Shepherds of Haven is a dark fantasy interactive fiction game, or interactive novel. It is primarily text-based, with gameplay consisting mainly of making narrative choices and managing character skills, stats, and equipment. While there are visual and audio components to the game, such as an original soundtrack, interactive maps, and a graphical UI with character portraits, these are largely optional and supplementary to gameplay and can be turned off.

Not exactly! While visual novels usually follow a specific structure and may utilize tropes unique to that medium, Manifold Studios produces games of interactive fiction, which are less, well, visual, and tend to be more reliant on text as well as branching, variable choices. Games classified under interactive fiction could be likened more closely to the “Choose Your Own Adventure” gamebooks of yesteryear, though with modern features and additional RPG elements. Romance is also optional in my games, and there are not exclusive romance "routes" that lock you to one specific storyline, as in many visual novels.

At the moment, Shepherds of Haven is planned to be released on Steam and Itch.io, with possible room for a mobile app release down the road. There will be a free-to-play demo available for players to try the game out before buying, but the full game will be a paid purchase.

At the moment, there is no projected release date for Shepherds of Haven, as it's essentially being worked on by a single person. The game is currently in its alpha build and will be tested by beta testers once the story is complete. Publication to digital storefronts will follow successful beta testing.

An open call for beta testers will be posted through all of our social media channels, so please subscribe and keep an eye out for that announcement. In the meantime, Patrons at the "Officer" tier and above receive access to the game's alpha (and later beta) build for as long as they remain active subscribers.

Since gameplay is heavily dependent on reading speed, more data needs to be gathered from testers before an average playthrough length (in hours) can be determined. At the moment, the game stands at over 1.2 million words long, not including code, which is more than the length of the entire Harry Potter series, and twice the length of the Lord of the Rings series (including The Hobbit).

Shepherds of Haven contains dark, mature, and occasionally frightening or tense themes and discussions, but does not have visually graphic depictions or sexually-explicit content. There is profanity, depictions of violence and death, depictions of drug and alcohol use, heavy innuendo and suggestive situations, mild horror elements, and optional "fade-to-black" romantic scenarios. Its developer would tentatively rate it as suitable for players 17+ and up. Please check the game for a full list of content warnings.

Yes! The final version of Shepherds of Haven will feature a robust save system, including the ability to have unlimited manual saves downloaded directly to your device.

Yes, Shepherds of Haven is inspired by a series of unpublished fantasy novels that its developer wrote when she was younger, sharing several main characters and world-building aspects across versions. However, although there are some similarities between the game universe and the novels, there are also many significant and marked differences. For example, in the novels, the Autarchy did not exist, and the Shepherds were already an order that had existed for several hundred years.

No, sorry!

Shepherds of Haven is intended to be a standalone and complete game in and of itself. However, there may be potential continuations or separate, new stories set in the same universe down the road.

Subscribing to our dev blog (Tumblr) or Bluesky and generally spreading the word about Shepherds of Haven is always a huge help! The game is also entirely self-funded and will be independently published under the Manifold Studios label, so if you want to support the project through Ko-fi or Patreon, that will result in even more features and time invested in the final game. You also receive generous monthly rewards, bonus content, and exclusive experiences as thanks for joining the Patreon. Thank you very much for your support!