Category: The Hell Bound Kids

Coming soon… The Hell Bound Kids Book 2: The Architect

Exciting New Interactive Fiction Role-Playing Game of Crime, Horror, and Suspense

We’re getting real close to wrapping production up on our demo release of The Hell Bound Kids: The Architect, which will be the second book in our line up of the HBK series.

This time, instead of a traditional digital and print book like with our first book in the series, Wild In The Streets, we’re going with an Interactive Fiction RPG.

So what exactly does that mean?

It means it’s gonna be a helluva lot of fun. Think choose your own adventure, but with lots of interactive maps, and an actual arcade-style combat system. And, since it’ll be free to play, all it will require is a little of your time.

Hero or Villain?

In Book 2, you’ll get to play the role of a gangster who mysteriously wakes up on the hellish streets of Punk City, with little recollection of how you arrived. Are you still a hardcore O.G. with something to prove? Or were you leaving that past behind?

It’ll be up to you to decide—will you be the hero… or the villain? Either way, it’s all about survival in Punk City, and the choices you’ll have to make may not be so black and white.

Stories and Rumors

As you explore Punk City, among the many stories and rumors you’ll soon discover, one is a legend about the alleged creator of the city, a mysterious entity known as the “Architect” and his “House of Pain”—a trap-filled maze in which is guarded an ancient tome called the Book of Fate that contains the secrets of Punk City and location of its hidden exits.

In Punk City it can be hard to distinguish between sobering reality and darkest fantasy, but most of the Kids trapped with you in the city seem to believe the legends, and for even a slim chance of escape, many more have risked life and limb to locate the House of Pain and find the Book of Fate, never to be seen or heard from again.

Gameplay

The game is largely text-based. There are a number of RPG mechanics such as:

  • Character creation.
    • Over 20 Skillz to choose from.
    • Experience Points and Street Cred to gain levels, hit points, and additional Skillz to make your character more powerful.
  • Inventory with dozens of items and a Store to buy weapons and gear.
  • Turn-based combat system with 2D characters and maps you can interact with.
  • Maps with clickable objects that can reveal additional text and choices.
  • And, of course, thousands of words of text with choices that will take you deeper into the game, revealing new Items, Journal Entries, Quests and areas of Punk City to fully explore.

If you like choose your own adventure you’ll dig this game; and if you like RPGs—then you’ll really dig this game! The release of our demo, will consist of the first chapter, showing what you can expect with the full release of the game. It’s gonna be helluva fun, and, did we mention… free to play!

Video Clip Previews

From now until the release of the demo, we’ll be dropping these announcements along with short video clips of what the game play will be like.

Start Screen, Character Avatar Selection Screen, and Character Name Screen

Welcome to Punk City… the city where the bad kids go. You’re the newest Punk to arrive. Find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Shit’s about to get real!

by Categories: Crime, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Suspense, The Hell Bound Kids, Transgressive, UncategorizedTags: , , , , ,

Writing In The Dark And Brutal World Of “The Hell Bound Kids” Is Fun As Hell

An Interview With Some Of The Authors And The Publisher Of “The Hell Bound Kids” Series

The fine folks at Self Publishing Review put together some Q&A for the authors of “The Hell Bound Kids: Wild In The Streets” and MANSON, Anthony Perconti, and the owner of No Sell Out Productions, Jason Duke, answered.

Read the full review here.

An Interview with Manson, Anthony Perconti, and Jason Duke: Authors of The Hell Bound Kids
by Categories: Crime, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Suspense, The Hell Bound Kids, Transgressive, UncategorizedTags: , , , , ,

Self-Publishing Review of “The Hell Bound Kids”

An edgy piece of punk brilliance

By

SELF-PUBLISHING REVIEW

Co-Authors Manson, Anthony Perconti, Sebastian Vice, and Joe Haward unveil an ominous dystopian world in their novel, The Hell Bound Kids: Wild in the Streets, the first in a longer anarcho-dystopian series.

Populated with childish but street-hardened characters like Ghost, Corpse, Pusho, Mimic and more, this is the story of rugged survival in the face of overwhelming oppression and persecution at the center of Punk City. A once civil society has collapsed into a Kid-filled wasteland of looting, murder, and depravity, with authorities stoking the fires of conflict to keep the gangs at each other’s throats, while the puppetmasters rest comfortably in power.

Read the rest at Self-Publishing Review.

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Manson’s First Interview

A Life Through Books Interview

By

MANSON

What is the hardest part of writing your books?

Self-doubt. Trying to overcome that nagging inner critic. Nothing ever seems good enough for it, and just when I think I do have something good enough to appease the little beast, it wants me to kill the darling.

