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

Don’t worry about walls of text, I appreciate them!!

Re: Alice I might be less interested if she weren’t an RO, tbh–it adds a veneer of unfinished business and makes me really wonder what exactly went down between her and the MC. Of course, what we get in the game proper is still pretty interesting–I really like that she’s introduced as kind of harsh and professional and the first piece of her clothing that we get to see is a hot pink shirt with a pun on it, like that’s amazing. I do kind of wish there were an option to screw off of the current job the MC is doing to go help her immediately, but like I get why it isn’t there and I’m sure Alice would be significantly less happy to see the MC if they did that kind of thing.

And in trans issues/Isaac’s work, I think I remember a couple conversations about this in the trans issues thread a while back? I see what you mean about wanting to make sure that the transness of characters is visible, not have a Gay Dumbledore or more recently Pan Lando situation (where it looks like the identities of the character was just tacked on for clicks without being relevant), but I think trying to include it more naturally is a good idea, and I don’t think making transition easy in your universe is necessarily shooting yourself in the foot with making sure it is visible. Like I think there’d be much more of an issue if you introduced a character as “looking trans”, not that I think it’s something you’d do. Right now I think including it more naturally sounds like a good idea–you might include Isaac being more explicit about getting into it for the gender-affirmation surgery when he’s talking about his work? He does say it’s what got him interested in it, but he could directly say “I got interested after they helped with my transition”? But on the other hand, I don’t know many trans people who would directly say to a stranger “I’m trans”–but on the other OTHER hand, people might be more comfortable being more open about it in a world that doesn’t have prejudices against trans folks? I mean for now I think it’d be best to just write it in naturally as you’ve planned it, and from there ask people whether they thought it was included explicitly enough. If nothing else it’s a good sign that you’re putting this much thought into it.

And with Rami, I haven’t played through with an MC that isn’t Alice’s ex because, as noted, I am deeply in love with her and will flirt with her again at the earliest opportunity, but that does make sense. I know earlier on in the thread there was some discussion about assumed relationships in games–even if the MC and Alice were very close I do hope that you get some more options about the relationship once she’s less of an unknown. She might’ve been close with every MC but I think the option would be appreciated to say whether it’s like, “we were honestly very good friends” closeness or “we were really great as a team on a professional level” closeness, or even “there was physical attraction at play that might’ve influenced our interactions but was never acted on,” depending on the type of person Alice is. And specifically with the way Rami worded it–if instead of “shacking up” he just said “shacking up or whatever”, I think that would fix it. It turns what feels like his personal knowledge of their relationship into his own speculation or assumption.

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@IBOL17: I’m so glad you like it so far! I love sci-fi and it’s been a lot of fun (and kind of terrifying) to try my hand at creating a universe of my own. I hope you continue to enjoy it!

@HomingPidgeon:
Alice: I also think it makes her more interesting to be a RO, it adds a new layer of complexity to the relationship. Everyone has a past and I wanted to give the MC some history in the world without a giant info dump at the beginning. I’m really looking forward to getting into just what when wrong, and I hope Alice continues to be sympathetic in folk’s eyes. (That t-shirt makes me so happy, Alice loves stupid puns. I should probably put that in her bio.)

Trans issues/Isaac’s work: I remember that thread, I got some really good feedback from people. We talked a little about visibility and ways to casually bring up transitioning without it being a big deal, it was very helpful for me. The whole “Dumbldore was gay the whole time even though it was completely invisible in the story” issue is exactly what I think of and want to avoid, but like you said, introducing a character as “looking trans” is a terrible way to go about that. I think more dialog will be the way to go, especially in a world that doesn’t stigmatize and people can feel comfortable talking about it.

Prior relationships: Again, I’m really glad you are enjoying Alice, the Ex is a hard archetype to work with sometimes, but hopefully I will be able to translate my love of these characters into something the readers can love as well. I do plan to continue to let the reader define their relationship and even a bit of how Everything Went Wrong™, as I think that’s an important part of making the MC unique to the reader. Rami is definitely assuming when he comments on the relationship, I will make that more clear. That’s the great thing about putting the game up on the forums, I can get feedback and workshop these things to before trying to publish anything. That’s why feedback like this is so crucial and I really appreciate your time, thank you :slight_smile:

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I played a Han Solo type who’s only out for his best interests.

When the ceiling collapsed, I used the chance to escape back to my ship. The game ended pretty quickly after that – we got boarded and that was that. Is there something I’m missing?

