For writing tips, Im not really sure apart from Rebecca Zahabi . I only found out that she offers writing tips after I read her choice of games, Belle-de-Nuit and joined her substack.
BUT I haven’t read something specific that she posted on interactive fiction…though granted, I haven’t been keeping up with stacks as much so maybe there is one there.
And in terms of covering a span of a year, I honestly have no idea…maybe tie it to writing end of term tests (three months)??
But personally for like short time skips, I just tie it to events. For instance maybe the mc spent the whole day with a cool girl, who lives from across him/her and tells them “see you around” as she slowly closes the door. Which will shut infront of you…
then *page_break and write something about you spend the next few days writing assessments or studying
until a knock on the door grabs mc’s attention as a reference from last time to lessen/cushion the feeling of the time skip… somewhat
However I also like watching gameplays on youtube and how they end scenes. Not sure if it might help you though…maybe you can get some ideas…
I’m sure there are more cinematic games but like the transitions a bit from the scenes of the opening scene anyway…Hope things work out
Ended up posting on the Hosted Games Subreddit briefly, because I was trying to get testers for the Monster Hunting profession for Estheria. Within 15 minutes it had been bombarded in downvotes and I wasn’t sure why.
As getting testers has been a bit difficult, I’ll just do my best to test and balance it within my means and then push out the build while hoping that nothing major breaks. I was a bit surprised at the chilly reception with the downvotes, but I pulled the thread since I don’t want anyone to think I’m looking for hard work for free!
Anyways, I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend.
Yeah the reddit (really almost all reddits) can be like that sometimes. Some COG and HG discords have a spot where you can ask for testers, you might have better luck there
Thanks so much for this tmaty, really appreciate it. I’ll defo take a look at all of this later in the week!
Ouch, that’s rough. Sorry to hear it. I’m trying to avoid new commitments at the moment as work is likely to start getting rough from tomorrow, otherwise I’d have put my name down to test, but I will definitely be giving the build a go and feeding back when I can when it’s out.
This is just my experience, so take it as you find it.
I have found it very difficult to get testers. For both my games, I have been fortunate enough to encounter a few players who delve into finding loads of problems, typos, bugs and inconsistencies. They became attached to the project and took up the cause. Sadly, life sometimes intrudes (or they find something more interesting than my project), and when they drift away, it feels like you have lost a limb. Good testers are like gold!
I can’t help with finding any. I’ve found they appear one day and surprise you with how invested they are in your work. But when you do find a good tester, treat them like a precious jewel! If I spot a good tester who has helped me loads, I ask if they would like a credit at the end of the game – I know many do this for the final beta test, but it is also good to offer those who helped earlier (though only after they have helped).
For a few super invested testers, I may add a little Easter egg into the game that only they will know about.
When they come, guard them well; protect them from the evils of the cosmos.
Guilt-trip them into never leaving!!!
@Zaxwlyde Oh… I think I understand what went wrong with the first post. Okay, yep- hot button topic. If you have it mentioned in your threads, people might think you mean something else. The post sounds great now. I will refer to it as the ZW system to patent those skills for you, mate
Harris also sent me private DMs that helped me realize what likely could be the reason for the downvotes, and so I went ahead and rewrote the post and reposted it. We’ll see!
As for @NumberedEntity, I agree 100%. My goal is to cherish any testers from the get-go, and do my best to reward them for their time.
Honestly, I am just hoping that the AI I am building ultimately turns out to be high-functioning. There’s a lot of parameters to evaluate, so it’s a process. Hence the need for testers.
Thank you all once again and especially thank you @HarrisPS, it was likely due to not explaining that when I mentioned AI, I meant subroutines that work in sequence to create artificial intelligence, and not LLMs.
Let this serve as a lesson for anyone posting. If you build an AI for your game in any capacity and talk about it, clarify that it’s not LLM.
12 updoots and climbing and some testing applications!
Onwards and upwards!
And @NumberedEntity just saw your edit. Yep. I think it was the AI mention in entirety. While AI in ChoiceScript is a bit… more convoluted than a normal game engine/language, completely possible and something that I am making sure everyone knows is 100% my own code by hand and not an AI-mongering datacenter consuming water and electricity.
