Demon Thesis is a browser game, a webcomic, a tech demo, a floor wax and a dessert topping;
the bastard child of Final Fantasy Tactics and
MS Paint Adventures.
Following the formula of tactical role-playing games, the game consists of a series of battles tied together
by a storyline. Since the content is naturally divided into discrete chunks, this genre is a logical fit
for the serialized format of webcomics, updating in small increments on a frequent basis. I'll post
new game levels and story scenes on a weekly basis (at least).
Though inspired by RPGs, Demon Thesis isn't really an RPG. Rather than tying party advancement to
experience points gained by repeated play, new equipment and abilities will be unlocked at particular
points in the story - but the player community will determine which upgrade comes next by popular vote.
It's an experiment. It might turn out to be a horrible idea no one should do ever again! But we'll have fun seeing what happens.
The game is an experiment in another sense as well: it's built on Javascript and HTML5,
using Flash only for loading of audio files in browsers that have problematic implementations of
HTML5 audio. Initially my decision to abandon Flash was in order to make the
game code compatible with iOS platforms (especially the iPad, which is a perfect way to play
a grid-based tactics game like this).
Unfortunately, while HTML5's graphics capabilities through
the canvas element are pretty extensive, audio support for games is absolutely abysmal. Games
rely on short, multilayered sound effects, while the HTML5 audio element is designed with music
players in mind and nothing else. Mobile Safari is the worst offender of all, requiring the user
to manually press play on every audio file. So while I hope to eventually wrap the complete game
as a standalone app for iPad, the web game will sadly not be available on iOS.
This is a project I'm conducting in my spare time as a way of teaching myself programming and game
design, as well as flexing the writing muscles that have been dormant since my old webcomic ended.
It will be always be free to play, and the code will be made available once I've done a better job of
commenting it.
Demon Thesis was written/programmed/designed/"drawn" by Chris Doucette.
The sound of Demon Thesis is entirely thanks to artists who have made their work available under a Creative Commons license or otherwise freely available.
MUSIC ATTRIBUTIONS
IMAGE ATTRIBUTIONS
SOUND EFFECT ATTRIBUTIONS
Demon Thesis has been tested in Chrome, Opera, Safari and Firefox on Windows and Mac OS X.
Internet Explorer 9 has not been tested, and earlier versions of IE are not compatible with the HTML5 elements this site uses.
Smaller monitors and laptops may be just slightly too small to show the entire game screen due to the space taken up by the browser menu and navigation bars;
in this case activating your browser's full screen function should allow the whole game to be viewed without scrolling.
When first viewing a new piece of content it may take a few seconds for the multimedia elements to finish loading.
An error message should appear if there is a problem with loading, but some browsers - especially Safari - will
occasionally fail to load sounds. If the loading screen lingers for a long time without progressing, just refresh the page.
This is a hobby project made during my free time. While I want to make it accessible to as many people as possible, I can't offer
individual tech support. If a serious bug occurs, contact me and I will try to address it.
I'm a programmer at PopCap San Francisco. I have a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University, which is not relevant to this site, but sounds real impressive.
Email me at