Thank you for the support and comments @Jaybirdy @Eiwynn @poison_mara @anon21485497 @Anathema!
Wishing you all the best for your own WIPs as well!
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Time for my mid-month update… 
:
At the halfway point this month, I have completed about 33% of my goal’s content. This is misleading, because part of this was setting the framework and structure for the other 66% of my goal’s content.
What this means is: even with the stats showing me falling behind (for the third month in a row) I hope that my rate of completion for the remaining content to increase.
Also, I find the 66% I have yet to write to be more interesting and fun than the part I have completed. So, again I hope this influences me to get content written faster.
I find that with branching arcs, if I write the least interesting and fun branch first, writing the entire choice tree goes faster.
I also am averaging 17,000 words per play-through for my demo, so I am on track for my targeted 20,000 to 25,000 word-per-playthrough public demo goal.
What does everyone think a demo (meant for the store-fronts like Steam) should average out to be per play-through?
I notice that @Jaybirdy has updated both of her WiPs … I am such a fangirl of hers. 
Also, a shout-out goes to: @hustlertwo, @rose-court , and @unoriginal_username for stepping up and helping on the Reddit forums. 
I hope this finds everyone advancing in their projects and writing 
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Ahhhhh thank you—I appreciate all your feedback so much. I’m really looking forward to eventually getting to return the favor by reading your demo!
Congratulations on your progress, Eiwynn! 
My mid-month is going pretty well! I have indeed met goal one. Goal two is getting there. Three may not, since code takes a lot more effort for a lot fewer words, so I may not reach 10k this month. I’m currently sitting around 3200, so we’ll see how everything else shapes up!
The next chapter of Diaspora is also an outline in progress, and without me holding up the line, August will be able to get back to work too, so the huge goal of finishing that game this year is still within reach, with an interlude, a chapter, and a epilogue to go!
Keep at it everybody. 
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I first read that as ‘17,000 words per day’ and was simultaneously filled with awe and dread - as I have written about 500 words since the 5th April.
Having no experience of writing my own and limited experience of other people’s games, my first thought would be that your demo should cut off at one of the first points at which ‘the game gets good’ - as in, give them that little cliffhanger where they have experienced the core mechanic, think it’s super cool, then you cut them off and look at them enticingly. That’s from a purely business standpoint rather than a literary one though.
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I am happy that all of you have prevailed in your goals. I have been focused on the edition of my contest entry and adding extra content.
Now I am near 40k, in a month and one week. I suppose that is not horrible wording at that time. However, I feel like I am useless, and I don’t even deserve to be here.
Embarrased, that is the overall overwhelming feeling I am dealing with every day. So, I am gathering my willpower to keep up working, trying to not make a fool of myself too much.
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500 words is not bad for someone learning as much as you have this month! Your 500 words outdoes my last three days which I have been “resting/recharging” … so do not sweat the little things like stats… 
My philosophy is a little different than many. I purposefully design demos to accomplish specific goals.
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Alpha demos are normally Slice-of-life demos… they take a snap-shot of a very controlled and limited sandbox of the game. Systems, story, structure and everything else is limited to show-case exactly what I want to do wiith a game.
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Beta demos I want to expand everything above to actually show implementation and deployment of it all. My goal here is a little more pragmatic than “just” hooking consumers into my game. I want to set expectations and give a real accurate sales pitch on what my game is all about.
The WiP will be showing the retail demo, shown for free in all the store-fronts and getting the community’s feedback is going to be very important for me.
I honestly want my writing and my mechanics to sell themselves from the beginning. I want and desire immersion and understanding from my readers without resorting to enticement marketing within the demo.
This is a perspective that I have developed over the years, both from developing mods/games and my testing/QA experience with game developers and publishers over the years.
So, I think we view demos through different perspectives.
Thank you for engaging me, @Sinnie – it is this type of discussion I hope helps everyone, both lurking members and active posters.
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We’re all fools here 
What I mean to say is writing is not exactly the most stable line of work, or even as a hobby. People hear you’re a writer and there’s already this bad image embedded in their brains. But we still do it, and I think that’s a testament to how much we love it.
I must say I’m not exactly confident about my own skills, either. Ever since I first posted my WIP, I’ve been on a constant cycle of feeling incompetent, and there’s this fear that I would never be good enough no matter what I do. It’s been making me anxious and demotivated the past few months.
Then there are moments I realize that I’ve got people behind me - as cheesy as that sounds. Knowing that there are some who are anticipating more updates and contents is surprisingly a very good feeling, and that’s why I’m able to continue.
Go on and continue your craft! I’m sure folks would support that 
(I’ve been feeling emotional ever since seeing one fanart for my WIP on tumblr yesterday. I feel dumb, but that simple thing has just lifted my spirit so much😭 But that’s also why I think it’s worth it to try, and I know you can do it, too.)
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As Eiwynn can attest, I did not sleep at a reasonable time yesterday but I did think of another scene for my story that wouldn’t leave me alone.
