Whispers Along the Waves (WIP)

[ZAVARIAN12]

Intro
So this is my first time writing an interactive story and posting it on this forum. First thing first, I’m not a native English speaker but I am good at language since I prefer to use it a lot. Still bear with me if there is any wrong grammar that you read or misspelling. Second, this is a boy’s love story or commonly known as BL, In which you will play as a locked gender male gay character and BL story experience. Yet this is a story not just about romance or dating simulation, but it also tackles coming out and has a slice of life theme, you’ll find out more if you play the demo. This story game is not just for gay or people who love to read BL, but this story is open to all, including straight readers if you want to try, and if you don’t like reading boys’ love story then this isn’t for you.

Summary
You’re a gay guy in the closet living in a religious town with Dad for a Pasta (Pastor). Then one day you got outed forcing you to run away from home. Your Mom manages to find you and tells you about your grandparents in Hawaii. There in Hawaii you will experience a wholesome journey of life. In which; will you find love? Drama? A wholesome magical adventure?

• Play as a male gay character and experience your own BL story as an MC.
• Go through a wholesome journey of coming out and plan on what to do with your life.
• Enjoy a Boy’s love story meeting the three RO’s available in the story you’ll meet which you have no choice to reject at all. (You have to choose an RO because it’s a BL story but you can break up with them in the end if want. The readers will also have a lot of time to decide which RO to date since I’ll make sure you the reader experience friendship with them first.)
• Work at your Grandparent’ diner and find out if you can handle it.
• Experience the family drama and awkwardness that comes along with it.
• Enjoy the island and find some of its secrets that are yet to be discovered.

**Author's note (Possible spoilers)**

So I’m gonna ask it myself now, why write this story? Well, I’ve enjoyed reading interactive novels and when I play; my MC is always male and gay. When I try to do the romance route in the story and the reaction from NPCs has always felt unreal in some way. I mean I understand that who would read an interactive novel filled with homophobic NPCs but I want to write a story in which there is the reality of what’s like being gay the story, filled with the acceptance and other variation of reactions to experience reality in the story itself. I also read a lot of BL and Yaoi, so I want to apply that type of fictional boys’ love story in an interactive novel setting.

This interactive novel isn’t about just romance between two boys but it also let’s the reader experiences the hardship of being gay MC from people who can’t understand or don’t accept it but it’s also filled with acceptance in which some people will love and understand the MC. I know that interactive novels give an escape for the readers to leave the stress and problems in life for a moment to experience a whole different world that interactive novels offer. For me this interactive novel that I’m writing is experimental and I have doubts if I should even continue writing this but for now, I’m continuing it. I don’t know if I’m the first one to write this kind of story topic or there is already like this but I want to write it anyway and hope that many would enjoy it.

**ROs:**

Skyller White

He has short black hair straight ear length, white skin, blue eyes, 5,9 feet height, 21 years old.

He’s calm, quiet, and reserved personality with a high sense of self-awareness. He’s 2 years older than MC.

Nathen Reed

He has wavy mid-length neck blond hair, Tan skin, hazelnut eyes, 5,8 feet height, 19 years old.

He’s outgoing and active especially with a surfboard, as he sometimes loves to surf at the weekends at the beaches. He also has a childish personality especially with Kai if they both hang out together.

Kai Maki

He has short messy brown hair, black eyes, light brown skin, 5,6 feet height, 19 years old.

He’s sweet, humble, and very caring for others. Kai is a native Hawaiian and lives with his family. He’s also a caring sweet older brother to his younger siblings. He also works part-time at his Dad general store.

**Other characters:**

Grandma Su

She’s your grandma, she’s sweet and kind. You can use any nice old lady face claim for her.

Uncle Hal

He’s your grandpa. He’s grumpy, and you’ll eventually like him as the story progress. As for your grandpa’s face claim, he looks similar to, Frank Reynolds in Sunny Philadephia, cast by Danny Devito.

**RO's face claim**

This my face claim for my ROs that I can make, but imagine your face claim for the RO’s if you want, I just made this using an AI image generator.

Skyller:

Nathen:

Kai:

**General questions that might be asked or not:**

1. Why is the story base in Hawaii?
   Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m not from Hawaii, nor any states in the US as well, and I said I’m not a native English speaker. All my knowledge of the culture and place of Hawaii has been based on extensive research. I only chose Hawaii because it’s very similar to my country’s beautiful beaches and the US culture is very similar to my own country’s culture.

