Cyberpolice (Minor Update: 19th of March 2024) (WIP)

No update today.

Finalized another section. Two more to go. Hopefully I’ll get them done tomorrow since the rest of the weekend will be very busy. This certainly has taken so much more time than I expected that it isn’t even funny. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I prefer Still’s Synth charms with both my mc’s actually…but only my younger one may be looking for a relationship that goes beyond partners with benefits. :wink:

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No update today.

Unfortunately couldn’t finish it today. Which means Monday at earliest. See you then.

I’m sure it’ll feel really good to finally put this segment to rest next week. :stuck_out_tongue:

I certainly didn’t think it’d take almost a month to make this. A week was my original idea and even that was kinda ‘too much’ for what it is. Oh well.

PS It’s at 50,000 words at the moment, although some of that is comments and other stuff the player won’t see(as well as code, of course).

The final amount will probably be around 45,000 since I’ll be deleting some of the stuff once it’s of no use. (plans, obsolete stuff I decided not to use, etc)

The end result might not be as impressive as the word count might make it seem, though! :smiley: (Or it might, I guess we’ll have to wait and see! It’s always really hard to say from this side of the screen)

One thing’s for sure, I’ve DEFINITELY learned my lesson about bloat this time. :woozy_face:

Well, hopefully I’ll have the skill to deliver on that! (as well as the other relationship variants like friends, rivals, etc :wink: )

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Somehow I already know who will see you as a rival easily.

Cough… Cough… Carrington… Cought…

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No update today.

The final two segments are being way more annoying than the first two.

Up to 57,000 now(compared to 50,000 before), but still not done.

Not sure if I should call it “finalizing” when there’s this much stuff to do. :expressionless:

I should probably start working in a different manner, where I first make the basic skeleton of a scene, and THEN add other stuff, instead of peppering in cool stuff as I plan and make the scene, whereupon I’m left with a "unless I do this stuff that I put here, much of the previous stuff I wrote is pointless’ kinda situation.

Yes, I think I’ll do that for the rest of the project. No adding ANY new variables or really anything until all that’s already here has been processed. Will make it a bit more annoying to insert things in the middle of a scene, but I’m sure it beats this kind of hellish bloat I’m stuck with. Like, maybe I shouldn’t have originally thought that “hey, how hard can it be to make 3 ‘minigames’ into this segment? It sounds pretty easy and relatively effortless when I think about it”. Hint: It wasn’t.(and once I had done them to a certain degree, I just couldn’t not do them, right? :stuck_out_tongue: )

In any case, not ready yet. Probably not for a few days if things continue like this.

Oh, really? :laughing:

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No update today.

Almost done with the third segment. After that it’s just the final one left. It’ll feel so good to be done with this soon. Can’t wait to get back to plot related stuff, since it feels like I’m getting somewhere when I do that stuff as opposed to “bonus” stuff like this. :relieved:

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No update today.

Didn’t get much done due to busy schedule. The rest of the week should be relatively free, so it’ll be done this week no matter what. Even with my wildly inaccurate estimates, I can’t see how it’ll take more than a few days at this point. :stuck_out_tongue:

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No update today.

Probably ready on Saturday or Sunday.

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No update today.

Pretty much complete. Will have to add some connective text between the segments, but nothing major.

On the other hand, I’ll have to do a final pass of all the stuff and remove the comments and whatnot, which will take a while given that it’s 65,000 words at the moment. Should be a bunch less after I’m done.
(had to resort to some lame copy-pasting on certain parts, skim through other parts, and outright remove a few things which is unfortunate, but that’ll have to do for now. If it ain’t good enough, I’ll fix it later, but I’m guessing that’s just me being perfectionistic)

Tomorrow or Sunday.

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No update today.

Tomorrow. Which makes it a month all in all.

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Updated with next file.

Contains: Fun Tuesday.

Also, a new skip point to it has been added.

Important: Might be unstable so might not want to save while in the new stuff for the moment, so you don’t ruin your save…

Current average playthrough:

  • Total average: 120,000(vague estimate) (was 113,000. Around 65,000 words added overall. Lots of it is code, so actual words closer to 40,000 I’d guess. Also, this version doesn’t have all of them yet, more on below.)

Okay, finally after a month I managed to get it done. :partying_face:

However, there’s one caveat. I decided to add something to one of the four segments, so it’s been blocked off for now since it’s mildly incomplete as a result. Should be up in a day or two. Essentially the billiards/pool scene isn’t available for now, but the others are. Couldn’t help myself, sorry.