If you decided to have a pet earlier in the beginning, the Detective at one point is talking to a coworker on the phone and trying to cut their pet’s claws except the pet is a griffin (the size of a house cat) and scene looks something like this.
In not so funny cat news, my brain figured that another one of my characters quietly struggles with her faith as an ex-Catholic due to her sexuality, maybe received a Purple Heart award for her service (have to do research), and most likely lived through the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era during the military. Don’t think any of these three things will be touched on in the story, but I’m glad she’s fleshing out to become more of a person now!
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I just wish I wasn’t so easily distracted and could just focus my brain for more than 5 minutes. I can sit at work for 7 hours and churn out stuff without much of a break, then I sit here and try and plan an idea or write a sentence and instead go an lose 5 games of chess in a row. Rinse and repeat for a day and I’ve written 3 lines in 12 hours. It’s not even as if I hate it, or find it that much harder than anything - my brain just goes ‘let’s play a game for a bit’ and away I go. The really annoying thing is, I’m a little too old to easily retrain my brain into better working habits.
For sure. I guess the one example that was sitting in my mind when I wrote that was Choice of Rebels, which (if I correctly recall), cuts off before you get to the camp and have the little daily(?)/weekly(?) decision menu. My default would be to give the player 1 or 2 of those, so that they are really invested in building their little empire. But then again, I bought CoR off the basis of the existing demo, so what do I know?
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A chess player that I can totally relate to! I have only beat this chessbot I play once… in over 500 games… but I keep playing it and get beat, time and time again… lol
ok. enough off-topic:
On a more serious writing note:
I think this is something you’ll need to really work on and refine as you write.
There are writers like Carl Reiner (use to do), who lock themselves away from any contact with others and there are writers who are most productive in a coffee-shop shared enviroment type of space.
I am in between the two extremes… I do need freedom from distraction of neighbor noise, but i also need some social contact during my writing so I force myself to take breaks.
One of the most important things a writer does is discover how they are the most productive in their writing.
Havestone is a master-writer isn’t he? 
I think his demo was directed by a staff member (editor?) at Choice of Games, so he definitely was able to benefit from their experience.
He also did everything in public and in his WiP thread – this really allowed him to fine tune everything before publishing. This is something you rarely (if ever) see now… maybe we all should try to learn more from his experiences.
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Then remember that mechanisms have to follow at least two rules.
-Enhance. Enchance the overall worldbuilding, making the setting more engaging and deepen the NPCs and general lore of your creation and storytelling.
-PLAYER EXPERIENCE and enhance player agency inside the game. The mechanical systems have to be the slave of the player agency and the plot. Not the other way around.
You can create the best code mechanism ever in the universe. But if you don’t enhance the worldbuilding or add anything to the player experience. THEY ARE SOULLESS GIMMICKS
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at the halfway point of the month: slightly moving the scope on this, there’s no way i finish the stats lol. But it really does look like i’ll finish the draft, holy cow.
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It’s undoing about 20 years of procrastination. After being fortunate enough to excel at school in the early years I became incredibly lazy with regard to work ethic. I put almost no effort into homework, revision and university assignments. I’m not entirely sure where my ability to concentrate and stay motivated at work came from, considering my extra-curricular motivation has been so low for so long (obviously money and the need to eat and have somewhere to live - but I am far more productive at work than is required to simply survive).
Outside of video/board gaming, this fit of writing (since December) has been the longest sustained effort and motivation I’ve had for a mentally intensive hobby in about 15 years.
Very true. This needs to go into my mental checklist for when I think about games.
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Writing is a way for me to share the stories I have in my mind – the most powerful being worked on with the less urgent still in my mind wanting to be shared.
When I connect with certain people, the connection is a creative one that results in something magical and enchanting being created. I’ve had this happen a few times and every time I brainstorm with these people wonderful creations result.
Currently, there is a friend and colleague, that every time we talk we create something. It amazes me.
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This entire post is a mood
I don’t follow?
There are two more work-weeks in April, but alas, I am only about a third of the way through my goals, for both The Flower of Fairmont and Turncoat Chronicle. External concerns continue to interfere, as I imagine they always will.
Today and tomorrow, for example, we’re experiencing an early heatwave. Hot, dry weather. Normally, I would do my best to stay indoors in my cool apartment and hydrate well. However, it happens that I have appointments on both days, so I must brave the elements and hope I don’t get home too exhausted to get any work done.
I continue to resist the urge to start in on any new ideas, which is something that I have to fight off, fairly regularly. I get ideas from looking at just about anything.
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Mood basically means I agree with everything you’re saying. Or that I relate heavily with what you said.
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I agree this monthly thread is a great support for me to deal with my impostor syndrome and anxiety day to day.
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There’s another sign I’m getting old! When on earth did ‘mood’ get a whole new meaing?!?! 
Just swept up the garden after my partner cut the grass and my back hurts as well!
Which way to the old folks home?
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