Pretty much. I guess the previous game is sort of the long-form questionnaire. That’s a good way to think about it.
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Huzzah! Sounds very useful, just like the first game’s DLC. I appreciate these things being made available (even though I could already tweak stats/relationships myself for free, I found it was much more fun and convenient to have an integrated “cheat console”).
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I loved this in Cake and Ale and I’m so grateful it’s coming back 
It certainly will be with my sequel. 
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Question. If we have the option to import a save, why even need the questionnaire? Personally, I would simply create an entirely new character if there wasn’t a save feature.
It’s for people who are coming into this game as their first or only Jolly Good experience–I think those people will be in the minority, but I wanted there to be the option. Those who jump in at game 2 will probably be able to figure out what’s going on before long, and I think the experience will be stand-alone-y enough that it will make sense if played like that…
…but, obviously, you’ll get way more out of it if played in sequence.
Also, there will be six “quick-start” characters with set stats and even names and personality features and a biography (because if there’s some prose to be written, I can’t not do it) for those who really want to dive in as fast as possible.
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It’s the late summer update!
It’s been an extremely productive summer of writing, and it involved a major rethinking of how I structured Chapter Five. I’m still writing Chapter Five, but I can see the end from where I’m standing. I still probably have about dozen or so vignettes to write–the majority of which are the vignettes that make up the golf game.
I still feel pretty good about my target of having Chapters 5 and 6 written near-ish the end of my January semester, leaving 7 and 8 to write during my spring sabbatical and summer. It’s a rough target, and I may end up overshooting it, but it doesn’t feel wildly off base at the moment. By the time I get to January, I’ll have a better sense of it–I don’t typically have a ton of writing time when I’m in the thick of teaching and grading. But, as always, I update the first post in this thread every single time I have a writing session.
I want to think everyone so much for all of your kind words, reviews, support, and everything as I’ve been writing. As I start to transition into the academic year, my word count drops significantly, and I absolutely love the lack of pressure so that I can write at my own pace–and rethink and rewrite stuff as needed. Sometimes I freak out and think “this is taking way too long!” and “But what if this chapter isn’t done by September!” It’s a good lesson for any writer to work on putting that tension aside, and the support of this thread and everywhere on the forum helps me tremendously. You know what I mean.
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I think this will be the last update of Chapter Five, since I am on track to finish it some time in October. I have about 12 vignettes to go, plus some end-of-chapter wrap up.
This is the part of the semester where I have to really work to wrest writing time from my schedule, now that I have drafts and essays coming in each week, and many, many committee meetings. But I’m so close to done with Chapter Five, and I really don’t want it to bleed into November.
Today I wrote an adventure solely for those with Firesnuff as their sponsor, and it’s one of my favorite things in the chapter. I never know what’s going to end up making me extra happy until after I’ve written it, and I hope the sponsor-related material ends up being enticing enough to encourage people to replay with all five sponsors!
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I can reassure you that you achieve this every single time. You make ‘failing’ stats interesting and fun! Now if that is not an incredible feat I do not know what is!!
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At last, Chapter Five is written! I have some serious debugging to do and a little bit of housekeeping and bits of code to wrestle at the end, but the writing is done at long, long last.
Once I get that done and send it off to my editor, I’ll jump right into working out the code skeleton for Chapter Six, the next-to-next-to-last chapter. Chapter Six will be so much more straightforward to write, he told himself.
Instead of the multiple hubs-and-spokes structure, aka, foxhunt structure, of Chapter Five, Chapter Six will be a chapter devoted to you doing a big favor for your sponsor.
Here’s what I learned writing Chapter Five. Writing a foxhunt shaped chapter with three major hubs is ok. With four major hubs, the work becomes way more than you expect. Don’t do it. Don’t do as I do.
In essence, Chapter Five of Tea and Scones is a lot like the opera/press/boxing chapter in Cakes and Ale, while Chapter Six of Tea and Scones is a lot like the scandal chapter in Cakes and Ale, where you get an adventure based on your scandal choice, and therefore the chapter is sort of five-chapters-in-one.
