January 2024's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
203

A short snippet from the very beginning of my WIP, Gigantea: Age of Rot!

Summary

Even as a child in crêche, you knew the tales.

How in the Age of Stories, the gods and spirits walked amongst the people as equals. How your ancestors flew through the sky on spirit-drawn chariots, extended their lifespans with powerful concoctions, and held mastery over matter itself as they reshaped the world around them with a mason’s handheld and hammer.

With their powers and the aid of their divine friends, the people in those long-gone days built glittering cities that met their inhabitants’ every need, powered by living spirits bound by choice to metal and stone. Life flourished in every corner of the world, and none knew sickness or harm.
*page_break Of Course, It Didn’t Last
The gods, jealous of man’s ascendance, tore their divine power from deep within their own being and flung it outward. As they writhed in agony and ceaseless death, their vicious curse crashed down on the world and all those who dwelt within it. The Rot traveled faster than thought, tearing down cities, turning steel and bone alike to water and blood.

Now, Gigantea is all that remains of the Age of Stories, a last, lone bulwark of long-ago that thrusts from the World-Sea like a promise and a challenge and a prayer. At least, that’s the language the king always uses to describe his domain, which his family has protected for hundreds of years at the cost of their own good health.

You brush your right hand along one of the city’s smooth, seamless walls, reflecting on its coolness and the way it glimmers faintly even in the absence of torch or lantern. You’ve lived within these walls your whole life, and at this point you could probably recite the details of Gigantea’s founding while standing on your head.

*fake_choice
    #I've never found those myths very convincing.
        *set reverence %- mid_change
    #I've always sincerely believed every word.
        *set reverence %+ mid_change
        *set first_choice 2
    #I've always dreamed of living in those times.
        *set stories_glories %+ mid_change
        *set first_choice 3
    #Honestly, I care more about the here and now.
        *set stories_glories %- mid_change
        *set first_choice 4

As you stand in a darkened hallway just off the market’s main plaza, @{first_choice you can’t help but note just how often the royal family repeats them—surely to their own gain|you offer a silent prayer of thanks to the royal family for keeping you safe from the Rot all this time|you lose yourself to imagining what it must have been like to build the spires you’ve lived in all your life|you’re happy to set those old stories aside and focus on the festivities that await you today}.

My goal for this month is to finish the first chapter, which I’m pretty close to doing and hope to get tied up soon!

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204

Villain Juice!'s MC comes across a mysterious stranger…

Summary 
Trudging back through the streets takes twice as long as it should, your pace slowed by fatigue both physical and mental. By the time you reach Wesson Parks, the sun is beginning to set. The mechanical carcasses of your industrial building cast long and misshapen shadows as you cross its span, home amidst the monsters.

Stepping around another rusting hulk, your shipping container comes into view. And so does something—some[i]one[/i]—else.

A man stoops in front of your home. There's a plastic dish in his hands.

It's @{alidisplay the pasta ninja!|Pasta La Vista!|}

He sees you a split second after you see him, leaping to his feet—damn he's tall, and muscular too—and smiles. "Hey there! Uh, promise this isn't as weird as it looks?"

He has dark skin, glasses, and a clean shave, with his hair drawn back in a neat tail of braids. He's dressed casually, cargo pants and a white shirt with a red jacket thrown over the top, though he's also wearing a backpack. Definitely a lot more put together than the average Wesson Parks resident.
*choice
    #"Who the hell are you?" I bristle.
        *set expressive %+ 7
        *set bristle true
        *goto leavebad
    #"I dunno, dude. It looks pretty weird."
        He glances from you to the dish he's holding, and his smile turns sheepish. "Yeah, naw, you've got a point."
        
        *if expressive < 40
            You fold your arms and raise an eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate.
            
        *else if expressive > 60
            "I usually do," you reply, a smile of your own trickling onto your face. "Want to take a shot at making it less weird?"
            
        *else
            "Feel like explaining what you're up to?" you ask.
            
        *goto alisplain
    #"...Hi."
        *set expressive %- 7
        Despite your minimal response, his smile broadens.
    #Silently begin hunting for signs of an ambush.
        *set instinctive %- 7
        There are too many tight angles and blind corners here. It's impossible to tell whether anyone is lying in wait.
        
        You unconsciously begin backing up in an attempt to improve your line of sight.
        
