Thank y’all for the answers! Yeah no I get distracted way too fast and way too easily. Rn just have visuals of banners before “exploration” bits of my chapters and suddenly contemplating whether I should add flashy and simple ones before major choices as well to add to the suspense of everything.
Maybe should focus on finishing my chapter first lmao ;-;
Happy belated new year, everyone.
I said I’ll be back, and new year feels like an appropriate time to do so.
Now just to re-read all the bajillion story notes and remember how to code… 
I don’t think this is nessecary. Most of the time in my expirience, the major choices are impactful enough you don’t need to add extra suspense to them.
While not the thread, I’m choosing to here as these threads were a… home for me that Eiwynn made for us, so I just want to say Rest in Peace to a brilliant, warm, welcoming mind that absolutely drove me to push further, made my experience with CoG a phenomenal one, and helped reignite my drive and creative passions.
On a different note, I’ve found a way to get around what I viewed as a critical roadblock for Once in a Lifetime. I plan to test an implementation of it shortly, but my theory is this:
With Once in a Lifetime, I want people to have multiple ‘saves’. This isn’t really possible within the typical architecture of ChoiceScript, but Checkpoints paved a path for at least a singular save.
Then I began thinking one night…
What if I created a System Menu within an existing save?
It’d live outside of the Stats Page, and would allow me potentially inject multiple saves using Checkpoint Slots. In theory, I could trigger a save_checkpoint to save where you are when you wanted a ‘new’ game of sorts accessed through the System Menu to save your current progress into a checkpoint slot. This would return you to the start of the game, and simply by triggering the restoral of the previous checkpoint, you would be able to reverse the reversal, sending you ‘forward in time’ back to the save selected.
This is all wildly theoretical as I need to test it, but I plan to do so over the coming days. If possible, this would be a gamechanger for me as it’d open multiple save slots up. Yes… it’d be a form of jerry-rigging the system, but nonetheless would open up possibilities. Further, if successful, I’ll gladly post the theory and execution process through a separate thread that could then open up multiple different playthroughs from being accessible for people that want to run different playthroughs in their games.
Anyways. I’m testing this theory in the coming week, and I’m really hoping that it’s possible.
Have a Happy New Year!
EDIT: I should rephrase to say different lifetimes. Completely different playthroughs would be possible through this theory.
I’m just rewriting a section of Quiver which revolves around Robin looking over at a bandit camp. There are two bandits and two wolf companions.
The player has a choice of which one to shoot while they are unaware of the danger. Some options are written so it can be a kill that doesn’t alert anyone. However, the current choice involves the arrow piercing the bandit’s back while he is sitting down. My question is, this was initially written as he falls over and startles his wolf, which alerts the other bandit and wolf pair. Now, though, I am considering making it a 50/50 chance he either falls left and wakes the wolf or falls right and doesn’t. Would this be as bad an idea as I think it would be, or would it be interesting?
I actually really like that idea.
Thanks. It’s a choice where the player can’t die if they were to “fail” here; it just means they are loosing an arrow at an aware enemy instead of an unaware one.
I think that’s wise.
Also, I might tweak the probability based on the PC’s skill, since it’s likely a more skilled archer would choose a better angle from which to take the shot and have the skill to pull it off. So maybe it’s 25/75 he wakes the wolf if he’s really in peak form, or 75/25 if he’s a little rusty.
I like that as even during the origins Robin is meant to be a talented (not skilled yet) archer. So I’ve already named the stat for the random check as luck so I’ll have it rolled 1-3 and 1 = the bad fall and 2-3 is the good fall.
Happy New Year, y’all! It be a heavy one.
Thank you @AletheiaKnights for carrying the torch for these threads. I enjoy hearing everyone’s updates and goals for the month. The articles were a nice touch, but I liked more when Eiwynn posted a general storytelling question for us all to answer (which were sometimes connected to an article topic). It was interesting to see the different approaches to a single conundrum. Then again, I read many book and writing articles per month, so maybe it stood out less to me than to others. I’m also good at finding articles, if you’d like help with that.
@HarrisPS, thank you for the tasty statistics!
My goal for this month is to finish polishing the new Chapter 8. [Into the Woods Prince voice]: 
It’s agonyyyyyyyyy
I’m squealing. Can you hear I’m squealing? I want a wolf companion.
That comment makes me feel bad now as I’m literally writing the options to kill, wound or scare away these wolves. Although, as a way of apology, I will allow Robin to be able to get a wolf companion a bit later on in the game.
How did you know the subject of my next book? 
Ooooo, puzzles and games? Looks very shiny! 
After a rest day yesterday, I’ve written 2544 words for Quiver and finished the third and final origin. This brings the total word count for Chapter One to 6736/25000.
It feels terrific to be in the writing flow. I need to make sure I thank my muse properly. I’m going to end the night with another question inspired by @LiliArch 's excitement about wolf companions. I was writing about their possible deaths when she posted.
When Robin finds a Wolf Companion of their own, what would you like to be able to call her?
There’s a published list of over a thousand medieval English hunting dog names. I’d take inspiration from those: Champyn, Compaynowne, Dragon, Flowre, Honydewe, Mynstrell, Nosewise, Trusty.
Was just looking at one article and it said there was a list of hunting dog names by one of the English kings and one of the suggestions was “Argument.” There are some very unique names out there.
Hi there!
I just finished reading this thread and want to say that I love what this community seems to bring. I used to be a big forum guy way back when, so seeing this forum as active as I’ve seen it so far in my first 7 days is amazing and in all honesty also quite motivating.
I’ve found out about CoG recently and decided to finally test the waters on my writing capabilities. I’ve always liked writing, but only ever wrote on a story for a couple of days before that feeling of isolation that is mentioned here sometimes started to creep in. I never really had anyone or anywhere to share thoughts about any of my stories. Reading this thread has given me a different perspective on it all tho, as I see people that are just in a magnificent writing flow as well as people that aren’t living up to their own expectations, but yet both are sharing their thoughts about it on this forum.
So I think I’ll be sticking around for a while, learn the lingo as I didn’t always know what some things meant, and maybe even write enough of a story so people can play/test my game.
Also I want to say thanks to the people that responded so swiftly to my created topics when I was in need of help, because that felt like a warm welcome. Belated happy 2025 and good luck to everyone on their goals!
EDIT: I just read a big portion of the thread about Eiwynn’s passing and for what it’s worth, I think you all are honoring her memory well. The messages I’ve read about how welcoming, helpful and kind she was is the same feeling I’ve had so far.
Only wrote 160 words yesterday before I unceremoniously passed out at my desk. That was fun. What was even more fun was waking up at 3am, struggling to go back to sleep, falling asleep one-to-two hours before I have to wake up for work.
I finished writing about the Jumbo the Elephant exhibit yesterday. It should have been a light lift but it has a crazy, winding 150 year history and I had to figure out which nuggets to keep. In the process I got to introduce a circus ringmaster who was fun to spend time with!