Wow! Those are some detailed character customization options! Thanks for the recommendation.
I tend to go very sparse on my character creation choices as far as appearance is concerned (name, pronouns, gender/anatomy and that’s pretty much it). I feel like players can envision their character without explicit choices defining their PC’s looks, but I’m probably the exception as most games I’ve played offer way more options. I love that there are so many different approaches to IF.
Personally, it doesn’t work that well for me either. It does actually seem to be what most folks prefer, though!
I really liked how Creme de la Creme handles character creation. Even though it does ask those questions, they’re very well integrated into the narrative, and it feels less forced to me than most other games I’ve tried.
Teahouse of the Gods also did some really interesting things with this aspect of character creation, although I’m not sure they’re broadly applicable to other games.
Hi, y’all, I am brand new here, but I am chiming in with my goals. Right now, I’ve got a workflow where I write a chapter, code a chapter, write a chapter, and code a chapter. So, my goals are to finish coding chapter 2 on my WIP and to outline chapter 3 before the end of this month. Got a nice chunk done this morning when I couldn’t sleep.
I’m in a portion where I’m still getting the hang of everything I can do with ChoiceScript, so I am counting it as a win every time I learn how to do something new and then pull it off and actually make it work. I very much like tracking progress made in those smaller milestones as well as setting goals.
Good luck, everyone!
Welcome! I’ve been writing with CS for a couple of years and I still feel this way much of the time. 
I find the snippets people post in these writer threads mid-month are a good way to see how others write code and discover different approaches that hadn’t occurred to me.
Good luck with the writing!
Welcome to the writer support thread! It’s hard. You’ll get used to it eventually.
The snippet posting sessions every month, organized by Eiwynn, is a good way to encourage each other, to get to know what we all are writing, to discover best practices, and so on. If you’re keen, you can join in. And maybe start that WIP thread of your own that you’re so itching to do. I usually am part of said sessions.
Luckily for me, those things all fall within my interests! What a treat. Congratulations on the publication.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed.
I’ve just made an attempt at offering the player a chance to be more fluid in their gender.
#Choose my own name and gender.
*input_text name
Your name is ${name} and you are her...
*choice gender fluidity
#Her son...
#...always.
*set gender "male"
*goto pronouns
#...sometimes.
*set gender "male"
*set fluid true
*goto pronouns
#Her daughter.
#...always.
*set gender "female"
*goto pronouns
#...sometimes.
*set gender "female"
*set fluid true
*goto pronouns
#Her child.
#...always.
*set gender "enby"
*goto pronouns
#...sometimes.
*set gender "enby"
*set fluid true
*goto pronouns
*comment additional gender choice later in game
Fully dressed in your new outfit, you check the clock. It's nine in the morning and you had to be at the vault at twelve for the test.
*if (fluid)
You have one last look at the mirror. You're a free spirit and how you feel can change day by day. Yesterday you were the ${surname}'s ${x_child}, today you are...
*choice
#Still their ${x_child}.
*goto relax_with_haven
*if (x_child = "son")
#I am their daughter.
*set gender "female"
*gosub_scene pronouns
*goto relax_with_haven
*if (x_child = "daughter")
#I am their son.
*set gender "male"
*gosub_scene pronouns
*goto relax_with_haven
*if (x_child != "enby")
#I am their child.
*set gender "enby"
*gosub_scene pronouns
*goto relax_with_haven
*goto relax_with_haven
Does this look okay? Can anyone see anything problematic about this or any other issues?
I don’t love playing through a long series of questions about appearance all in a row, but it’s never going to be really seamless. I tend to lean towards feeling that there isn’t a need to specify in huge amounts of detail because players can imagine more specificity than writers will ever be able to cover, but mileage will vary about what constitutes “huge amounts of detail”. Although some players really enjoy choosing granular details, others will be turned off by the pace being slowed down too much - so it’s just a case of figuring out priority.
I found some threads about it which may be of interest, some of which have examples of games where players have enjoyed how it’s done. Zombies Exodus has been called out a few times as a positive example:
I liked A Study in Steampunk’s use of the war wound to affect the PC’s stats, and some of the outfit choices in The City’s Thirst or Heart of the House, and the masks in the HotH ball and in Mask of the Plague Doctor. I’m pretty sure I liked how appearances were done in Heart of Battle - it was pretty unobtrusive - and in Asteroid Run there was a bit where you could do some outfit tweaks which demonstrated some stuff about your personality and what was considered masculine or feminine in the setting.
But I’ve generally found that appearance-customisation like hair or eye colour hasn’t stuck with me particularly, and the times I’ve liked it best was when it was short enough not to slow things down - maybe sprinkled through the first chapter or two.
I’ve generally spread it out as much as I can; I can’t speak to how it feels for other people but the way I wrote it is the way I like to play:
I’ve tended to do things like “here is a very tall/short character: how do you compare to them?” for height; I don’t love height measurements because I wouldn’t be able to eye someone and say “they’re 6 feet” etc.
I try to combine stuff about hair with haircare if I can, so things like what you do with it during/after washing, or going to bed.
Sometimes I use biological relatives like “like your mother, you have [this] colouring, [this] colour hair” etc - I did this in Creme de la Creme and Royal Affairs.
