I think that’s going to be a hard sell since even my supernaturals are implied to speak Russian in their dealings with humanity.
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Boy I love when quicktest says an indentation is 1 and not 4, even though the indentation is 4, then when I delete and repaste it, it works. Then does the exact same thing for every other line in the fucking chapter that has an indent.
EDIT: Now it’s telling me the indentation should be 1 and not 4. This is the worst part of making a game. I’m pretty sure it’s because I wrote some of the on my tablet at university, and for some reason it’s calling the indents I made there ‘1’ instead of ‘4’ because of the device it was on, even though they show up as 4 on the actual page. Weird.
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I figured this deserved a post in itself; The Bureau has now been updated! A bunch of QoL changes as well as a new part of the current chapter is live. Man, it feels good to get that done before Christmas…
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Happy holidays, Vi!
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Happy holidays! 
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Well, I was planning on getting a lot of writing done while with my family for the holidays!
Now, I’m planning on getting some writing done… in my apartment… while I battle a ridiculously high COVID fever. 
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Get well soon!
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Probably end up with something like this 
Something appears in the air in front of you. It hits the floor (or what appears to be the floor) with an audible “thunk”.
“Did you get it?”
It appears to be a silver metal cylinder a little longer than your hand, with a shaft of light extending from it. I know what you’re thinking, but I can’t say it here, because that word is trademarked. It’s not though, or at least I think it isn’t.
Prod it with your foot
It’s not alive, or at least I think it isn’t. I…
“OI!”
Did… did the flashlight just say something?
“Yes I did, and stop poking me with your foot.”
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Just branch. Two people are walking, and then someone says “oh look at that thing!”
“I had a thing like that when I was a kid.”
“Really? what was it like?”
(good lines go here.)
“Anyway, we’d better get back to (the main thing.) X will throw a hideous fit if we’re late.”
Romance branch :
Two people are walking, and then someone says “oh look at that thing!”
“That’s been here since before we were born.”
“and it’ll be here after we’re gone.”
“life’s short.”
“So I was thinking…”
“Hmm?”
“maybe…”
“maybe?”
“Hey you guys, are you ready for the festival?”
(and then we’re back on track.)
Friendship branch :
“That’s been here since before we were born.”
“and it’ll be here after we’re gone.”
“life’s short.”
“Morbid!”
“You know what?”
“hmm?”
“I’ll miss you.”
Kate makes a face, whips her baseball cap off, and jams it on your head.
“Be normal, dumbass.”
(Made it up on the spot, needs to have a background and description of the scene of course.)
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Ohhhh,ok. You’re talking about coding efficiency, which I feel is different from actual writing. Coding efficiency comes with time and practice. No one’s first, second or even third games are going to be efficient. XD
To be fair, I read the term once in a game-design text book, and I may be using the wrong term for it. TAT
I go to my tried-and-true. Senses. Add a sentence for each sense the player should be able to see/feel in that scene.
This is a legit worry of mine. XD And something I intend to look out for in the Editing process. But when I’m just writing, I see no reason not to leave myself *comment notes to come back to.
When I was writing novels, I never once followed this advice. I always picked a name at the very beginning. Something that told me what the story was about. For example, “Knight of Kuryle” was about the Mc, who was a knight and had to balance that duty with his own heart.
“Finding Love in the Little Prince’s Back Court” is about a concubine who finds love with another concubine in her husband’s household.
“Phoenix Rising” in this case is about the main character rising in station by finding love or by scheming for it.
Etc.
Dunno if this helps any, but that’s how I pick my naming conventions.
THIS. THIS IS HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE BRANCHING SITUATION. Thank you for putting it into words.
I have never loved anything more than I love seeing this. Oh my god. You are amazing for posting this here. Thank you so much.
You can help alleviate this by offering nothing-choices. Choices that don’t matter in the long run but give the player some measure of ‘control’. For example, if the conversation is at a meal, give them the option of picking which dish they take something from, or whether they drink in the middle of a person’s speech. Sometimes choices you make don’t have to matter in the long run, but can affect how the scene plays out. Like, choosing to chug your wineglass while someone is making a speech is gonna get you looked at funny by the people sitting on either side of you.
This is also very, very true.
GOOD JOB, VILS! Oh man, you should post a link to your WIP post here, so that we can easily find it. XD
ITS YULETIDE GUYS!!! Many blessings to everyone around here, and I hope you have all the luck and fortitude this year!
