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Design Imps is a creative team of dreamers. We make the PC games we want to play. We want to immerse ourselves in alternate realities, not to escape, but to enjoy the gift of dreaming. We’re currently working on an exciting mini-game called Fhtagn! – Tales of the Creeping Madness. Fhtagn! is a text based adventure game, where choices matter! It features couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One. Decide how you will be preparing for the ritual, by visiting various locations in an unsuspecting town and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths, to bring about the end of the world!
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Fhtagn! Discord Server
Do you like...
✅ Interactive stories
✅ Fun community hangouts
✅ Imaginary bootleg liquor
✅ Cultist shenanigans
Then you will love Fhtagn!'s discord server!
There is only one thing we like more than making games and that is to connect with the community. We’ve created a Discord server, That Fhtagn! Server, to connect with players and create a space for community members who enjoy a fun community hangout, interactive stories and imaginative worlds. The server’s has various interesting channels, but below are a few examples.
Fhtagn! Chat
Where you can chat and explore the bizarre and maddening world of Fhtagn!
Story Time
In Story Time you can write short stories for the game and vote on other community members’ contributions. This can be a great way to practice your writing muscles, hang out with the community, have a platform where you can read a bunch of awesome short stories or just get a kick out of seeing people interact with your story.
Madame Fufu’s
Madame Fufu’s, is the best speakeasy in town and the only thing smoother than the jazz band is the bootleg whisky. Here you can just sit back, relax and order a drink from Fred O'Leary. This channel is meant to be a light roleplaying experience. Think prohibition, mafia, flappers, swing and jazz and fun words like “bee’s knees, giggle water, phonus balonus and zozzled”!
Other channels include Interactive Fiction, Writer’s Nook, Mod Room, Official News etc. Don’t be a stranger, come check it out!
Monthly event packs
Every month we will upload a Fhtagn! event pack (downloadable mod) with interesting event stories, beginning with March. You can now download the event pack and it contains 8 backstories that will feature in cycle one of Fhtagn!’s intro stories. These stories will add new flavour to your gameplay as wildcards that will give you massive starting strengths and weaknesses. It will also give your character an interesting backstory. Will you be the corrupt politician, the twin sister with a dark family secret or a lovestruck loafer on an African adventure? The backstories will not only entertain and make you laugh, but more than one might creep the hell out of you! Enjoy!
The Creeping Madness (TCM)
Fhtagn!’s world is based on our flagship title, The Creeping Madness, currently in production.
The Creeping Madness (TCM) is Black and White meets Evil Genius in the 1930s, inside a Lovecraft novel, with a hint of Dieselpunk. You are a Cthulhu-esque Ancient One hellbent on walking the mortal realm once more. Build up your cult in secret. Summon powerful monsters and play through tactical scenarios from your favourite Lovecraftian novels, as you slowly infiltrate, manipulate, corrupt and drive people insane to orchestrate your return.
We are hard at work on this project and we hope to share more news about TCM with you soon!
Connect with us
We want to remind you of the best way you can enhance and experience Fhtagn! We have various social platforms available from our website, twitter, subreddit, newsletter and now our newly launched Discord server.
What the Fhtagn! are you waiting for? Talk to us!
A few months ago we released Fhtagn!, a text based adventure game, where choices matter, on Steam. You can play as one of four cultists intent on releasing an Ancient Horror, decide how you will be preparing for the final ritual by visiting various locations in the unsuspecting town of Arkham and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths to bring about the end of the world!
Even though Fhtagn! was created to be a casual, replayable game, there is a lot of content: a total of 93 000 words, played across 113 events with 370 potential story outcomes, 24 roles with 56 role feedback stories and 142 different character endings. With so many stories, we wanted to make sure that the player would experience ludicrous, action-packed and creepy stories through quality and immersive content. Below we look at the 5 things we incorporated in our stories to do just that.
Engaging content
In this party/boardgame-esque game, stories are written to provide the player with multi-optional stories, with continual replay value and various outcomes and results. Each event is written like a mini-saga, allowing the player to fully experience the bizarre world of Fhtagn!, the milieu, actions and consequences, in just a few paragraphs. Instead of experiencing one long and exhaustive story, we wanted players to have the satisfaction of experiencing a bunch of awesome stories in one playthrough while having a singular purpose of summoning an Eldritch Horror and ending the world.
