Recently been unmotivated to write and my demo is like 24k words long, its only like 75% of act 1 of the prologue. Do I power through it to finish it or do I post it as it is for now to get the ball rolling?
Thoughts?
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Im in the same boat, still writing the prologue of my replacement wip. Its a long prologue in my case so I have to power through.
The game hasnt started yet with only the prologue so id power through but i have motive.
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I wish you luck and hope you find the motivation.
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God has nerfed me to have only the brainpower of a fingerling potato: I have a cold. But! I wanted to comment on some stuff from last month’s thread.
@HarrisPS I read your post on Project Amble’s chemistry and romance system, as well as the click through to Michelle Clough’s “Kindness Coins or Chemistry Casino?” GDC slideshow. I say: go for it!!! Your proposed split model sounds super fun, and a great combination of Clough’s Chemistry Card Tower and Choice of Games’ “fail forward” philosophy. The example romance gameplay sounds very dynamic and interactive. I can totally see players falling for a character and playing multiple times to see how different levels of chemistry/romance affect dialogue and reactions.
@Nocturnal_Stillness In last month’s writer thread, you asked for feedback on the Bond, Romance, and Loyalty system for Quiver. You might have already changed it around, but in case it’s still a thing: I played through the mechanics demo and may have found a bug? Or maybe it’s a mathematical impossibility in the actual game, so you don’t have to worry about it.
What I did
I high-fived everyone.
I kissed Marian 5 times, maxing out the Romance meter.
I kissed Marian 2 extra times, which showed no change in the Romance meter
I high-fived Marian 5 times, but there was no change in her Bond meter
Trying to see if I could do the reverse, I high-fived John until his Bond meter maxed out
I high-fived John once and there was no change in his Bond meter
I kissed John 3 times and there was no change in his Romance meter
Other characters’ meters can still change.
Is this “maxing out the Bond or Romance meter discontinues changes in the other meter” an intentional feature? Totally fine, if so. Depending on how long your game is, I can totally see a situation where it’s impossible for a player to max out more than one meter. Regardless, I wanted to draw your intention to the quirk.
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On a note:
I’ve had some reach out on other media and platforms wondering how detailed careers and progression will be. An example of progression would be the Pilot career branch. To give an idea of how progression must occur, I’ve detailed the roles below:
Trainee Pilot (Rank 1)
To become a Trainee Pilot, you must first:
- Obtain your Bachelors Degree
- Obtain your Commercial Pilot License
- Obtain your Airline Transport Pilot Certification
Second Officer (Rank 2)
To become a Second Officer, you must first:
- Obtain your Bachelors Degree
- Obtain your Commercial Pilot License
- Obtain your Airline Transport Pilot Certification
- Spend 200 Flight Hours as a Trainee Pilot
First Officer (Rank 3)
To become a First Officer, you must first:
- Obtain your Bachelors Degree
- Obtain your Commercial Pilot License
- Obtain your Airline Transport Pilot Certification
- Spend 1500 Flight Hours as a Second Officer
Senior First Officer (Rank 4)
To become a Senior First Officer, you must first:
- Obtain your Bachelors Degree
- Obtain your Commercial Pilot License
- Obtain your Airline Transport Pilot Certification
- Spend 1500 Flight Hours + 1 Year in the Role as a First Officer
and lastly…
Captain (Rank 5)
To become a Captain, you must first:
- Obtain your Bachelors Degree
- Obtain your Commercial Pilot License
- Obtain your Airline Transport Pilot Certification
- Spend 3500 Flight Hours + 2 Years in the Role as a Senior First Officer
As for how Flight Hours are tracked, they’re tracked through working your job! 
They’ll be a metric this career path will track, but nonetheless are just similar to hours worked normally in a job.
This provides a detailed and rewarding path of progression as you advance through your career in Once in a Lifetime.
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The bond and romance meters are tracked separately. Bond maxes out at 10 and romance maxes out at 5. (Although technically they can go past those limits as I didn’t code anything to prevent that, so the game just shows what the max symbols are.)
Edit: just checked myself and it’s definitely a bug as romance doesn’t go up at all.
Edit2: I did actually code something to stop them going above their maximum but Romance doesn’t work like it should in that demo. I’ll double check it after work.
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So I’m doing revisions on my story and forgot I wrote this chaotic mess of variables I call a paragraph.
