December 2023's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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This month I haven’t been posting on the writers support thread all that often. Other real world out of game issues had to be tackled with. I’m sorry for not showing up so frequently. See you in 2024! I’m hoping for more good adventures to surface! Thank you all a lot for this year’s support and encouragement!

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Here is December’s digest of new WIPs, releases, and updates! Congratulations to everyone who’s written something this month, publicly or otherwise. If there’s anything wrong or I’ve missed something, please let me know; I’m not sure if the username tags are working correctly this time. I hope to do a big combined summary of the last three months too, in a separate post.

Releases:

Current Closed Beta Testing:

CoG WIP updates:

New HG and Hobby WIPs

HG and Hobby WIP updates:

New Steam pages:

BourbonDingo Reviews:

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Since you seem to keep on top of this stuff, are there any news regarding Julian Kim’s current CoG project? I forget the name. :confused:

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And here is a digest of the digests - three months’ worth of releases, updates, and new WIPs from October to December inclusive. It’s astonishing to see how much people have made in just a short time, and that’s on top of the Halloween Jam entries which were a lovely burst of games at the end of October. 10 releases and 128 new and updated WIPS in three months - it blows my mind! As ever let me know if I’ve got anything wrong - this is a long list to handle - and well done to everyone for your creativity this autumn and winter.

Releases:

CoG WIP updates:

New HG and Hobby WIPs:

HG and Hobby WIP updates:

New Steam Pages:

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Undying Fortress! I don’t know anything in particular other than that I’m looking forward to it. This is what’s in the upcoming games thread:

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Yes, that’s the one. Thanks, it at least allows me to relax a bit by confirming it’s already on my wishlist, so Steam will let me know when it’s out.

Fog Knows Your Name was so good (bullshit stat requirements at the final checks notwithstanding), can’t wait for this one! :smiley:

Also looking forward to the Hunter and Kyle Marquis’s Werewolf games, which should (?) be arriving in 2024.

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Thank you kindly for the shoutout @HarrisPS Writiing is lonely work so it’s great to hear it.

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I’m very much looking forward to it! The WoD games and Hexfinder too in particular.

Right, now that I’ve posted a load of lists today, I’m going to… post another list in a minute.

I did do Chapter 7, and some edits to earlier chapters! Secretly despite my modest “that will be a major bonus” I was hoping to race ahead and do a load of coding on Chapter 8 and that didn’t happen because there are some complexities I need to untangle - probably moving some planned scenes to a later chapter - and, well. Frankly, winter has been kicking me a whole lot even as there have been very lovely things going on at the same time. But as mentioned I have been able to get out into the fresh air and do various other things that improve my health and happiness, amidst a lot of tricky points and stress. In the latter half of next week I’ll be back on the metaphorical horse (in real life I am not very good at horseriding).

This year has been really huge because it was my first year of mostly working with Choice of Games (I did some other contract work but CoG was the main work thing going on). I was very nervous going into it, but it’s been more successful than I could have possibly hoped even in an awful year for the field of games at large. And I’ve written… so much. What I did on Honor Bound and the Royal Affairs epilogue alone was over 330,000 words, and I can’t easily count up what I did on Elite Status but it was big. It’s truly been a massive year!

Some things I’ve done:

My goals next year are to get Honor Bound out, start another project (maybe two… heh), and set aside a bit more time to myself along with the work. Right now I would really like another year of freelancing, as the flexibility has been just what I need to help sort out my work/life balance, but the longer-term sustainability remains to be seen.

I hugely appreciate the community here and many thanks to @Eiwynn for setting up these monthly threads and to everyone who participates. It’s really nice to be able to chat with other writers in this space, as well as everyone else elsewhere on the forum, and learn from what people are doing and everyone’s different approaches, and what different people do and don’t like. Thank you for another year of discussion and support!

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@HarrisPS Wow, that must have been so much work. Thank you. :two_hearts:

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Wow! I’m so impressed by the work everyone is doing. It’s humbling to see the collective progress from so many writers crafting their stories. Well done, all!

Agreed. I didn’t start using the forum until after my first game was published, but I’ve really enjoyed reading through and learning more about what people like and don’t like so I can make my next game that much better.