Balancing horror with dark humour
The Cthulhu mythos, in all its stygian glory, has various dark elements that make for interesting stories, but which can drain the sanity of even the staunchest reader. That is why maintaining balance between horror and humour in our stories is crucial to ensure that the stories do not get too overwhelmingly disturbing and disrupt the immersive qualities of the narrative. Eldritch Horrors, doomsday cults and the occult are finely balanced with humour and the surprisingly bizarre. The dark stories that your character encounter give the game its unique personality.
Fun game mechanics
Serving an Eldritch Horror never ends well. In Fhtagn! failing is just as fun as winning. To ensure a healthy dosage of both, the stories were not just created to be an interactive novel, but also to balance stat requirements. Choose your options carefully based on the stats you have accrued, but don’t worry, failure still rewards a few stats … we’re not monsters after all. Tired of guessing what stat you need for that option? Use the “Elder Signs” you gain after every playthrough to show you exactly what is needed. There is a lot of fun to be had with different cults and game modes. You can play alone or with your friends in local co-op or screenshare where you can stab them in the back and make sure it is them on the chopping block and not you.
Choices and content fatigue management
Based on your choices in the final ritual, Fhtagn! has more than 140 different endings. With so many stories and with more that you can download, what stops you from seeing the same old story over and over again? With our content fatigue management system, we ensure that stories and outcomes you have not seen before get a higher chance of appearing, ensuring that you are guaranteed to experience all the stories if you play long enough. Additionally, if you download a new mod or story, these will show up preferentially, till all the stories start to balance out again.
Content Creator for players
We are so passionate about the idea of stories that we created an additional application, the Fhtagn! Content Creator, for players to write their own stories for the game and enjoy it with their friends. We expected players to rush through our stories quicker than we could generate them. So, to help with content fatigue, we encourage players to make use of our Steam Workshop feature, to create their own stories and share them with the community, so that we all can enjoy new, fun and silly encounters. All that is needed is a story idea and no programming is required. We provided players with a Quick Start Video Guide, Content Creator Guide and even released all of Fhtagn!'s event stories in a Google Sheet online, to aid in this process.
Bonus reason: We love surprises!
From secret encounters to hidden achievements, there are some unexpected and concealed elements to the game. Some activities are purposefully more challenging to achieve, to reward the more determined player. For the eagle-eyed reader, we also included numerous ‘Easter eggs’ in our content and these geeky gems promise to elicit a guffaw or two.
These are just some of the highlights that make our stories enjoyable. Fhtagn! is packed with bizarre characters, a fantastical 1930s world and intriguing events, all of which can be experienced with a jazzy/swing soundtrack, snazzy neo-noir visuals and just a hint of betrayal.
We hope you enjoy our stories as much as we enjoyed writing them. We’d love to hear what you think of the stories and the world of Fhtagn! So, what the Fhtagn! are you waiting for? Drop us a comment.
We are excited to announce that our story-adventure mini-game, Fhtagn, is releasing on Steam tomorrow, 22 May 2018! The time is finally at hand to perform the great ritual and everything has been meticulously prepared. The sacred spoon of Scoo’p has been polished to an evil gleam, the Shoggoth was given a juicy bone and the altar was sprinkled with ketchup (the Ancient One’s favourite). All we need now is for you to fulfil your ritual role and to end the world for good… or evil in this case!
To help you prepare for your fiendish role, we’ve created a gameplay video that will provide you with a sneak peek of what to expect. You will need all the help you can get when you battle investigators, corrupt cops and Ancient horrors, as you traverse the unsuspecting town of Arkham.
The story-adventures don’t end when you’ve completed the game, you can download playable mods from the Steam Workshop or you can create your own Lovecraftian events (or any story you want) with our content creator.
We’re looking forward to ending the world and descending into madness with you!
Fhtagn! is a text based adventure game, where choices matter! It features couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One. Decide how you will be preparing for the ritual, by visiting various locations in an unsuspecting town and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths, to bring about the end of the world!
We are excited to announce that our Steam Store Page is now live! “Fhtagn! – Tales of The Creeping Madness” will be released on Steam soon! The Store Page boasts cool new in-game screenshots and a thrilling trailer for you to check out. Make sure you are notified when the game is released, by following the game on Steam and hitting the ‘Add To Wishlist’ button! We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a comment on Steam or DB let us know what you think. Link to Steam Store Page: Store.steampowered.com
Fhtagn! is intended to be a short, replayable game where you experience ludicrous, action-packed and hilarious stories in a Lovecraftian setting. In short, there's reading involved, not a lot, but if you don't like reading a few sentences of text, this might not be the game for you. If in doubt, we recommend that you watch a few gameplay videos and see if we can lure you to the dark side with one our knee-slappers!
