Ideally, what do you look for in a first time demo?

Game Development Writing and Content
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I actually agree with you for once, :wink: Yes, many writers are not ready, reason why I created the jam and wanted to support new writers- The wip system should not be for them Wip should be for games far more serious and with a planning and development similar how publisher authors do or @Lucid However, I really think somebody should tell those authors You aren’t ready, prepare jams or small contests and when you are prepared create a serious plan and a wip when you have a small slice of life demo worth testing…

My jams effort is make people write, learning techniques and planning a game inside a deadline.

If nobody is sincere with them, they will never reach their whole potential or publishing in the future

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Kinda comes back to my original point that practice practice practice is so important.

The term WIP is used to mean anything from “professional level demo” to “something i just cooked up last night in a few hours.” I kinda agree that there is no middle ground between “interest check” and “here is my game demo”. Some of this stuff clearly needs to be a “showcase” of work, without the assumption that it is going to be a 12 book series.

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That is what I am trying with jams and tiny future contest, authors will have a small portfolio of finished games, learning the ropes and the techniques and how done an entire game feel.Practice to polish and how ending games is priceless for later on when the level for a publish is near

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When I’m looking at a demo, what I really want is enough content to establish the tone, setting, characters, and hook me into the story. As others have mentioned, the milage for how many words that is may vary depending on the author and the complexity of the story they want to tell. I also look for compelling ideas with high stakes, and I don’t really care if they’ve been done a million times before. Every writer is going to have a different voice and put their own twist on it. Anyways, here’s a long-winded list of specifics.

Things I look for/love

Interesting character dynamics:
Nothing gets me invested like a character with a unique perspective or set of circumstances that complicates their relationships. This is probably why I love a lot of games/WIPs where the MC is some sort of monster or has a superpower that alienates them somehow. Also rivalmances? Yes please.

Will read/don’t mind

Unpolished writing:
There is a point at which writing becomes too incoherent, but I actually enjoy reading a lot of the less polished stuff. I find it interesting to read first/second drafts and sort of get to see the building blocks in action. I also really enjoy editing stuff in my head, so that’s probably a big part of it. I totally understand why this would be off-putting for a lot of people though.

WIPs that will probably never be finished:
Not wanting to get invested in something that will never be finished is totally valid. That said, as a reader, I’m strongly in camp just-along-for-the-ride, and really like being able to explore the worlds people create even if they ultimately get abandoned. I do wish there was another section on the forum for more casual projects that could later be moved to WIPs for potential publishing feedback.

Things that will turn me off

Writing in past tense:
It just takes me out of the story (prologues and flashbacks are exempt from this). It’s definitely a personal preference though.

Not enough descriptions of setting:
One thing that I find in a lot of WIPs is the lack of descriptions of locations and the MC’s sensory experiences; what things smell like, is it warm, is it cold, what texture is that horrifying fish jello? etc. In that vein, it can also be a bit confusing to spend a few pages in the MC’s head and then go back to a conversation without grounding the reader back in location. Sensory stuff just makes the world more vivid and is the icing.

Not enough choices:
I think this is the worst one for me. While it is more exciting when there are a lot of different branches, I don’t mind some fake choices that don’t have any added dialogue for filler, I just need something to keep me engaged and invested ya know? I can head-cannon a lot, but I don’t really want to read 5 full pages with no choices, especially if the choices I’ve made before don’t impact the content. Impactful choices are the bread and butter of the best interactive fiction, but letting me pick what beverage my MC is going to drink can go a long way too.

Oop, that’s a lot of words.

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I was thinking to create a Workshop thread where people can put links to smaller projects between jams and without any desire of publishing just practice and have fun, obtaining feedback in the process. But I don’t know if people want that

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I think it sounds like a great idea!

Maybe even a thread that would be about brainstorming and building up on those creative ideas.

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Oh, I certainly can do both. I can prepare a set of rules and do it tomorrow. I will control them to not workload leaders and moderators further.

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If you want some help, I can lend a hand if you want.

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30

I’ll parrot most others here on, at the very least, passable grammar/spelling. I can handle switching tenses and some minor errors here and there, but that is about the length of it.

Does your game have intended love interests? Introduce me to them. It legitimately doesn’t have to be much, just a scene; something to look forward to for all of those people who play CoG/HG for the romance.

No massive walls of text. I can’t focus on a page long enough if there aren’t choices to break them up, and lore-dumps suck. I feel bad that sometimes you are super excited about the minutiae of the world, while I’m still interested in learning about my character. Save the lore-dumps for when I’ve moved on to wondering about the specifics of my character’s place in the world.

