Dice & Dungeon Masters - WIP

[Clover667]

I’m excited, too!!

[Zodac01]

So good news is I have released the update. However, to be honest, there were a lot of things I was hoping to do with this update that I didn’t reach. Its a small to moderate update, weighing in probably somewhere between 20k to 30k words, for those that care about such things. A few of the fandoms got updates, as did some of the real world problems, but not as far as I’d wished on any of it. There also was a good portion of chapter 5 and some minor tweaks to the combat scene. As always, more bugs and typos were hit, but not enough to probably make a ton of diffrence.
For those that wish it, here’s from the changelog:

Summary

Update Version:0.0.25.06.12.1245

-Added in start to chapter 5, which is a dream sequence to remind the protaganist about some of the underlying tensions in our story arc.
-Added in for chapter 2 a scene where the prot has a call from an old friend that moved away. It’s a bit comic and slapstick, but basically the prot will get another chance to game, this time online with their old friend. Also, perhaps eventually the old friend might come to visit someday or something. The game that is hinted at will be “Pathward” which is the alternate universe variant of “Pathfinder”.
-Added in scenes 2 - 6 for the “Witchling” (Alternate Universe version of “Witcher”) tv show fandom. As discussed previously in the forum and hinted at, there are now choice points in the show if the player has selected that they would like this option. Nothing to dramatic, but enough to make it more of a min-game within a game, sort of. Scenes 2 - 6 continue on with the prior “Witchling” scenes and plot line. Note that this is scenes 2-6 as we previously had scenes 0 and 1, as these scenes index first at 0. The same applies to all the fandom scenes.
-Added in a cut scene for chapter 2 where the prot reads a blog with some interesting insights. Hopefully helps set the tone for things to come . . .
-Added in for “Wyrmblock” fandom tv show (the AU Dragonball tv show) scenes 2-4.
-Added in for “Hoard of the King” (the AU variant for “Lord of the Rings”) scenes 2-4.
-Added in a transition scene, which will differ based on which real world problem the prot is dealing with, and a restaurant scene, both for chapter 5. In the restaurant scene a new NPC is introduced.
-Added in various code to help bridge scenes.
-Added in some more content for land lord problem, though much more needs to be added yet to get it working fully and correctly.
-Tweaked combat scene with baby sphinx. By no means 100% done, but hopefully will be marginally better now.
-Fixed various typos and minor errors, though plenty more still needs to be fixed.

On if this update is worth playing vs waiting for another one:

Summary

Now, to be honest, whether this update is worth playing is up to you. While I am very thankful for COGDemos, the current working of that hosting website is that every time I add a new variable, everyone has to play the game from the start. Unless a creator is really pro-planning (which goes against my method, as I like to grow games organically) or the game is really simple and won’t need many vars, it means a lot of games will need to be replayed from the beginning nearly every update. Maybe at some point this will change, or who knows, maybe someday I’ll change my methodology and try for more indepth planning … but neither of those things will be any time soon.
Add to this that there still certainly are some bugs and typos to the update . . . I can understand that waiting for another update might be for some people. Totally fine.
For those that do playtest this update, feel free to let me know what you’d like more of in this game. As usual, while I’m happy to hear about individual instances of spelling errors and such, please do not leave blanket statements about there being to many typos/spelling errors/ etc. as I am aware there are a few and that really doesn’t do much for fixing it.
Now, I should note that I didn’t get time to do a playthrough myself of the new content yet . . . I will, but due to my own personal real world problems and such, wasn’t able too. So there might be bigger problems and such that I am not aware of.
I will say too that some scenes came out a lot sillier than I’d really intended, though, as this is mostly intended as a metafiction comedy piece, I guess I feel that’s fine.
My apologies on that.

Now, as discussed earlier, I won’t even hazard a guess at when there will be another update. Obviously, as long as I’m healthy enough and have enough time, eventually there will be one, but might be a while.
In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed my work on this game, please feel free to try any of my others. In a casual manner I shall now turn back to working on Sense & Sorcery in the near term, so there will likely be some sort of update on that eventually.

[Clover667]

Gotta say, I haven’t read the update yet but “Hoard of the King” is absolutely brilliant.

[Man]

Love the Drizzt references in the character name choices

[Dragomer]

Interesting stuff, good luck on Sense and Sorcery!

[LightningGarfunkel]

Fun update! Just because I’m curious, what’s up with the ascii art? Is that just a placeholder?

[Zodac01]

@Clover667

Gotta say, I haven’t read the update yet but “Hoard of the King” is absolutely brilliant.

Ha, yeah, I had fun with that one. All of the AU fandoms have been a ton of fun.

@Man

Love the Drizzt references in the character name choices

Glad to do a hat nod to some of the best classics.

@Dragomer

Interesting stuff, good luck on Sense and Sorcery!

Thank you! I shall need the luck!

@LightningGarfunkel

Fun update! Just because I’m curious, what’s up with the ascii art? Is that just a placeholder?

Thank you!

A little bit of both. Mostly inspired by nostalgia, I’ll admit, I’m leaning towards eventually having a few different options for these, which the player will be able to select from either in the beginning of the game or the stats menu, someday. Option 1 will be to keep the ASCII images as is, with a notation that there will likely be some errors here and there as they will sadly not display the same on all computers. Option 2, some simple art of the maps and such, once I get around to that – this will bloat the memory a little, but I feel like now adays that probably shouldn’t often be a concern. And Option 3, images of the ASCII images, so it standardizes, more or less. For option 2, I will need to review what map options I can use, but at some point that will be available . . .

Thanks again for trying the game and testing for those that have – overall I’m pretty pleased with what I’m seeing on my own run, though still some fairly alarming bugs and such remaining. Hopefully each run I will clear these out a bit more and continue expanding the game.

