Or maybe its the MC character from Tally Ho. You never know
Oh, I’m SO incredibly excited to read about the updates. I’m replaying Cakes and Ale for x time and the level of quality and the joy is brings me is still blowing my mind.
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Now that the school year has started up again, I have to split my time carefully, and finding hours to write becomes challenging. I miss the eight hour days of writing during sabbatical! That, and I am also working on revising a scholarly article that has nothing to do with this game. So it’s a challenge. I am lucky enough to never ever suffer from not knowing what to write–put me in a chair and I will transform into a pair of hands trying to type fast enough to get the words out of my brain. But during the academic year, there are hundreds of little responsibilities and preparation of lectures and students to advise and so forth, that the danger is stalling out because I haven’t been able to find a half-hour to write. So I steal time every time I can–I am progressing. There’s just so much I want to do with this game that of course it takes a long time to plan, write, and polish. I’m getting there.
I am deeply into the Primrose path through Chapter Six, which I expected to have finished by now. But I’m very happy with it, so that’s a comfort. Part of the complexity of it is that there is a route that I wanted to offer for people who have grown closer to Pilcrow, and also for those who have managed to acquire Mopsie as their rival.
I don’t remember if I’ve talked about rivals here–in chapter one, there’s a series of quests you do for your sponsor, and if you do well, you acquire a rival who dogs you throughout the game. If you don’t do so well, you are given the opportunity to prove yourself by being given a quest to perform. So either way, you get new content. I think it will tempt you to want to play it ten times.
Mopsie is the rival for the Primrose path–each sponsor has a unique rival and quest. It’s been a pleasure getting to write in Mopsie’s voice again. I think she is in the top five voices I like to write for this series. This path is for people who miss Tally Ho–it’s full of Aunt Primrose, Mopsie, Carlington the butler, and Rory, and part of it is even set at Ritornello.
The other part is set at a racetrack where you must save Rory from bankruptcy, as is so often the case. That’s the part I’m up to now. If you like nobbling horses, this chapter may be for you.
I’ve been writing a few updates and musings about my writing process on my ko-fi page, little by little, and I hope to do more soon, both there and here.
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The rival system sounds amazing, and definitely will add playthrough value. All the sponsors sounded hilarious. The broken part of me wants the mysterious benefactor path to have Fitzie as the rival, in addition to being the RO. Rival romance. Rivalmance. I love my lazy and insolent lady’s maid. There’s something wrong with me.
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Lucky you, you get to have Fitzie to tussle with regardless of the sponsor path you choose!
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YAY!
Fitzie’s conversations are probably one of my favorite moments in C&A so I’m glad we’ll hear more in T&S soon.
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and then eleven, and then twelve, and then twenty,… I’m still finding new moments in C&A that become a new favorite moment in the book as I replay [shout-out to the scandal quests!], can’t wait to see how deep T&S will go.
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My favorite part is when Fitzie and MC are at the interview and Fitzie’s like “I knew you wouldn’t mind so I replaced all your furniture.”
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Same, I’m partial to the cab ride and Ch 6 scenes myself.
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I am not done with chapter six, but I can see the end of it from here! I have three chunky adventures left to write and one rival adventure, plus some wrap-up material, and that does it for Chapter Six. If all goes well, should be ready to send in by the end of October.
It has been a real kick trying this experiment of essentially writing a whole game-within-a-game for Chapter Six. (Like, it’s nearly as long as all of Tally Ho.) I don’t know if I would do it again, but figuring out how the moving parts work has been incredibly satisfying and has entertained me as I wrote, which I think is the main thing you have to do when you are writing the kind of length that I tend towards. It’s really easy (one imagines) to lose interest in your own story or to perceive it as boring just because you’ve been working at it for so long.
But making each fifth of the chapter have its own unique mechanics and rules has done the trick for me–at least so far. The down side (I haven’t figured out a way to avoid this) is that it is very likely or certain that by the time you get to the end, you’ll say, “wait, what was up with that reverend?” or “But I never found out what that servant was smuggling under his jacket.” I don’t love that, but I hope that making it possible to return to the start of a chapter at the conclusion of each one helps that to a certain extent.
Anyway, I really want to thank everyone here so far for all of your amazing support, and to everyone who has given me kind words, here, or on my Ko-fi, or elsewhere. I didn’t realize before I started writing games back in 2015 that every single message and encouragement and comment would be part of the fuel that keeps me going.
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I’m so pleased it’s going well! I feel like when it comes out, I’ll want to write an analysis of the structure or something because it sounds so interesting and innovative. Tremendously good work!
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By the end of October? Does that mean maybe - possibly - we all might get a really awesome Christmas present? 
Chapter Six will be done (likely) by the end of October.
Then there’s two more after that. And they are not going to be short chapters.
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Thanks for the updates and I appreciate the est time frames for the new chapter to be finished.
I admit I used to play and followed indie VN projects and they often start out with a lot of progress updates but then it’d be over like 3-7 years it’d just vanish into thin air so I try to keep my expectations on the lower side for long ongoing series.
I feel like it’s great how authors will comment and reply to questions here too.
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That’s so interesting! I’d love to read it. To be honest, every now and again my head just start oozing with thoughts about this series, I sometimes feel like I should let them out somewhere too.
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I know this isn’t our usual fare, but I’ve been replaying and thinking abt Fitzie (as always) – & wanted to share a collection of tumblr posts that make me think of them!
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I’m happy to announce that we have a Steam page. Please add to your wishlists. I don’t know that it’s perfectly accurate to describe the game as “Coming Soon,” per se. But it’s definitely coming sooner every day. I’m getting there!
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Oh, that’s so exciting and what brilliant cover art!!!
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Outstanding! Looking forward to it. One thing I’ll note (and this is one for @jasonstevanhill and whomever manages the CoG and HG Steam pages), in the section where it lists genre, publisher, etc., there is also the option to add a category for franchise. Clicking on it brings you to a separate product tab that lists every game bundled under that franchise tag, which if set up here would list this, Tally Ho, and JG:C&A.
It’s true that you name drop the games in the product listing, but giving potential customers the ability to click on a link and see exactly which products they need to get if they want to try other entries in the series helps drive sales. You should definitely set it up for this, and then for the COG team, please consider setting it up for other franchises that don’t already have it, whether Wayhaven, Creme de la Creme, Dragoon Saga, Zombie Exodus, Samurai of Hyuga, Evertree Saga, etc. It’s effectively leaving money on the table not to.
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