Project Update #1 - What's Cooking?

Hello!

Welcome to the Sunday, October 12th project update. This marks the start of my weekly series covering all the creative projects I’ve been developing — from games to art resources — as I move closer to publishing and playtesting. I’ve got a hefty queue of projects in progress, with roadmaps to keep me busy and accountable during the off-season of my forest park job.

But today- you're going to learn about the first two entries in a series of multimedia projects! These will be my main projects through the rest of 2025 as we move into 2026.

If you’d like to stay up to date, please subscribe to my Leaflet newsletter, The Spirit Garden, for regular updates and sneak peeks.

I’ve spent the last few years figuring out who I am and what I want to do. It’s been a long, strange, and sometimes difficult road, but it’s also been rewarding. There’s still a lot to learn as I grow as an artist, a professional, and as a silly little guy who loves his wife.

BUT FIRST- VGEN UPDATES

To start off, I’m happy to announce that I’ve begun producing artist assets and guides over on my VGen! Over the next week, I’ll be putting up listings for commission showcase templates, listing thumbnails, and thumbnail frames — all low-cost, easy-to-use resources for artists.

The biggest thing I’m working on right now is a Beginner’s Guide to Commission Work, which will be ready for release on October 26th. This will be a free resource, with optional donations to support future guides. My goal is to build a growing library of tools for new and intermediate artists who are learning how to navigate the world of monetized art for the first time.

My commissions are open on VGen as well, and I’ll be adding more listings throughout the week. Each new listing will launch with a 25% discount for the first week, both to build portfolio examples and to make them accessible for early supporters.

Every Thursday, I’ll post a development update about commissions, resources, and — eventually — the progress toward a physical shop.

What else should you look forward to?

APPARITION PROTOCOL

Apparition Protocol is a tabletop role-playing game about hunting ghosts with a team of temp-agency weirdos. You’ve just been contracted to a newly formed government department created after a very inconvenient scientific discovery: ghosts are real—and they’re getting violent.

You’re not heroes. You’re the bottom of the barrel. But the pay is decent, and the 'life' insurance is phenomenal.

This game can swing between tones—play it as a dark comedy full of pranks and workplace chaos, or as a grim horror story about survival, trauma, and death lurking around every corner. Both work. Death is common, and sometimes? Encouraged. Anything for the contract.

You can expect to see the first playtest demo out sometime around Christmas!

The Dispatcher and the Specialists

The Dispatcher is responsible for assembling a team of four Specialists from the Apparition Protocol roster. The Dispatcher runs the game, sets up the mission, and narrates the story. The Specialists—the players—are responsible for investigating hauntings, gathering intel on the ghost, and hopefully surviving long enough to hand that information off to the removal team (they’re not covered under most home insurance policies).

How to Play

Each Specialist is tied to a suit from a standard tarot deck for a total of four specializations. Only one Specialist per suit can be assigned to a single contract, up to four Specialists and one Dispatcher per game.

You'll need one deck of tarot cards to play, split into the major arcana and each minor arcana suit.

When you take an action, draw a card from your Specialist deck.

Upright cards represent succeeding or failing with courage.

Reversed cards represent succeeding or failing with fear.

Failing with courage means you don’t accomplish your goal, but you avoid lethal consequences. Succeeding with fear means you get the result—but something bad happens in exchange. The perfect outcome is drawing a Ten Upright, the highest success possible. After each draw, shuffle your card back into your deck unless stated otherwise.

Contracts and Downtime

The game is divided into two phases: Contracts and Downtime.

Downtime takes place between jobs. It’s your chance to explore who your characters are outside of work—learn about your fellow ghost-hunting temps, upgrade your gear, and research new information about the supernatural. Every Specialist starts knowing nothing about ghosts; through contracts and research, you’ll slowly piece together the truth. Be careful, though—some discoveries hurt more than they help.

Contracts are the main loop of the game: your team is dispatched to a haunted location to identify and report on a ghost. Your goal is simple—find out what it is, why it’s here, and make it out alive.

Each contract has three distinct phases:

Locate – The Dispatcher presents the contract file: where you’re going, what kind of ghost you’re dealing with, and the initial reports. Specialists investigate the area and gather clues.