I know exactly what I’m going to do for the Primrose and Firesnuff adventures; I have a really good sense of what I’m going to do for the Mysterious Benefactor adventure although I’m still hammering out a few fine details; I’m still figuring out exactly what I want to do for the Spud Nuggets and for Spectacles–I have a few good ideas, but I can’t decide what to use for this chapter and what to save for later. So first step will be figuring that out and making some decisions as I craft the outline and code skeleton.
As always, the current word count and status is in the first post. I’ll let you know how things are going!
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Oooh, the antepenultimate chapter. I so rarely get a chance to use that word.
Obviously we need to find the perfect dips to go with the chips. (Did they dip their chips in the vaguely 1920-30s? Did they have potato chips? 
)
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The potato chip itself is believed to have been invented in 1853 by a cook named George Crum whose potato wedges were repeatedly sent back to the kitchen by an unsatisfied customer who claimed they were too thick - Which oddly sounds like a Jolly Good joke, but that is currently the popular mythos of the chip. At first, chips were made only in restaurants, but by the 20th they began to be mass-produced.
Chips and dips (which apparently is its own page on Wikipedia) seemed to first become popular in the 1950s.
Not really a funny story about dips and chips out there, but the chips’ origin story is always a fun bit of trivia to know. Another humorous part about it, I think, is that we don’t really know if the customer was ever satisfied with the size of the potato wedges.
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Am I allowed to hibernate? Is that a thing? A thing that regular humans do?
…No? Someone definitely said no.
Well, since the principal nature’s source of procrastination has been denied to me, and no bell shall be rung to awaken me upon completion of this game, I will remain.
Here. Watchful. Intent… Taking careful notes in that innocuous booklet.
Is that rude? Please tell me it’s not rude.
Anyway, I believe your valet needs you for some sch… I mean, task, for you to urgently perform. Please do not let me keep you.
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I am feeling better about my 300k (and counting) word chapter after the reassuring reminder that I’m not the only one writing a Silly Scale Series.
Though feeling sorry for our mutual editor, especially when we do start slinging her chapters at the same time…
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[waves weakly from under a pile of text] No, no, don’t mind me. I didn’t have anything else to do…ever…
(But, seriously, you all write fabulous games and I am happy that when I receive Silly Scale Submissions from you, it is hundreds of thousands of excellent words!)
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In the final two weeks of my semester, so heavy grading for a bit, followed by nine full months of full-time writing, shared only with my having to write a scholarly article somewhere in there.
I’m down to the last three pages of editorial feedback on ch. 5, so I’ll be picking away at that in the minutes I can find during these two weeks. I’ve also updated the general outline of the upcoming ch. 6 in the first post under the cut for those who care about such things.
Today, between grading essays, I’ll be working on improving a romantic moment involving Gilberto, and one with Fitzie. It’s an all romance day. And freshman essays.
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Being able to work through a mood killer like freshman essays is a sign of a true professional.
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Happy new year everybody
As I wait for Tea and Scones, I inevitably think fondly of Cakes and Ale, and I just recalled something very interesting about the Tabby romance! I believe that it happens to all MC’s regardless of skullduggery and scandal (although I may be mistaken). At the printing press, Tabby reveals that she has a new goal: to be as free-spirited as the noble gases and the main character, who always finds themselves in boisterous circumstances. This concept of Tabby getting herself into zany situations forcefully and let’s say, “raising her own scandal and skullduggery stats” for the simple sake of it, maybe even trying to one-up a wacky protagonist is really entertaining. Deep down it’s even like meta-fiction, playing around with the spirit of Jolly Good’s shenanigans itself. Is this madcap-chasing a theme of her character that will be explored further in Tea and Scones?
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Big yes.
In a way, it’s a major theme of the whole series; for Tabby, as you noted, the theme is sounded pretty explictly, but you’ll get a lot of it in Tea and Scones from Marmaduke, Vyv, and others, as well, in different keys.
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