        "Whoa whoa!" Panic flashes across your visitor's face. "Hold up! You don't gotta worry, I'm just a guy."
        
        *if observation < 20
            You hesitate. He seems sincere, but you're also terrible at reading people.
            
        *else
            You hesitate. He does seem sincere, but maybe he's a good actor.
            
        "Talk," you say after a little deliberation, though you're still keeping your head on a swivel.
        *goto alisplain
    #"Leave, or I'll make you." This is bad. He needs to be gone.
        *set instinctive %+ 7
        *label leavebad
        *set hostile true
        "Whoa whoa!" He holds out both hands. "Hold up a sec. I'm not a cop or a suit or nothing. Just a guy."
        
        @{bristle You almost snort with derision. Sure. Just a guy.|Your fists begin to clench. Sounds like excuses.}
        
        "Can I get a chance to explain?"
        
        You exhale hard from your nose. "Make it fast."
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205

Wait hold the phone you can use multireplace like that with variable conditionals?

that

That changes some things.

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206

Hello writers. I’m still very new here, but I’m interested in what everyone’s working on. I ought to read a bunch more CoGs.

I’ve been having a very hard time with my most recent chapter, thanks to a tough work schedule. I thought I might have to put it on hold for a while…
but not yet! I got my second wind. The writing comes hard but it comes. I’m on the fifth part of a ten-part trial. It takes a few days to do one part, so in theory I’m 15 days from completion plus editing. We’ll see how it goes.

Chapter 4 has taken a year to write. I am not being very efficient about this.

The what now? Well, I guess I can find something from the new chapter…

Player meets with their idiot client

This is it, Lycus’ cell. You step up to the bars to see whose life is in your hands today.

He’s extremely hairy, with cloven hooves and a pair of nubby horns. Curly black hair frames his bare face as he sits on the cell’s stone bench, eyes downcast.

He notices you and leaps onto his hoofed feet. “Finally going to let me out? You should have known, you’ll never suppress the will of the people!”

You notice he’s wearing a dirtied MOOM vest. “I’m not a guard,” you tell him. “But I’ll see what I can do about getting you out. I’m ${name}.”

“Huh.” He considers this. “That’s the name of the undead Dendara’s been talking about.”

“Yeah, it is.”

He thinks a bit harder.

“Wait, is that you?” He leans in to inspect you through the bars. “You’re kind of… small, aren’t you?”

You don’t know how to respond to that.

“Well, thanks for coming to bust me out of here,” he says, going to sit back down, “but you don’t need to bother. They usually let me go after a day or two.”

You frown. “I’m not sure that’s their plan here.”

“Why not? It’s what they usually do.” Lykus leans back, hairy arms behind his head. “Dendara picks a spot to protest. We all go out there and make a big fuss. The guards throw me in here after a while. I promise not to do it again and they let me out the next day. Easy enough.”

“Let me get this straight.” You watch him on the stony seat. “You think you’ve been arrested for causing a disturbance?”

“Yeah, of course. That’s what I was doing before they grabbed me.” He gives you a funny look. “You feeling okay?”

“Lykus,” you tell him. “You’re accused of murder.”

“No I’m not.” He looks away again. “Why would I kill somebody? That’d be dumb.”

“The chef at BBQ Bill’s was found dead,” you explain patiently. “And you were seen there that night, acting oddly. It’s in the newspapers.”

He furrows his brow.

“So what you’re telling me is,” he ventures, “they haven’t let me go because they’re getting ready to execute me for murder.”

You nod. “That’s exactly right.”

“You gotta get me out of here,” Lycus stammers, holding onto the bars with both hands. “I take it all back. I never did anything wrong my whole life. You can tell them that, right? Please!”

“This is a big change from the ‘will of the people’ stuff you were saying earlier,” you point out.

“Look, I don’t care actually about any of that MOOM stuff.” He picks at his worn vest. “I just thought if I went along with it, Dendara would go out with me.”

Real class act you’ve got here. “First of all, that’s scummy. And second, she’s dating Jelid.”

His eyes widen. “For serious?”

“Seems that way. It’s not like they’re subtle about it.”

Lycus crosses his arms and tilts his head to one side. “I mean, it’s still not completely out of the question.”

“How about we go back to the important part?” you suggest. “The part where you’ll be declared guilty and put to death unless you give me the information I need to save you, right now.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “I can do that.”

