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Taru's Infernal Pledge [Chapters 1-5]
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Synopsis
In Taru's Infernal Pledge, you step into the shoes of Taru 'Bolt' Nopsa, a dashing young woman and an exceptionally skilled thief and assassin. Immerse yourself in a new original fantasy universe and the sprawling metropolitan city of Valkama, the capital city of Jaerwik in the northern edges of the known world.
As Taru, you have been working with a gang of criminals, your only family in truth, for a few years now. Your latest mission turns out to be a trap, and you're taken captive by cultists of an ancient evil known as The Fathomless Hunger. Your soul will be sacrificed to appease this mysterious deity, unless you can escape your shackles.
Piru, the 5th archdemon of hell, has been trying to tempt you into a pact with him for a long time. Just like he did with your mother, who died years ago under strange circumstances. Now, in order to escape the cultists, you find yourself finally pledging your body to the demon. Piru's demands, however, make your head spin...
Become the demon's concubine and assassin. Explore the Abyss with Tryton, the anointed of Astorolus, The Fathomless Hunger. Embrace the blinding and sadistic light of the God of Mercy with Opettaille, Her devout priest. Find your old gang, answers, and revenge. The road to saving your soul and reclaiming ownership of your body is long and hard.
What to expect from the game
Taru's Infernal Pledge is a tale of corruption and dark desires. BDSM is a recurring theme throughout the game. Follow the events of the current timeline where Taru gets into trouble (sexual and otherwise) everywhere she goes. Her objectives: Find out who betrayed her and get her revenge, free her soul from the dark force that has claimed it, and free her body from her pledge to the demon, while honoring the terms of her deal. In parallel, follow the flashback events before her current predicament, where she and her gang take on the biggest heist of their careers. In both the current timeline and the flashbacks, your choices matter and shape the story that will unfold.
Praise for Taru's Infernal Pledge:
"Interesting plot. The characters are well written!"
"Incredibly hot and well written. The shibari scene alone has one of the most well written, vivid depictions of subspace that I've read in a while."
"I like this, especially the slightly zany and mischievous heroine!"
"Great job with the writing!"
"Keep up the great work, this is one of the games I'm looking forward to the most!"
Chapters in the current version:
- Chapter 1 - The Pledge
- Chapter 2 - The Opportunity (Flashback)
- Chapter 3 - The God of Mercy
- Chapter 4 - The Doom Clock
- Chapter 5 - An Infernal Summit
NSFW scenes in current version (detailed text descriptions, no images)
- BDSM sex or Vanilla sex (your choice) (available from Chapter 1 or 2)
- Voyerism BDSM sex (available from Chapter 2)
- Spanking (available from Chapter 3)
- Rope bondage with sex (available from Chapter 4)
- Submissive or dominant bdsm threesome (available from Chapter 5)
NOTE: All NSFW scenes can be missed in your playthrough, depending on your choices.
Dramatis personae
- Taru 'Bolt' Nopsa (this is you!) - The main heroine of our story, the 21 year old Taru Nopsa. A criminal, thief and sometimes assassin, who's gotten into a ton of trouble over the years. But nothing compares to the mess she finds herself in at the beginning of our story. Slim in build, pale skin like a typical native of Valkama, with deep green eyes and a long black hair. Taru has never known her father, and so when her mother, Tyrni Nopsa, died, she was taken in by a local gang of ruffians and she's been with them ever since. She goes by the nickname 'Bolt' due to her fast reflexes and quick thinking.
- Arne 'Eagle' Hanki - The charismatic leader of the gang, Arne is a man who's seen a lot. His daughter Astrid Hanki is also in the gang. Astrid's mother died tragically in child-birth, while giving birth to Astrid.
- Ylva 'Fox' Jekku - The second-in-command and mission handler of the gang. Ylva is a tough lady who's a stickler for details.
- Astrid 'Snowflake' Hanki - The daughter of Arne Hanki, around the same age as Taru. Her father tries to keep her out of trouble as much as possible, never really giving her a chance to show what she's capable of.
- Ebbe 'Boar' Romu - Truly more boar than man, this hulking mass of flesh couldn't sneak his way out of trouble if his life depended on it. No, his skills lie elsewhere: Bashing skulls in.
- Einar 'Shadow' Alavire - Perhaps the best at staying unseen and unheard, Einar is a young man the same age as Taru, who joined the gang around the same time as she did. His sister is Erika Alavire.
- Erika 'Flare' Alavire - The stunningly beautiful and ample-breasted sister of Einar Alavire, just a year younger than Einar. Where she lacks skills of stealth and strength, she makes up for with raw charm and looks.
- Kerr 'Lurker' Apea - Describing Kerr as a man who sees the glass as half-empty would be an understatement. Nevertheless, his prowess with the blade is unmatched by anyone in the gang. Combine that with a touch for stealth that rivals Einar's and you've got yourself a deadly assassin. Kerr is typically the one who takes care of the dirty work of the gang.
