It’s been a time in development land, as I continue to work on Lifestyle descriptions ahead of the planned Character & Family Creation Demo.
Lifestyles will fall into several different ‘pools’ within Once in a Lifetime. While you’re free to avoid the path outlined by a Lifestyle, you may still encounter events (I will separately create a Lifestyle option known as ‘Freestyle’ which doesn’t involve general event pools.
There are both general and lifestyle-specific event pools. My best way to give an example is to show one of the lifestyles that I have planned for Once in a Lifetime below:
As you can see, I’ve been up to quite a bit of work. Code to activate the lifestyles is already implemented, and I’m merely hammering out content fillouts at this time.
Agreed, though Tolkien I am not - sadly other than maybe a few words and sounds here and there, I don’t have the time to make a language, so while then characters in my story may no what that fantasy word means, thankfully and perhaps mercifully, I don’t usually bother that far. There is definetly some thought to making sounds of a supposed fantasy people consistent though - if they have one word with a certain sound, perhaps Xee sounds or Vee sounds or whatever sound is in a word, probably it is more likely they might have another word with the same sound in it, I think, though I guess I haven’t given it super deep thinking . . .
This sounds so fun! Good to give Robin a chance to remain sober too though, but I am happy you are doing this project and look forward to givijng it a try. Oh, my robin is going to be soo drunk . . .
Conrads! That sounds like one long chapter. And that is always my fear too, on the missing a branch, which sadly I do find I do. Organization is definitely something I need to improve at and I think will pay dividends.
Sounds like a good plan, one useful to a lot of different games. I could definetly do that for my own games, i.e. Dice & Dungeon Masters where different player types might encounter different queued events if and only if they are this class or that class, or for Super Sorority with backgrounds. Though then the question rises as to how best to organise it - if it flows to a special subfile for each instance or if i just encode it in a super long chapter. In any event, your prose seems strong from that little snippet, and I think I am strangely jelous of this potential prot with millions as their chump change.
Once in a Lifetime is organized through a myriad of individual files with system encodings, subroutines, and the like. The game’s going to have a massive set of size in terms of scope, and as such I’m going to need to dynamically run cyclic events through different conditions to bounce to different files (particularly with dynamic event generation).
Once in a Lifetime will likely have thousands of events when the game is completed (which I am well aware will take me years, haha. As a result, it’s going to take quite a bit of work segmenting into different files, and creating subconditions that can tell the game how to bounce around and hyper-optimize so I don’t see a huge dragdown in processing/loading times.
All in all, I have some spaghetti, but I’m condensing it. I’ve refactored two key systems twice already.
Oh yes it will totally be up to Robin how much or how little they drink.
EDIT: the drinking will be available during a chat with a character Nell if you’ve encountered her and helped free her or a drunk patron if you don’t beat him up or a different patron if you do. The top choice is to have another drink and that never goes away so you can drink before you pick every choice or keep drinking and ignore the other choices!
Second Edit: I’ve had a really great day for writing this evening. I’ve managed to write 3,212 words! This brings Chapter One to 24,631 words versus my 25,000 word target for the month
Today (GMT+8) is now my birthday, and I’m now in the age where many say life begins.
Since the theme for this year’s Global Game Jam has also been revealed, I’m gonna do some preparation work before I get to the real action this weekend.
I had a good writing day on Project Amble today! I changed up a couple of my opposed stats which didn’t quite feel right, then went through and implemented them in the first two chapters, and balanced their difficulty. That was most of the morning and is work that I find very satisfying and often soothing/relaxing! Especially when it’s the start of the week and I’m not feeling very fresh.
Then in the afternoon I did writing. I also crunched a bunch of numbers for my tracking (which I’ve got back into properly) so I can definitively say I’m 19% of the way through the chapter.
What are some things you like about the process of writing, or things you especially enjoy writing?
I like editing a ton! I also really enjoy designing narrative systems and organising/balancing mechanics a lot. And for things I like writing, there’s something I like a lot about writing conversations where characters are talking past each other or don’t really want to be having the conversation - I have a lot of fun with it.
I like when characters gain a personality and start doing things that you hadn’t envisioned them doing before but suit them (and the story) nonetheless.
Honestly some of my favorite things to write has been imagery (that might not be the right word/concept, but whatever), specifically imagery that gives personification to various objects and aspects of nature. “Air that quivers in fear”, “Thunder crying out in terror”. Stuff like that. I enjoy writing in the mysterious and opaque, the paradoxical. I’m a big fan of wielding curiosity towards, and fear of, the unknown to effect. I just enjoy creating this kind of, eerie, feeling, not quite scary, not quite comfortable either.
