December 2025 Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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Oh, snippet day; I’ll participate again. Thank you for the reminder.

Content warning: horror, rotting hand (body horror?)

minigame: escape the room murder mystery 
*label open_it
*if (not(knife))
	You request Ms. Belifiore find you a suitably sharp knife.
	
	As you wait, you wonder if such a thing is possible in this decayed facility. But, here she is, wielding a polished knife. Nice and sharp.
	
	Curious.
	*set knife true

Without further ado, you plunge your knife into the rice bag.

*page_break Sliiiiiiice.

Rice and small flying bugs — weevils, you presume — fall out the now opened container. You keep emptying. Until —

*page_break [i]Thump[/i].

A swollen, purplish-black hand sits atop the rice. Fingers are curled upwards. As if its owner was clenched in pain.

There's your ingredient.

*choice
	#Warn Ms. Belifiore not to look.
		"Real fing — fing —" The young woman whimpers and dashes off to who-knows-where. You'll make sure she's alright once you're finished.
		
		You grit your teeth and [i]slide[/i] the knife into the fingers. Then sawing. Then breaking. Pausing only to swat away dust, rice, or any weevils seeking to crawl up your own fingers.
		
		[i]Khh. Khh.[/i]
		
		Eventually, two fingers break away from the hand. You hide the fingers as you return to the kitchen table. Ms. Belifiore waits for you, wiping her eyes.
		
		*page_break Collected.
		*goto collect_fingers
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SNIPPET DAY SNIPPET DAY! this is a short bit of a phone conversation between the PC and their boxing coach, ronnie. it can be triggered if the PC declined the tip from the Lyonses in chapter 1, then punched Mr. Roth when he snuck up on them in the alley while they were leaving work.

snippet snippet snippet

★ “I did punch him, at least.”
“Hopefully nothing like that happens again.”
“[some other choice i haven’t written yet]”

Ronnie pauses, then blurts out, "You what?”

“I punched the guy. Mr. Roth. In the face,” you reply. "Knocked him on his fucking ass, actually.”

Your coach responds, after a few seconds of shocked silence, "…Huh!”

Ronnie pauses again; you can imagine all the expressions their face is working through. Shock, concern, pride, amusement—

"I guess that’s good. Do you think that’s good? You feel good about it? Feel good, safe about it?”

You shrug, more to yourself than to Ronnie since they can’t see you. "Yeah, I guess. Got me away from him at least.”

Ronnie hums, a long mmhmmmmmmmmmmm, then chirps, “Well, yep! Good point, that.”

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I have a little snippet to share today! This is from a Patreon short story I wrote today about Mr Griffith from Creme de la Creme.

Over time I’ve discovered that writing some characters comes more easily than others (I should note that this doesn’t necessarily coincide with favourites, as I love all of them!) and the Creme teachers are some of them. This little snippet includes some spoilers about possible mid-late Creme de la Creme events.

Snippet here

Usually, Sinclair enjoys the empty school. Before Raphael was fired, when Cezara still joshed around with the pair of them, she said For a teacher, you truly don’t care much for students, do you? He scoffed and said something snippy, he can’t remember now. He does care for the students, though it’s come to be a tedious sort of job, with many of them blurring together. Some stand out in this final-year lot. For good reasons: Freddie Crawford, full of bright promise that hasn’t been stamped out yet. Patrice Delacroix, sullen and quiet, the sort that Sinclair thinks might explode. For bad: far more of the others.

But Gallatin has rarely been about academia, and is far more about moulding these children into shapes that match what high society wants of them. And so the noise and bustle and bells and constant frenetic movement can wear on one’s nerves, and the solitude is pleasant during the holidays.

Last week I finished coding the chapter I’m working on, and today I started writing. It’s strange getting back to it - it’s been more than a month since I was drafting - but it is nice.

As I had a bit of free time and energy this evening, I updated my November digest over here with the new WIPs and updates that I found. I likely missed some as I was doing it late, so if you have or know of a WIP that got started/updated in November give me a shout.

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Always appreciate this, Harris. Will mix you up an elixir of invulnerability and add a dose of immortality if you like.

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I forgot about snippet day again! I’m sorry, I keep dropping the ball the last few months everyone! Today’s date didn’t dawn on me until hours after I had to sign paperwork at an appointment.

