The Northern Passage

LAST UPDATE: 09.25.24 Chapter 1 Rerelease

The Northern Passage is a (work in progress) horror fantasy CYOA, where you play as a hunter sent up north to investigate a series of missing people along the border of your home country and in the port cities of the Blackwater.

Working with your handler, Lea, you will travel north and discover that things are far worse than you ever could have imagined, and that there is something powerful lurking out in the deep, dark sea…

An interactive horror novel, features include:

• Horror. Content warnings are listed below and in the demo. This game is also 18 for mature themes and sexual content.
• Heavily character driven. This story relies on character interactions!
• Impactful choices that alter your story.
• Character customization – name, appearance, gender,  pronouns, weapon preference, your horse’s name.
  • Choose your relationship with your handler, your family, and your mentor.
• Romance any of the four main cast: the alchemist, the bard, the healer, or the captain.

CONTENT WARNING

Drowning & asphyxiation, violence & gore, death, terminal illness (player character), body horror, vomit & bodily fluids, memory loss, suicidal ideation & self-harm (player character), explicit sexual content (the option to fade to black is available), drug use (player character), animal death. This list is up to date as of 09/25/2024.

DEV BLOG | KO-FI

This is a demo, and this game is a work in progress. Currently, only chapter one is available to play here, but it will be updated as more content becomes available. You can send feedback (including bug reports or coding errors) to the dev blog or my email.

Thanks for reading.

Credits:

Game cover art and pixels by Arthur @forystr, character portraits by Jude @pyreios, character lineup by GoGo @i-am-gogo-btw

SugarCube Template by Nyehilism

Notification macro by Chapel

Live Update macro by CyCy

Made in Twine's Sugarcube 2.35.0

A special thank you to my beta testers: Tyler, Freya, Aileani, Isidore, Suldrun, Dominik, and Dheb!

THE CAST

THE ALCHEMIST

Your handler, Lea Chen (gender selectable). Lea is the legacy child of a famous hunter family, and despite being your handler for almost five years now, the two of you don’t have much of a relationship.

THE BARD

Clementine, a rather curious bard you met on the road (they/them). You have some suspicions about this Clementine character, who seems to be a long way from home.

THE CAPTAIN

Captain Merry Harlowe (she/her).  A refugee from your home country of Gael, she’s been stuck in Blackwater since the plague. Aggressive and brash, the captain is still a bit of a mystery to you.

THE HEALER

Noel Lykaon, another hunter, like you (xe/xem and he/him).  Xir soft, lilting accent lets you know immediately that he's from the south, though he seems at home in Blackwater, having been in the north for some time.