Dawn of Heroes Final Battle Spoiler
@{MuerteHelp Muerte leaps over Providence’s attack at the last moment, allowing for me to get in a punch. | The two of us split as Providence’s attack cuts between us. This gives me the opening I need to punch her in the face.} As Providence recovers from that attack ${HeroChoice} lands a kick to her side. In retaliation, the @{ProvidenceWings fallen | wingless } angel @{ProvidenceSword sweeps her sword around | throws a wrecking ball like backhand } @{MuerteHelp that is parried by Santa Muerte just before it can hit ${HeroChoice}. | just for ${HeroChoice} to get hit across the face.} Providence curses under her breath and tries to get distance from us.
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Bilingual moment
“Wait, that’s it?” you ask.
“What do you mean?”
“All your names,” you explain. “They’re these long phrases. Except this one, it’s just a single word.”
Vega gives you an odd look, like you’d just grown a second head. “They’re all single words. Your language just lacks them.”
Today’s problem: I have an urge to name a character Alfhildr, just so that I can have this one character who runs around giving stupid nicknames to people call her Galadriel when they’re annoyed.
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I take a lot of my notes by hand, but instead of using a notebook as would be practical. I do it on sticky notes and index cards, so I’ve been wanting to get a cork board where I can tack up all my spare writing notes to keep them together. By everywhere on my desk, I mean everywhere. I found one under my humidifier the other day. My mother-in-law just mailed me one! I’m so excited.
Also just curious about the ratio of writers who take notes by hand versus keep them on computer?
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I do both.
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Is it based on how you feel in the moment or do you have a specific system?
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Wanted to update on my WIP! Just started a forum thread for it yesterday, have first two chapter drafts in playable demo form - and drafting the third chapter.
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My mood, mostly. Also what I happen to have on hand. And how much my arm hurts.
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If I take notes by hand, I feel the annoying need to have it typed up as well, so with time I’ve just defaulted to writing notes digitally. Technology is too intertwined with my work process for better and for worse. Also it’s nice seeing the word count go up, even if it’s basically a journal entry with my thoughts on the writing process
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I tend to do my highest-level planning by hand, but I have a selection of documents with various general notes that may be useful someday.
I got back into the flow today and coded 2000-ish words 
That’s the first part of the code for my Chapter 3 drafted.
Thanks so much, I hope it’ll be fun! I feel like it gives the characters’ feelings a bit more nuance especially if they’re not very emotionally open towards the PC and my hope is that it’ll make the romantic developments feel organic/responsive.
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I’m starting to think I actually might name this one character I already have Alfhildr. And make her twin brother Alfbjörn, while I’m at it.
(I’ve been just calling them Nordvarg and Vintervarg, since those are their handles.)
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Hi Natalie. I’ve figured out the issue. The code itself is OK mostly correct, but it works exactly like I’ve coded it, so it is not a bug error but more an idiot author error!
I’ve got four lines of code, which was simply;
*if (variable1 = 10)
*goto end
*if (variable2 = 5)
*goto end
This code was my genius way of stopping each variable from going over the “max” I wanted 10/5; however, because I put *goto end, it then automatically skips adding anything the moment you max either option (which is why you could still increase the variables of the others.
I’ve fixed it and renamed the choices slightly to “hang out with…” and “go on a date with…” as I think it’s more accurate to what each variable is tracked with. Spending time with someone will increase their bond, and moments where you do romantic things increase the romance. Currently, I would like to plan five potential scenes during the game, hence why it maxes presently at 5.
I’ll make sure I correct the mistake for the actual game too.
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I feel like I’ve gone through a rollercoaster of emotions when it comes to my writing. First I was so giddy about it, almost manic with happiness over completing a project, and now I feel like it’s so full of problems that I have to fix. I kinda wish I had waited until I felt it was “perfect” before posting, but the feedback is the reason why I want to change it in the first place. And either way, there’s no piece of media that everyone considers perfect, so trying to make it so is a waste of time and effort
…knowing that doesn’t make me feel any better though
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You can think about it this way: learning from this feedback will allow your future writing to be better. There’s no need to hang on to a finished project for longer than necessary, when you can be moving forward with the new skills you’ve learned.
Like, yeah, it might not be perfect, and it’s fine. If you keep at it, every next project will come out a little bit better than last. It just means you’ll be improving.
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Both. If I don’t have my computer or my phone, I use by hand. If I have my computer with me, I do that.
Sometimes, I’ll do writing by hand on purpose if I want to trigger my itch to revision those notes when I eventually type them up.
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