[Zodac01]

A statement I wanted to share with those that play my games regarding two important topics, just so you all know where I stand:

@Zodac01

Progress now continues on with this game, though it is a bit slower than I wish due to the current circumsances of reduced writing, coding time. While this does continue on, I did want to very briefly pop in to make a few statements on some of the major questions and trends in the forum and the industry at large, as I think it is every creators duty to take a stance on some of these issues. I had considered posting in the threads for these topics, but didn’t really have time to adequetly read or internalize all the back and forth on these topics so I am instead opting for simpler statements on my own game threads just so you all, my players (who I owe all my thanks too for trying my games!) know where I stand.

First, on the issue of the banning of games due to adult content:
I am of course horrified that this is happening and condemn the banning and censorship of games in the strongest possible terms. While it is rare, I would agree that there are a few games that have truly reprehensible, irredeemable content – however, even in those instances, I believe it is a far better thing for the gaming community to analyze, discuss, and in extreme case warn against such games, then having outside far right groups tell us what we are allowed to think, do, or create. I would like to think, as a human being and a creator, that I stand for freedom of thought, and can not condone an outside far right group virtually blackmailing credit card companies to try to supress thoughts and creative content that they do not like. I think in thse harsh times we all need to stand together against the wicked censorship and do what we can to help creators that are at risk right now.

Secondly, on the issue of AI and my own games: Obviously, none of my writing is AI generated. I am appalled and mystified that anyone would think otherwise – I mean, have you seen all the grammar and spelling errors? What AI would ever have these? Indeed, I have forgone editing tools such as Grammarly simply as such tools would lead to my games violating the standards of COG, HS, and HC, as the current rules disallow such AI editing tools, even though such would greatly enhance the enjoyment many would have for my games as the grammar and spelling is the #1 critique point my games get. As for AI images, a few of my games maybe have 1 or 2 AI images that shall be replaced before the game is submitted to HS or elsewhere; however, the majority of the art in my games is my own. Lastly, as the AI thread apparently wanted us to include plotting with AI and other corollary activities to writing – for Sense & Sorcery, I did briefly consult with an AI regarding regency roadways, though ultimately the content it spat out was less than useless so I was not able to use anything in that instnace. I also wanted – and still do want too - make AI bots of some of my characters to have discussions with them, but sadly as the community outcry against my desire to do so was exponentially disproportioned, I have not been able to do so, which is very sad as I think that would be a great tool to better get into the minds of my characters and better figure out what makes them tick. All well – the rules are the rules, so I shall not, at least for any content intended for COG or any of their safelight companies. For All the Way, my Christopher Pike themed work, I did ask AI to sum up some of the major themes of CP’s work, though once more that was all that useful, and my rereading in the last year around a dozen or more of his books has been far more helpful. I did also ask CHATGPT to sum up some of the buz words for the 80’s, although in this instance the only one I ended up using was “FYI” which I would have eventually been able to find elsewhere. I guess if that becomes problematic I could remove the instance where I use that one word in All the Way, though I personally think such a demand would be ludicrous and hope common sense would prevail here. Other than that, I can not think of any instance where AI was used in the thought, function, or forming of my games – that written, I will briefly note that my writing did serve as training material through Microsoft’s AI efforts via a simple click with permssion for them to use that on a drop box prompt one time. I did this as I truly do think AI is one of the great hopes of the future, and despite my detractors, I have total faith and confidence in my writing and would like AI writing to be of a good quality, as probably in the future a lot of what we read shall be AI produced.

These are my statements on those issues. Not really looking for a response on either of these, but I figured it was my duty to post something.

Beyond that, as stated, work continues on despite the rougher circumstnaces, primarily on Sense & Sorcery . . . closing in on 15k words written since a family member had a stroke and is requiring a ton of medical appointments and additional help on day to day living, thus the greatly decreased time to write and code.

Thank you for your time.

Note: The game being worked on is “Sense & Sorcery”, though I eventually plan to work on this one too – just not yet.

[Zodac01]

Just a quick thread maintenance note to say no progress on this game right now, but if you are looking for new content from me that is kind of sort of Dice & Dungeon Master adjacent you could try my new mostly just for fun WIP Daughter of Elves . . . won’t be for everyone and there isn’t a ton there yet, but basically you can think of it sort of like roleplaying as a valley girl elf, more or less.

Other upcoming content for me will be (in an order of some sort) an excerpt or three from Sense & Sorcery as stand alones, a moderate update for Sense & Sorcery, and my submission for the Halloween jams which I’ve entitled Blood & Bloom, and then hopefully a small to moderate size update for All the Way . . . hoping to eventually get back to this game, Dice & Dungeon Masters, but I’m sorry to say it will most likely be next year at earliest.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

For the next update, when I finally get around to that, is there anything in particular you would most like to see or experience in the game?

[Zodac01]

So pretty much at the 60 day mark since my last post here. Although there won’t be an update soon for this game, I intend to aim for an Update sometime in 2026 — not gonna hazard a guess as to when, but as long as my health holds up and I’m able that’ll be my plan for this game. While it will need to take a back seat to some of my other projects for the moment, as far as my games go this one remains consistently popular and i know there’s a lot of fun left in the story. It shall be more and more challenging however, as I really don’t have time to do roleplaying at present due to my care taker duties and other life challenges, which will probably translate into some of the role playing story elements being a bit less crisp and a whole lot more old school - but hopefully that won’t wreck the game. Anyway, basically stand by and sometime next year I’ll push for an update. I’ll most likely let this thread go fallow in the meantime but that does not mean the game is dead.