Hey guys!
I’m fairly new to COG, what I would love to see is an estimated gameplay time near each game. I understand that the time would be influenced by choices made, how quickly you read etc… But an estimate would be very much appreciated!
On a secondary note, I would just like to say thankyou to the writer of Zombie Exodus: Jim Dattilo. Zombie Exodus is honestly one of the coolest games i’ve played, ever… But I never knew how long he spent writing! Almost a year before Part V is released! All this effort, and he releases the game for cheaper than a hamburger! I tip my hat to you good sir!
First off, glad you like Zombie Exodus. I appreciate your kind words. Part V will probably be around 8 months of development for around 200,000 lines of code (50k words per storyline).
Most CoG and Hosted Games are around 2-3 hours of reading. Some go longer, but most shoot for the 2-3 hour range.
The writer himself! Goodness haha! Well, since I’m in this privileged position I’m gonna ask you something 
In Z.E would it at all be possible to have randomised events? I understand this would increase your workload by a tonne, but maybe it could be released as a part VI or something?
What I mean by randomised events, is something like this:
The player is leading the group of survivors and can choose how to spend the weeks
Gathering supplies, food, training etc…
But focusing more-so on the group rather than the PC, like in current Z.E parts
Instead of stats for a single character, you now have stats for the group
-Food Supplies
-Water Supplies
-Meds
-Weapon training etc, etc
But instead of being repeated every week, get food or get water when resources are low, add in a feature that creates ‘disaster’ events… This way when you have plenty of food to last you for a while, you get raided, or the plants get a disease or someone forgets to close the store-cupboard and the food goes rotten etc…
This way you never quite get fully safe or comfortable
The only problem with this is how repetitive the game would get, seeming as you can only write so many ‘disasters’
I propose you open this open-ended version to the community to help modify it, and add in new events that can happen around the safehouse/world. I understand that this probably would never be undertaken, just for the sheer amount of work it would take. But this could be an amazing addition to COG seeming as it could quite possibly be a one of a kind game that would attract people not used to IF but also provide people with somewhere to start off in the choice-script language… Seeming as the base story is already provided and they just need to add in events or new characters, or items etc…
Like I said this might be a dream, but if this was at all possible, I would definitely back you!
Cheers, SchemingDuck
Lol. Well don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.