updates and keep an eye out for Twitter posts. No Proper thief should be in the the Google Play store very soon. See more at ZebraFox Games. Learn more about BLAME by clicking the banner above or clicking HERE.