No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow?
Update is more or less complete, depending on whether I’ll tune the final scene or not. It’s not entirely in the shape I want it to be, but it may be better to work on it later since it’s one of those scenes that can have huge ramifications depending on some stuff(and some of the stuff isn’t set in stone yet, so… 
)
Anyway, update possibly tomorrow, or Monday in case I work on it a bit more.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow?
Didn’t end up tuning the final scene. Instead, I tuned the first scene.
Once I tested it in practice it was pretty obvious that the scene was way more interesting for some of the variations(assault-infiltrate-command), to an awkward degree. I already improved on it a lot, but I think a bit more work would be good. It’s a very important scene after all, and it’d be lame if in some playthroughs it was more of a “guess that happened” than an actually interesting scene.
Hopefully tomorrow.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow?
Much better now, but still a bit more to do. Presumably tomorrow. As usual, I can’t help myself and will never learn to not do the whole “tomorrow” spam. 
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Alright, so I might be improving on the “main” scene a lot.
As such, I’m changing the deadline back to this week.
It is a rather important node-scene where plenty of stuff come to be relevant, so I want to do it right. Which means I’ve had to dig around the various outcomes for the slums stuff from way back in order to check some stuff and see what information I’d given the player on the various variations there(even the hospital stuff). I think it’s way, way better this way. Frankly it’s a bit dumb of me not to have considered this stuff earlier since it’s so obvious. It’s always when I test the scenes in practice that they show their flaws.
Shouldn’t take too long since I’m mostly restructuring the stuff and making sure the information is right, rather than writing a ton of text or choices or variations or such. But I do need to include the relevant consequences and write more text for some of those.
Anyway, soonish.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Some progress was made.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This weekend.
Won’t be too long now. As usual, hard to estimate, but it’s in good shape.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This weekend.
Still a bit to do. I’ll be putting some polls on the update, since I have an annoying feeling certain things are WAY more likely than they should be. I’ll have to severely change the likelihood of some things being true in the Major Update, I feel. For now an irrelevant concern, for the true final version of the game, well, it’s a pretty important thing for sure. 
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow
Probably tomorrow, not totally sure.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow
Alright, essentially done, but I’ll still have to play around with the numbers since they’re a bit off, and that means some playtesting with a few different “choice-lines”(plus actually deciding how much I want the player to be able to know/achieve on an average playthrough. Obviously I’ll need to do it for real with the Major Update, but it’s probably wise to do it now as well while I’m actually focused on the segment).
You’ll see what I mean tomorrow, presumably.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow
Didn’t have too much time today, and admittedly felt a bit anxious since this is the last “linear” update before I move to the Major Update, so it’s a bit intimidating and I want it to be as good as it can be. 
(obviously no amount of number tinkering will change anything THAT much, but I’d like to have different playthroughs have relatively different outcomes for the scene, since it’ll determine a lot of stuff from this point onward. The exact way some of the information/deals are unlocked during the interrogation is therefore really important, and it’s a bit hard to find a “proper” balance for that stuff. Too generous and every player will end up knowing everything, too stingy and the rest of the game will be a weird fizzling out for some players. Not to mention that I want all the previous information/evidence to have as much meaning as possible, but at the same time make it so that you’re not completely locked out of stuff because you didn’t happen to uncover something(and can “buy” some stuff you didn’t uncover during your playthrough). Anyway, it’s really simple but at the same time really tough to do. )
As usual, I’ll be relying on polls to get feedback on it once I post the update(tomorrow, I hope. I really shouldn’t be fiddling with this stuff for too long since it’s bound to change once the sub-plots are done, and so on ).
Update Today.
Includes: Interrogations after the operation. (21,000 code and all, 12,000 in-game text)
(didn’t want to finish it last night since I was too tired, decided to do it in the morning instead, sorry about the unusual posting time 
)
Well now, that certainly took far longer than it should’ve. Partially due to my late/post-October lack of willpower due to competing worldly interests, partially due to me being too obsessive about pointless details.