Carousel Paradox Ch 8 preview

I shoot up from bed and Paris is at my side within a moment, checking on me. It takes me a while to calm down enough to come to my senses again. Everything happened so fast. What the hell happened?

“What’s wrong?” Paris asks as she lays a hand on my shoulder.

Her concern reminds me that I have family to protect. I lay back for a moment and nod.

“Yeah, a nightmare.” I swallow. “Sorry, it was rather vivid.”

Paris smirks but concern doesn’t leave it. She does, however, give me some distance. She sits on her bed and checks her phone before groaning.

“No signal,” I say, instead of asking.

She doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah.”

“Where are we?” I ask, to start the normal exchange for us to go back and forth with.

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Yesterday was rough, since I unexpectedly got the main database file for Lily Adventuresses! Episode 3 corrupted. I had no choice but to rebuild that database from the earliest build, which I submitted to Ludum Dare 57. And to compensate, here’s a writeup I’ve made for this mid-month’s snippet post.

Context: This happens near the endgame, just before the main villain reveals himself.

Zinnia:
Oh yes!
Where we last left this, this door shutter was locked down when we beat up that big robot.

Azalea:
And… we have no way to unlock those shutters.
If only we have something…

???:
And I AM that something!

(An Explorer enters the scene.)

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
Explorers can’t leave other Explorers in the dark, can they?

Azalea:
HOEH?!
So how will you exactly help us?

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
While you were busy fighting the one behind the disappearances in Thelmanpik, I picked up a seemingly random circuit board somewhere in the ruins beneath the airship port.
It turned out the board’s actually a still-working solid state drive that contains the password for the manual override of this specific door shutter.
Here, let me show you.

(Zuleika reaches for one of the consoles and inserts the SSD there.)

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
The password is up, down, left, right, left, right, down, up, up, down.

(The door finally opens.)

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
And done.
Zinnia, Azalea… have fun exploring the deepest depths.

Zinnia:
What about you?

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
If ever those dangerous robots dare invade the surface, I won’t hesitate to sacrifice myself to save the people of Gegemoftwag.

Zinnia:
Wait! You don’t need to!
No one other than the bad guys need to die!

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
…
…
…
Hee hee.
Seems I forgot the “Explorers can’t leave other Explorers in the dark” thing for a second, huh?
But yeah, you’re both right. I NEED to live.
For practically everyone.

Azalea:
Yeah! That’s the spirit!

(As the Explorer Sisters move forward, Zuleika contemplates.)

Zuleika Kehua, Tayabac Lily Knight (B):
I have the other Explorers on speed dial, in case something bad happens to the sisters.
Thanks for telling me this, Col. Reid.

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128

The update isn’t out yet, but will be in like 12 hours or so, or in 4. Depends on how much sugar I take in the next hour.

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i would sell my soul to read a full story with the CdlC teachers as the main characters.

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Ok, this month’s goal done, next goal: Part IV, which will be VERY long. But that’s a problem for next month’s me.

I also discover that I like writing gore :sweat_smile:

But hey, at least completing the goal early means I can play TOW2 during the Christmas break! Happy holidays, everyone!

snippet day, you say?

Renatus presses on the wristband again, and the shape of Nexus fades away, replaced by a diagram showing several different ships. One of them is familiar to you- the corvettes you saw during the first skirmish. The rest are a mix of elongated gunships and bulky carriers, with a strange, bud-like structure at the bottom.

“There is some good news,” the Prefect points a finger at the hologram. “The data retrieved from the strikecraft gives us a detailed report on their ship composition, and we find out that the long ranged gunships make up the bulk of it. They lack maneuverability, but make up with more than enough firepower. We also detect hints of modification from the standard pattern- a possible indicator that the invasion is long-planned, otherwise it is not possible to retrofit so many ships at once.”

Pinching his fingers out, Renatus adjusts the zoom until the bottom figure occupies the entire display.

“This, however, is unknown. The closest template is Lumia’s royal transport, but the schematic is thought to be lost. We have no idea how the Fornaxians conceived such an invention; such ingenuity should be beyond mortal minds, as the High Priestess liked to put it.”

“The design… it looks as if it can unfold.”

“An excellent observation, Lord Praetorian. Our preliminary estimates suggest the craft possesses remarkable speed, armed with both short-range kinetic projectiles and long-range energy weapons. When it unfolds- ”

The screen flickers, and the bud blossoms into a steel flower, each petal bristling with guns and compact auxiliary thrusters.

