@parisgracex ahh a Denario enjoyer of taste I see!
@LiliArch That’s how Raffi lives their life so that seems very appropriate!
@izzily Ooooh, do you have a favourite so far?
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I feel like I can’t give a completely fair response! I’ve only played Matia all the way through with what’s currently there in the demo, though I guess that implies they’re my favourite. I’m just drawn to their warmth and the trans bonding the MC can have with them, and I like how mature and upfront they are about feelings/investigating MC’s boundaries.
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Awww, that’s really lovely 
I see Korzha is winning now, which tracks with some comments from my feedback form I saw yesterday that made me very happy:
I love Korzha so much it’s making it hard for me to try other routes
let me kiss Korzha please
Need more scenes making Korzha flustered
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I’m romancing Raffi, Savarel and Varenn (ok, I didn’t start one of this romances yet) with three somewhat different MCs. And I think their behaviour and romance pacing completely aligns with their characters.
As for MC’s pacing I personally prefer slow burn but pick faster options anyway because I’m afraid to miss the content. If I like RO I replay going much slower and often fail to trigger romance at all. So I really appreciate that Honor Bound has clear points for starting romance and many options to go slower. I’ll do that with Savarel.
Honestly, I chose Raffi because I was curious about earlier sex scene, later I used that MC to explore other routes that are not related to Varenn (I just can’t force myself to do it with other two MCs). Raffi really is not my type.
My favourite is obviously Varenn for personality and slow romance (two of my MCs are in their forties and are on the first-name basis that’s why I have a habit to use “Varenn”). And I like Savarel for appearance and partially for personality.
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I’m really glad the pace has been working well for you! I like allowing for people who want to jump straight in as well as preferring a slower pace (especially for the ones who aren’t Fiore and Korzha, where there are options to start earlier).
Also!
Chapter 7 is up for Patreon subscribers at £6+! As usual, you can skip to the start of the new chapter, or play the whole thing.
Chapter 7 and various earlier edits add around 31,000 words, bringing this latest demo to around 294,000 words - that’s nearly the whole of Blood Money!
In this chapter you will encounter:
* A lot of bad things
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Fortnightly-ish progress report:
It’s been a funny, busy couple of weeks. I’m sorry for the lateness of this progress update - the end of last week was a bit hectic.
I’m moving towards the finish line. Not sprinting, yet, because I was on holiday in Portugal for one of the weeks this fortnight, but I’ve coded Chapter 12 and have almost finished coding Chapter 11. My freelance client has asked me for some extra work over the next few days so I’ll be prioritising that, but I hope to finish coding that pesky Chapter 11 section and start writing this week.
Current wordcount: 441645 words (longer than Creme de la Creme!!)
Average playthrough wordcount: 87114 words (much longer than Creme de la Creme, and longer than Royal Affairs!)
Fortnight(ish) wordcount: 10518 words
I hope you have a lovely week!
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I had a Tumblr ask about how progress is going and thought I’d share it here for anyone interested!
I think Chapter 7 will probably be the last update I put up publicly (it’s currently up on Patreon and will go up for everyone on 2nd July). I’m hoping to write as much of Chapter 11 as I can during June, and hopefully complete the draft in July. Whenever it is completed, what will then happen is:
- I will send everything to my editor who will give me notes for Chapters 11-12
- I will revise Chapters 11-12
Then at various times, with some overlap the following will happen:
- The whole game will be closely reviewed by one of the CoG editors who will send me notes (in the past it’s usually been an editor who isn’t my main one, so it’s fresh for them)
- Automatically-generated playthrough seeds will be read by a number of continuity readers who will give me notes about errors, unclear stuff, or sensitivity issues
- The beta test for the whole game will happen (usually this is announced publicly and can be signed up for by email - I say usually because a couple of games haven’t been organised like that lately and I’m covering all my bases)
Through all that, I’ll be editing the game in response to the feedback and putting up updates for the readers and testers.
Once all the edits are done, the game is polished to my satisfaction, and playtesters have slowed down and aren’t finding errors anymore, the game will go up be copyedited. That’s the stage at which I twiddle my thumbs and feel at a loose end, and also start thinking in more detail about what I want to make next. It’s also the stage at which I’ll have a clearer idea of the release date.
Then once the copyediting is finished and I’ve answered any queries about it, once the release date comes around we’re ready to go! (I can’t remember the timing for my other games, but for Royal Affairs, it was 4 months from the full draft completion to the release date.) And that’s the point where I get jittery and nervous, and panic about self-promotion, having usually not done a huge amount of preparation. But I also try to do something nice to celebrate.
After a couple of weeks I have a reasonable idea of sales and reviews (though I really try not to obsess over either) and can use that to make further decisions about what I do next.
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Aaaand: I put it on the writers support thread too but if you happen not to be following there, here’s a little excerpt of student gossip from Honor Bound Chapter 7:
This week I’ve been making really good progress on Chapter 11 - I’m around halfway done which feels great. I’ve also had some very helpful feedback about the pacing of Chapter 7 and giving some conversation scenes extra breathing room - I’m not sure whether I’ll have implemented it by the time I put it up publicly, but it’s firmly on my to-do list. It’s the kind of feedback that fresh eyes see much more than I do when I’ve just written seven conversations and am eager to be done, and I know when I come back to it refreshed, I’ll be better at giving that space for moments of connection.
