As long as it is optional. With both of my mc’s I deliberately chose an old guy at the end of his career and a young rookie, so less personal stakes for once doesn’t matter to me and is in fact kinda nice after all the super heavy stuff the mc is put through in other games.
Besides I read my old guy mc as between the lines already having gone through and bearing the scars, physical and mental of the kind of stuff mc’s in other games might suffer being a veteran scientist of those gray wars…the “I’ll never forget what we did to those kids” plus the having seen worse than the de cerebrated corpse and not even being slightly queasy there do hint at a dark and troubled past, except in this case it is actually in the past and this story is not about that. Also a decent chance he’s from a country and place that doesn’t even exist anymore in the game world thanks to those wars.
As a result he’s become sort of a cross between Columbo and John Munch in the modern game day.
My rookie mc is basically Barry Allen before he became the Flash, just a young, fit and eager rookie forensic scientist/cop. Carrington’s not wrong in calling him a fit nerd.
Unfortunately have to push it back once again, which is especially annoying since this isn’t even that large as an update, all things considered. Not totally sure I’ll get it done either since I don’t have super much time this weekend, but on the other hand there’s not super much left to do, so…
I think that can be arranged by the subchoices, much like the one you mentioned. Perhaps one of the subchoices for the Grey War should be, for example, that there’s someone you know in the city or that you made a contact with someone during the war but haven’t seen them in a while(then I can perhaps make one of the characters in the story into that character and give some alternate dialogue. Or make a new character for it. Or something). In any case, you’re right that it should be optional, but preferrably so that the player doesn’t “lose” any content just because they chose not to get it(in the sense that the game would be inferior with other choices. Although I suppose it does come down to immersion and atmosphere, hmm).
After all, the whole point of interactive fiction is to allow the player to personalize the story to fit themself(at least that’s the reason why I write it instead of a regular book, sort of). I’m sure a decent compromise can be achieved where both are viable experiences(without taking too much effort from me to make).
Got some done, but not enough. Won’t have much time tomorrow so I don’t think it’ll be ready then. I’ll put the deadline forward already. Busy week so I’ll be pessimistic again. Annoyingly this update’s stretching forward like most of them have.
Surprisingly got a fair deal done as I wasn’t as busy as expected. Even managed to solve the “no options” problem that happens when someone saves in the middle of a file that I replace with a newer upload.
Honestly I should’ve realized it earlier since it was just a matter of resetting all choices in the specific file. Since I haven’t reset them before, that has probably lead to some weird stuff on more than a few player’s games, like more than one path being “true” at the same time or stuff like that, which might result in very strange descriptions or dialogue at times.
It should be fixed for both the command and the assault variant, once I upload the update I’m finalizing now, and stay that way too. Of course you’ll still have to replay the choices, but that can’t really be avoided.
Unfortunately didn’t get any real work done, just “maintenance”. Won’t be able to do anything for the next two days either, I’m guessing. In fact, to make sure I don’t stress over it I’m deciding now that I won’t even try. Which means once more I have to push the deadline back, hopefully for the last time this time.
Vexing, but that’s how it is. Weekend should be pretty free, fortunately.
If only I had the magic power to know what the release date for each update is. (Or I didn’t need to whip myself to work with the artificial deadlines in the first place. )
As I’m prone to do, I decided to expand the segment at the last second after comparing it with the Stillwater variant. As I mentioned earlier, this is a bit shorter than the others, or rather, used to be a bit shorter. Now it’s much more in line with the command variants, words-count wise. (Stillwater variant is still the largest)
Naturally that means I’m doing the final check-up, again, tomorrow.
Anyway, it’s strange how much easier and faster writing fresh, new stuff is compared to finalizing the preplanned and polished stuff. Hopefully that means good news for the future, since the pace I’m making this could use a bit of a boost.
It may be a weird symptom of “I spent so much effort on this and all the connections, I can’t just rewrite it again, I have to make it work” vs “empty slate, do whatever you want, no worries”. (meaning all the planning and polish I did is in fact holding me back)
Then again, it might be due to the fact that what I added was dialogue rather than something else, and dialogue is usually way easier to write anyway(but in some ways more pointless, I suppose, depending on what the subject matter is of course).
Includes: Sheriff Williams Assault variant of the current segment. (18,000 words in all. Average 10,000 words per playthrough)
Finally done. Took way longer than it should have, but at least it’s done. Some parts I’m pleased with, others less so, as usual. In a weird way this variant may feel like it has less choices/options than the others, but that’s partially because it works a bit differently under the hood(partially because the focus is somewhat different too). If it makes for a bad experience, be sure to let me know.
As usual everything should be okay, but given the complexity of some of the code, on occasion it may lead to unusual results. If you see anything out of place, please report so I can fix it.
Next: The final part of this segment, the Infiltration variant. Once that is done, I’ll take one final look at all of them and add some missing parts, then we can finally move on to fresher stuff(well, not really, there’s still the three supplementary scenes linked to this I’ve polished, but they should be much easier to finalize since they’re not “action” scenes like the last few have been).
In any case, all of the variants have been made in somewhat different styles as an experiment. Once they’re all done and truly finished, I’m curious to know which works the best and which the worst. Making these has certainly been a very educational experience, I’ve especially learned a lot about what NOT to do.
Preliminary deadline for next update: 24th of September.
(Or I didn’t need to whip myself to work with the artificial deadlines in the first place. 
)