“- it assumes this configuration. We theorise this form is intended for space travel, while in its folded, more aerodynamic state, it can traverse even the most volatile atmospheres.”

“I do not fancy going against it,” Servius’ face looks grim. “And yet we must.”

“Indeed. And there is one more matter, though I am uncertain whether it should be taken as good news or ill wind. We have detected a transmission going away from the Nexus, but so far it is impossible for us to decrypt in a reasonable timeframe. It could be nothing, of course, but I do not think Haskell is the type to send messages out meaninglessly.”

# “Servius. What are your thoughts?”

“I have no comment on how to deal with the transmission,” your Praetorian admits. “However, I do have a plan to counter their navy. The number of ships is lower than I feared, and we can utilise this to our full advantage. Flood them with our strikecraft and they will have no choice but defend their gunships. In the meantime, we land boarding troops on Nexus itself.”

You consider his words. “Assuming we manage to land, how will you destroy Nexus?”

“The important part is the particle accelerator,” Servius signals the projection to switch back, then points a gauntleted finger at the elongated portion of Nexus. “It magnifies the strength of the energy beam. Without it, the beam will take millions of years to overload our shield. If we place some demolition charges here- and here- we can reduce a mighty weapon into a piece of harmless scrap.”

#Khonsu, any comment?

The acolyte shakes his head sadly. “I maintain this is all futile, my Lord. We should withdraw to the underground and wait. In its hollow darkness, we shall pray until the day our radiant goddess returns to bless the world once more.”

“If we do it your way, it will mean giving up all our navy entirely,” Servius frowns. “Should we allow them to get so close as to make landfall, their first priority must be the extermination of all our airports.”

“There is no use defending what will be lost.” Khonsu’s eyelashes flutter as he closes his eyes. “I can hear it, the cry of damnation if we are to stay above ground. It torments me every night, your Lordship. So many lives, snuffed out at once…”

A look of pain passes through his face. “I will not stand idle when it all could’ve been prevented.”

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It’s done (99%), I can finally rest. Goodnight everyone and happy hunting/writing.

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I would sell my soul to be able to write all the things I want to, haha. I love writing themmm :face_holding_back_tears:

Here, this is a snippet of a different Patreon story about them that I wrote a while back:

Snippet here

They’ve essentially been living together for most of the last year, in that little teachers’ house on the Gallatin grounds, but waiting for them in her flat leaves Cezara uncharacteristically anxious. She’s tidied the place three times this morning.

Raphael arrives first, his hand cold when he shakes her hand despite the late-summer heat, unbuttons his pale grey peacoat, and then hovers uncertainly, not knowing where to hang it. Cezara takes it from him firmly, letting her fingers brush his hand, but he does not really react—instead, he heads into the parlour and exclaims over the view of the river and city beneath, before settling on the blue-and-gold brocade couch that is Cezara’s pride and joy.

She’d been banking on Sinclair arriving first, so that they could welcome Raphael together, so this isn’t entirely ideal. She brushes down her wide-legged, sand-coloured linen trousers, tucks a curl of her hair behind her ear, hangs up the coat, and heads in.

“How have you been?” she says brightly, and could kick herself when Raphael clasps his hands in front of him and smiles politely at the floor. Obviously, things will not be normal. Obviously, there is little chance of casual conversation after the frankly fucking horrible business happened at Gallatin. Maybe she shouldn’t have invited them.

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Im late af but i have something.

Snippet of an upcoming playable character

“The would-be Odin,” he murmurs, “How do you like the palace? I took inspiration from Asgard. That graveyard of a realm remade in my image. Still needs some work outside but it’s the quality of the place and not the entirety of the space.”

His voice echoes from everywhere. “These places always have some king,” he continues. “A queen. Bloodline tyrants. Pretenders perched on thrones made of other people’s spines. Gods are no better. Give power to the weak and they will devour each other.”

“Nyarlathotep,” I say.

“So you know my name. Good. You’re the first to know but then it’s not your knowledge, is it? You took it from my idiot father. That’s quite alright, I would’ve done the same eventually. I can now spare the theatrics.”

“Remain here,” he says, “and be the first death of your wretched kind… or survive and escape. I don’t care which as long as you’re out of the way.”