All of this to say… If you are going to give us any demo, no matter the quality or length. Thank you so much, and I’ll try my hardest to provide good critiques from my point of view, while trying to understand there is a human on the other side of the keyboard.

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  • A concise, organized summary. If the first post on a game is a mess, it’s easy to conclude that the game might be, too. So a good summary is important. Even fairly “generic” ideas can sizzle with the right amount of finesse.

  • A premise that hooks. It doesn’t have to be the most original thing that ever graced the world, but it should have something that compels me to click that DashingDon link.

  • A decent amount of introductory story. It doesn’t have to extend beyond the first chapter, or even finish it out, but if things end right after the character creation bit…then I have probably experienced very little actual gameplay. And I doubt I’d have a feel for the tone of the story, or a hint of the author’s voice, either.

  • Signs that the story extends beyond its premise. Often, it’s very easy to tell when a plot has been outlined or not–you can feel it in the writing. Sometimes, the author will outright state it. Authors who “wing it” usually fizzle out faster than the plotters. (This is something I see very frequently in fanfic communities, and among aspiring authors.) I have yet to write my own game, but I’ve outlined a couple, and wow, do they need outlines.

  • Editing skills. Self-explanatory. A major part of writing is the ability to edit. Raw, unedited fiction rambles a lot more than something that has been gone over with a critical eye at least once. Even if it still includes typos, there’s a clear difference in levels of polish.

  • The author specifies what feedback they want. This makes it easier for players/testers to offer said feedback, and keep an eye out for any issues.

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32

I prefer DashingDon WIPs to use the traditional COG page format/style. You can change the background colour, like you can for published books, and the black display is the most accessible one for me. Otherwise I find it hard on the eyes to read.

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This. I’ve been checking out a lot of demos of already published games lately and…well they just don’t seem to be trying very hard to make a sale. I lose interest immediately if all three “chapters” are just wallowing around in character creation with no reason to care about the plot or character to begin with. The twenty rapidfire questions before you can even start the story is also not the greatest format for showing off actual writing. There’s no pressing reason to continue and see what happens.

The most recent actually really good one I tried was Empyrean, more authors should take that one as an example.

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I find myself keeping an eye out for decent punctuation and grammar. I’m not an English major or wizard, I make plenty of mistakes myself (like abusing the comma and semicolon to death. And the em dash.), and I completely understand if English isn’t the author’s native language. I can forgive misspellings so long as it every other word. “Oh, you missed a letter there. You forgot the period. I think you used the wrong word here.” When it comes to WIPs, I don’t “expect” perfection. It’s only when it’s published and on the app store that I have an issue.

Walls of text are a huge issue for me, personally. Reading is difficult for me already, and if you’ve seen me say this before I apologize, interactive fictions are the best way for me to read while keeping me engaged. That said… text walls are daunting. I find myself skimming just trying to find where it ends and then end up possibly missing something important to the story.

This isn’t necessarily something I “look” for, but something I appreciate. Now, I can’t talk because I’ve pretty much done what everyone else has in character creations, but even still, I appreciate a creator that isn’t just “you look in the mirror”. Do I hate it? Not at all. Does it ruin the story or take me out of it? Absolutely not! I just like a little variety of how it comes up (such as being described from another character’s perspective).

I dunno if this quite relates to this topic but… I look at the author themselves, too. How they respond and handle suggestions and criticisms. I totally understand how it feels when someone (or multiple people) say they don’t like something, or when someone has… less than respectful things to say. But if the author is friendly to others and encouraging to perhaps other writers, it does give me a bit more of an incentive to read their work! Does that make sense?

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Very interesting to read everyone’s opinion on this. For a first time interactive writer I am new at the coding part of this and have some (I feel) good ideas in my head to work out. I currently have finished only a small prologue and I’m starting the first chapter. For me, it would be great to know I am on the right track and so would like to post my work after this first chapter to get some feedback. Additionally, I want to check what people feel about the story/setting as I feel it is quite different to most stories I have found here, as well as to make sure that I am on the right track coding wise. I do not see myself writing 3 chapters to then find out I could have done things differently from the start, especially the coding (as this takes up most of my time at the moment, I assume it will get easier). Also I am considering putting this project on hold after the first chapter to start a smaller project to get more experience in the coding part.

I know there is an interest check thread, but feel like it would get less attention, and also that getting feedback on my first chapter is a different thing entirely. Because this seems like a different kind of story to most of those on this platform, I’d like to test people’s reactions to the coding as well, because if this is not the right setting for this kind of work it would be good to know this now.

@poison_mara I do hope the workshop picks up, this sounds perfect for my work and will definitely check this out once I finish with these first *choices and *goto’s :wink: Better get back to writing :slight_smile: Sorry I went off topic a bit.

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