Dawn of Heroes (WIP) (Updated 03/11/24)

Something about missing variable HasInstinct? A single letter typo. :face_exhaling: Sorry. Fixed.

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Hello everyone!

This year has been quite the run! With over 200k words done within the last 12 months this project is nearing the end, only a few more chapters to go. The current plan is for 27 chapters with one bonus chapter dedicated to a date-night with a LI. There will also be a short epilogue setting up the next story.

I have finished Chapter 22 and am working on the date night that I call Chapter 23+. This chapter will not exist to readers that do not have a love interest selected by an earlier chapter. I have also finished Chapter 16 and most of the job routes of Chapter 20. If I can muster it, Iā€™ll be done will all three by the end of next week.

I have decided that I am going to do a mix of public and private testing for the game. I am far enough ahead on the chapters that I will be releasing one chapter a month to the public demo. The one I dropped on the 23rd of this month was a bonus for the holidays. This means that I have now added another chapter to the demo! The demo now goes up to Chapter 16. I will be releasing Chapter 17 by the end of January.

I will be getting to the private testing soon, but I wanted to get a few more chapters finished first. I hope to have those done by the end of January. The private demo will cover everything I have written.

I have to say I am surprised to see that Aegis is voted as the most liked hero of the team and that Genesis was second. It was more surprising to see that people voted for Sir Aldridge! I will be closing the poll before releasing Chapter 17. With Aegis ahead by such a large margin I thought I would share an image of Aegis in her final costume for the novel. I will hide it for those that prefer to not be influenced by character art.

Aegis Art

Until next year! Happy New Year!

December Monthā€™s end update

  • Chapter 16 First Draft, all routes
  • Chapter 20 First Draft, 2 of 3 routes
  • Chapter 22 First Draft, all routes
  • Fixed some reported bugs

Still working on:

  • Mechanic Job Route
  • Chapter 23+
  • Adding a glossary
  • Custom gadget system
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Yeahā€¦ This, :joy_cat::joy_cat::joy_cat: I donā€™t know why but whatever I do I get Genesis, at least thatā€™s what I understood from what I triedā€¦

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The choice isnā€™t made until Chapter 19. :slight_smile: The extra chapter isnā€™t until Chapter 23. The demo does not cover this yet.

:joy_cat::smiling_imp::smirk_cat: yup, thought so. Thank You for the clarification. I was pretty much drained in every possible way when I read that update.

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Sorry for not being more specific. Iā€™ll try to fix that in the future.

What are the thoughts of the two most recent chapters? I am trying not to be stuck in an echo chamber with my writing. I would love to hear about any concerns or inconsistencies that may have been noticed.

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Do your previous player choices impact the way the MC feels about what went down on the ship?

No. This is part of the MCā€™s arc that I was aiming to have happen. The first half of the story was the rise of the hero. Sure there might have been some small falls, but the first half was overall positive. At the halfway point the hero falls and there is a decent that the hero needs to overcome as the climax builds up. At least that is the intention.

You asking that question does make me wonder if I could think of other means of having a fall based on older choices. This way it would feel more customized. :thinking:

Thanks for the question! What are your thoughts on this?

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I donā€™t really know how to really explain this, but stick with me. I feel like the fall needs to be based on more characterization. For me, the sudden fall the MC has based on how they perceived things didnā€™t quite sit right with me. You could also have 3 choices come up when the MC thinks about his past actions on the boat and they could alter the story a bit for players. For exampleā€¦

Player Choice 1: The MC feels he made the right choice in the end and continues on their heroics path just as confident as when they started. This choice keeps the MC confident about their self, their choices, and their enemies they have made throughout the story.

Player Choice 2: The MC questions their past actions, what they could have done to better the situation, and if they only made the situation worse by being there. This choice keeps the MC guessing later on in the story about how they should do things from now on, and if they are really up to the challenge of being a certified superhero with so many morally and distinct challenges they face daily.

Player Choice 3: The MC has full on regrets about what they did and how the situation all went down. They feel they are not suited to the superhero life and hang their cape up for another day. This choice drains and emotionally kills the MC, wondering if all the work they put in and did for people and their self was all for nothing. A police car could be in a high speed chase passing by the MC, and the MC comes to think, why even bother?.. Would I just regret being there?

All in all, itā€™s up to you how you choose to proceed, I just want to give you a little bit of my thinking process for your story! :grinning:

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Thank you for the feedback! I greatly appreciate it.

I think that Iā€™m following you here and I will think it over to a better degree throughout the day Iā€™m sure but here are my initial thoughts. I can understand where you are coming from and will work on making things sit better.