My eyes narrow. “Survive what?”

“Why,” he whispers, “your old goddess friend, of course. Or was it… ex-lover? Bright as the sun and dark as the space in-between…”

From the far end of the hallway, she walks into view.

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No snippets from me, which I’m actually proud of because it means I managed to resist the urge to write. Instead, I’ve spent my time planning like I was supposed to.

I’ve been doing a sort of multi-level plan, with the highest level being a few bullet points that describe the whole story, then the next level describes a part, then a chapter, and finally an in-depth plan of a single chapter. If I can complete all those in-depth plans for every chapter in the first part, I’ll be able to call this month a success.

Character planning is still a bit of a struggle. I’ve got general vibes for all the major characters, with a surname for one and then blank spaces for the rest. I don’t want to go too deep on every aspect of their personalities, but I do need to work harder on what they’re called and what they look like. It’s not in the plot to have the MC followed around by four blank voids :smiley:

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Eating some food.

The cook takes the clay pots off the stove and the waiter carries them over, one in each hand, the clay sizzling with heat. He removes the lids with a flourish. Steam billows. The fragrance hits you: aromas of pork, liver, fat, the smoke of charred rice crusted around the pot. A plastic dish of sweet soy sauce arrives alongside.

Hunger hits you all at once. But you don’t dive in immediately. First, you pour the sweet soy sauce, swirling it over the meat. Tiny wet spheres cling to the sausage slices, the rest quickly absorbed into the rice, turning it a glossy brown.

You brush aside the sausage with your metal spoon, instead scooping up a mouthful of rice, not the crust, just the soft sauce-darkened rice. You raise it to your mouth, put it in, roll it around. Pork, liver, fat, absorbed through an hour over charcoal.

You chew it slowly.

The next spoonful, you add a slice of yun cheong. It’s hot, fresh, fragrant, chewy, pairing perfectly with the seasoned rice. Then you scrape the crust off the edges of the clay pot. It’s crispy, charred, almost crunchy. This mouthful breaks apart pleasantly, but then it sticks to your teeth, and the oil coats your tongue, a bit too heavy.

Danny chews his slowly, his eyes closed partway. He says nothing.

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A huh. I randomly jotted down “he’s someone who asked are we the baddies, realized the answer is yes, and decided to do something about it” to describe a character, then realized it describes a whole bunch of my characters.

I may have a problem. Getting predictable if nothing else. I mean I do write thrillers, but.

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Not really a problem for me. All the characters in my WIP are baddies, in more ways than one, and none of them feels like doing anything about it.

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I mean it’s not the fact that they’re doing something about it that’s the problem, it’s the fact that I may like that archetype a little bit too much so it may end up being repetitive at best and kill the tension at worst.

I’m still having a laugh about this one supervillain who’s moonlighting as a vigilante though.

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We finally got ch 5-6 and to work on the demo! :partying_face: Now to crunch on ch 7-8.

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Planned new splashscreen cover art for Skies over Steelthorne. I was a bit iffy on the idea at first, but eventually decided to use Dolldivine. Unfortunately, the default art resolution was a little low, so I had to apply a few tricks to reduce pixelation for the larger sizes.

image
image480×800 109 KB

I’ll probably need to test the image in dark mode and see how I can change the colors. But, it’ll probably be worked on once the writing is done.

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I’m a little late to snippet day, but I’ll throw one in anyway!

Arriving before the gala starts

You push through the doors into a hall built to impress. Smooth panel lighting washes everything in a soft, expensive glow—the kind meant to feel like sunlight if you don’t look up for too long. It’s extravagant, but strange with no guests yet.

The space carries sound too well; a cough on the far side comes back with interest and tapping on a tablet ricochets like a metronome across the hall. Tables wait in neat rows around a stage. Bar counters sit stocked but still, bottles arranged like product shots. Velvet ropes lean, not yet clipped into place. The stage is dressed but quiet—rigging fixed, screen dark.

It has that same curated feel as the facade outside, just stripped of its human insulation. You take a slow sweep to let your ears adjust and start the interior walk.

December has been really productive so far; I set a minimum of 10k words by Jan 1st and I have written a little over 14k! Set myself a new goal of 30k, which has been a lot more difficult. I’m still hoping that I can finish the content for this chapter by Jan 1st, but it’s starting to look more likely that I won’t quite make it in time.

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