Journey without Return Is Now Playable

At the start of September, I wrote about why Talescape needed more time: the platform itself was basically ready, but the first stories still needed work. I also shared a glimpse of Journey without Return. Today, I can finally say that the story has been released.

It is the first story I have created and released on Talescape. After spending so much time building the tools, seeing a complete story reach the player is an important step.

Journey without Return is a short folk horror story about care, self-determination and the courage to take responsibility. Apprentice Konrad and his master Arthur are travelling towards Nordarm when they seek shelter with Martha. After a night outside her house, Arthur seems different, and Konrad begins to question what happened.

You experience the story through Konrad's memories. Explore hand-painted locations, examine your surroundings, collect and combine items, and decide which clues you trust. There are several possible endings, so I will leave the rest for you to discover.

Finishing the story took way more time than I expected. It's always the details that cost the most time. I also took some extra time to refine some workflows in the editor while creating the story.

There were actually two releases during this time whose content and features were developed mainly through my experience with the story.

Large parts of the editor moved from "that feels kind of janky" to being a real breeze to work with. Especially working with dialogues and scenes became much easier and faster.

Creating Journey without Return has been great fun, and I hope you will enjoy playing it. You can play Journey without Return for free in Talescape right now. If you give it a try, I would love to hear what you think.

There are more stories to finish before Talescape's general launch.

Until then,

Chris