Aww thank you so much, that’s really lovely 
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Ren’py has automated tests?
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Ren’py has lint to check the code for errors. It also has useful features like text rollback, skipping and autosaves which really makes testing a lot easier.
That said, my latest (hobby project), Gummybear Galaxy, is in Choicescript. Interestingly, I uploaded it onto cogdemos for easy testing on my phone, and it somehow managed to get over 1000 views in a few days with zero marketing on my part.
I wanted to make this a VN at first, but I had been itching to make a choicescript game for a while.
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Interesting. I’ll need to keep that in mind. I’m currently on “poke around and see what’s what” phase, so not quite relevant yet.
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Uh-oh, I’ll be in England in a few days. You’re not talking about the South-East, are you? 
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Bit of a late Jan update but I’m finally replacing my placeholder art with the real thing. Feels surreal but I’m glad I can commission my friends for it. They deserve it after reading all my half-baked demos for years 
As someone living here. My condolences
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I’ve made slow but steady progress over the past week. Using TrackBear to focus on an actual goal.
I’m hoping that I can get another big spike of words written down at the weekend like I managed early on, but mostly I’m just excited to be building the routine, trying to get into the habit of writing a tiny scrap every day like a professional 
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No, but it’s looking pretty rainy across most of it I’m afraid 
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Sigh.
I just got reminded of this old review of A Long Weekend:
Well, I guess that a rainy day is the most British welcome I could ever get…
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I do love graphs.
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Br*tish? truly a tragedy
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Today I’ve been drafting a romance confession with an NPC who’s considered herself a straight woman up to now, and a PC with options to have previously considered themself not interested in women, which is a whole lot of branching if the PC isn’t a straight or bisexual man!
I’ve also been constructing this maybe-silly, maybe-good, narrative system relating to how romantically appealing the PC’s personality is for each NPC, where they have different nuanced responses to romantic advances based on it (not total refusal unless there are other factors involved, but maybe delay or hesitance). I’m on the fence about whether it is silly or good, and I think I need to beef up its visibility to players (a little “you’re so sentimental, I don’t know how to handle it” goes a long way) but I like to give myself enrichment every now and then. This kind of thing is the pumpkin-of-meat to my narrative-design-brain tiger.
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Speaking of weather, here it’s icy with new snow so it’s super slippery, which I unfortunately proved by slipping. Tidily, luckily.
Also in today’s news: my game night weirded me out, since I managed to spend a few hours feeling like a normal person which was uncanny, but I really really like Delta Green’s stat system mechanically and am thinking of looking into that direction for the chargen for my IF projects.
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mind sharing? sounds interesting
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You have your class skills based on your profession that give certain skill levels, and some “pick one” skills, and then bonus points you can use wherever. And then every skill has base value the character has regardless. There’s a certain amount of points a class can have for skills, which can be increased by sacrificing how many bonds (important people or groups of people in your life) the class has, so the more skills you have, the more of a loner you are.
(I’m thinking of adding some age modifier too, I understand this in a TTRPG where you need to keep everyone at the same level to each other but in a single-player game I think it stands to reason that the more years you have in your profession the more skills you have… you have leveled up, so to speak.)
Also it uses d100, which translates so nicely to ChoiceScript!
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Condensing the hell out of this to not clog the thread, but I used to post these here and it’s my fun end of the month pulse check. I will likely be offline for the weekend due to a massive storm about to plough through my State, so cheers!
Uniting the Realm: January 2026 Monthly Update
HEROES!
Welcome back to my monthly Uniting The Realm update series for Estheria: A Realm Divided. We’ll be delving deep once a month on upcoming content, features, and more as I pick out various themes of development to go through.
While I often put teasers and engage through polls, there’s a lot going on behind closed doors. This month, we’re officially introducing Update One, which shares its namesake with the first true piece of your story in Estheria.
So prepare yourselves, for we’re delving into…
Update One
Update One - Section Condensed
Update One: A Dark Omen will kick off your journey into the Realm of Harmony through the lens of a major game story rewrite and overhaul of existing foundations.
In A Dark Omen, for those who’ve played the original Character Creation Demo, you’ll experience a vastly overhauled experience, including:
- A complete rewrite of all content, introducing a higher level fantasy narrative style.
- Properly infused narrative with the Prologue, known as The Soul’s Journey.
- Tone rewrite including a complete replacement of the original prophecy of divide, now formed as the Prophecy of the Lost.
- Complete upgrade and rewrite of the Kingdom Lore section within the Compendium for both the Wards of Harmony, and all of the Eleven Kingdoms of Harmony, each totalling more than 1000 words of new content, text-imagery, styling methods for UI purposes, and more.
- Recognition of whether you have yet walked The Soul’s Journey, locking down the Compendium to limited functions such as Patch Notes, and the Lore Journal for those still in character creation.
However, we’re just getting started. The original character creation demo came in at 12,000 words including code, we are now at 38,000 words excluding code for The Soul’s Journey.
Upon polling, a landslide majority voted for the full release of Update One to come instead. While working on The Soul’s Journey, I worked tirelessly on the design and planning phases for A Dark Omen, and have already despite sickness completed nearly ten thousands words of direct content, excluding code. This has been done within the last five days.
