Slay the Princess is wonderful. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
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I’m looking for another writer to exchange feedback with. Anyone interested?
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Seconded this. I was a fan of it from the very first demo released. The WIP I just published is inspired by it.
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sure, I can try to help if its still up.
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I’m down if you’re down. We can exchange feedback on each other’s projects. I need some interpretation on the opening prologue of my game.
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I would never say no to feedback on my bundle of joy, do you want to have this be a private message thing or just drop the feedback in the thread?
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Tonight’s annoyance: I had a phase as a kid when I had to learn everything I can about heraldry, with the result that I still can understand practically any Finnish coat-of-arms description. But that doesn’t help me at all in English space, because the terminology is completely different, so I can’t understand the descriptions in games even though I feel I should, because I know this stuff, it’s just different words!
Argh.
Also I should get back to sleep.
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Say, if I want to learn the Finnish language. What is the best way to go about it? And how difficult is it compared to Spanish?
I find that learning Spanish is pretty much simpler than all the other languages I’ve ever attempted. I found mandarin to be the hardest 
. I couldn’t get pass the tonal parts so I quit that one.
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Anyone you choose that’s fine with me. I don’t mind getting all the feedback I can.
Say, what are your thoughts on gender-locked MC’s ?
Am I nuking the success of my book by make the mc gender-locked?
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I have no concept on how difficult either Finnish or Spanish are to English-speakers. The difficulty depends so much on what you know (and how good you are with patterns, I’d wager) and a lot of personal things I don’t know (I find certain sounds in foreign languages extremely easy to tell apart despite everyone telling me Finns have difficulty telling them apart, but certain other sounds nobody mentions as being difficult I flat-out can’t).
As far as the best ways to learn— the best one is, obviously, being born in Finland. 
Barring that, I have no concept of learning Finnish specifically, but I generally find learning languages easier with official teaching, although finding Finnish courses outside Finland may be difficult, I wouldn’t know.
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I am inherently neutral on the matter as a bi guy who likes to play as women sometimes, so whether I am locked in as a guy or a girl, it doesn’t matter to me. But I been told that it can nuke some traction for your book, but they are equal parts women and men who don’t mind.
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Define “success”.
Will you be alienating a large proportion of your potential audience? Yes. Will you be lowering the chances that your game will be a smash hit? Yes.
But does that mean you shouldn’t do it?
Gender-locking your game is a calculated artistic decision. Like all artistic decisions, it will alienate some people. It’s up to you to determine whether that potential loss is worth maintaining the artistic integrity of your vision. If you decide it is, then it’s your responsibility to accept the loss of that portion of your potential audience with grace and dignity as a result of a choice which you made of your own free will.
It is entirely possible to make at least a modestly successful gender-locked game. I’ve done it three times now. The question is if the gender-lock is important enough to your vision to be worth catering to a narrower audience.
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How do y’all approach long-term romance / what are your favorite examples? I have a racing project I’m coming back around to. The full story will take place over 3 years. I’m curious how best to tackle romance that spans a long time.
Also, I’m quite close to updating my WIP. It’s as exciting as it is nerve-wracking. I hope December has been treating everyone well!
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Hi, I love learning languages and happened to try Finnish.
The grammar (most particularly verbs) is a very, very, very tricky thing. Far trickier than Spanish. Like Spanish, reading Finnish once you know the alphabet and pronunciation is very easy and efficient.
Most of your learning will be from how many grammar exceptions there are. It’s been about eight years since I practiced, so I could be wrong? This was my experience.
Esperanto is far easier to learn than either language. (But it’s a con lang, so of course it is!)
@Fusion_Ultimatum Hmm, maybe it’s not grammar exceptions I’m remembering. It’s the part of grammar that adds suffixes that I remember being very fun but tedious.
Also fun fact: one of my favorite Finnish songs is just a song full of Finnish swears.
I remember it making a once small word very long.
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I'll just leave this here
“You have a go bag in your dorm room?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Fun fact: I can’t think of any, from the top of my mind!
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I don’t know what it is with December but all I want to do is take a page out of a bear’s book. Outside of not writing as much as I’d like, one thing that bugs me is personality stats. They always leave me scratching my head, because, yeah, I understand them!
But they’re always such a mystery, trying to think how to implement them. I guess I never really think of them when writing options, just thinking like ‘hey, how could mc react or say here?’ not ‘hey what would a timid mc react/say here?’
If it makes sense?
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Unfortunately, I don’t understand, but I really want to.
When I write, different responses and reactions come naturally to me. I’ve played interactive fiction, RPGs, CYOA books for decades at this point. Each playthough is a new character, a new personality, and a new story.
It’s the most exciting thing for me to start with a linear scene and then get curious about how other personalities will interpret things. Sometimes, though, I do shrink down the responses to keep the story going. Then I’ll do thiceovers to flesh them out even more. The only personality I struggle with is one who’s a bit of a potty mouth as I’m not naturally prone to swearing myself.
Am I making sense?
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i feel like i’m basically the same way when writing options, i just come up with some that i think are interesting/would be fun to choose if i were playing as PC. then once i assign personality/trait variables increasing for whatever those are, i look at if they’re kinda balanced or not really, then tweak accordingly. but typically i just look for options that seems interesting, then work the stats around that.
also, i feel like mostly i just think of the stats as my ‘memory’ so i can call on them when i need to write in text that ‘remembers’ what a PC has been up to, the type of choices they’ve been making. other than them serving that purpose, i really could give two fucks about them. i would LOVE to just write a branching narrative without having traits 1-4 to track, but unforch that would not be, like, code-able lskdjfalks. my mentality i feel like is mostly just, ‘so the player has been picking X choices more than Y choices, that’s my cue to filter them into a path that fits X better.’ as i write more, i’ve been really thinking of the entire code and mechanics as the logistics behind a long ‘yes, and’ game, where me as the writer and the player acting as the PC are just tossing the story back and forth. the trouble is that this is a game that’s happening remotely, with no actual direct communication between player and writer while the game is occurring. most of my use of coding tricks and stat checks and stuff is just trying to minimize that disconnect.
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Oh, yeah, I get you! My dream would be to write an IF that is entirely character-driven, only checking “personalities” when necessary.
But alas, it will remain a dream for some time until I get more experience to at least attempt that.
Thanks, guys for the help. You gave me some things to think about.
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Alright folks. @Giovanni-Aldini has a new WIP update. Do take a look if you have a moment.
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