2. Is there an upload schedule?
   There is, but it’s flexible. My regular upload for one chapter is 3 months. If I upload in one or two months, that would be a miracle and early for me. My late upload would be in 4 months, and if I haven’t uploaded within 4 months. I would probably inform you guys why it’s been long.

3. When do you think this story can finish?
   I plan and hope that I will finish this interactive story before I graduate from college. The story has already a skeletal structure to follow, and it will only have 12 chapters. Still, I can’t be sure I can finish this before I graduate, but I will finish this. And if I near my graduation, I would go overdrive writing the story, LOL.

Warning Note!
The demo contains possible triggering content that includes homophobic remarks that are not intended to discriminate against the reader or the LGBTQ+ community but is part of the story itself. So player reader discretion is advised . And if you do encounter this part of the story, please provide feedback so I can assess if I should moderate it or add a skip option to it or improvise perhaps or if it’s just fine.

Word Count 179k
Average Play through 48k

Upload log

**03/21/22**

*Few editing in chapters 1 to 3
*Chapter 3 is now complete
*Updated some stats
*First Hidden achievement available, but no notification if achieved.

**07/23/22**

*Few changes made in chapters 1 to 3
*Chapter 4 has been uploaded
*Updated some stats
*Second Hidden achievement available, but no notification if achieved.

**05/06/23**

*Improve grammar and scenery description in Chapter 1-4
*Chapter 5 has been uploaded
*Updated some stats again
*Third visible achievement available, but no notification if achieved.

**08/29/23**

*Improve grammar and scenery description in Chapter 1-5
*fix some code error and inconsistencies in the story
*Chapter 6 has been uploaded
*Updated some stats again
*New art design in the game

To play the demo, go here: https://dashingdon.com/play/zavarian12/boyslove-alohabeach/mygame/

[AchilleanHeartbreak]

Hey there,

Firstly thanks for sharing your writing here. I’m looking forwards to reading through.

Feedback

• From the very start, I feel that considering you stated you aren’t a native English speaker, you have done an incredible job overcoming that potential barrier. Aside from a few issues noticed throughout, I wouldn’t have been able to tell otherwise.
• The stats for Weak Heart and Strong hearted have underscores instead of spaces. So they read Weak_Hearted and Strong_Hearted.

Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about what you’ve written. I think you are touching on a topic that is very nuanced and requires a delicate and sensitive approach. I appreciate the story you are trying to tell, however, I am concerned after reading the demo that your depiction of the MC coming out as gay feels rather stereotyped into the ‘religious family, total lack of acceptance, conversion therapy’. Partly I feel like this comes from it being mostly relegated to flashbacks.

Given the story you are trying to tell, my personal view is that this is a vital aspect of the story and the MC’s motivations and existence in this story. If I could ask for you to do one thing differently, I would prefer that the MC’s revelation on their sexuality and their subsequent coming out be explored in real time. I think the relationships with the father and the two friends could be explored in much greater depth to allow them to exist as three-dimensional characters that may have an array of complex and conflicted feelings towards their son/best friend coming out as gay. With it being relegated to a flashback, I personally felt these relationships were a bit shallow and didn’t feel as invested in the MC’s reaction to run away as I didn’t connect with their feeling of hurt and loss from the received reactions.

I do however, thing this is a very good first draft/demo and am very excited to follow this work in progress as you continue to write more and to develop your ideas. Huge congratulations for coming this far and I’m excited to see more

[ZAVARIAN12]

Thank you for being my first feedback in my demo🙂

Firstly about the religious household and lack acceptance being stereotypical is I quite understand your point but I wanted this to be foundation or setting of my story and based this on my own country society I live in where it’s a struggle still coming out even now.

As for being relegating it to all flashbacks😅 I made this intentional because I felt it comfortable telling it this way and the easiest for me in depicting the MC’s past and didn’t much emphasize it because I justed wanted to write Hawaiian scene and the romance scene but thank you for pointing it out.

Second about the sexuality of the mc being gay and the relationship Between the best friends and dad. I can’t spoil the future of the story but due time it will be explored more indepth in the future and the mc sexuality as well. I know it was very short with interaction with Dad and the two best friends but I’ll look into it if I can do more in the beginning, but (possible spoiler) they’ll still all meet in the future chapters of the story.

