POMGRESS!!! OMG!!! 
Can’t breath!!
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This game is HILARIOUSLY GOOD! It’s definitely more like those types of games that are fun/chill but can definitely be very replay-able. I cannot wait for more!
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Not my cup of tea BUT, I’ve been checking out IF’s of all types that I normally wouldn’t. So why not try this one!? Plus, We can play as a male and that was all I needed to see lol. Let’s see what this is giving.
This might have been brought up and I just skipped past it but, The saves don’t work. An error pops up.
I love this so much. Extra love cause im a trans cheerleader:*)
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Update 2/26/23 Real world stuff that didn’t make it into the game?
Much of the game is inspired by my real experiences in cheerleading, but there are a lot of experiences that I’ve left out because they’re my subjective experiences (One possible path through the game). The character that YOU create might be very different from real life me.
I’m debating doing some longer posts here about the real life stuff that I left out of the game. If you’d like to read something like that, let me know.
As someone new to cheerleading, and being older than my teammates, and my team’s only transgender person, and being a shy nerd trying to infiltrate The Cool Kids clique, I felt like the experience was a mixture of Mean Girls, Younger, and The Nutty Professor.
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Update 3/8/23
A little more of the game is done, along with some edits to the last chapter. At the moment I’m thinking about romantic subplots. I DON’T want this game to turn into a “Cheerleader Dating Sim” so I’m wondering how important romance is to players. Let me know your thoughts.
Also, I’m still considering writing posts about the real-life cheerleading team I was on. Essentially all the cheer drama that doesn’t make it into the game. If you’d like to read something like that, sound off here.
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Well, I’ve certainly never been silent on the forums about romance being firmly “meh” for me in these games. I’ll engage with it, but only if it’s well done, and hooking up is not a primary concern of mine, so if the game tries to force me to engage with a romantic subplot, that’s not great. Worse if I have no option to shut it down and move on with my day. Worse still if it’s not even a romance-centric game and it tries to do that - like, get back in your lane, you’re not a romance story, I’m here to swashbuckle/do detective stuff/do professional wrasslin’ (choose one), how about we focus back on that?
Also, the options aren’t strictly limited to piracy, detectives and pro wrestling, but you get the idea.
Also, if you go that route, take care to make sure that the player is well aware of the path they’ve put themselves on. Ones of the worst things you can do is suddenly spring romance on them out of the clear blue when they’ve gone the whole game not even thinking about it. I remember having to put Sixth Grade Detective down when, not thinking that romance would even be in the cards (we’re in sixth grade!), fresh out of solving a bike theft case, all of a sudden my buddy starts stumbling around, trying to ask me out to the school dance.
After I had just outed them as the bike thief.
Okay, then.
Anyhow, that’s my two cents, so I’ll quit yapping now.
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To me, good romance can add scores, but the most important thing is good storyline.
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Please fix the save slots. I need them. 
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The saves are fixed. Let me know if they give you any more trouble. I’d love to hear what you think of the game.
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@TheRoyalHeir Hey thanks!! I already played up to the part before the update. I really enjoyed it. Cant wait for the full game someday. Keep it up. Your writing style is also very nice! 
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If you’re still wondering about romance, romance of any sort is something that really sells on COG or HG. It doesn’t have to be the main focus however when most people look at games, it’s one of things that draw people or gets them excited.
Personally, I look for and play more games that have some sort of romance. Of course, I have never write game and it’s your creation you need to feel proud of.
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I really love this, it’s been a great read so far. I really like the humor especially of the dumb luck options. I’m looking forward to more.
As for romance, for me personally romance is part of why I read interactive fiction in the first place. It doesn’t need to be the main focus, or even a huge focus, but it’s always nice to have a bit of romance in an IF book.
Also as a side note, I think if you decide to not do any romance at all then it’d be wise to not tease romances. Like just from the top of my head I remember we got choices if MC would be interested in Pepper, Bryan (?) and Bryttany (or however her name was spelled). Or at least make it abundantly clear in the description that there will not be any romance or some players might end up being disappointed when it turns out that those choices don’t actually lead to any romance.
(also I actually started to like the idea of Bryttany as an RO🙈)
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I think this story could use a little more background. Why on earth do we want to be a cheerleader and what’s so bad about our situation? Why are we so reluctant or indifferent to become a cheerleader and then, suddenly, we are full of enthusiasm? With some more background info, it helps enrich the storyline. The humor is reasonably good, though.