Learn – Once contact is made, Specialists draw from the Communication Deck (Major Arcana) to question the ghost, uncover cursed objects, and provoke interactions. The goal is to determine the ghost’s tethers, behaviors, weaknesses, and resistances. During this phase, the ghost may begin to manifest—sometimes peacefully, often not.

Leave – When the team decides the contract is either complete or too dangerous, it’s time to run. During the Leave phase, cards drawn from the deck are no longer reshuffled—they’re removed from the game for the rest of the contract. If even one Specialist escapes, the team gets paid. The more answers you’ve recorded in your Contract Journal, the bigger the payout, which funds research and new equipment.

Cursed Objects and Angel Statues

While on contract, you may uncover Cursed Objects—items tied to the ghost or to the supernatural world at large. They can grant powerful effects, but every cursed object carries a cost. Some are helpful; others will doom you the moment you touch them.

If you’re lucky, you might find an Angel Statue—a relic capable of resurrecting a fallen Specialist mid-contract. Just make sure it’s really an angel before you start praying.

The Specialists

Each Specialist corresponds to a tarot suit and plays a unique role in the team:

The Catalyst (Suit of Cups) – The bait. Responsible for provoking the ghost and getting a response. They might be a medium, a cursed individual, or just someone who’s unnervingly good at pissing spirits off.

The Skeptic (Suit of Swords) – The muscle and tactician. They verify evidence, protect the team, and filter real hauntings from false data. They’re the main line of communication with Dispatch and know the most about a ghost’s physical manifestations.

The Technician (Suit of Pentacles) – The gear-head. They handle monitoring, equipment, and data collection—often stationed just outside the building, tracking readings remotely. But once the Leave phase starts, they might have to join the chaos directly.

The Occultist (Suit of Wands) – The historian and lore expert. They handle cursed artifacts, analyze local legends, and interpret the initial briefings from Dispatch. When something ancient starts whispering your name, they’re the one most likely to understand it—and least likely to survive it.

Alright, so what's left?

The year is 1983. Your name is Lajos Bauer.

Your older brother, Gillen, has been on an alcoholic bender for the last seven years—drifting from one bad job to another, one mistake to the next. You’ve finally tracked him down to a small coastal town in New England called Greenwich, and against your better judgment, you decide to stay.

To support him (and to make a name for yourself), you open a small bakery, using the skills you picked up from your mother. The ovens are old, the floors creak, but the bread smells like your home before it was torn by messy divorces and your brother's bad behavior. It’s been less than a season since you opened, and as your first winter settles in, the once warm weather turns cruel.

One night on your walk home, you find Sylas Woodburn—Greenwich’s resident poet, one of your most consistent regulars, and full-time gravekeeper—face down in the snow, half-frozen to death. You drag him back to your kitchen, make him a bowl of homemade stew, and accidentally spark a...well. Romance!

But you’ve never been in a relationship before, so how are you supposed to know what’s normal? It’s totally fine that your new romantic fling stares at you like a piece of steak. Right? The real question is how to get him to stop biting.

Inedia Carnis is a visual novel horror romance where you, the player, are fully aware of every red flag waving in your face—but Lajos hasn’t caught on just yet.

The game will feature five chapters and multiple endings, exploring love, hunger, and the horror of wanting to be wanted. I’m currently working on a Chapter 1 Demo, which I expect to release in early January 2026.

If reception goes well after I start posting concept art, I plan to run a Kickstarter to fund a custom soundtrack, voice acting, and bring in more artists to help with backgrounds and CGs.

This story is based on a novel I wrote three years ago, for those who’ve been around since the early days. I won’t spoil what that story was about, but let’s just say it was another delightful horror romance of a similar flavor—with familiar faces, different names, and the same doomed affection at its heart.

It’s a project about hunger, love, and how easy it is to mistake one for the other.

Thanks for reading this devlog.

It’s been a long, strange year of figuring out who I am and what I want to make—and now that the pieces are finally clicking into place, I can’t wait to start showing you everything that’s been brewing behind the scenes.

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