July 2022's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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I guess this is a decent place to post my frustrations…

Hi. I have been working on a sci-fi/space opera game for some time, and I just can’t seem to get feedback or attention.

When I first posted the demo, I got some very nice praise and appreciation which was very affirming and all and I appreciate that, but that all dropped off pretty quickly and I got no info on what I should improve.

About a year later I posted an update, and got a few likes and maybe two comments, and the demo link got maybe a dozen or so new clicks, but still no feedback on it.

Less than a month ago I posted yet another update, and one person gave me some advice on what they want to see out of my game’s potential, along with a few more likes.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I mean I very much appreciate that ANYONE likes my game enough to at least leave a like but 1, it doesn’t tell me much about what I’m doing right or wrong, and 2, god I wish I had more engagement.

It’s a little discouraging to see other WIPs getting new comments and lengthy discussions every day, when my project that I really believe in gets ‘maybe’ a crumb of attention if I’m super active with posting on my thread.

Is it because sci-fi just isn’t popular on CoG? I know that high-fantasy holds the popularity throne and sci-fi is near the bottom of the totem pole.

Is it because I haven’t established much of a romance plot? I know horny teenagers are a massive market but I would hope that’s not the biggest selling point of a CoG/HG…

I really felt like what I have has massive potential that many others would see and latch onto but, it feels like there’s not a lot of interest in it, and I’m not certain what it is that I’m doing wrong… and it doesn’t help that I don’t get the feedback to TELL me what I’m doing that needs work.

I keep telling myself that it just isn’t developed enough to draw people into supporting it. If I build it, they will come, right?

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If this is about your WIP, The Battle of Hoag’s Object, I’d definitely encourage you to keep working through it. Your concept sounds interesting and the almost open-world aspect of space travel, albeit ambitious, is something unique and exciting. I definitely don’t think that sci-fi not being as popular is the case, I do know that Choice of the Star Captain came out recently and has been popular. As for your comment on romance, don’t stress yourself out over it. My public demo still doesn’t include any romance options and I’ve been able to get a wonderful amount of support anyways.

As a new ChoiceScript writer myself, I definitely understand the initial lack of feedback. It can be frustrating to put hours into putting out an update or writing through a big chunk of your story to recieve a few likes on the update post, but I would encourage you to just keep writing – you’ll find your niche!

One of the biggest things, I think, that helped to bring people in initially was my weekly ‘Writer’s Diaries’. I made it a habit to post everything I wrote or was working on each week. For one, it’s incredible for me to go back and look over my own progress as I write, but it was also great in soliciting people’s interest and feedback about those ideas. While I’ve now started up a Patreon and this has become a bi-weekly thing, the posts help to keep the thread active and it’s great to see the same few people checking in every so often with ideas and suggestions.

The other thing I would reccomend is trying to find a few beta testers – ideally people who have already been active and supportive on your thread in the past. I have two incredible beta testers that provide me with suggestions, let me know when I make typos, and help me to find bugs in my coding. These two people have given me super specific feedback and their help has allowed me to focus more on writing the story and less time playing through it looking for typos and other issues. (A funny result of this is the fact that I have never actually played through my story!)

With all of that being said, these are just things I decided to do that have helped me out personally. The biggest thing I can say is to just keep pushing through the writing process! I think you have a great concept so far and I’ll be taking a break from my own writing to go through your demo and hopefully give you some feedback then.

Best of luck!

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As I lurked the forum over the years, before I registered an account, I saw the following story points receive more engagement from the users. A reminder that it’s anecdotal evidence, so take that as you will.

  1. Character customization: A healthy amount like hair, eyes, body shape, skin colour and height seem to be well-received. A few others like tattoos may also be present, however excessive customization seems to detract from the story.

  2. Romances: Multiple romance options are expected. That way the readers have more choice in who they want to engage/pursue. If stories only have one or two romances, they need extra nuance and flavour to ‘fill the gap’, so to speak.