And thank you again for your feedback and I will use this to make the story more better in the future

[Phantmwolf]

While I understand that It may feel stereotypical, even in the U.S. there are plenty of religious denominations that still believe in conversion therapy and often post their thoughts and rants on Youtube. Reading the comments on these videos, you will find plenty of comments from people claiming that they are no longer gay or are having trouble dealing with these sinful thoughts. It truly is a sad thing to see, and they are so indoctrinated that replying to them would probably make them fall deeper into their convictions. It would take days, if not years to change their mind.

Of course only a small portion of them do this, but pointing out that it still happens no matter how small the group is not saying that they all do it. However, no matter how bad the author portrays these denominations to be, they would still be accurate.

[AchilleanHeartbreak]

Ah, I see. Thats a bit disturbing. We don’t, to my knowledge, have any widespread use of conversion therapy or strong religious convictions against homosexuality in Britain. Whilst it still exists, it isn’t quite in the same context as what is being portrayed in this book. So thank you for bringing that up.

I suppose, drawing from that a larger point of what I was hoping to explore is that whilst still an issue, I personally felt that as a result of what I specified on my lack of investment in the characters hurt it felt a bit more stereotypical. I still believe both can be explored further, however the author has said that they plan this so all I get to do is look forwards to it

Thanks for picking me up on my lack of knowledge @Phantmwolf

[Dpwjeremy]

So far it is an interesting and well constructed story.

The only part so far, is that their is a paragraphs that repeat. It is when the grandmother tells the driver, “sorry forget her name” to not be late for work tomorrow.

Other than that, can not wait to see how everything plays out.

[ZAVARIAN12]

Really? Thank you, I’ll see to it☺️

[Jophiel_Doctora]

Yey! A BL story! The demo is great, though I would like to have it much longer. Overall it’s good, looking forward to seeing the release.

[ZAVARIAN12]

Hey, Author here.

About to update later, probably at 2pm UTC. Chapter 3 will now be complete and I did a few small changes in chapter 1 and 2. Sorry for the delay. I did say early Feb, but I was cramping all my college work that month so I had little to focus. And chapter 4 is now in progress, can’t say when, but soon I hope.

[ZAVARIAN12]

Author here again👋

The WiP has been updated, chapter 3 is now complete, if there is any error in the link or an error of a missing scene you encounter, I probably forgot to upload one scene but I think I uploaded it all. I’m still relearning how to use dashingdon again, so anyway enjoy chapter 1 to 3 complete and chapter 4 will now be in progress.

[ZAVARIAN12]

Just want to do the quick poll, so please answer if you can to help me improve the WiP I’m making. This poll will be open up till April 17.

1. Do you guys prefer a height mechanic or height comparison between MC and the ROs and other characters? And physique as well, to know the type of body you want? I’m fine if there isn’t, but I’m also open to adding one. I’m just debating with myself if I should include it all.

• MC’s Height and Physique
• MC’s Physique but no Height
• MC’s Height but no Physique
• No to both Height and Physique inclusion
• Fine either way and leave it up to the author

2. Preferred update method.

• Update each chapter if 50% completed
• Update each chapter if entire chapter is fully completed

[ZAVARIAN12]

Hey guys

Just want to ask, before this thread close soon, after you read chapter 1-3. What do you guys think of the story and the dialogue between characters. I know that ROs have little appearance scene yet and you’ll get to know them more in chapter 4 soon.

1. Is the dialogue between mc and characters good and real? Or is the dialogue generic and doesn’t have personality.

2. Am I being to descriptive in the scenes or it’s just fine?

3. Am I lacking to much choices or to many? I mean I’ve read other cog and see there a games with long storylines and less choices for the mc.

4. Lastly any issues or opinion, you want to give about the story? In chapter 1-3.

Oh yeah chapter 4 is still 30% I had to stop for while due to my country’s recent embarrassing election but I’m beginning to write or type again so that’s good.

[MattisHell333]

I like your story
And as for your questions I think it’s fine the way it is (sorry for the not so helpful feedback, but this is how I think)

[ZAVARIAN12]

Author here

The WiP has been updated, chapter 4 is now uploaded, if there is any error in the link or an error of a missing scene you encounter, I probably forgot to upload one scene or somethings wrong with the codes, but I think everything seems to be okay.

Chapter 5 will now be in progress. Enjoy chapter 4 and give me feedback if there’s something wrong.

[ZAVARIAN12]

Just want to do some statistics and polling here while I work on chapter 5. Please answer honestly and please don’t replay the story to just find that scene, find it after you answered the poll. Thank you!