- Tryton - An ex-priest of The God of Mercy. Now an anointed worshipped of The Fathomless Hunger. He shuns the cult of fanatics sacrificing souls in fear of The Fathomless Hunger. He, instead, seeks to find enlightenment in his lord's wisdom. A prestigious royal advisor.
- Opettaille - A priest of The God of Mercy, holding the rank of Inquisitor Exarch at the Valkama grand temple.
- Piru - The Splendor Demon Majesty, the fifth archdemon of hell, Piru is a tall devil with blazing red skin and fiery yellow eyes. Tyrni, Taru's mother, pledged herself to him many, many years ago.
- And many more...
Work in progress!
Follow me here on itch.io for updates! Please report any and all typos and bugs you encounter while playing. Mistakes are bound to slip through with a tiny team!
This is a work in progress! By purchasing the latest version of the game, you get access to all future updates for free! Your support is appreciated!
tacinky is creating hand drawn high quality digital art for the game! Current tacinky art progress tracker: Ch1 (and later): 0%. (The images not created by tacinky are AI generated placeholder images).
Unsure if the writing in this story is any good? Download the demo for free below and find out! Additionally, I'm an established adult game developer, with two other games under my belt. Check them out, and decide for yourself: Animus Non Grata (demo available for free) and Jessica's Plight (demo available for free).
Taru's Infernal Pledge - Demo Version Content
- Downloadable for free, contains Chapter 1 and a shortened version of Chapter 2!
Current Version Features
- Female protagonist
- A new original fantasy universe
- An interactive story with a lot of text and interesting characters
- A combat system, inspired by the classic game "Mastermind", that can be played as a minigame outside the story too ("combat training")
- Chapters 1 to 5
- Roughly 475 passages, 100 000 words.
- 7 sex scenes (text)
- 0 high quality images by tacinky (work has just started, stay tuned for updates!)
- 37 AI generated placeholder images (all will be replaced by tacinky's art!)
- 31 tracks of music by Abstraction
Credits:
Developer: FlimsyLegs
Art: tacinky https://bsky.app/profile/tacinky15.bsky.social
Placeholder Art: FlimsyLegs (using AI tools)
Music: Credit and huge thank you to the amazing Abstraction for creating the tracks and letting me use his music in my game! If you like the tunes, head on over to http://abstractionmusic.bandcamp.com/ and browse his massive library of music!
Join the Animus Non Grata discord and discuss Taru's Infernal Pledge in the dedicated sub-channel: https://discord.gg/zyP8qgsDzk
Check out my other games!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.79 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Download demo
Development log
- Art devlog 23 days ago
- Art devlog 110 days ago
- Digital artist tacinky joins the team!10 days ago
- Version 0.4.0 is out! [Chapter 5]17 days ago
- Version 0.4.0 (and Chapter 5) will be done very soon!19 days ago
- Quick update: There's a trailer for Taru's Infernal Pledge!46 days ago
- Version 0.3.0 is out! [Chapter 4]51 days ago
- Chapter 4 is coming soon!54 days ago
Comments
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Final edit: Issue has been solved!!
I have a question, I just purchased the game a few minutes ago as the synopsis really intrigued me. But upon opening/loading it, there aren't any images showing up. All I see is this at the very top. Is there any way to fix it?
Edit: The issue has been fixed (see latest post in this thread).
Hi! Pictures should be showing up. Please make sure you are not launching the game using a shortcut. After unzipping/unarchiving the game, you should have a file called "Tarus Infernal Pledge.html" and two folders called "img" and "music". Can you check if you have images inside the "img" folder?
As a final thing to check is your browser. The game opens in your default browser, but will work best with an up-to-date Google Chrome or Firefox on Windows.
Let me know if you still have issues!
When I unzip the initial folder and it opens up to show the .html link along with the image and music folders. When I opened the image folder, there were folders for each chapter and then a long list of images underneath them. I am running it on Chrome(which is up to date last I checked), but still nothing seems to change even when I close it out, reload the webpage, or anything else. I appreciate the quick response!
I need to double check this, but for now can you try using firefox? Very strange indeed... Let me get back to you tomorrow.
I'll download Firefox and see if it works!
Sadly even after I downloaded Firefox, it still isn't showing any of the images. Not sure why.
Hi. I just checked on my own Chrome installation: It is working as intended. Very strange that your firefox installation also doesn't work. I would check the following:
1. You're launching the HTML by double-clicking on it from the unzipped folder
2. You've checked your browsers settings: (Firefox) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-problems-images-not-show (Chrome): https://www.makeuseof.com/fix-google-chrome-not-loading-images/
Unfortunately I cannot reproduce this issue locally on Firefox or Chrome. This is a very strange issue that I haven't seen before in the past 3 years of game development. This suggests that the issue is something in your settings / preferences / security options in the browsers. Or the way the HTML is launched.
If you've checked the above browser settings, and it still isn't working, can check the console logs of the page? In firefox: First open the html. Then press Ctrl + Shift + J (in Windows) or Cmd + Shift + J (in Mac). Then refresh the html by pressing F5 or Ctrl + R. Does the console output mention anything about images / png files not loading properly?