My 2023 writing wrap-up:

  • Their Majesties’ Pleasure was published by Heart’s Choice in June. This was my first interactive fiction project. It took me the better part of two years from concept to completion. I’m honestly blown away by some of the comments on the forum and the positive ratings it has received, which has resulted in me actually having confidence in my writing. (Or more confidence, anyway, rather than constantly wrestling with imposter syndrome.) I had a lot of fun with this project but it was really hard writing. Now I look back and it was so worth it!
  • I took the story and characters from Their Majesties’ Pleasure and adapted it into the start of a series of novels. The first novel is completed and received great feedback from betas. The second novel is paused at about 1/3, but I have a 5-7 book series outlined for whenever I get back to it.
  • I pitched my current WIP to Heart’s Choice and signed a second contract. Writing this game has been so much smoother! It was fully worth the learning curve I struggled through with the first game to get to this point. I can’t believe how much fun I’m having with it!

One of the things I enjoyed the most about wrapping up Their Majesties’ Pleasure was the beta testing process. I’m super grateful to everyone who participated—the feedback made the game so much better and helped me grow as a writer. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it has been an absolute joy to work with Abby Trevor as my editor, and HC/CoG as a company. Pardon the cliche but the support provided has been a writer’s dream come true.

My goals for next year are to complete this game for HC, and bring 2 more of the novels in my series adaption to completion. I’ve queried the first novel this year but my guess is I’ll end up self-publishing once I have 3 or 4 of the books ready. I like the control you have with self-publishing, though if I find the right publisher it would be nice to have that support behind the series. Personally, I prefer to read series that have at least 3 or 4 books published (rather than waiting years for the next part of the story) so that will be my approach with the novels.

I’m glad I decided to participate in this writer’s thread this month. It’s been wonderful connecting with all of you and I’m looking forward to hearing about your progress as we launch into a new year!

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One of projects is a mystery, and I’ve started to really like my victim. I don’t want her to die :joy:! But it’s her destiny to set off a chain of events

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Y’all still stuck in 2023 when I’m living in the future baby

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Pinged? Twice? About my books???

Oh right, I’m the author of femboy dating simulator

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Happy New Year, Feliz Año, Feliz Aninovo! To all of you from Galicia, Spain.

Hope this new year will be wonderful for everyone.

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With less than an hour left in the year, (At least in my timezone), and by extension the month, I should make my end of month wrap-up post.

Firstly, I’d just like to acknowledge my lack of time and energy this month. Constantly being dragged along to various christmas and New years parties has really drained me, so most of my progress is pre-20th december. In fact, right now, I am writing this while hiding in a corner shielded by my cool older cousin.

Thanks, Charlie.

  • Tumblr, smashed it. The page is up and is working as intended. Now, i just need to get used to the often highly specific asks about RO’s and their… checks notes … underwear colour? I did enjoy the request to write a rant about steam trains, though… XD

  • Act 2, part 3, progress is coming along nicely. The number of words I initially expected for the part has been written. Around 30,000. But I just kept adding things that dont technically necessarily need to be there. But hey, I’m having fun, and I’m sure any readers will appreciate the extra dialogue and depth added to the ROs. Even if they might not enjoy the 5,000 word fox tangent…

That is all, happy new year all! :tada:

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@HarrisPS Whoa. You forgot Falrika the Alchemist, which is now in the actual production process, as I’ve already made the final changes for the master release version. Now what I’m doing is for the festivities to wind down before I can get production running again.

And of course, Happy New Year from Quezon City. It’s now a bright and sunny beginning as of this writing.

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As usual, my New Years Eve was spent feeling a great amount of dislike for humanity in general.

But happy new year everyone on this forum! I hope all your writing goals for the next year becomes successful. :purple_heart:

Now I’m just waiting for the world to finally allow me some sleep.

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Happy new year everybody. Just wanted to check in before I go to bed.

I did not reach any writing goal this month. I was so overwhelmed with the move and then having guests like two days after moving in and then for 6 days in a row. I am beat y’all :sweat_smile:.

But most of my plants survived so there’s a problem I don’t have to deal with :potted_plant:.

I would really like to get back into writing next month. We will see :see_no_evil:.

Have a wonderful new year and I hope all of you dreams come into reach so you just have to grab them :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::fireworks::confetti_ball:

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Right? I started one and almost immediately there’s a romance, and I’m like, people don’t like romances so early in the game. But what can i do about it?

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Crap on the cob! Seeing this made me go “Hey, I wrote that!” in the good way. Thank you for doing this! How sweet!! :face_holding_back_tears: :face_holding_back_tears: :heart:

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