1. Did you discover who outed you?

• I discovered who outed me on the first try.
• I discovered who outed me after many tries
• I still haven’t discovered who outed me

2. Did you find your Mom’s memory box?

• Found it on my first try
• Found it after a few tries
• Haven’t found it yet

3. Did you find out who was in the picture with your Mom?

• Yes
• No

4. Where you able to discover breaking the 4rth wall scene?

• Yes
• No

5. This is not hard to get but want to ask. How many of you threw Kai in the water and got punched in the face?

• I threw him
• I didn’t do it

Again, please answer honestly, just want to know if my stats requirements in some choices are hard because in future chapters, I like adding hidden scene dialogue. Thanks!

[LadyUmbreon89]

Slightly more detailed feedback for poll questions:

For question one - part of the reason the answer for me is “no” is because I’m not actually sure it matters. Aggressive bullying of the nature MC faced when he saw his defaced locker is harsh, but just as many straight/ace boys have been bullied in exactly the same way, and reacted the same way, too. If there’s one thing I would change about that scene, it would be the lack of grace with which the bullying was handled. I accept the scene as-is because that’s a set plot point to get the ball where it needs to be to put the MC on the plane when we rejoin him in the present.

For q two - Kinda hard not to when you want to tell your mom right away; “Hey. I’m alive. I made it to grandparents place, and am getting settled.” as a bare minimum of courtesy to the parent that cares enough to find, and help him. Plus, that penny must be lucky if it helped us locate something this quickly.

For q three - This one is a little more complicated to answer. Yes, I did figure it out, I even spelled the name right on the first try. I voted “no” more as a display of my MC’s worn out emotions on the subject. Why should he care who is in a picture with his teenaged mom? It’s interesting to confirm belatedly that, yes, Ms Everly did actually recognize the offspring of her past best friend even though it’d been years. MC probably looks at least a little bit different from his dad’s side of things too, though, so it left enough doubt for Ms Everly to not be sure on the spot.

For q four - It’s kinda funny how unanimous that one is. Not a dang clue what that scene entails, so it may even have been a moment where you chastize the reader for something for all I know.

For q five - I don’t know how anyone has the balls to do that. I sensed his discomfort long before then, and let him choose where we sat, and suggested sand castles when asked how to relieve boredom. Trauma isn’t funny, and doing that to Kai would never be cool in my book, even if he forgave MC for it.

[ZAVARIAN12]

@LadyUmbreon89

If there’s one thing I would change about that scene, it would be the lack of grace with which the bullying was handled. I accept the scene as-is because that’s a set plot point to get the ball where it needs to be to put the MC on the plane when we rejoin him in the present.

I was supposed to give you guys (readers) an option how the MC will get outed and got found out from your Dad. But this was harder than I thought and made some parts of the story incoherent. Since this is the first choice script novel I’m working on, I’m still getting used to the coding, and I just decided to settle with a straight-line narrative on how the MC will get outed, similar to Love Simon.And finding the one that outed you is more of an accidental discovery with the right stats.

@LadyUmbreon89

Not a dang clue what that scene entails, so it may even have been a moment where you chastize the reader for something for all I know.

Finding that scene is the most hardest in the story and looking at the poll seems right. Finding that scene is like finding a needle in a haystack.

[LadyUmbreon89]

@ZAVARIAN12

I was supposed to give you guys (readers) an option how the MC will get outed and got found out from your Dad. But this was harder than I thought and made some parts of the story incoherent. Since this is the first choice script novel I’m working on, I’m still getting used to the coding, and I just decided to settle with a straight-line narrative on how the MC will get outed, similar to Love Simon.And finding the one that outed you is more of an accidental discovery with the right stats.

That’s why I’m cool with it. I also see what I said was a tad opaque. When I said “grace”, I meant more in tandem to the question of learning who outed the MC. If learning who did it mattered, instead of panicking & running away from the defaced locker, MC might have stayed to tell the teacher he has no idea why anyone would do that to his locker in particular, and get on with either leaving early to run away in secret, or somehow make it through the school day which any sensible adult would have allowed the MC to do.

I know how being more cool headed about a sudden scare is difficult, though; I’m not above freak-out level panicking about some issues. It’s why I’m fine either way, but I didn’t clarify what I was thinking well enough. Sorry for that!

I’m all for things staying how they are in respect to the challenges of learning as you write, so don’t take my feedback as asking for a change. I’m plenty ready to move forward taking on more challenges with helping out at the diner, and learning more about the rest of the characters’ island life.