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Yes… i think there lack a story of reconciling love between MC and Ex from the published HG/CoG… Rent A vice has potential but fall short, and i am genuinely happy that there seem to be at least Four WIP that offer reconciling love relationship …

  1. A Thousand Miles Of Sky
  2. Model Citizen : Unmasked
  3. Curse Of The Spirit
  4. The Operatives
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@will: You aren’t missing anything, most of the text in ch3 is interpersonal stuff and the MC dealing with unexpected passengers, so if you don’t have anyone with you, the chapter is pretty short. Ch4 will compensate for that a bit, but I’m also working on some extra content for 3, as I think without guests it’s about half as long as it would be otherwise and I don’t want to punish the reader for not having crew.

@Eric_knight: I really like the idea of having a character the MC already has a history with, it makes the relationship seem more organic and realistic. I am very excited to see where Model Citizen goes with the exs, all the characters in that wip are fantastic.

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oh my goodness! i remember reading this wip quite a while ago, and there’s 3 chapters now!

The choices of legality makes me laugh every time haha. I quite like how stat/choice distribution is played out/how it’s chosen!

i’m glad to see updates c: thank you for the wip!

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I’m so glad you like it so far! I’m sorry updates have been so slow, I’m not a very fast writer and I haven’t had as much time as I would like to devote to this project. We’ll get there someday! :sweat_smile:

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It might be my preconceptions, but I kind of figured that both Isaac and Reid would somehow find their way aboard my ship anyway. I guess it makes sense that they didn’t, but I had hoped they would. Otherwise why would he have spent so much time getting to know them?

EDIT: I was looking through the code in an attempt to figure out how you got the “save game” thing to work. Didn’t figure it out yet but I noticed something kinda funny about Isaac’s relationship variables:

If your relationship with Isaac is over 95 and he’s not interested in you romantically, the game will tell you that he has no opinion of you.

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That’s not an unreasonable assumption and I will say that we’re not done with them yet, but if you choose not to help Isaac the narrative splits and we won’t see either of them for a little bit. It’s kind of the difference between playing the somewhat reluctant hero who decide to step and in and playing the super reluctant hero who has to be forced to participate. I wanted to allow for both options in order to take the story in two different ways while still telling basically the same plot.

Re: save system: I’m working on a save system like in Tin Star where you can save or replay each chapter, so there are artifacts in the code for that that are not functional. If you want to use the save system integrated into Dashingdon’s site, you need the following line of code in you startup file:

*sm_init ATMoS | 5

Unfortunately that line of code doesn’t mesh well with the compile.html file for ChoiceScript, so what I do is comment it out in order to compile the code on my desktop for local testing, and then uncomment it when I upload to Dashingdon. You can check out this thread for more about the save system: I can't wrap my head around CJW's save system

That’s kind of hilarious that Isaac has no opinion with a 95+ relationship. The relationships are all mess up right now. I’m working on a different system based on multiple factors instead of the one relationship bar, so that update will hopefully be coming soon.

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Maybe a quick note like “Leave them both behind and get off this planet without them” to make it explicit that they’re not going to follow you? I suppose it’s just my own wrong conceptions about the consequences of my choice, ha ha :wink:

I’ll probably replay it and save Reid cause she was the most interesting character. The fact that she already clearly has a complicated relationship with another NPC, and also very clearly is making decisions behind the scenes herself, goes a long way towards making her a real character in a way that I don’t quite feel with Rami yet, for example.

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That’s a good suggestion, I can definitely make that option more explicit.

I’m glad you’re enjoying Reid so far and there are no hard feelings about that whole trying to arrest you thing :sweat_smile:

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Hey that’s why we love her! (Or at least that’s why I love her) :wink:

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I’m really happy to hear that, antagonists can be rough to keep sympathetic, so I’m pretty relieved that folks are still interested in her :sweat_smile:

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How is it possible a law officer is an Antagonist ? Well, i had been cooperative with Reid since the beginning , she is cool and reasonable … i am so happy she decided to join my crew , and well she even told me she is still single :slight_smile: I can’t wait to introduce Reid to Alice…

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Lowercase ‘a’ antagonist, though as you’ve seen things can deescalate pretty quick if you aren’t completely antagonistic right back at her. She and Alice will be fun to write :upside_down_face:

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I mean… maybe when they immediately shoot you without so much as a warning simply for having made physical contact with a criminal while in the midst of a crowd of people? I got the impression that Reid was habitually cruel and abusive of her power but in denial about just how corrupt she was.

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Huh? Really…

As far as i remember, my encounter with Reid was pretty civil :slight_smile: She didn’t beat me up during interrogation…

haha… yeah, i am sure Reid won’t harm a law abiding citizen transporting legal goods :grin: and i have a feeling Alice is a goody two shoes as well, so they will get along just fine…

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Yeah a dude bumped into me, then I said “Good day officers” and they tazed me. She’s a bit … trigger happy. I gathered that from the interrogation scene too when her partner was all “Jesus H. Christ let off him a bit Reid”

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Typo!

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Whoops! Thank you!