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Three-weekly-ish progress report:
I’ve finished drafting Chapter 11!!! One chapter to go! Some of this chapter has definitely had me reminding myself “perfection is the enemy of done”, but it’s down on the page which I’m delighted about. I also did a bunch of edits on some earlier chapters in response to lots of player feedback, including expanding various Chapter 7 scenes and expanding/adding things in Chapter 6 (more about that on Tuesday, when the Chapter 7 update will go up here).
Current wordcount: 476651 words
Average playthrough wordcount: 89817 words
Three-week-ish wordcount: 35,006 words
Will this end up being my first game to break 500,000 words? I think it might.
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I’m delighted to share Honor Bound Chapter 7 on Dashingdon and itch! You can skip any number of chapters to start at the chapter of your choice, or you can play through the whole thing. You can try loading a save you made before this update, but you will probably need to start a fresh one.
If you have a minute, I’d love to hear your feedback! As before, there is some feedback that I’m waiting until later to implement, and a minor character who hasn’t been added in yet, but I always pay attention to all feedback being sent in.
This new demo is around 306,000 words, with Chapter 7 and various edits adding around 43,000 words to the whole thing!
This is going to be the last chapter that I put up publicly before the beta testing begins. I may put up edits to Chapters 1-7 before then, and will implement bugfixes, but we’re getting towards the home stretch now and I’d like playtesters to have the experience of playing all the later chapters so they can have a big-picture perspective on how the branches can go.
In this chapter you will encounter:
- a lot of bad things (more detailed content notes below)
As well as the new chapter, I’ve made some significant edits to earlier chapters in response to player feedback:
Details here
Overall:
- More references to trauma responses when PC’s health is low, more reference to cane use, a bit more flavour text about the injury, more flavour text referring to health improvements to reflect the PC looking after themself
- Chapters 5 and 6: added talk with Denario about the PC being trans if it didn’t happen in Chapter 3
- General typo fixes
Chapter 4
- expanded a branch of the late-chapter Korzha scene for more breathing room
Chapter 5
- added option to medically assess Korzha when they look sick
- minor expansion of conversation with Catarina about what she thinks about the trip
- minor expansion of letter-writing with Fiore
Chapter 6
- tweaked Alva’s assignment offer, with clearer information and potential disadvantages of taking it
- expanded end of Savarel’s one-on-one scene
- fixed an error making end of Korzha’s goodnight scene shorter than intended
- added a choice to enable an amorous PC and Raffi to hide what’s going on from Simone
- added optional one-on-one Denario scene, including optional sex scene
Many thanks to everyone for their feedback - it’s been so helpful! Thanks especially to an anonymous Patreon subscriber who gave some really useful comments about some Chapter 7 one-on-one scenes which inspired me to expand on them and include some extra characterful moments.
Chapter 7 content notes: Earthquake, quicksand, fire, building collapse, potential severe injuries to the PC and others
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Found some issues, mostly just words missing or other small things.
Word or name missing:
Should be “calls” not “call”:
Uh…yeah, that second sentence:
Entirely too much entirely:
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Brilliant, thank you so much! They’ll be fixed next time I do a bugfix update, as I don’t want to make people have to restart in the middle of playing if they don’t have to 
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Oh I love to hear this — as I said the first time I saw the option, I am absolutely obsessed with the fact we can use a cane.
On that note, however, something I wanted to say since you included the option to skip certain chapters to get to the new content: When setting up your character that way there is no option to confirm/deny if you are using a cane, meaning it is never mentioned unless you start from the beginning.
I know this is inconsequential for the final game since then you will not be able to skip ahead but would it maybe be possible to make this a choice for now?
Can‘t wait to play chapter seven now, thank you for your hard and continuous work!
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Chapter 7 was interesting and intense though due to some bug my first playthrough ended strangely for me:
Summary
My MC collapsed and then Varenn came to visit and all choices after
“I’m going to go, so you can rest,” he says, more softly than he spoke earlier. “You really need it. I don’t want you hurt again.”
crush into another scene:
“Stay a little while, won’t you?”
Varenn nods, taking his time to straighten your sheets and ensure everything is in place. He puts his hand in yours until sleep carries you away.
“Ah,” Varenn says. “Yes. All right.”
You unzip your bedroll as a makeshift quilt, and Varenn comes to lie down beside you.
Also I’m not sure if it’s a bug but something I’ve noticed:
Summary
I did two playthrough and both MCs went with Varenn to help around town. After they return to the square there is some description of results (after the phrase “You can taste the dust in the air.” ). The first MC got descrition what happened to Matia, Varenn and Raffi and the second MC - what happened to Matia and Varenn.
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Thanks so much, that’s really helpful - they’re both bugs! They’ll be fixed in the next update (just need to check whether I’ve had any other bug reports before I put it up).
And that’s now fixed and up, along with @AnneWest’s typos - and @ChildeDeschain, I’ve added that option to the chapter skip section!
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I went to play c7 on dashingdon but all the save slot had error in them. did others also report bad saves or is that just on my end?
So sorry about that - it should be fixed now. However, if you’re trying to load a save that was made before the July update, you may need to replay (either from the beginning or skipping to Chapter 7).
it works now. thank you
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the saves work but now I get this error
6-gala line 3858: Non-existent
variable ‘choice_saved_checkpoi
nt_chapter_6’
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So sorry about that - I’d got my Dashingdon and local versions mixed up, and it should be fixed now.
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