That said, I’m not anticipating getting a lot of writing done on my WIP this week, or even next. Work has been taking the worst out of me, and I can’t focus on anything really. But yeah.
That said, I’m worried I’m not putting up updates quickly enough on here. I haven’t updated the game since October, and I’ve written a lot… but I’m not in at a place in the writing where I could actually test it, much less post it up without getting a lot of “There’s errors here” messages.
Plus, I’m running into my ADHD wall of “ugh, this sucks so bad, why should I even bother writing it.” which precludes me dropping a project. I don’t WANT to, and part of my major goals for next year is to finish this game. But considering I’ve spent five months working on ONE CHAPTER… I dunno.
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Here you are!
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Happy holidays, everyone.
Here it is, the end of week three for this month.
This month has been a whirlwind of editing and of changes for Patchwerks. So far, I think the feedback I have received on my alpha copy has led to some good changes, and I can’t wait until I get new feedback on the new copy.
This upcoming week, I will be working on everything related to the “deathsights” in the game. This includes: mechanics, writing, structure (both code and writing) and even the display of stats related to them.
I’m adding two new NPC characters to the cast to help facilitate these changes and doing the research and work that goes into making them was a blast of fun for me, connecting me to the earlier efforts I made for cast characters at the beginning of the project.
Both Hel and Hadran are grounded in mythology and theology respectively, and both of them will be representing deities in the story. One of the concepts (later discarded) involved them sitting on the shoulders of the MC during their facetime. I still want to keep the same flavor and tension that exists between them and the MC, but to do so in a less tropy and less obvious manner.
I hope everyone that is fighting illness starts to feel better and I hope those fighting the holiday blues will be able to overcome them as well.
. 
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I just returned from Christmas dinner with my family (yes, we do it early).
I’m so very drained now. Not looking forward to cooking big Christmas dinner myself tomorrow. All the illness, and not sleeping well, is really catching up to me at the most inopportune time.
I hope you all will have very nice and stress-free holiday times!
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Oh, my. This is a nice thread! I hope I’m allowed to post here, I’m new to this I apologize!
I feel like other authors write much more words in a much shorter span of time than I do, and I think it’s partly because I constantly revise and edit as I go. It’s a compulsion at this point! I can’t stand not rereading the stuff I wrote and making tiny revisions and going on thesaurus.com and augh! It’s really hindering my productivity. Does anyone have tips for just forcing yourself to keep going? Not getting stuck on one singular word choice or line of dialogue?
Also, I lurk on here sometimes and the image about word count per day was so helpful. I told myself I’d do 1k/day and I never did. Then told myself just 200 or 300 was fine, now I mostly end up writing more than that just to finish what I started!
Happy holidays!! 
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Welcome to the Support Threads KermitKC!
You are very welcome to participate, in this month’s thread as well as the future months, if you desire.
I set up a “schedule” for each phase of my project, and I have: “complete the 1st draft copy” as the number one on the agenda.
By doing that, I have future “passes” lined up for editing and I give myself “permission” to let go of fixating on the little stuff, because I will be addressing those things in later passes.
I even breakdown editing into different passes. For example: one pass I set up is to hunt down places where I use the same word multiple times close together. In one scene, I think I used the word “cold” like six times in the space of three sentences.
Instead of fixating on this as I was working on addressing another issue, I was able to put a note in my schedule under the pass dedicated to this and let it go. Taking notes to myself is important to this process because it assures my brain that I will address what it is fixated on at the moment and I can return to whatever it is I am supposed to be doing.
I am so happy this has helped. This is precisely what Cataphrak was suggesting would occur.
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That is so incredibly helpful–thank you for sharing!! Some structure and “phases” or checkpoints is actually a genius idea. I can imagine a second pass for adding flavor text depending on previous choices etc. That’s perfect!
I very much appreciate the reply! 
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Handwrite it away from a computer. The increased difficulty of editing discourages constant revision.
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That’s smart! I gotta try this.
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I had to have an echocardiogram on Thursday to check a recently diagnosed heart murmur. So, with that being on my mind and Combined with the last-minute Christmas rush at work and some last-minute shopping for a few additional gifts. I have not written much lately, so it’s less likely that I will reach my goal for December. I hope to do some catching up tomorrow.
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What I don’t know about feelings would fill a book
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