The game is also short, so expect a game to take about 15 minutes if you're playing on your own or about 30 minutes if you are playing with friends… or enemies. We are fully committed to bring out more stories, Ancient Ones to summon, items and modes, but it is expected that you will rush through these quicker than we can generate content. To help with content fatigue, we encourage players to make use of our Steam Workshop feature to create their own stories and share them with the community, so that we all can enjoy new, fun and silly encounters.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our game and we hope you will enjoy playing it (seriously if you could read this you'll cruise through the in-game text). 
Gameplay
- You are a cultist intent on destroying the universe by summoning the Ancient One. Why? Damned if we know…
- You can play on your own or with up to 3 friends in couch co-op.
- Start by choosing which Ancient One you want to summon. This will then reveal the prophecy and the ritual items you have available to summon your chosen Ancient One.
- You have 6 rounds to build up the required stats needed to use the ritual items, but you will need to figure out which stats those are through some trial and error.
- You can visit 1 location per round and attempt the Lovecraftian stories at that location, to improve your stats.
- Finally, put your stats to the test as you try to summon the Ancient One.
- Will everyone pass or fail or will one of you betray the rest and grab all the glory?
Features
- Short and silly events in a Lovecraftian universe.
- Randomized stories based on location.
- Community created content. Experience new stories from the community or create your own.
- Replayability and minimization of content fatigue by giving new or unseen stories a higher chance of appearing.
- Short gameplay, ideal for those downtime moments or while in a queue for another game.
- Non-linear gameplay.
- Multiple endings.
- Multiple Ancient Ones, items and opponents. (Available shortly after release).
- Steam Achievements.
- Steam Cloud Support, to track your progress.
- Play cooperatively or be a backstabbing traitor.
Language
Unfortunately, Fhtagn! is only available in English. We currently don’t have the resources to produce the game in other languages, in a way that is authentic and will do the stories and humor in it justice. However, we encourage players to create content in any languages they want and spread the madness that is Fhtagn! We will happily support any UI language localization changes should there be sufficient need.
Fhtagn! - Tales of the Creeping Madness from Design Imps on Vimeo.
We are excited to announce that our Steam Store Page is now live! “Fhtagn! – Tales of The Creeping Madness” will be released on Steam soon! The Store Page boasts cool new in-game screenshots and a thrilling trailer for you to check out. Make sure you are notified when the game is released, by following the game on Steam and hitting the ‘Add To Wishlist’ button! We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a comment on Steam or on this post and let us know what you think. Link to Steam Store Page: Store.steampowered.com
Fhtagn! is a text based adventure game, where choices matter! It features couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One. Decide how you will be preparing for the ritual, by visiting various locations in an unsuspecting town and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths, to bring about the end of the world!
We are a proudly South African game development company and like all indie developers around the globe, we live and breathe games every second of every day. It is not hard to explain to other indie developers (game designers, programmers, artists etc.) the passion, obsession and madness that comes with the lifestyle.
For most developers it is more than just a career or a hobby, it is a calling. It’s the legendary sword in the stone, the golden ring in a hobbit’s palm or that “just one more quest before bedtime”.
It is that thing you just have to do, that you were meant to do and you would face any hardship to be able to do. It’s family disappointment, people telling you to get a real job, working nights, holidays and weekends, sacrificing your health and bootstrapping (basically sacrificing any financial resources you have). All of this, in the hopes of making something extraordinary.
Sadly, in an already saturated and competitive market it is difficult to make a footprint in the industry and for South Africans it is almost impossible. In a country that has 55 million people, less than 300 people are locally employed in the game development industry. That shocking statistic is bolstered by lack of infrastructure, educational programmes, government support and funding and the sad fact that game development is not seen or supported as a career option or a means of livelihood.
But like every indie developer on this planet, we all have our journeys, our sacrifices and our stories. Hardships aside, there is nothing as magical as seeing people being brought together to make a game! From talented creatives, supportive friends, to parents who don’t have a clue what their seeing, but still think it’s swell. The sense of community you get from a committed group of people creating something special, is truly a thing of beauty and as the saying goes, a labour of love. And what makes all this even more worth it, is when the loveable geeks and gamers, we do all of this for, enjoy what we’ve made! Man, that feeling is like downing a raid boss that took weeks to defeat!
As Design Imps, this is our story and we are proud of it! We are a talented group of dreamers and we make the PC games we want to play. We want to immerse ourselves in alternate realities, not to escape, but to enjoy the gift of dreaming. We are finding our way in an uncertain future, but we couldn’t have done it without other indie developers who have paved the way before us. Hopefully, one day we can pay it forward and do the same for our country and game development industry.
