I don’t know about others, but I am really hyped for the Jam. I am really looking forward to participating. Although, not sure if I will be able to complete the game though.
This month has been hard for me as well. But I do feel like coming months I will do good, hope same for you.
Also, I only know about halloween through media. Will it suffice if I only mention here and there that the day is halloween?
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Tomorrow I will announce the theme of the jam. I have already started the Teasing thread of it. No need to say Halloween only to follow up the theme.
Anyone can participate and there is no length requirements except of course a length enough to have choices.
In my opinion. one of the worst flaws of this amazing forum is that makes people believe that hundreds of thousands words is the standard in writing
IT IS THE OPPOSITE The hobbit is smaller than most of wips first chapter.
Like an advance this year I will try to promote a 2k words mini game challenge to join to the more complex games we. are used to.
This is focused for all of you lurkers that are scared and never have been able to end anything. I will be step by step helping you to be able to finish a 2k game in a week. less 300 words a day.
The thing is writing is an artisan activity you have to practice and start to end projects to advance. It is scary, I know how scary it is, but anyone can start creating a funny engaging short story and learning.
Step by step is how the author end publishing or simply end big passiinate prohejects.
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I’m excited as I should be able to enter this year.
My final decision for July is to finally get round to subscribing to Grammarly and then kickstart my writing in a more consistent manner. (Effectively I want to do a NaNoWriMo every month with a set word count each day)
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Wow can’t wait for it…
Also, can you review something I wrote for a friend of mine:
Prolouge
After a tedious uphill walk, King James has reached his destination. The plateau of White Flower only consists of a small hut in the centre. Trees of fruits and flowers surrounding the hut make the scenery a sight to behold. A small stone slab is raised at the southern entrance of the hut. The Elder is meditating, as he usually does. This, however, is the first time James has been here. He is seeing the Elder after 20 years. The Elder took his leave after the funerals of the late King Henri. He has stayed in the hill, watching over all but only watching.
Memories of childhood flash in front of James’s eyes. First sword James ever picked up was given by the Elder. Long hours of tutoring bored James back then. But now, he missed them. Reminiscing the forgone past made his throat heavy. He could no longer contain his cries. He had to, a King cannot cry.
“Elder”, James speaks in a broken voice.
The Elder opens his eye to see the King of Utopi bowing him.
“Get up my child”, the Elder asks the King to be at ease.
Tears flow from the King’s eyes. A changed man feels sadness for who he used to be. Silence for who he could be. Silence into sadness, now turns to rage.
“Why should I get up? When all that I have gathered, all that I have cannot pass on to my child.” This sudden outburst was known to Elder from way back. “Why Elder, why do I have to see the Kingdom I built with my own hands crumble before my own eyes?”
“I see the wiles of my ministers, who want to shred the throne into pieces and take all they can after me. Yet, I am unable to do anything because I don’t have an heir. The great Utopi Kingdom doesn’t have a Prince who can guide it to the golden future it deserves.”
“Son, Karma is the soul of the earthen pane. What you give is what you get.”
James’s heart shrinks a little. He knows what the Elder is referring to.
“No, I did nothing wrong. They would have killed me had I not done the same to them.”
“Would they?”
Silence falls in the hills of the White Flower. James goes into a trance. He knows what he did was wrong. Him killing all the rivals to the throne was justified. If not, the 3 princes would kill him. They would not bully him again. He knew what he did was wrong, he knew he had no choice. Or did he?
Seeing the trouble in the minds of James, the Elder asks him to bring him any two fruits from the orange tree.
Obliging, the King moves himself towards the west where the tree hid the evening sun. The brown tree gives a wonderful whiff of its Orange scent. The tree, it seems, has calmed the King. He moves his hands towards a very delicious looking Orange. With some difficulty he picks two of them.
The Elder was looking at the King with a sadness difficult to bear. The child he had helped become a man, had conquered lands beyond the Purple sea. The undefeated Conqueror had only been defeated in the field of hearts. A heart which could fall for no woman.
All those whom he believed and trusted always betrayed him. The Elder had known it all, but the White Flower only allows peace to those who seek solace.
The King walks towards the Elder with the fruits in his hands. He once again bows and raises his hands above his heads fulfilling the Elder’s wish.
The Elder asks the King to give one of the two. The King does accordingly.
“Why?”, the Elder asks curiously. “Why did you give me the Orange of the right hand.”
“Why should it matter?”, James replies with another question.
“Exactly”
“If eating an orange from this branch or the other doesn’t matter, why should the ruler be from your branch and not the other?”, the Elder continues.
“Why should it matter who sits on the throne as long as the nation is protected and the people cherished.”
“Remember James, you have got no one left. There is no one to continue your dynasty. And you probably are the last one.”
“A body cannot work without the head, a country cannot function without a monarch. Tell me what I should do to preserve my legacy, to continue my ancestor’s lineage.”, James asked for guidance, he could receive nowhere else.
“Take what is rightfully yours. Make him fulfill the lost promise.”
Thanks 
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Well, July is over, and I don’t really feel like I’ve enough to show for it. I did manage to complete part one of act 2, but the deadline I had set for myself meant that it had released in a rushed state. I’m honestly surprised that it wasn’t a buggy mess, and the only complaints in my WiP thread were just minor issues.
That being said, the deadline had a reason. The 22nd was the day I went on Holiday to Cornwall, and so I wouldn’t have been able to work on anything. I would like to believe that I will be able to be back home tomorrow, but my car is acting up, so I’m not that optimistic.
On a lighter note, I’m looking forward to @poison_mara 's haloween jam, and I can’t wait to participate. I’ve been thinking of an idea since around April, but I realised that it was pointless before knowing the theme, so that idea was thrown in the future WiP pile.