What a coincidence, that’s what mine is! Although I’m only three cases in and I’m not making great time. Maybe wait for chapter 4. It will be ready any minute now…

That also means I gotta check these out to see what real CoG writers have done with the concept.

I’m still a little insecure about my lack of choices in-game. I address that a little in chapter 4, but the game will have a linear structure no matter what I do. I’m interested in doing a proper CoG next where the player can pick lots of stuff. Preferably an adventure game of some kind. Maybe I will even start something as a break from Evil Justice if I need it, as suggested in the thread.

I hope everyone meets (or exceeds) their writing goals! This stuff is great.

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207

Remember, a mostly linear narrative isn’t the worst thing in the world, provided the player has agency in the path taken.

If everything branches, you end up with an infinite and uncompleteable project.

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208

I’m all over the place, but, saying it shortly, plotting some superhero and space opera stuff and writing my Master’s thesis.

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209

Are you my clone or something? Because I’m too trying to write a space opera and a Master’s thesis at once.

The sad thing is, more research went into the space opera out of these two things. The thesis is mostly just me re-inventing minesweeper and experimentally proving the the game is indeed easier when you’re not clicking randomly.

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210

Wait, Minesweeper? Are you studying game development too? :laughing:

That said, I have enough clones/alt-universe equivalents running around as it is (being on the staff of same magazine with one can get confusing, let me tell you), so no thanks on that one.

Ahaha, just read through my file for potential achievements, and now I'm laughing oh so hard. Have at thee.
  • Death By Origin
  • You Can Panic Now
  • Assuming Direct Control
  • Wrath of the Dragons
  • Contingencies Upon Contingencies
  • Riddle Me This
  • Thou Shalt Not Pass
  • Another Dent in a Wall
  • World’s Sloppiest Detective
  • Suit Yourself
  • We Will Prevail
  • The Silence Of Bats
  • Nothing Ends, Adrian
  • And My Bow
  • Drums in the Deep
  • Demon of the Ancient World
  • All Shall Love Me And Despair
  • Act Casual
  • Wrath Made Flesh
  • All Hail the Conquering Hero
  • The Code Remembers
  • Damsel Out of Distress
  • If All Else Fails
  • No Thought, No Consequences
  • I Reject Your Reality
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211

This was my reaction when I learned that as well!

Just keep in mind that you can’t stack multireplaces, so if you have someone with variable pronouns who also needs to use plural/singular verbs, you’ll still have to break it up somehow.

I have a bunch of ${ger_pronoun_sub} @{ger_plural_verb verb|verbs} constructions in mine, for instance, but also places where that character reacts differently based on your relationship value, so I still have to do stuff like this

*if (gerran_rel < 35)
    @{ger_plural_verb Are|Is} ${ger_pronoun_sub} really going through with ${ger_pronoun_adj} threat?

or be very careful with my sentences to avoid the problem or putting a @{ger_plural_verb} inside of @{(gerran_rel < 35)}!

9 Likes
212

My semester starts tomorrow, so who knows how much progress I’ll make over the next few months. But, I’ve made progress on multiple projects, so I’m looking forward to when I’m at the point of sharing a demo or two (or three… I have a problem).

Anyway, here’s the first scene of my mystery series

Summary

Your breath is visible as you walk down a path through the dense forest. The fresh snow crunches under your boots as you follow the strange trail deeper into the woods. Two long lines dig into the snow, leading you to a clearing in the distance. As you approach, you notice the center of the shining white clearing has been stained a deep scarlet, with what must be something dead or dying lying in the mess. Dreading what you’ll find there, you slowly make your way into the clearing. Once you’re close enough, you get a good look at the dead woman. A blood-soaked grey quilt covered her naked body. You couldn’t see her wounds, but there was so much blood you knew they had to be brutal. Taking a deep breath, you finally look at the poor woman’s face. Her skin tone skin contrasts against the red, and her eye color eyes are wide and lifeless.

“Mom?” you whisper, as your heart picks up speed. As the realization of what’s happening hits, you take in a shallow breath, ready to scream in agony…

“Wake up!” someone shakes you out of your nightmare.

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213

We have a similar problem :yum:

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214

Trying to reach 15,000 words on my game by the end of the month. Currently at 14,000 so I’m on the right track. It’s a monster slayer horror game set in a smallish town. Players buy weapons and items in the game hub and then choose a case file they want to pursue. The plan is ten case files and I’m thinking the final game will be around 100,000 words. I’m hoping to get a first draft finished by the end of the year.

