A Thousand Miles of Sky (WIP)(demo updated March 10th, 2019)

WoW just read it after a long while and had mostly forgotten what this was even about! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

But after reading it, MC and a lot of choices I make reminds me a lot of Peter Quill of GotG.


"Oh, you know me, can’t stand to sit still for too long. Had to get back out there. My heart belongs to the sea, etcetera, etcetera.”

For some reason this text reminded me of:

2 Likes

That is a perfect song for Rami, I’m going to put that in his playlist!

Quill and other snarky space rogues have definitely had an influence on some of the dialog options. I have to remind myself to take it down a knotch and allow options that are a bit more varied in tone. Not everyone’s sarcasm levels go to eleven like mine…

2 Likes

This is it, Chapter 3 is up!

I almost got it finished in May, hahahaaaaa… The logic got a little complex in there, so please let me know if you spot any redundancies/consistency errors or anything you suspect might be a redundancy/consistency error. There are basically six different outcomes from Chapter Two, depending on the outcome of those last few choices. THAT RIGHT, I DID THIS TO MYSELF.

Anyway. There a bit of dialog in Chapter 3 about gender dysphoria, gender-affirming surgery, and transitioning, and an option for the MC to mention if they themselves are trans. I did a bunch of reading and googling about current terms and phrasing, but I am by no means an expert, so if any of my information is incorrect or if you have feedback, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Send me a PM if you don’t want to talk in this thread. It’s important to me to be as respectful and accurate with the language as possible.

Hey, I have a question for you all about the end of Chapter 3! I can’t seem to blur or hide the poll itself, so I guess I’ll just blur the prompt for CH3 spoilers.

By the end of the chapter, who’s left on your ship? If you’ve played more than once, who are your preferred passengers? I want to get an idea of where people are when it comes to the characters.

  • Rami
  • Isaac
  • Reid
  • No one

0 voters

11 Likes

I am excited to go save Alice :slight_smile:

1 Like

I’m looking forward to that part, too :grin:

1 Like

Bug, when accessing the stats screen.

1 Like

Noooooooooooo. Okay, I will look at this as soon as I get home. Thanks @Bugreporter!

2 Likes

Loved the update!

Typos, feedback and where that stats bug starts

a galaxy’s ransong of precious heavy metals just waiting for some industrious civilization to unearth.

A galaxy’s Ransom


You might not catch more flies with honey, but you will probably end up with a few less bruises.

The saying is that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar so this doesn’t make much sense as is.


So, Seruulic brandy, are those as illegal as they sound?

Is that


Business concluded for the moment, you take a moment to take in all the new changes around you.

I’d recommend changing that to “a while”, only to avoid sounding repetitive.


Flirt: “And what other reason could I possible have?”

possibly


It was like I’d just run over his dog with an earth mover instead of t merely suggesting that his choice of tie

Runaway t


but I seem to be stuck here until i can hitch a new ride

“I” should be capitalized


remain a legal part of the galactic empire

Galactic Empire should be capitalized assuming that is it’s actual name.


old crates that claims to have the best Lineerian food ( ) the system

In the system


you are on your ass and a rather unclear about how you got there.

are


The young man lets go of your arm and backs away from you.

The young man lets go of your arm and backs away from you.

Repeated line


this is the fring,

Fringe


The station beneath your feet give a gut-churning lurch

Gives


the shatter exterior leaking its last breaths

Shattered


You expect me to believe that someone at Frontier Technologies is trying to frame you for terrorism?" Reid scoffs.

I let Reid get knocked out by the ceiling and last I checked she was unconscious in the airlock. Rami should be the only other one in the room.


Honest, I don’t know what to think.

Honestly


As small knapsack rest partially open against the far wall

A small knapsack rests


while Ramil is lounging

Rami


surely do know you

It seems a bit strange with both surely and do. The surely also gets repeated later


The stats screen breaks after hugging Rami.
(Different screen but same error)

1 Like

Alice is funny She doesn’t want anything happen to me so that she won’t inherit my ship and my debts… at the same time she is expecting me to help her out of my own good heart and conscience … the ex wife is daring and has style , as if she is daring for me to be cruel to her :slight_smile:

1 Like

Alright, the stats page should be functioning now. I was trying to be clever with some comments, and it did not go well. Thank you to @Bugreporter and @ApplePi for pointing that out!

@ApplePi: I will get on those typos and suggestions and have the fixes up soon, thanks for the feedback!

@Eric_knight: Alice is going to be a fun one, I’m looking forward actually getting to her part of the story. Glad you’re enjoying her so far!

2 Likes

I can’t wait to see Alice’s face when i introduce Reid to her… Reid is still single right ? :grin:

1 Like

That will be a fun scene to write. And yes, Reid is still single. Play your cards right and she might even let you call her by her first name :sunglasses:

Edit:

Ok, I think I got them all. Thanks again for the help. I swear I do speak English :grimacing:

1 Like

Finally played through again as the incredibly socially awkward engineer-cum-pilot Jibril Alderman. He ended up with everyone on the ship, mostly because his anxiety and loneliness ended up causing him to say yes to everyone. I also ruled that he didn’t stop Isaac, not because he wanted him to escape, but because he froze up when he realized he was talking to a criminal.