I did looking-into-a-mirror for Noblesse Oblige which felt a little more static than I liked but it was “your face looks [this sort of skintone] because you look a bit sick/tired” so there was a bit of movement there.
In Honor Bound you’re returning to a hometown and seeing someone for the first time in many years so I put some of it in there like “they recognise you from your [hair colour] etc even though you’ve aged”, and so on.
I tend to have players pick pronouns through speech, with options provided for an NPC saying a variety of things, eg “we’ll always be proud of you, son”, etc which the player can choose.
In Honor Bound, there’s more detail about having coming out as trans when you were living in your hometown previously, or having transitioned after you left; picking that branches you into a bunch of choices about what social or medical transition the PC has gone through. It ends up longer than I’d usually devote to customisation, but I figured the people picking those options will be invested in those details and I didn’t want to spread it out in the way I usually would because it was important for players to know what was and wasn’t covered in those choices.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to write an eye colour choice yet and I’m not sure how I would because it feels tricky to make it dynamic 
if I did, I’d probably do it in relation to an outfit, accessory, or makeup choice, a biological relative, or a silver-tongued NPC giving a compliment.
Most of these involve some sort of action/interaction/personal history/responsiveness to the world, small or otherwise, when picking the customisation, which is what I like best when I’m playing.
Goddamn you.
If you combine 2. and 5. you can have Gaylord Fuchsia.
I have never, once, heard the name “Mackenzie” and made the association with “harder edge”. Of all of those, the ones that come off harder to me are Rocky (but I’d argue it’s because it has the word “rock” in it, because Ricky certainly doesn’t) and Dirk, because that’s a thing that has an ACTUAL edge.
Ok, now this is just copying Stan Lee.
No, no, wrong surname, it has to be Mork and Gork Waaaaaaghlborg, gods of the orcs.
Iä iä R’lyeh. Axolotl fhtagn!
Hello February
January’s been good to me, I’ve done some brainstorming and did a draft for the first chapter of my story
the only problem that keeps me flip-flop, on-and-off is building numerous systems that will support my story and gameplay, sometimes I have to stop and find some refreshments from building those systems, they’re really cumbersome to make but I need them
it’s not gonna be easy but I’m not backing down anymore, this year my WIP should make its debut in the forum, wish me luck 
Evertree Inn did a very good job with this. Brief flash forward with first choice of the game being the MC seeing their worried eyes in the mirror when finding a murder scene with someone banging on the door.
Nice and seamless tying it directly into the story to add customisation whilst driving story. Definitely the best way to do the whole customisation process - keeping it flowing with the narrative.
Another option however that I’ve seen do well is having it be a separated section the player chooses to dive into. No need for seamless transitions and it can be banged out efficiently with more details. Good with superhero costumes for example. Unsupervised is the first example I think of. Customisation is very difficult thing to get right overall I reckon, I’m dreading having to tackle it later when writing.
Best of luck @Devhart and @Valda_Reehux, everyone here is behind you 
One of my (too many) projects takes place at Versailles, the French royal court of the 17th and 18th centuries. And I’m using a bunch of French peerage titles to try and make it feel full. But I’m not sure how many of them need to have characteristics other than “fancy French people.” So, how many people in the background do you think should become background characters? 5? 10? 20?
I like it–great idea to allow the player to have some fluidity!
The only thing I can think of would be that multiple choices right after the other can sometimes be a little frustrating as a player, but if you’re not making a habit of that it’s probably fine.
How often are you thinking about letting the player shift their choices? You could also consider putting it in the stats menu (happy to share code about how to make a stats sub-page if you need one!) so they can change it whenever they feel like it.
A comment I received from a gender-fluid beta reader once was that (at least for that reader) gender was often tied to something specific they were doing at the time, rather than a “day to day” thing. Which I mention because that kind of “daily gender” is exactly the way I had been thinking about it in my story, and while the reader’s comment about that being a little off makes total sense it wouldn’t have otherwise occurred to me.
So maybe for some of your choices, you could even tie it to specific things, like the feel of a certain kind of fabric, or doing a certain activity, or something.
Generally, though, *set author_points += 50 for going this distance!
I would suggest that you start with a small number, such as 5 or 10, and see how they fit into your story. You can always add more or remove some later, depending on your needs and preferences.
Thank all of you for your warm welcomes and support!
I put the two sections together just for this snippet they aren’t together in the actual game.
I am planning on make it a each morning you can get the choice.
Hello! Happy February!
I’m pretty new here, scrolling and reading here and there. I hope no one minds if I share my Feb goals too, just little steps: learn more advance CS coding and start my first WiP thread.
So far what I have right now is my story map and Prologue draft with unfinished character customization.
Forum here has been really helpful, especially when I needed help and guidance. Thank you! You’re all amazing.
Best wishes to you all’s goals!
“Your armor does magic now?”
“Wrote a few batch files to cast spells. Makes life easier.”
This reminds me of something:
“{name}, I thought that you will be fighting one day, so I’ve prepared some parts for you. Enter the capsule and take this upgrade, {name}. This upgrade is the …”
And oh yes, I haven’t been posting updates for several months in a row. I’ll get to it when things are clearer.