What songs are most played on your Ipod?

Since I’m pretty eclectic in my taste of music I’ll list bands instead of songs. I’m a country girl turned city girl. So anything country (especially Johnny Cash). But I’ve been a city girl for a spell, got into the 80’s punk scene, so I’m also an old school, head banging, punker chick and love anything punk and heavy metal. Especially Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, Blondie, Talking Heads, Slayer, Metallica, Slipknot. I like oldies like The Animals and Johnny Ace and Pink Floyd. Also like Hip Hop and Gangsta, like Brotha Lynch, Wu-Tang, Cypress Hill, and Eazy-E.

Do you have critique partners or beta readers?

Oh sugar I have a hard enough time fighting the little monster critic in me and trusting in myself than to put faith in beta readers. Though I suppose the fine folk at No Sell Out Productions could be considered my critique partners when I work with them on my manuscripts. Their editors have been top notch to work with.

What book are you reading now?

The Book of Job.

How did you start your writing career?

With a lot of prayer. As much as I’m filled with self-doubt, I’m also a gal of great faith and belief that helps get me through the doubt, like a doubting Thomas. But I suppose it all started as a reader. I love reading horror, crime, and dark fantasy, and researching the occult. It presented me with what I felt were really great insights, ideas, and possibilities, that I began writing down and expanding on into stories and then of course full novels.

Tell us about your next release.

My next release will be the second book in The Hell Bound Kids series, tentatively titled “Beneath The Nightmare City” which picks up immediately where the first book leaves off. And I’m currently hard at work on the third book in the series.

by Categories: Crime, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Suspense, The Hell Bound Kids, TransgressiveTags: , , , , , Leave a comment

La Madre De Los Dolores 

The Futility of Hope

by

Anthony Perconti

First of all, let me get something out in the open immediately. The Hell Bound Kids: Wild in the Streets is not the feel-good hit of the summer. It is a mélange of hardboiled fiction, by way of The Lord of the Flies, The Warriors and Dark City with just a tiny hint of supernatural intimations.  Manson’s creation of Punk City is a big mysterious, sprawling set piece that serves a specific purpose and a specific group of, let’s just say, vested individuals. It is an experiment in social Darwinism writ large. Where the only way to survive and thrive is to get your hands dirty. As a father of two, the concept of Punk City is downright frightening to me. It gives me a strong case of the heebie-jeebies. It hits me on a visceral level. 

When editor Jason Duke graciously invited me to contribute to this shared world project, my immediate thought was to introduce a counterforce to the city. An individual whose purpose is to disrupt the status quo. A yin to the city’s yang as it were. While I was at it, I wanted to pay homage to all of those comic book and pulp fiction characters that I loved reading about (and watching) growing up. The Question, The Shadow, The White Tiger and Diabolik, are some of the inspirations (among others) for the character of La Madre de Los Dolores. O’Neil, Cowan, Rucka, Bendis, Kaluta, Sienkiewicz, Baker, Bava with a hint of Andrew Vachss thrown in for good measure. She is my take on a street level hero, who, due to the nature of the city, has dirty hands. 

But in addition to riffing on the masked vigilante genre, I wanted to infuse a bit of hope into Manson’s world. Just a bit. That’s not to say that her creation is downright Ligottian-it’s not. I have it on good authority that The Hell Bound Kids is ultimately a story of hope. And as the series progresses, readers will see this as well. In my contribution, “La Madre de Los Dolores,” I posit the question: is it foolish to have hope in a seemingly hopeless situation? Well, it’s a complicated answer, to be sure. Grant Morrison, in his magnificent history of the superhero genre, Supergods states: “It should give us hope that superhero stories are flourishing everywhere because they are a bright flickering sign of our need to move on, to imagine the better, more just and more proactive people we can be.” Are Morrison’s ideas utopian? Certainly. Is his brand of optimism a little too rose colored? Perhaps. I would argue that it is the intent that is important in this statement. Without hope, without the possibility of things changing, existence is reduced to a turgid cycle. The idea of one’s actions, making a change (even a slight one) in this harsh old world, for the better is a heartening one to me. And as a father, I would not want my children living in a world devoid of hope. That doing good deeds (and treating others with respect and dignity) can have a positive impact on the people around them. Hell, if Matthew McConaughey character of Rust Cohle, at the conclusion of the most Ligottian sequence on television yet devised (True Detective season one) can get in on the action, why not my pulp hero? Sure, the dark has a lot more territory, but maybe, just maybe, our minuscule actions can make this place just a bit less inhospitable.

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