2 Likes

Is it possible to romance Reid? I really liked her determination haha. She’s my favourite character so far

1 Like

I’m so glad you like her! She is very… dedicated. It is possible for any gender to romance her, yes.

1 Like

Always excited to see an update here! And more excited to see we’re getting closer to getting Alice into the story proper, really looking forward to seeing her in action.

I wound up with Reid leaving the ship and Isaac and Rami staying on. I’m wondering how much having Isaac not on the ship will affect the plot? I assume the MC will still get dragged into it, but will we miss out on a lot of content if we don’t have him with us?

So talking to Isaac about his work, and you have the option to say a friend has transitioned. Is that referring to a character in the game, like Alice or Rami? Or someone we haven’t met yet? Or is it just like, someone in the nebulous and off-screen past of the MC?

Things I Noticed


“Exuberant” has two periods after it


There’s a paragraph break in the middle of the MC’s dialogue


Should be bombing of THE facility, I think?

Didn’t snag a screenshot–I can go back and get one if you want?–but if you chat with Rami in chapter 3 and Alice is your ex, he refers to you as “shacking up”. It’s possible it was just Rami’s choice of words and he didn’t actually mean it as slang for sex, but it does come across as if the game is assuming the MC and Alice had sex if they were in a relationship, which wouldn’t necessarily be true. I’m not sure what the good fix is–I think adjusting Rami’s wording would be the simplest option? Although I also get the impression he’s supposed to be a bit crass, so adding an option to cut him off there could also work? Something like, “you let him go on; you either don’t care what wording he’s using or he’s just correct,” “you object to his wording cos you don’t want him to talk about you and/or your relationships like that,” “you object to his wording cos you don’t want him to trivialize your relationship with Alice whom you’re still deeply deeply in love with and will flirt with again as soon as the game gives you the option to,” “you object to his wording cos you weren’t actually shacking up in the strictest definition of the slang”? This is just me spitballing, though

1 Like

I’m so glad people are enjoying Alice, I was a little nervous about the challenge of having a character that’s angry with the MC and still making them likable, so I’m glad that seems to be working so far. Same goes for Reid. I’m really glad everyone’s knee-jerk reaction isn’t to hate them out of hand.

Re: helping Isaac: The story splits in a big way depending on if you help Isaac or not, so whichever way you go things will be different. I didn’t want to punish the MC or the reader for not wanting to help, as there are plenty of legitimate reasons to not want to, but at the end of the day the story does gotta get told. So if you don’t help the plot almost literally kicks in the door and participation no longer has the illusion of being optional. In my notes, Chapter 4 is called “No, seriously, the plot is not optional,” haha. So you will miss some Isaac stuff, but you’ll get some new, different stuff instead, so hopefully it evens out.

Re: convo about Isaac’s work: The mention of a friend who transitioned was not intended to refer to Rami, Alice, or any person who was originally slated to appear in the game, but it’s possible that could change. In addition to providing an opportunity for the MC to be trans in a way that I really hope flows/will flow naturally (I’m still fine-tuning everything), I wanted to give the MC an option to be familiar with the program’s capabilities as well as normalize transitioning in the narrative, because in my space future the tech exists to allow anyone to fully realize themselves and their identity with absolutely no stigma attached. There’s other stuff wrong in this galaxy, but I did not want this to be one of them.

All of that is not to say that there aren’t trans people in this game, there are and Isaac is one of them, but because of the sophistication of the tech (I kind of shot myself in the foot with that one, I’ve sacrificed visibility and I’m still trying to figure out how to compensate), the only way to have that knowledge about a character is to talk to them about it. And Isaac will happily talk about it later. I wasn’t able to work it into that conversation in a way that felt natural to me aside from a vague hint, but I have some dialog for him planned for later. It’s not something that comes up a lot in conversation in a world where it’s not considered a big deal, but I’m working on ways to include visibility.

I don’t want to treat any of the characters’ sexuality or gender identity/histories as big reveals or gotcha moments, but at the same time I don’t want to declare anything up front like it’s something that needs to be declared, I’d like folks to get to know the characters in a natural way. This is something I’m still struggling with, maybe I should just lay all the cards on the table up front and include more information in the introductions in the first post. I would love to hear thoughts on the matter.

Re: Rami dialog: This is great feedback and really helpful. Your right, Rami is supposed to be a bit crass and he is assuming that Alice and the MC were an item (he does this regardless of their actual relationship, which is meant to imply that even if the two of them weren’t romantically involved they were still very close, if it’s not achieving that goal then it needs some work), but I hadn’t even thought about the implications of that particular word choice and the assumptions regarding whether or not they had slept together. There’s no need for the narrative to make assumptions about the physical aspects of the relationship regardless of the emotional ones. I will work on rewording his dialog, I agree that’s the easiest fix.

Whew, that was a wall of text, sorry about that and thanks for (hopefully) sticking with me. I really appreciate the feedback, it’s invaluable to me and to the process of make this whole space game come together.

3 Likes

I’m sold.

6 Likes

Haha, I’m glad! Tbh that’s all I need to know about a premise, too :smile:

I haven’t finished the whole thing, but i really love your stat names, writing voice, and sense of humor. (I also strongly prefer sci-fi stories, so good there too!) Seems like your creating a fun, cohesive world.

1 Like