Hope you’ve all had a good July, and I would like to end my last post for this thread with a Quote that I saw on the walls of Tintagel Castle:
“When life is more terrible than death, it is the truest valour to continue to live.”
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I hope you’ve had a lovely trip away, holidays do disrupt writing but we always need breaks and it can be inspiring too. It’s been years since I visited Tintagel but it’s a gorgeous place!
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this thread is not for leaving feedback, so i will give you my feedback on it in a pm. But I want to say to you publicly that being capable of publishing a snippet on a forum to others to see it is a huge step to someday publishing.
So just for that, you should feel proud of you and your work.
I am probably infamous here for giving rude no bs feedback, so asking me, make you even braver. 
I am not as bad as I look I promise. But what I will promise it is what I promise. to everyone that asking me for feedback .
Good and bad it will be 100% my real view and opinions.
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Congrats on pushing through another month, everyone. Hope you all had a good July.
Finished Chapter 1 — Still need to have a couple edit runs though
Created title banner, but no chapter headers yet — I’ll take the win 
Have yet to start writing an intro post
See you all in next month’s thread!
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You can go to the advanced settings when you’re making the poll to do things like turn off anonymous polling, giving the poll a title, change it from bar to pie, etc.
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Thanks
I am always willing to improve, so absolutely, so thanks.
And sorry for asking feedback here,
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Hi everyone.
I have a few thoughts regarding “standards” as brought up earlier today.
First, there are different types of standards and the lack of understanding this causes confusion.
My thoughts this morning revolve around two types of standards. The first is in regard to the standards of the various publishing requirements. The second type of standard that I have thoughts on is a more nebulous type, which is sometimes called “industry standards”.
The Hosted Games author is focused on these types of standards because she has to meet the publishing standards to be published and adhere to basic industry standards if they desire to be successful in their endeavor. (not really, but more on that in a bit.).
For a Hosted Games author to publish a story successfully under this label, certain criteria need to be met.
The entire list of things can be found here:
The Editorial requirements are often what most authors are concerned about, and so I’ll list them here:
These standards are hard requirements for each one of us wanting to publish under the Hosted Games label. If your story is 25,000 words, it will not be published. Full stop.
The second set of standards that I would like to share a thought or two about today is a more nebulous sort, but one that can influence the way that a Hosted Games story looks, feels and plays. Sometimes it is considered a good thing, but other times it isn’t.
The best summary of the problems created by such standards that I’ve seen in a while was posted just a few days ago:
This concern is not limited to our niche IF market. In fact, it was just discussed by the project manager of Baldur Gate 3, a big team production due to release in a few days. I’m going to directly quote him here, because he says what I believe, but says it better than I can.
First he tackles the idea that you need to make a game exactly like another’s:
Here, his point is that a person is not locked into something, just because another achieved success doing that something. There are many authors in the Hosted Games library that have had success by focusing on their visions and executing their writing and not trying to copy another.
Swen Vincke, the BG3 director, goes on to say:
This speaks directly to my second thought on standards. The mercurial nature of what is considered standard and what is considered an outlier.
When I first joined this community, it was considered “standard” to provide a drop-box copy of a WiP demo for testing. Today’s standard is having a hosted demo on Dashingdon’s site. If someone tried only to provide a drop-box demo today, they would be seen as an outlier.
My third thought on standards can be seen in the following quote:
Long before official CoG stories included chapter progression saves, Allen Gies had this in his western: Tin Star. There are other authors who have changed our niche market in the past, and there will be more that do so in the future.
My concluding thought about standards is: If you possess a unique set of skills and specializations, then you should focus on those when writing your story. Doing this will guarantee a better story because you possess the pedigree and experience working with these.
Concentrating on what makes you a unique writer and game maker will logically play to your strengths and will help you in making your story both uniquely yours and different from all the others out there.
Trying to please “everyone” and follow perceived community standards will often lead to burning out your creative spark and deplete your willpower to complete your story.
I’ll be posting my monthly recap tomorrow and posting August’s 2023 Writer Support Thread as well. May the last day of July be productive for everyone.
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Preach! I know I’m part of the problem, but I couldn’t agree more with you. We need more short awesome ChoiceScript projects along with gargantuan labors of love.
Looking forward to taking part in your jam this year.
Hey, I was just there with my family in April (after a first visit 13 years ago, early in a Land’s End-John O’Groats hike). That whole stretch of Cornwall is just amazing.
PS - as for my July writing target, a lot of what I’ve added to Ch 2 is still in raw enough shape that I’m not quite sure how to count it. 
But I’m happy with how it’s shaping up.
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I’m gonna quickly sneak this in before August starts. I got a new espresso machine and a new keyboard (well, it’s one from my previous computer, but it still works). Boy, do I feel like I’m at a café in Paris! 
On a serious note, I’m trying to get back to my Judge Erwin fic. I am still working on it but I’m more interested in stull that happens later. For instance, Eren writes a letter to Carla explaining how he killed Erwin.
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I got really close to my goal of finishing the final pre-beta edits and play thrus.
I think I’ll only miss it by a couple of days.
Great job, everyone. See you in the August thread!
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Oh! I just surprised myself with my own cake day. Cool!
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The cake is a lie, Lucid
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So I managed the first one and then some, and I’m quite close on the second, so I’ll count this month a success. Often, it can feel like I’m stagnating, and so being able to look back on the month and see that things really did change is very helpful.
Things still feel like slogging through waist-deep mud right now, but I’m getting there.
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Time to circle back and record how I did for the month of July:
- Started – I am excited to see some stat page developments be coded and displayed.
- Compilation done and I will be using this for improving my common route in August
- Done
- In progress – did not complete for July and will be carried over to August.
I set the bar very high in July for my goals, and the mapping out of chapter 3 ended up being a bit much to attempt with everything else.
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