After what seems to be an eternity, I’ve finally released the full version of Lily Adventuresses! Episode 3: The Explorer Sisters and the Deepest Depths – from a simple Ludum Dare prologue to a game I’ve almost broke my back for because I tried to replicate the look and feel of Mega Man Legends, dungeons and all.
Little late here on the January posts, but happy New Year to everyone! Hope you all had some good progress last year and that you had a nice little celebration with friends and family.
As far as my progress in December: I wrote a little over 15k words. That exceeded my minimum of 10k by a good margin, but I was not able to hit my stretch goal of completing my first major branch of chapter 1 (which has now reached a tremendous 56,900 words excl. commands and 61,844 incl.). I have two major branches for my chapter 1, and honestly I’m kind of ready to swap over to the second part at this point but I am extremely happy with just how dynamic I’ve managed to get this so far.
My goal for January is to hit a minimum of 12k words, and ideally to finish out this first branch and push an update on here by February. That will mark a little over 7 months since the last update, and honestly the pressure is on for me to get something out. I feel bad for making people wait so long haha
Good luck this month, everyone! Looking forward to seeing how it goes for y’all!
I’d like to say that I had a really good writing day yesterday, but the truth is more along the lines of, it moved through me like some kind of weird writerly berserker rage, and I ended up with about 2200 words.
i read ur post on reddit and it somehow sounds even cooler than i initially thought from your forum posts?? and i already was intrigued. i am so fascinated by the implementation of subroutines to have the characters/world act independently of the PC!!! i signed up to help testing because it sounds so cool and i’d love to see it made. i’m not sure if i’ll be able to commit a huuuge amount of time to it just cuz i’m writing Deux, but i’d love to help where i can.
Thank you! I am super excited for others to get a chance to see it in action. I’m currently whipping up the AI subroutines powering it right now. The Monster Hunting contract will serve as my testing grounds for a broader expansion of the AI to simulate the party members and their actions using a weighted system that determines a variety of ways they can go.
This’ll be the last thing I ding on so I don’t end up clogging the thread.
On a note Ray, any time you can give is appreciated but not expected. Honestly, any feedback anyone can give me will be pivotal with this. This is my first foray into building AI period, and this is going to be an undertaking with ChoiceScript. I’ve built a minor AI with my previous attempt at turn-based combat but nothing as powerful or in-depth as this is planned to be.
I’m expecting some balance issues and bugs out of the gate, especially with AI interactions, so any feedback from anyone will be extremely important so I can get this sorted. I wanted to start ‘small’ (if we can call this small) before dipping my toe into the much bigger water with party member simulation, which is why I opted for the Monster Hunter profession demo.
With this, I can create an enemy that is handled in the backend. I’ll likely begin calling the backend AI the WorldMaster (sounds better than AI and isn’t tainted by the association of the word with LLMs). My hope is that if this is wildly successful (which is my expectation once the kinks are worked out), that I can then scale this up and not only have functional enemy AI but flip the simulation code around to simulate party members and their personalities.
The good thing about this all being text is that it’s less intensive on hardware for me to execute a lot of code at once. Once in a Lifetime (prior project) also taught me how to structure this. Ideally, I only want to bounce out with gosub_scene no more than twice at a time (per turn) to prevent slowdown/lag, so I’m going to use master subroutine files that can handle all the calculations and WorldMaster functions with deep commenting and labels so I have structure and can read/add to it easily.
Reading the code after its done is gonna be educational af for me. Turn based combat with the enemy having 5 different moves, Ive already got a handle on.
Ive tried party banter inbetween traveling. I dont know if thats what youre also doing.
Ultimately my coding goal is to make a dark souls adjacent combat system. Too complicated for my current WIPs but my next one for sure.
So I will finish this tonight, but I actually have so far written up a massive breakdown of some of the AI code and thought processes for the foundation. I spent about an hour so far I feel like writing it here, just need a break for my brain. I’ll wrap it up later tonight and post it!
For the record, that can backfire. Don’t guilt-trip people you want to stick around, would be my advice - when they pull the inevitable then let me be evil, they’re out.
Which may or may not make sense. I’m not sure I’m making any sense to myself right now. And I feel like rambling, but have no idea what I want to ramble about (then again, I need to sleep anyway).
If you build an AI for your game in any capacity and talk about it, clarify that it’s not LLM.