I should always remember that “perfect is the enemy of good”. Not that what I just made is anywhere close to perfection, but anyway, better to spend time wisely by making lots of good stuff, than to waste effort on polishing pointless minutiae.
Anyway, as for the contents, in the end I didn’t include the two bonus scenes I kept yammering about. The first because it didn’t really feel right to put it here as it would’ve been sort of a pointless “tease” to end the linear stuff on, and the latter because it would’ve been seen by only a few people, been really out of place timeline wise, and it would’ve spoiled some things outrageously much, so I figured it’d be better to remove it for now.
So, unfortunately you only have the interrogation stuff. The final form it took is less than optimal, I have to admit. It’s not terribly immersive, and can be really janky since it shows you lots of information in a somewhat poorly organized manner(and occasionally repeats almost the same information, if you’ve uncovered “rumors” and “facts” of the same thing. Didn’t really know what to do about it, so I did nothing. Hope it isn’t too terrible).
Anyway, on the positive side at least the numbers look good now, based on the playtests I did of a few routes! 
Of course, it’s only a few tests, and I have in-depth knowledge of what stuff matters in relation to each other, so it may be very biased on my part.
That’s why I’m very interested on how people feel about it, especially if they have more than one playthrough, since the idea is that you’d get rather different results depending on all the stuff you’ve done in the game. (which slum route you took, how did the route end(interrogation, hospital, cooperation), various other random things here and there in the game, as well as the recent big operation and what outcome you got on it on which route).
Anyway, the polls about the many concerns I have over this:
Next: One night stands.
Deadline: 28th of October
That’s right, less than a week to do them. Should be fine since they’re much easier to write than all of this pre-polished bullshiiiit I’ve been making for the last 6 months, and I’ve already written large parts of them during this update.
Reason for the deadline is that I’m once again going on a trip for December, and I’m leaving on the 29th, so I have to get them done before that. Trip length will be from 2 to 5 weeks, not entirely sure yet. Worst case scenario I’ll be back early January of next year.
I probably can’t post while I’m gone, or work, but I might be able to(absolute minimum I’ll finish the one night stands if I can’t do them before I leave). In the event that I can’t write too much, what I can do is to really organize the Major Update stuff so it’ll be easier to work on it. I’ll probably outline the different scenes and routes I need to do and make an easily understandable list of all the information I need to remember, and all that.
Thus, once I get back, I’ll have a strong idea on what to do so that I don’t need to redo stuff over and over again, due to constantly changing information, etc.
No “official” post later on today, since I’m considering this to be it.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: 29th of November.
I’ll be posting the daily update a lot earlier than usual, since I need to change my sleep schedule before my trip.
So far progress is good.
Good to see that there don’t seem to be any major problems with the recent update. I’ll probably change some/all of the choices so they’re visible. It’s a bit tricky since by their very nature some of the things are quite spoilery, I suppose.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: 29th of November.
Done with the Mari Badr version. It was quite easy and fun to write. It’s an altogether different matter whether it’s good or not. (plus you could argue it’s not necessarily romantic, I guess it depends on how you define it. Mari Badr isn’t exactly prone to romanticism )
No update today.
Deadline for next update: 29th of November.
Done with Mouse version. It too was pretty easy. Not entirely sure if the same will be true for the other two.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: 29th of November.
Done with the Carrington version, plus parts of the “meta-scene”(gala/party) that leads to these. Not entirely sure I’ll manage to finish the meta-scene before I leave, since it’s meant to include lots of other stuff too(talking to some of the suspects in a more festive mood, etc), and will feel weird if I don’t don’t manage to put that stuff in. Anyway, I’ll focus on the Stillwater version, then see if I have time to make that scene or not. Worst case scenario I’ll include a super-barebones version of the gala/party so there’s some proper context.