However, there’re plenty that’re curious about what exactly is in A Dark Omen. When you hit the ground running in Estheria, expect:
- The introduction of 40% of the core cast in the game.
- Two romance options, each containing two hangout quests, and one repeatable hangout activity for romance lovers.
- Travel through the southern region of The King’s Corridor, otherwise known as the Lands of the Crown (owned by Maldium, the Kingdom of the Crown). This expansive area will grow over several updates with additional content, but will begin with the exploration of two towns, two exploration zones (more on this in a future update), and one dungeon (more on this in a future update).
- Experience life as a blacksmith by enrolling in the Guild of the Forge, with access to several early recipes, blacksmithing gameplay mechanics, and more. (Mining will come in the Update One Expanded update (more on that later)).
- Purchase and sell to a variety of Shoppes at your disposal as you gain access to the first items and inventory systems.
- Choose your class from one of six options as part of the class design rework, providing build diversity.
- Craft your first taste of equipment, adjusting your stats through your own hard work.
- There’s more where that came from.
As you can see, we’ve got plenty cooking, and plenty more to come!
Rewinding the Clock
Rewinding the Clock - Section Condensed
I’m going to take a proper step back and rewind the clock since A Realm Divided recommenced development.
Since I began truly delving in deep in late November 2025, we’ve:
- Completely tore out the old code structure in place of something much more concrete.
- Ported over multiple components from The Frontier that not only give way to cleaner code, but pave the way for an ironclad foundation in development.
- Updated the writing style throughout the revamping of the Prologue.
- Rebuilt the startup file in entirety with updated variable parameters and better commenting.
- Fully designed Update 1.
- Using the rewrite as a basis as all existing content was tore out, wrote 38,000 words without counting code.
- Began development and implementation of the Realm Master intelligence system.
- Implemented 35% of the Monster Hunting Profession Demo (paused as this may not be included in Update 1 and plans change, but the code will remain in the title for when it is ready.)
- Completely rebuilt the Kingdom Lore.
And I’m just getting started. I would say that given it’s been less than two months, a lot has happened in development.
That said, my focus is on the highlight of today…
A Special Surprise Section - Section Condensed
Stones Hollow is the first town you’ll set foot in when your journey begins: a quarry town located in the southern region of The King’s Corridor, where stone walls and timber braces do most of the talking. Built by a group of landowners desperate to strike out on their own from the capital city of Iris, they forged the foundations of Stones Hollow around a discovered subregion of mines and quarry-lands, complete with an ancient structure buried deep within.
The town is mapped into four travel quadrants to keep exploration clean and readable in a text-based format, while still feeling like a real place. The eastern side serves as the commercial heart: cramped market lanes, a reliable inn, and the sort of storefronts that won’t hesitate to bark up your tree for a sale. The western side is where those skilled in the art of the craft will reside: the local Guild of the Forge’s hub and commission center, stonemason vendors, a Story (Side-Quest) tailor made to those in the heart of the craft, and the Bellows Scrapyard.
To the south sits Barrowcut: the very quadrant where the town’s namesake derives from. Quarry and mine operations bite into the earth, all built around something ancient that the town has long feared after many attempts to open it wrought hell upon their homes. Lastly, the northern hills lead to the Town Seer’s home.
Secrets of your past will come alive as you delve deep beneath the surface, sparking off a true adventure.
When're we playing?
Development is hard charging ahead, and I am working on Patreon updates to lock everything in for a free tier that will have access to updates that’re regularly posted there for no cost. I will be posting a separate sign-up both on there and in the forums for my Private Development testing branch. However, several have already signed up and I am locking this down to no more than 25 spots of which 16 are already taken.
Publically, I am targeting a hopeful three month development schedule for Update 1, as it will likely include more than 100k words added to the project and a lot of subsystems. This comes down to my health, managing my job, and otherwise. I will continue with regular updates through the forums and on Patreon, on top of my monthly Uniting the Realm.
Cheers!
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Good luck! (Unless it’s bad luck to say so, in which case break a leg.)
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We’re also prepping for a storm where I’m at. The storm is crossing over into multiple states, which is fun. It’s supposed to start snowing tonight. I love snow, but a storm isn’t what I meant
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Columbus is getting a minimum of 8 inches, likely 10 inches, possibly up to 14 inches and it’s from Saturday-Monday ontop of negative temperatures. 
, so this should be FUN! lmao.
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Weird week so far in terms of writing progress. Ahead of schedule for release of my chapter 2 (was aiming to have a draft done by first week of Feb, currently looks like I’ll be finished by the 31st, so ahead of schedule and will have a couple of weeks to edit), but I’m a little worried about quality. Hopefully it’s just a phantom concern and it comes out in the wash during editing - I felt similarly before the demo launch in all fairness, and in hindsight I’m pleased with how that turned out.
It’s really easy to empathise with how IF writers can just get trapped in rewrites of their earlygame content now, I have to say (though I’m planning to keep to a policy of no heavy rewriting until I have a finished first draft)!
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