Like, one of my favorite lines that I’ve written, one thats stuck with me, for another project was this:
[…] there’s a thudding sound. One which reverberates throughout the entire landscape. It’s almost like thunder. Except it isn’t, Valentine knows this, he intuitively understands there some sort of distinction. No, it’s more like, as if someone was knocking on the very universe itself, asking to be let in.
So many things! I love coming up with idea. I love a piece findings it voice. I love telling a story. I love re-reading what I write and feeling the feelings I want my future readers to have.
The world seems pretty straightforward so far, nothing too special. Very nice map though.
Being part of a “security company” (or maybe running it?) is a good angle.
I was interested in the ball game the kids were playing.
The opening was confusing. Maybe by design?
You get born, but it was a dream. But then you dream again… and then you’re born.
Based on the narration, the character’s description, and the action, I imagined my character looking like Conan the Barbarian.
Maybe the prince should be disguised when he’s out among the earthworms? Or at least not wearing so much gold. It would have made a nice reveal if the cool kid who invites you to play ball is actually a prince.
It feels like there are a few spots where the player could make a choice, but it isn’t offered, like choosing to ball or not. (I keep referring back to that scene because it was so striking.) But then there’s an option to ask Franz a question about the knight, and all three options are basically the same thing.
There were a bunch of typos in the writing, some of them serious. Definitely do an editing read-through to catch some if you haven’t already.
During the scene afterward with Mom, she says “I’ll make you the best archer ever” and then on the next page “I’ve taught you all the combat techniques I can.” You’re giving up too quick, Mom!
Liked:
mercenary company management
fantasy ball game
friends with interesting kids
battle mom
Conan vibes
Disliked:
typos
standard fantasy world
confusing intro
low impact choices
Mainly, I think you should either make your world stand out a bit more, or lean into interesting character interactions like the ones you have now. Or both!
I like dialogue
I like when the characters talk to one another.
And sometimes, I like to look back at what I’ve wrote. You can say, “wow I did all that.”
You can also say “wow this is garbage” but sometimes you feel positive instead. Even if it’s garbage it’s still a genuine accomplishment to have written anything!
Ah thank you for the feedback! I wanted the intro to be sudden and confusing, but not in a way that would chase away the reader, so I’ll definitely go back and fix it. Thanks!
I was just testing this prologue to see if it was good so typos are to be expected, but thanks for pointing them out.
Make the choices more impactful. Gotcha!
Make Frantz identity a surprise. You know I should have done that. I don’t know why I didn’t go with that first but I’m glad you gave me the idea.
Sorry about it being another fantasy world. I’m obsessed with it lol.
The MC’s parents are brutish, burly people, so I wanted that to still be apart of them.
I really love character development, especially exploring family dynamics and religious identity. I just feel like both of these have major impacts of who people come out to be, and even their absence can be incredibly impactful, so its fun to explore the different layers. And how a character can have contradictory feelings. I just love the complexity and struggle both of these areas add to writing characters.
I also really love writing dialogue with characters who are introspective. I love the challenge of writing with subtext, making sure there is enough detail to give the reader some idea of what they are thinking, but also keeping it subtle.
That’s not a bad thing - you just gotta show what makes it so great! If you’re obsessed, there has to be some real good stuff in there. It’s up to you to show us what it is!
Probably character arcs. I once read in a book that taught the basics of character arcs that we can’t feel sorry for our characters. Whether in a positive or negative arc, struggling is part of that journey. As an avid lover of Greek mythology, few heroes are spared suffering and agony. Not even the great Heracles escapes tears. The most memorable stories for me are precisely those that end in bloody tragedy, or a bittersweet finale. Having said that, I’d like to point out that The Odyssey is my favorite story precisely because Odysseus suffers for 20 years, but is still given a very rare happy ending, even if the dog’s last breath breaks my heart. Anyway, after growing up reading these stories, I ended up falling in love with Shakespeare too, particularly Macbeth and Hamlet for the same reason: the drama.
That’s my favorite part of writing arcs: the journey. It’s throwing my characters to the lions, and watching them get shredded piece by piece, or come out of the cave with a new fur coat, triumphant. Even though I already know what their final fate will be before the first letters are typed into the .docx, they don’t, and that’s one of the most attractive aspects of writing for me. Every tear, every stumble, every scream of rage is a delight to write, regardless of whether at the end of the road they will find final victory, or absolute ruin.