Design Imps is currently working on an exciting mini-game called Fhtagn! – Tales of the Creeping Madness. Fhtagn! is a text based adventure game, where choices matter! It features couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One. Decide how you will be preparing for the ritual, by visiting various locations in an unsuspecting town and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths, to bring about the end of the world!
It gives us great pleasure to introduce the Design Imps creative team whose blood, sweat and tears lovingly go into every detail of our game development projects.
Janke van Jaarsveld
Founder | Director | Game designer
From a young age, Janke made paper games with his friends, sharing fantastical worlds and astounding adventures. From there his obsession with the art of game design grew exponentially and led to his journey as the creative mastermind, writer and driving force behind Design Imps.
Jeremy de Reuck
Game developer | Programmer
Jeremy is so passionate about game development and programming that we are absolutely convinced his heart beats in code. When Jeremy isn’t building and fixing the complicated world of The Creeping Madness and Fhtagn!, he extends his expertise to the game design aspects of the project.
Nadia de Reuck
Concept Artist | Game Artist
With a stroke and a flick of her Wacom pen, Nadia brings concepts to life and dreams up wondrous worlds and creatures. Her pen is an instrument of the Ancient One, ready to invade our reality.
Colleen van Wyk
Concept Artist | Game Artist
Colleen has been tasked with interpreting the dark rituals and summoning eldritch horrors and dire bunnies. It is both a blessing and a curse to be the creative wielder of unspeakable things.
Ilana van Jaarsveld
Community Management | Creative Specialist | Writer
What cult can aim to take over the world, without a messenger from the Ancient Ones? Ilana ensures that all the Ancient Ones (gamers) are enlightened about the progress of their despicable plans (game development).
Ferri Erasmus
Publishing and Creative Specialist at Motief
Since working on this project, Ferri has become an expert in hiding tentacles in artwork, quoting Lovecraft by heart and fending of dark whispers at night.
Background
Awaken mighty Ihn’Srt Naimheur, Ruler of the Seven Realities, Bane of Karthoom, The Devourer of Stars, The Ancient One, The Creeping Madness.
During your slumber, your minions have ceaselessly enacted your plans and prepared the way for your release. Foremost among these, the arrival of your daughter Ameerah Il'Drasti, The Seer, The Vision of Madness, The Spawn of the Ancient One. Born through ritual and raised in secret in Tibet, Ameerah was born without eyes or lower limbs, but was blessed with a vision of the end times, of your release and your vengeance upon existence.
With your stirring, you have bestowed upon her new sight through unholy eyes and mobility through an array of dark limbs.
Since her spawning, Ameerah has tirelessly documented your prophecy. She is the conduit of your plans and your messenger of the foreseen future of the world to come. She knows the fate of all in this time. She even knows the time of her own death and that this is not that time.
Play-style
The Seer is a caster class who uses magic to damage enemies from afar and her prophecies to drive men to madness. Her unholy eyes can be everywhere and can be used as a conduit for her to travel across the map. Ameerah knows when death is near and will make a timely retreat before such a fate befalls her.
More of her abilities will be revealed as the game develops.
The core pillar of The Creeping Madness (TCM) is to ‘Feel like an Ancient One’ (not to be confused with feeling like an old one, because that will happen to you inevitably). So what better way then, to embrace this game play, by driving your enemies insane!
TCM features elements of stealth, RPG and tactical turn-based combat; so how can you create a sanity system that will work seamlessly between all these elements? Firstly, we decided to define sanity as everything related to fear, morale and sanity. The next step was to give each unit in the game a sanity ‘bar’ and a behaviour that will be linked to his/her level of sanity. Finally, we used Hildegard E. Peplau’s 4 stages of anxiety as reference, to create the following stages:
1. Sane
2. Mild anxiety
3. Moderate anxiety
4. Severe anxiety
5. Panic
6. Insane
As a unit loses sanity, they drop deeper into a state of madness, with each stage having implications on their in-combat and out-of-combat behaviour. For example, a mildly anxious unit, out of combat, might stop to aim at shadows, sure of the fact that he saw something. This could eventually separate him from his group, making him easy pickings. Alternatively, a severely anxious unit, in combat, will tend to be surprised when you attack, freezing him in place for a while and giving him a tendency to ‘spray and pray’, i.e. firing multiple rounds at reduced accuracy, with the possibility to hit friendly units.