  3. Long stories x Wide stories and word count: Stories which are wide and branching are on the lower end of word count, while long stories are on the higher end; replay value is more prevalent on the former than the latter. Hero or Villain: Genesis received criticism because of the wide factor, while Heroes Rise for the long one. A balanced approach with few but well-developed branching paths is ideal.

  4. Reaction: The most enjoyable stories are the ones in which you can choose how your protagonist reacts to the story itself. Readers may even turn a blind eye to a railroaded story if you have full control of your protagonist’s emotions, dialogue and reactions. Ideally, you would refer to the lessons in number 3 and avoid railroads. In Heroes Rise, you don’t have control of the story, but neither do you have of the protagonist. You have a set personality where you act with a certain number of traits, like impulsiveness. However, in Wayhaven, the story contains the same level of railroad as Heroes Rise, but is much more enjoyable. Why is that? You have full control of how you react to the world around you, even thought your influence to the overall plot is the same in both books.

  5. Rules, regulations and protocol: This is an all-encompassing point. It includes correct use of grammar, quality dialogue, careful exposition of the lore while avoiding info-dumps, meaningful character traits, believable motivations, side characters with agency and agendas of their own, show vs tell, ‘blank room syndrome’ i.e. failure to describe the surroundings and environment to the reader, along with a thousand other things which I can’t recall at this moment.

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Thanks for the reply!

I didn’t mean to imply that I’m having second-thoughts about continuing to work on it; I’m making my game for me myself and I first. Whether people actually have interest in it or not, I’m making something because ’I’ think it’s cool and fun.

It’s just hard to keep believing it’s actually good when all my updates are met with a lot of silence.

Since my last “big” update I posted a series of polls and tiny updates almost every day which got some attention but just no feedback.

I’ve since moved on to a larger chunk to work on.

My concern is that, what if I make all this progress, thinking that it’s polished and well made since no one has been saying otherwise, and then when it finally gets its due public attention, everyone tells me that most of what I thought was set and good needs to be reworked?

I want to do it right the first time, and feedback is the only way I can know if it ‘is’ right.

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Have you thought about telling people, what kind of Feedback you would Like?

Generally asking for feedback will give you some praise, but I think that stating some points what kind of feedback you want helps the reader to keep that points in mind while Reading, so more detailed Feedback might be a result.

You realize that your Main post Lacks any description of the Story? I have read the Main post and all I know is: that ist’s sci fi, there is some kind of war, I have a ship and that there are battles. There is, at least for me personally, nothing that tells me, what the plot is about. So nothing that makes me want to try it. So If you add a summary of the setting and the plot might Help to find readers.

What kind of world is it, cool and flashy or darker and grim? Who fights in the war against whom and why? What are the MCs Goals? Maybe give a sneak on the possible ways, do I have to fight or can you Sneak thought Them?

I hope you find your readers :+1:

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I have asked specifically for constructive criticism. I want literally any feedback. Typos, errors, stylistic choices, anything to make it better.

I guess I didn’t realize that my initial post was too vague? I thought not giving away the plot is pretty standard. It’s a space-adventure game, the MC is a rebel fighting against the evil empire… you have a space-ship and can explore the galaxy. I gave a summary of the gameplay and the most defining feature; the freedom to traverse an entire galaxy.

As for the style, idk how I would describe it? It can be light-hearted in some areas but more serious in others. It’s… a drama? I guess? I’m not certain if that fits what you’re asking for.

When I posted the concept in the interest check thread, I had gave a lot more info on the plot but was advised that giving too much info up-front would turn people away, so now I guess I did the opposite? But like I said, until now no one notified me of even that, so I would never know to change it.

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Nah, bro, give the entire plot away. Nobody’s gonna steal your idea. Tell them at least three cool things you can do in the game.

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I feel your pain. I too once wrote an oddly titled science fiction story. And you know what it taught me? Taught me by etching it into my chest with a Bowie knife made of bad sales and little feedback? Those things are bad news. Not that you should abandon your story. If it means something to you, it matters. But the odds against your getting a ton of readers before or after release are high. No matter the quality level at play.