Good day,
For the NSFW scenes, I have a few questions:
1. I see BDSM appearing. Are we talking in something like Dom/Sub? If so, can we choose if we are top or bottom? Is it possible to know more in details what BDSM entail for this story?
2. As our MC is female, is there lesbian content or only straight? Is pure lesbian playthrough possible? Or if it's something planned in the future.
3. Possible to know the overall game kinks or tags for the nsfw?
Thank you,
Hi!
In the current version you (female MC) is the sub in all nsfw scenes with bdsm. The dom is always a male.
There is one scene where you can choose to just have "vanilla" sex with the man (demon) instead.
There is one voyerism scene where you witness a male dom, female sub, bdsm.
BDSM in the context of the game means that most sex scenes involve some sort of power dynamics, ropes, bondage and/or submission. There is no "outside of sexual context" type of dom/sub relationships explored.
A lesbian playthrough might be possible in the future, because all nsfw are optional and your choices. It will affect the story and what paths and available though. However, right now, there is no lesbian content yet. I might add such scenes where it makes sense (2 future chapters and NPCs comes to mind).
Tags for nfsw in version 0.3.0 would be: Rope bondage, blowjob, vaginal sex, chains, voyerism, bdsm, spanking, female sub.
Perfect thank you !
Will this game have impreg?
Unfortunately no, at this point, there's no plans to add this to the story.
Very elaborate and well-written for a v0.0.1.
I was both surprised and disappointed when I reached the end of this chapter, as everything up to that point had been at the level of polish and quality of a much more mature game. If this level of quality can be maintained, this will be an excellent game.
That said, I have some gripes. TBH, I had similar misgivings about Animus non Grata, and it may be because I am not a fan of linear stories.
I would prefer for that the character to be given more agency, choices that offer the illusion of choosing their destiny, even if it is pretend-agency that fortuitous "circumstances" force back to the same outcome after a few pages.
And I feel that the consequences, or character personality / status changes, that result from the few decisions that can be meaningfully taken (i.e. aren't an immediate game-over), should be more clear, or at least hinted at.
Thank you for your feedback! Regarding the status changes, would you want the dialogue option to display the outcome before clicking, or a pop-up (like the journal icon) showing up after picking an option?
In my games I've usually tried to keep the player in the moment, and forget they're playing a game that tracks their stats. Even showing the stats page is breaking that to some extent. That said, this game is so early in development that I can easily incorporate any changes to the system.
On an unrelated note, did you get a chance to try out the combat? Sound effects and music are in the plans, but nothing else major is changing there at the moment.
I actually think that indicating the outcome directly in the option / choice is immersion breaking, as you seem to fear. So the exercise is more to try to telegraph (without directly telling) the consequences of the choice in the writing and language. It definitely is more difficult, and it's a balance between too little and too much information. If it feels you do have to be more explicit, then giving insight into the character's thoughts as to what could be the consequence of the decision is a way to allow yourself to say more without too much immersion-breaking.
I did try the combat. It was... honestly very confusing, I had no idea what I was doing, nor what the outcome was predicated on. But it was short enough in the overall story that it didn't feel game-breaking. This is probably not the outcome you were going for, though. My advice would be to simplify the mechanics drastically, if you want the game to remain story-oriented. If on the other hand you want combat to be an important element, then... this will need some rework.
Right, adding thoughts hinting at the outcome is definitely a good idea. I'll keep that in mind.
And the combat certainly seems to need more explaining, so I'll work on a tutorial with screenshots to explain it step-by-step. The combat is actually very simple, but requires a bit of thinking. (You can get lucky on lower difficulties by just testing things out, but not higher difficulties).
For anyone confused about the combat, please check the rules for the classic game "Mastermind". I've reused the mechanics and repurposed the concept to thematically fit a melee fight, rather than being about cracking a code.
IMO, if the minigame is inspired by Mastermind, then the rules are going to be much too complex for the type of interaction comfortable in an RPG or VN. Games either draw players because of emotional involvement (caring about the characters and their story) or intellectual involvement (trying to solve a hard problem). Those two motivations tend to be antagonistic, and attempting do do both in the same game tends to push back both categories of players, and turn the game into work rather than pleasure.
Let's not forget that the level of combat complexity of most acclaimed RPGs or even action and FPS games is at the level of multiple rounds of rock-paper-scissors. And you can in fact get to very interesting game dynamic using such a simple [ A < B, B < C, ... Z < A ] set of rules (like rogue vs warrior vs mage builds, or elemental magic combos).
In the end, the minigame *is not* the game :D It's not why people are going to play this, its only role is to add to the immersion in the game itself.
That's a bit what I was afraid of, but at the same time chose to take a risk by adding it. I'll keep the Skip Combat button, that's for sure, so you don't have to engage with the combat. Might even add an option to auto-skip it in the config menu.
Thing is, I want the player to feel clever and that it took a bit of effort to defeat an enemy in combat in the game, rather than it just happening automatically. Let's see how players feel about the combat when the proper tutorial is added to the game.