But, like death, insanity is not the end for these unfortunate mortals while the Ancient One is around. Insane units will remain stationary on the map for the rest of the mission, all the while babbling incoherent ramblings – their minds shattered by the horrors they have witnessed and granting you, the Ancient One, new interactions and capabilities. Firstly, an insane unit will give the Ancient One full vision of the area where he is. Secondly, the Ancient One can take control of the enemy unit’s mind, turning him into a maniacal killer who will immediately start attacking innocent bystanders and allies alike, madness gleaming in his eyes and a psychotic grin on his face. Or, have him sprout insane prophecies, further lowering the sanity of all who hear his mad ramblings!
This is only the tip of the iceberg of our sanity system and we look forward to opening your eyes to the depths of madness into which you can plunge all who oppose you!
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” - H. P. Lovecraft
Written by Janke van Jaarsveld
The Creeping Madness FAQ
Welcome to The Creeping Madness FAQ! If you have any questions about the game, please feel free to contact us on our social media platforms. Before you do, here are some guidelines:
- No, the shadowy figure you are seeing out of the corner of your eye is not us…run!
- No, we do not know how to start a cult, ask Kimmy Schmidt or Tom Cruise.
- Yes, we do like games about being the bad guy with some humorous undertones – ask away!
So what the Fhtagn is this game about?
In a nutshell…yes, the game is based on the Cthulhu Mythos, where you are the Ancient One, The Creeping Madness, a primordial evil who ruled the universe and all seven dimensions for thousands of years, before a fluke in your sleeping schedule made you oversleep for another few thousand years. It is now the early 1900s and as a result of celestial alignments, your time to awaken and take back your throne has come. In true Lovecraftian fashion, order your cults and agents to enact the plan that you set in motion centuries ago, to wake you up from your deep slumber and exact your vengeance. Why? Because Fhtagn, that's why!
Okay, but what kind of game is it?
Following the legacy of games like Evil Genius, Black and White, Dungeon Keeper and Overlord, this is a game about being the Big Bad, doing what you want and fighting the self-proclaimed good guys. Build up your cult. Summon powerful eldritch agents and play through tactical scenarios from your favourite Lovecraftian novels as you slowly infiltrate, manipulate, corrupt and destroy investigators to orchestrate your release.
So what features can we look forward to?
- Multiple-playable Old Ones
- An unfolding Lovecraftian story
- Control enemies through fear and insanity
- Tactical turn-based combat
- Realtime, lite RPG elements
- Manipulate investigators on a strategic world map
- Your own cult to mould in your image
- A customisable cult-infested town
What platforms will The Creeping Madness be available on?
Currently we are only working on a PC version, but depending on funding, this could be expanded.
Is that it?
No, this is just the bare bones. We will be releasing more in-depth features and information in the months to come. We’ll be using this page for most of our updates, so if you want to be kept in the loop, be sure to follow, like, share and reblog. You can also follow us on social media.
How will it be funded?
In an effort to raise extra funds for The Creeping Madness, we will be launching "Fhtagn!" within the next few months on Steam. Fhtagn! is a text based adventure game, where choices matter! It features couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One. Decide how you will be preparing for the ritual, by visiting various locations in an unsuspecting town and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths, to bring about the end of the world! To stay up to date with development, keep an eye on our social media or join the newsletter on our website.
We are currently busy with a playable demo of The Creeping Madness to show off our gameplay and some of the features. When the playable demo is completed, we will also be looking at crowdfunding options.
When can I play The Creeping Madness?
When the stars align! Unfortunately, because of limited funding the progress on TCM is going slowly, but we will definitely share anything playable when we can.
Where can I find you on social media/the web?
Who is working on the game?
Janke van Jaarsveld – Story and Lead Game Design
Jeremy de Reuck – Programming and Game Design
Nadia de Reuck – Art
Colleen van Wyk – Art
Ilana van Jaarsveld – Community Management
Design Imps is a creative team of dreamers. We make the PC games we want to play. We want to immerse ourselves in alternate realities, not to escape, but to enjoy the gift of dreaming.
We like games about being the bad guy with some humorous undertones and we are currently working on a game called The Creeping Madness (TCM). In an effort to raise extra funds for TCM, we will be launching "Fhtagn!" within the next few months on Steam. Fhtagn! is a text based adventure game, where choices matter! It features couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One. Decide how you will be preparing for the ritual, by visiting various locations in an unsuspecting town and navigating iconic Lovecraftian events. Battle investigators, gangs, corrupt cops and horrors from the Depths, to bring about the end of the world!
We will be releasing more in-depth features and information in the months to come and will be using this platform for most of our development updates. If you want to be kept in the loop, be sure to follow us or sign up for our newsletter on our website - Designimps.com
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