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I played the start of this when you first posted and I enjoyed the zingy feel! The tone feels camp, pointed and sometimes surreal.
I adored funny moments like “if a cheerleader is a unit of measurement”, and getting to know the characters especially Rikki and Diane. I really liked that there was a mix of genders at the club, and that playing a trans character wasn’t a burden put on me (though with the sense of tokenism when dealing with the Deputy Mayor - oof, true to life).
In some cases I felt that the options provided for the PC, or assumptions about how they were feeling, were a little narrow:
Details here
I’d have liked “vapidly” to be gated by having expressed scorn earlier; I hadn’t, so it came out of nowhere that my character was being that judgemental. Similarly all the options except one were pretty negative. It would have been nice to have something else more positive to choose from.
It would be nice to be able to be an early riser here!
This felt a bit narrow. It would be nice to see an option like “in other circumstances it would be awkward but I’m in the zone” or “let’s get going, I wanna support my team!” - again something more positive about the situation.
Re Pepper and playing as a trans guy
It would be good to be really clear that the “teasing” by calling the PC Cowgirl is something that the PC finds fun. On the next page it says something like “she’s the only one who I let make that joke” but I think that specificity would be good to see before clicking the option. I love that Pepper is thoughtful and chipper about talking to her trans woman friend PC and I can tell from reading the option that they have a great relationship. The trans man one doesn’t feel so much that way and I feel like having something like “it’s a silly joke we make together” in that option text rather than “she makes” would go a way to make it clear what’s going on. Or if it’s that Pepper’s making the joke at the PC’s expense, it’d be good to be able to have a conversation with her about that or tell her to knock it off!
Re romantic subplots, I enjoy them a lot. It does feel like a team and friendship based game too, so I don’t know if you have to go full dating sim if you don’t want to! When playing some of the characters seemed “flagged” as romances with my character being able to have crushes on them, so I guess I’d be surprised if I wasn’t able to romance them at all - but not every game has to have romance as the main focus.
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Something I definitely noticed was in the very beginning, if you play a PC who goes for all the most cynical, negative opinions, them suddenly wanting to join a charity cheer squad seems… odd. Especially given that a couple of choices indicate that they might look down their nose at cheerleading, why would they then be so enamored with it out of nowhere like that?
I feel like some expansion on the cynical perspective would also be helpful, in that case - why would my character, who has scoffed and sneered at anything to do with cheerleading so far, suddenly be over the moon about joining the team? Maybe add some choices to the first chapter’s character customization to let players set up something like, “I have nothing nice to say about cheerleading, but I’ll do it for the charity’s sake,” “I’m just doing this to get ahead on my own agenda,” “I’m assuming we still get paid, so the money will be nice,” something like that.
That’s my only real big gripe so far, the game feels at once very, and yet not, expansive enough on its own plot.
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Alright, so I actually found another gripe in chapter 3 - during the interview for the cheer squad, one of the captains asks about your recent charitable actions. It’s a skill check that penalizes you if you fail to meet it. You get three options:
Two of them challenge your charitable stat.
One challenges your conformity stat.
So if you have yourself built as a loner pragmatist… you’re screwed. Entirely.
So, two things, here:
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Why have three options if you’re only challenging two stats?
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If there must be three options, why can’t one of them challenge sweet talking so that more cynical characters aren’t left completely on their butts? Maybe use charm to fib their way past the question so that players can still have a chance to nab the achievement if their other two stats don’t measure up?
I don’t expect to succeed at every skill check. Trust me, I’ve gotten my fair share of game overs playing these kinds of games. But when the only winning move is not to play, I have to wonder what the point is - why give me the option to be a cynical pragmatist at all, if the story is going to turn around and punish me for existing?
I recognize that making one choice a sweettalking check doesn’t guarantee anything - maybe someone built themselves as a foul-mouthed loner pragmatist, so they’re still screwed. But my other complaints aside, it seems like there should be an option to fake your way through at that part, and not having that be there feels like a strange choice, to me.
I do also know about the mugging at the end of the chapter, just to be clear.
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Thanks for pointing that out Zyrios. Your cynical “loner pragmatist” is a lot like how I was when I first started cheerleading in real life. I’ll update those early chapters with more motivation for character builds like that.
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I made a separate thread in the Game Development forum about the real-life cheerleading experiences that (Loosely) inspired the game. You can read here: Pompoms & Power up: How Cheerleading Helped Me Become A Game Designer
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