head in hands
Welp. In good (?!) news, I crossed the 700K word mark today.
But let me offer an update on why – despite July being on track to be my most word-count productive month ever, adding well over 50K words of new material – it is still not going to be Monthduin tomorrow.
In my folly, many moons ago I decided to offer multiple paths through the aristo and helot sections. They both offer a little more variety than the Ecclesiast/Alastor, merchant, yeoman, and innkeep paths in Irduin – a bit more choice of who you’re hanging out with most, and what subplots you therefore get sucked into.
There is shipping (of a sort), there are duels, there is mentorship, there’s impersonating a Kryptast, there are elopements and conspiracies and scandals, there are kidnappings and murders most foul, and all that before we get to the gunpowder plots and Theurge clashes. And I don’t want any choice paths to be flops; I want both cautious and risky playthroughs to feel substantial.
The endgame is where all the Irduin plots converge and explode with each other. It’s pretty complex. Those of you who were here eight years ago may remember me groaning “Why did I think turning Ch 2 into a week-by-week marathon would be a good idea?” Gentle readers: I learned nothing.
When Monthduin finally arrives, I expect it to be much like the first revised G1 Ch 2 update: a big damn shambles that will need plenty of “this bit sucks!” feedback before we fine-tune it into something worthy of the word count.
Ultimately, my hope is that the complexity of the Irduin chapters will come close to matching the replayability of Uprising Ch 2, but without feeling at all like the same kind of management game, and that in the end it will be super fun.
I’m working as hard as I can toward that vision. I’m sorry to (once again) reach the end of a month without giving you something you can preview – but I’m pretty confident that when we finally get there, what I give you will be worth your time. That’s what’s keeping me going.