I haven’t been on the forum for a long time, but I would love to read something that you’ve written. I think that IF is a great medium for experimenting and self expression. You should’nt be discouraged if your stories don’t fit in the popular mold, the genre is yet to be saturated and you might stumble upon the next thing that people don’t know yet that they want.
If you feel comfortable sharing what you’ve written, feel free to send me a pm and I can provide feedback if you wish.
Though I haven’t been able to do Royal Affairs drafting due to illness, I’m pleased to say that I’ve done my Noblesse Oblige copyedit notes (edits are so much easier than brand new writing 
) so it’s all feeling very real now. Two weeks to Noblesse Oblige!
starts marking off calendar
Are there any tips for increasing audience engagement or encouraging feedback?
@HannahPS best wishes for feeling better! And early congrats on your upcoming release!
I’m spending August just mostly working on Final Monologue It will keep me busy for the rest of the year. And Talon City comes out November 3rd; I had to get some of the cover images tweaked but will be sending those in probably tonight.
Here is a list with some of my games I just added up half dozen or so since last update.
best wishes! i had it quite bad a few months ago even after getting double boosted and otherwise being young-ish and healthy-ish. Hang in there and focus on getting better before anything else!
Use polls. People seem to be many, many times more likely to vote on polls than to post any word based feedback.
Probably has to do with the anonymity and ease of use.
Just be sure to make the poll easy to understand and relatively short, with somewhere around 4-8 options.
Obviously polls don’t give you too much information, mostly a rough idea of what people think, but it’s still much better than nothing I’d say.
Take any of my advice with a pinch of salt because I wasn’t very involved with the forums until I had already released a game, but the first thing I recommend is playing and commenting on other people’s games - not only do you learn a lot and figure out how you might do differently but also it will make people feel more familiar with you and your work.
It’s also helpful to give progress updates fairly regularly. I often do not follow this especially when things aren’t going super well because I get tempted to hide away, but people will be interested in how things are going even if you haven’t written enough to want to update a demo.
@JBento thank you so much!!
@Eric_Moser thank you!!
@SpokesWriter thank you, I’m hoping it won’t be too bad - I’m not doing too badly at the moment so hopefully that will continue.
Get well soon @HannahPS.
The other writers here who used ChoiceScript as a medium inspired me to shelve any other projects I had and focus on a new interactive story using said tool. I’ve got a clear outline of the entire plot, including the background information that never gets to see the light of the day, but is essential for the immersion. I just need to get acquainted with coding and how to transport a story to ChoiceScript. But everything in due time. I’m excited because this is the first story where I have a steel grip on the plot from the get-go, instead of blindly rushing ahead without a goal in mind. I also need a summary to post in the interest thread. Hopefully there’s interest in a new superhero story.
Is this that “planning” thing I keep hearing about?
Awaiting details.
@poison_mara So, I started with Planet Mopper, and that’s a pretty sweet base idea you got there. Thoughts:
Maybe it’s the engine difference that’s throwing me off, but it felt like there was too much text between choices.
You need to improve your English writing skills. Or maybe you already have, because that’s an older game, I think?
Could use a slower pacing.
Honestly, I think you could turn that premise into a series of CoG books: make the first book the lead up to godhood, with the MC first trying to achieve godhood the “right” way via the Bloodbowl (but also don’t call it Bloodbowl, because Games Workshop is VERY lawsuit happy). Let the player win or lose based on the tournament choices, but if they woud win they get screwed by the system (and lose). And then getting the “special” offer. Expand on every part of the story. Add more character characterisation. End the first book with crossing the portal. Some people say getting the idea is the hardest part, and you got a good one here.
it’s tagged adult readers, yes
It is. Outlining is essential, at least for me. I just write in circles otherwise and easily lose motivation.
As soon as I finish perfecting the premise more. I still need to add some interesting characters first. Studying has stolen my free time lately. It’s frustrating. But it’s a start.
Planning AND learning?! In MY internet?!!
Yes I did that because few of my games are only for adults due violent content or dark themes. I warned about that in each game.
I know right? Some of us have interesting methods for relaxation. I get less stressed about studying when I add another pile of work on top of it.
Added a whole bunch of bells and whistles to what I’m working on.
Galactic Tension ++ for example. Since I’m using fairmath it never exactly tells how much it increases by but roughly + is %+5 to %+15, ++ is %+20 to %+35, and +++ is %40+.Just tore down 12,000 words to start over. Happy i did it, frustrated at the extra work i’ve made for myself. But the new draft is much more coherent so far and i’ll probably reuse a good bit of what i have anyway, so it’s not pure trash. Mostly just happy people were willing to tell me it sucked, lol.
I suppose I had been measuring its interest from a different angle: the number of replies, wherein some others do have more consistent replies which indicate a high, sustained interest. But, you are right! Thank you for making me realize that sometimes, replies aren’t all there is to indicate potential success.
This had been a question I had asked myself a lot as well! Prior to my current endeavor, I realize I had failed in some of my previous attempts at an IF, because I was trying to pursue the angle of “create a plot that majority of the crowd here seem to gravitate towards.”, since increased popularity would surely translate to better monetary gains. Which, I suppose, is all well and good. And it would not have been an issue had I enjoyed the same kind of content, but… the truth was that I do not.
So I just decided to take a leap of faith and write the story I feel more for. A much more unconventional theme, I think - will I ever finish it? Will more people like it? I guess only time will tell. And I guess I also need to remind myself of this too, so I won’t forget why I started in the first place.
I have bookmarked your games, Mara, and will have a read of them when I’ve the time 
Thank you both for taking the time to respond to me 
Replies are part of it too, but you have to consider that for a thread to reach a high number of posts only requires a handful of superfans, people to keep the conversation going perpetually. Granted, some of the most popular WIPs have both a large number of readers and plenty of dedicated superfans and that’s why their threads reach gargantuan levels. But you can still be very popular without hitting that level. And the thread likes metric is a reasonably solid one in predicting future success, arguably more so than post count, and on that front you’re in great shape. You’re doing just fine, especially for a first entry. Way better than par.