Hello and welcome to the August 2025 support thread.
Happy birthday to those with birthdays this month! (that’s me!)
Many thanks as ever to everyone for taking part in last month’s thread and congratulations for all the writing that you’ve done! I’ve listed as many updates and new WIPs from July that I could find publicly here if you fancy taking a look at what people have been up to!
Star Crystal Warriors Go! has just finished its beta, and I enjoyed revisiting this thread from Brian Rushton:
If you would like to create the September writer support thread, please send me a message at least a day before the end of August - if I don’t hear from anyone I’ll make a new thread in a month’s time.
My goal this month is to complete the Chapter 3 draft of my secret project. I’m also going to try (sigh - it didn’t work last month) to be mindful with spending time online and avoid doomscrolling as much as I can.
I’m hoping to complete the update to Scarlet Sorceress by the end of this month, as part of my participation in SuNoFes 2025. I made a good bit of progress last month, so I think I should be able to get it done.
Then, I’ll need to roll out another WIP thread for Dreamwalking Elysium, and perhaps ask HG if both games can be released together, if I ever get to that stage.
I should try that too. But the temptation is pretty strong.
I’ve been putting together an IFComp entry in the hopes that it’ll make me make the time to write so that can be extended into an ongoing thing for my HG projects… and I just remembered I tried and failed to finish a game last year for IFComp. (To be fair I was pretty sick at that point last year so I’m not surprised I totally forgot about it). So now I have one almost finished game that I had planned to enter (but still needs finishing and could potentially go in as a Grand Guignol entry for ectocomp a bit later as the theme is spooky), and a second game from last year that I actually think is probably a bit better but I’m not sure if I’ll get it completed in time. Which one do I work on? Both are short games but my free time is really, really limited. Choices, choices too many choices.
Project Status: Halfway through chapter 3 at 115,255 words
August Goal: Complete chapter 3 (if not that, then at least get through the meeting).
Resource to Share:Beyond Branching: Quality-Based, Salience-Based, and Waypoint Narrative Structures – The idea of salience-based narratives or dialogues keeps dragging my attention back to this article. My current scene involves interfering with a tough conversation, and I want (again) to see if I can apply lessons from this article.
This month I hope to finally finish editing Dawn of Heroes, but I’m doubting it again. Hopefully I can focus on it well enough.
I love this channel. This video covers how to use over powered characters in your stories.
For those space fairing Sci-Fi stories, this video will talk about different ways to get into space. Some of these ideas are fiction and others are build in real physics.
This month, my goal is to get through a rough draft of the next two scenes. I’d like to get through three of them, since that would put me super close to what I want for the demo, but that’s more of a flex-goal at this point.
Wishing you a happy birthday in advance, @HarrisPS!
July has been a really hellish month for me. Unfortunately, work takes up the vast majority of my time, but I’m still doing my best.
In August, I’ll definitely need to get back to writing the original story of The In-Between, and of course, continue with After Dark—luckily, the next scene is already planned out, I just need to actually write it
I’m trying to decide if this one story concept is an actual pre-apocalyptic scene or just a simulation of one, because both options would fit and are tickling me fancy. I’m also thinking of ways to adjust my space scenes to more submarine-like, now that I managed to read my refresher on submarine thrillers.
Hello! First time posting on a writer support thread. I haven’t been productive last month, but I’m hoping to pick up where I left off this August. I’m working on an IF with several jobs/paths, and it’s proving to be quite daunting. I’m having doubts about whether I can even pull this off. Maybe I should just dial it down and decrease the number from 9 to around 4-5. In any case, I’m writing the Alchemist path, and I’m having fun coding the gathering and crafting system. Hope everyone will have a productive August!
I find it a bit humorous that this thread is about 15 hours late from my POV. Timezones are unreal…
In terms of goals, I hope to push a minor update and read more books (my library is a mess right now. I have 3 books on hold and actively reading 2 (I am about to have an incredibly civil discussion with the friend who told me Wuthering Heights is a romance novel)). It has also been a while since I read an IF that’s not mine, so I want to catch up on that too.
July was a wild month for me. I’ve been dealing with some health problems, which are unfortunate, but also recently got back on meds for my ADHD, which is great. Hoping this month I’ll be able to really buckle in and finish up my next update!
I forgot to follow up on my goals for last month because I got busy yesterday. I didn’t managed to hit a whole 40k words, but I did update my Patreon demo, and I took a week off, so I’m okay with being about 5k under my words goal.
I also updated my public demo today! Which is exciting. I have some family stuff to deal with this month, so I won’t be setting any goals other than ‘make some progress’ which is incredibly vague for a reason.
July was a pretty productive month for me. My secret project reached a milestone, and I wrote quite a lot on some ancillary projects, too. More than June, and about the same as May, which was also a productive month. This, despite a brief bout of stomach upset, at the very end of the month. And the heat, mustn’t forget that.
For August, I have hopes of getting my project past another milestone, though this one might prove difficult. I’ll also be celebrating my birthday, although rather quietly, since various parts of the family are busy with various other pursuits.
Thanks! I had so much help from these support threads. The last time I worked on a CS game I had just gotten divorced and had sever financial pressures, and had to rush (Mrs Claus).
This time I had the benefit from analyzing all of those games and had no pressure so I could fully develop it to be as good as I could possibly make it. Posting on these threads helped provide motivation.
I didn’t write the first 8 chapters, and so the overall structure wasn’t 100% what I’d do on my own, but I’m actually happy with that because the original author was fantastic at relationships and dialogue, my two weakest points, while I could punch up the location descriptions and fight sequences a bit. I ended up raising the word count from 105K to 256K or so.
The two things where I’m most excited to see how people react are the chapter save points and the “visible stat test mode”, as I’ve enjoyed those in every game I’ve played that has them. So either they’ll enhance people’s experience here or provide new data.
Edit: I’m also excited for Spectres of the Deep! I really enjoyed the author’s last two games and I enjoyed the demo.
Star Crystal Warriors Go! and Specters of the Deep couldn’t be more different in most ways - even the elements they have in common are handled very differently - but they are both phenomenally enjoyable. SCWG is ideal if you want something light and fun that (usually) leaves you feeling good, and SotD is complex and atmospheric and perfect if you’re in the mood to lose yourself in something heavier.
The last time I played SCWG before the beta closed, I romanced a guy who was a total cinnamon roll. Now I’m working through SotD and romancing a guy who’s more like a garlic knot. Make of that what you will.
Also, happy birthday @HarrisPS! I hope you have plans that involve putting a party hat on Blueberry.
My goal for august is to complete the broad outline for my game so that afterward I can really get into the nitty-gritty of planning individual choices and branching routes. I’m particularly focused on developing my outline for the climax and ending, since those are areas I’ve struggled to nail down in past projects.
hi all! happy august. excited for a new month and getting to kiss july GOODBYE
goal 1: get all chapters (excl. epilogue probably) settled in terms of the beats/events they contain
goal 2: revisit and revise the existing prologue from last fall
goal 3: perhaps get something up on cogdemos…but i’m not too worried w this for this month!
(that’s me!)
But the temptation is pretty strong. 