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215

First,

Welcome to the Writer Support Thread for January 2024 @Deeborm. Often, writing seems hardest to handle when you are at the deepest part of your project. It is good that you persevere even if the writing is harder than it normally is.

Eleven months ago, I took the advice of one of my writing mentors and shared an excerpt with the people who follow the support threads.

It is a way for me to get used to showing me work publicly in a bit of a more controlled setting, both in material shared and in a friendly context.

I am humbled as this practice has been adopted by many and their willingness to share.

By reading other excerpts I try to learn, and this month there is a lot to learn from seeing other authors’ excerpts.

Thank you everyone for helping make this practice a successful endeavor each month. :revolving_hearts:

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216

‘People change their minds about things all the time . (Except fascists. They broken.)’

Preach it! But nah, good article. Thanks for sharing.

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217

I’m a little late to the party this month but here’s a snippet :slight_smile:

Snippet

“It’s not really like that,” she lets out a quiet breath as she reaches for the bag. Her face enters the shadow of the exposed beam above, and as its edges blur and stretch to toy with the dangling bead at her ear, her smile looks suddenly more rueful than happy.

“How could it be anything else?” I shift uncomfortably, not liking the way the conversation is starting to feel like a pit too deep for me to see the bottom of.

“I don’t know. But try it - you already have, right?” she prods, and the ache in my stomach wakes up. “Didn’t work for you. I bet you’ve tried it more than once, too. We all do. It never works longer than a month or two.”

“So what did you do? Did you figure out how to fix it?”

“Not a chance,” she barks a laugh, depositing the two dollar coke in the bag and pushing the lot towards me. “Total’s eight-fifty-nine, hun.” The old register dings, loud and clear, and the shadow dissolves from her face with a screech, shrinking back to the recesses of the ceiling above. She chuckles, and holds her hand out for the money I place in her palm.

Edit: I love/hate how every time I post one of these I instantly notice a way to improve it. Yay, for editing, boo for ‘why didn’t I see this before posting?’ :joy:

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218

My goal is to find any time this month to just put something onto paper. I released my first 10K words in a WIP and that took me months just to do. But know finding anytime is harder do to do, due to work and school. So I’m just hoping at least 1 day a week I can just sit and put at least 1000 words on a page.

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219

I have been rather busy these first few weeks of the year, so I dont have a snippet I feel comfortable sharing. However, the stars aligned to give me the rest of this week free, so I hope to get as much progress done as possible.

In place of a snippet, I’d like to ask a question:

How do you all balance humour in your writing?

Do you leave it out completely, and keep your writing totally serious. Or do you let the occasional joke trickle in? Of course, if you’re writing a comedy, then the answer is obvious.

I’d like to think I balance humour and plot pretty well, if the amount of comments in my thread telling me how much they laughed at “that bit” is anything to go by. I find it hard to remain totally serious, even if I’m writing about something serious.

For example, a joke I wrote once went something like:
“I guess he’s half the man he once was.” [After slicing a man in half.]

Or a brief detour during a tense infiltration mission in which you leave a review at a beef bowl store, and have the option to take the piss.

That’s all from me I guess, hope the rest of your month is successful everyone (^▽^)/★☆♪

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220

Since my setting is an absurdist comedy where everything is hilariously awful all the time, I don’t really need to balance anything. Most of the time, I don’t even write jokes per se. Everything just kinda naturally devolves into dark humor.

Right now I’m writing a hangout scene where a RO casually recalls almost starving to death during his times as a mule breeder. Not because I thought the scene needed comedy or anything, it’s just how life works in this universe.

6 Likes
221

I read “the stairs aligned” and am now thinking about architecture that changes on its own.

I just write what feels right. If your characters are snarky, why wouldn’t they snark?

Also sidenote, I just realized I don’t need to figure out where to set this one character’s gender since it doesn’t fit anywhere naturally… there’s no reason for the character to be there at that point, so there’s no need to know their gender either.

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222

I just do, recently I decided to start breaking the 4th wall aswell

Sometimes I put them in but depending on the situation, during when I reread to make sure everything flows and makes sense I end up changing it

But that’s just me, when it’s serious it’s “serious” I guess, I like comedy but I love action :person_shrugging:

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