Regardless, there’s 3 decent sized scenes in it currently, with a massive amount of variation. Maybe a bit too much in the sense that what you see on screen per playthrough isn’t all that much compared to what was written. :stuck_out_tongue:
(especially since lots of it is ‘simple’ variations than complex ones, meaning you might not notice the difference if you don’t pay attention, and that are extremely context sensitive)

It’d be great if I could get some feedback on the scenes. Your thoughts and opinions, etc. (for the moment you only get to play through 2 scenes per playthrough, so to see them all you’ll have to do it twice. Which is good in that it might force you to try a scene twice and thus get a different point of view on it :slight_smile: )

I know for a fact that the ‘balance’ is totally out of whack in the two where it matters, and I’ll take another look at the numbers in the coming few days.

A month is a massive amount of time to waste on the end result, IMO, but I learned a lot, chiefly what not to do. :smiley:

As such, I’ll definitely proceed with a minimalistic ‘skeleton’ approach in the future. Meaning: I’ll make the most basic form possible of a scene and move on, if possible, and only add variability when I absolutely must. Once stuff is ready for the “second polishing pass” I’ll take another look at them and add the stuff that I want to add, rather than what I need to have.

What that SHOULD do is make sure I proceed on a timely schedule, yet also get some interesting stuff added. It’s quite evident that unless I restrict myself I just bloat stuff out of control no matter what, so I need drastic measures.

Hopefully the end result is more efficient where I don’t get stuck on more-or-less pointless stuff(in the grand scheme of things) for weeks.

That said, while the stuff I wrote isn’t necessarily what I hoped it would be, I don’t think it’s bad by any means, so I’d really want to hear some opinions on them(whether positive or negative). Since the segment is pretty much self-sufficient, you don’t need to worry about spoilers or anything for the most part, so you can play it no matter where you’re in the story. Use the skip point to get there if you want(start a new game, click a bunch of times to make your character and once you exit the train you’ll get the option to jump to the new content(After the strategy meeting, etc to get to it).

As promised, here’s a few ‘achievements’ for you to try out if you want. (they’re largely either pretty easy or impossible to achieve due to the numbers being unbalanced, so be warned :slight_smile: )
(vague description followed by exact thing to do)

Laugh the Unlaughable: Make Chief Chaska laugh.
Help to Win the Unwinnable: Help Daniels win big against Stillwater
Shipping time: Get Mouse and Bailey to hug by having them win against you.

There’s some more minor things too, but these are the hardest to reach/biggest effects for the characters, I think.

In any case, I’ll never do anything like this again, period, so enjoy it if you can.

PS I was pretty tired when I did all the bug hunting for this release, so there might be some weirdness left in some points. It was a lot of text and code to go through, so if you spot any weird stuff please report it. Same goes for this post. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Soooo…

the average length of a novel hovers around 50,000-70,000 words

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone : 76,944 words.

You from Mars or something? Choicescript writers really are a different breed. Can’t wait to see the new content :eyes::sparkles:

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Heh, thanks, but the fact is that the number of words doesn’t equate to quality words. There’s a reason why normal novels are kept short; people don’t want to read pointless words, and if you’re uncritical of what you write you tend to put lots of pointless ones in. If you use 20 words when 5 would suffice, it’s a sign of bad writing, not good writing. :wink:

Now, if the stuff I’ve written is also good, well, that’s something now, isn’t it? :smiley:

(Also, it’s way easier to write variations of the same thing than one long thing, since variations don’t need nearly as much thought as a cohesive story. Of course, a variable cohesive story is even harder)

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I get the exact same error as reported above. The elevator ride with Mari Badr has become an inescapable death trap.

line 1475: No selectable options

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You probably have to restart your game, that line will show up if you have an old save from the previous version of the wip

Made a bugfix for the two of you. Hopefully it’ll help.

If not, post here and I’ll try something else.

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No update today. (aside from bugfix)

I kept today off, and will do so tomorrow as well. I figure it’s a good idea after a month of work and not too much rest. :smiley:

I’ll keep an eye on the forums in case of problems, but other than that I’ll resume work on Wednesday with the fourth segment.

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The saves I’ve been using are right before the Janice meeting and havent had any errors

It only happen if you already past janice meeting