Admittedly, Lucid made space work recently to some extent. But he also has his own following that is hungry for his stuff after years without a new release. If there was a Mount Rushmore for HG authors, he would likely be one of the faces up on the mountain. For pretty much everyone else, genre matters. More than people care to admit. And I have the data to back that up.

I wish I had rosier news. But this is reality. Continue on if you feel this story needs to exist. Success is not defined solely by royalty dollar figures or glowing reviews. It means something different to everyone. But the feedback you want, it’s not coming. Not in the numbers you really need.

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I know I have not been very active for the last half a year, or so.
I also haven’t written anything CS related in that time. Hopefully, I can get back to that soon.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff, navigating the slow process of trying to get disability benefits, starting a new relationship (I am now poly in praxis as well as in theory), all my close friends having major life crisis (mental and or physical health ones) at the same time, and other people’s toxic exes bringing a lot of instability and problems into a social group that I’m part of.

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Don’t feel bad about it. I went a whole year without even looking at my script. I hit a snag, then life hit me, and I just couldn’t get back into it for a long while. It felt crummy knowing I didn’t do any work in that time, but in retrospect it’s probably better that I didn’t.

Eventually you’ll get to a comfortable place, and you’ll hop back into it. Don’t force yourself.

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Going is slow on my project, I’m at about 8869 (including commands) words and only in the prologue, which has two distinct branching paths, both of which will have two minor branching paths that return to their respective roots fairly quickly. It’s a long project, but going’s going to be tough for a while because I’ve got a 10 month old, so I write basically when he sleeps and I’m fighting my own sleep lol. It’s going to need a lot of going over, too, because even just tonight I implemented an earlier arrival of something that exists in one branching path, but not the other, so I need to go and fix that, if that makes sense- like it needs to happen in the second path, too, not just the first, particualrly to show players that it can happen.

It’s a mess, lol. I’m a mess XD I also turn 31 on July 31st, so there’s that!

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Anyone got any tips for hardcore writer’s block? It feels like I’ve slowly lost the ability to hear characters’ voices in my head, and I’m finding it really difficult to come up with anything on paper - especially dialogue.

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re-read your story?

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Going for a walk? Taking a total break from writing for a while? Writing something else? Reading a book? Forcing yourself to write anything as long it makes sense?

Tried any of theese ones?

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Dunk yourself in other people’s fiction - TV shows, movies, books, etc.

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Been working on a D&D 5e implementation and it’s going pretty decently so far. I don’t plan on actually using it for anything but I’m new to ChoiceScript and it’s been a good learning experience. My current plan is to implement as much of the Basic Rules as is feasible and then whip up a quick demo that shows off character creation, a few skill checks, an inventory system, levelling-up and a combat encounter.

Anyway, here’s a few screenshots: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

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I’m trying to draft a kid-friendly game, does anyone have any insight on what would be a good playthrough length?

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This might not work for everyone but for me, I try to write or re-write a section of my story from another character’s perspective. Or, to write something completely unrelated but with the same character. This is helpful, at least for me, because it let’s me get in the head of the character without worrying about fitting what happens into a larger story.

As for the plot for this mini writing exercise, it could be something from their past, like a significant event as they grew up, or it could be something completely different or unrelated. I did this before with a character from my story, Jackson, and with the story I wrote, I got inspiration to create an entirely new character that helped me write through the scene I was stuck on.

This tip is also a great one! I get so much inspiration from fiction, and even from real life considering what I write about. Finding fiction of any kind related to your story could help spark your own creativity, or even re-reading or watching something that inspired you in the past could help.

All else fails, just wait it out. If you’re anything like me, going a day or two without writing may feel like a waste of time, but sometimes a day or two off is just what you need to get back into the right state of mind. Best of luck – you’ve got this!

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Hey, it’s a Hill Dwarf Rogue. Hello, Stealy McFingers.

You had +2 Con, +1 Wis, poison resistance, and Expertise, it wasn’t an Olympic-grade challenge. :laughing:

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Someone knows their D&D, haha! Well done, I’m impressed. :stuck_out_tongue:

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