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Tomorrow
Stillwater version done. Quite interesting to write, but not sure if it’s what people want.
Anyway, I’ll work on the meta-scene now. Also, since I’m leaving early on the 29th, that means update has to be tomorrow. (meaning, whether the meta-scene is barebones or not will depend on stuff. Probably quite barebones given how little time I have and how much it theoretically needs. Fortunately, no testing needed since there’s no numbers or “real” choices or whatever, just dialogue and stuff)
Update Today.
Includes: Extended version of Mari Badr one night stand scene. (10,000 in game text)
So… about what happened. You see, I was thinking that since I had plenty of time today, I’d expand the Mari Badr version, since it was the easiest and most interesting to write…
Problem is, the end result is a bit TOO good compared to the others.
Meaning, the other three look pretty embarrassing next to it, and I felt really awkward about uploading them, so it’s ONLY the Mari Badr version for now. (pretty much doubled the amount of words in it)
However, I will be doing the same treatment for the other three(starting with the Stillwater version) while I’m on my trip, since I have a fair deal of time the first week or so. I’ll try to post updates about it too, if I can. (might not be able to post tomorrow, but after that should be fine)
Anyway, the length and quality of the Mari Badr version can be considered to be representative of the others once they’re done in this level of detail too. Style is very different for each, though.
In any case, remember that I’ve never written this stuff before, so it’s entirely possible I have no idea what people want from it, and I delivered something very different than what was desired. If so, please be kind and honest and post about it, so I won’t stay ignorant forever. Positive feedback is also very welcome, if I did something right!
If no one posts regarding it, I’ll have to assume something like this is what people mean when they speak of romantic content(although this isn’t a “romance” as much as a tiny, specifically aimed fragment of one.)
Theoretically this scene may or may not be included in any romance you might have, but it’s still a very good example of what type of stuff I could be able to write(for Mari Badr specifically, as I said, the style depends a lot on the character)).
Also, note that I’m not 100% sure on what the stance for inappropriate stuff is for hosted games, so I’ll need your opinion on it too. Obviously there’s nothing explicit in it, but there’s some rather implicit stuff, and I was wondering whether it crossed the line or not? (of course, the level of violent descriptions are occasionally maybe a bit over the line here and there in the story itself, so… )
(Also, remember NOT to save within this, since this is a dead-end scene. You should have a permanent save in the meta node, and never save inside these dead-ends that I’ll be making for a while as I make the Major Update. You can of course make temporary save slots if you want to try out different choices, but some of the variance depends on some stuff that you’ve chosen earlier, so doing it like that won’t cover all possibilities(read the code to see the full extent of the stuff. Mostly flavor, though, with some fancy deep tidbits here and there for very specific things))
Some important polls: (I guess mostly for people who’d think of “romancing” Mari Badr in the first place, naturally if you have no interest in her that’ll influence your opinion on the scenes, right?)
Sorry for anyone who waited for the other scenes, it’s way better this way in the end. Unlike the delays of the recent times, these scenes are so much easier to write that it’s crazy. Thus, should be done with ease. (but then, I always say that, so…)
Deadlines for next updates Once they’re done. No exact timetable, but throughout the next 7 days or so.
PS: I’ll try to remember to grey out the interrogation scenes at some point.
The scene was good enough but feel like it was too short and too much was fade to black and not told. Feel like the 12 hours should be expanded more in story
What would a good length be? Do you think it was too short by half? Or more? Any estimate? Or just short from a “story” perspective(as you mentioned, the 12 hours). So, not short word count wise, but short “narrative” wise?
And as far as I was aware, you can’t show too much on regular hosted games, isn’t the Heart’s Choice label for more explicit stuff? Or where has the line exactly been drawn? Practical examples would be best.
Thanks for the feedback.
Probably my last post until either tomorrow evening, or the day after tomorrow, but don’t let that anyone from posting feedback even if I can’t reply.