My biggest issue with the suggestion is choice 1. If the character has no regrets it would disrupt the whole of the second half of the story. There is no actual fall or character growth without a lesson to learn. If the character has no regrets why do what they do in Chapter 15?

Even if I worked with that and wrote an alternative version of every chapter effected by this, I wouldnā€™t like the lack of character growth on the main character. There is a life lesson being taught to the character that would not exist if there was no regret.

I could potentially work with Choice 2 and Choice 3 being the two choices because they both could lead to the events of Chapter 15 and what happens afterwards.

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Thanks for your reply to my comment! :grin: Any more feedback you would like on the game?

There is always this. :slight_smile: This is mainly about chapter 9 and 11.

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Hello everyone!

Thank you to everyone who have been submitting technical and grammatical errors to me. It means a lot.

I had hoped that I would have set up private alpha testing by now but it should not be too far away before I start asking for volunteers for that. I plan to make a Discord server for it and have not gotten around to that yet. In the mean time I have updated the Demo to include Chapter 17! Chapter 17 continues the story of Chapter 9. Chapter 17 was an odd one for me as when I conceived of the different routes there was no fall for the MC. Two years later the different chapters had to be changed because this time the MC would not be in costume.

I have finished the three routes of Chapter 23. I have also made some progress on the Mechanic route but I am not sure if I will be including it anymore on initial release. Due to things going on in my personal life I will have less time to write soon. I have started to plan for how to address this without causing major delays in release.

My potential solution is to finish writing the story and to submit it without the Mechanic or Police officer routes. I would then add those other two job routes later. It is possible given the amount of time it takes to be added and to reach the queue for release I might have those two routes finished for the actual release. What are your thoughts on this?

I have finished the first draft of Chapter 24 and will return to it later to see what changes I want to make with fresh eyes. I have started work on Chapter 25 and there is a lot happening in this chapter as we entered the Climax of the story starting on Chapter 23. Different choices are starting to come back to help or haunt the reader.

Until Next month!

January Monthā€™s end update

  • Added Chapter 17 to Demo
  • Chapter 23 First Draft, all routes
  • Chapter 24
  • Fixed some reported bugs

Still working on:

  • Mechanic Job Route
  • Chapter 25
  • Adding a glossary
  • Custom gadget system
23 Likes

Hello everyone!

I will be doing private Alpha testing soon and was wanting to see who all was interested in testing. Alpha testing will cover everything up to my latest first drafts. There are a lot of typos and issues to sort through.

This testing will be in different stages:
Stage 1 - Typos and inconsistences
Stage 2 - Idea input
Stage 3 - Rewrite and Repeat (Will be redoing a lot of the coding later)

I will be starting out with a small group and I can not guarantee who all will be part of the test. If you are interested please PM me. I may not respond to everyone, but anyone I accept I will send a Discord invite to through the PM for information tracking on the tests.

I will continue to update the public demo slowly. This will not slow that down.

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Hello everyone!

There have been a few changes in my life in the last month that has affected the production of this story. While it has not stopped it has slowed down due to me getting a second job. I have cut down my weekly wordcount requirements that I have placed on myself.

This month the writing has been all about Chapter 25. There are a few different directions that the story might focus while multiple events happen at the same time. A choice in Chapter 24 will decide where the main character is in all of the action. This is the initial basis for why the wordcount of this chapter will be so high. The main character might be in one of four locations in this chapter. On top of that older choices are stating to come back and will add to issues or will get rid of some threats all together.

I have decided that I will be writing the mechanic and police officer routes after submitting the project. There is a good chance that these other two routes will be finished in time for release, if not there will still be a completed game on release and those extra routes Iā€™ll be fine will adding for free.

I have updated the demo to go to Chapter 18 of the story where the main character will finally come to terms with the events at the docks. I have decided that the Demo will not be going past Chapter 19. So at best I have one last chapter before the demo is no longer updated.

As the title has suggested, I have started the Alpha testing and have gotten a little bit of feedback and some great fixed for spelling and grammar! I look forward to being able to focus on specific parts. If I can get through Chapter 25, I feel that I will be able to move to asking focused questions and getting great suggestions for feedback on them. :slight_smile: A special thanks to my Alpha Testers.

At this time I do not think that I will be adding a custom gadget system. I like the idea but where to place it in the story and the addition of adding more writing for it seemed like a fair bit of additional writing to the story.

Until Next month!

Februaryā€™s Monthā€™s end update

  • Added Chapter 18 to Demo
  • Started Alpha Testing

Still working on:

  • Mechanic Job Route
  • Chapter 25
  • Adding a glossary
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Thanks author

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Found these typos.

That was a dramatic end for a chapter. Hope all goes well with testing!

Fixed

I hope it was a good end to a chapter :crossed_fingers:

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