I am going to again highly recommend Michelle Clough’s Passion and Play which is an absolutely excellent craft book about creating intimate scenes in games and also building chemistry between PCs and NPCs. Not just highly explicit ones, but any level of intensity - generally setting mood, tone, and making decisions about what the scenes say about the characters and how the intimacy relates to the game itself. And how characters behave when romancing someone, whether related to sex or not. It has completely helped me analyse scenes I play through and write them better for Honor Bound. Some of it discusses aspects like cutscenes that aren’t relevant for ChoiceScript games but those sections are still interesting; I can’t recommend it highly enough honestly!
At some point I want to make a thread to show some analysis of how the book’s principles can work in practice, because it’s really brought me a lot of clarity.
All that plus I agree with @AletheiaKnights’s comment that the most effective scenes will have some build-up - whether that’s love, chemistry, mixed-up feelings, desperation or whatever else is going on - which will help give the scene context and be a lot more interesting than the “IKEA furniture instructions” approach to erotica which boils down to “this thing fits with this other thing”.
Oof. I wish I could find this for sale anywhere for less than $80, but ah well. Might just be the ‘not in America’ thing.
I’ll keep an eye out for secondhand copies, at least. I’m always looking for more recs for good guides like this. The ones I find myself are definitely a mixed bag, to say the least.
Yeah, it’s very difficult to find those kinds of books at a more accessible price. It was £50 for me which is a lot, and though I’m glad I took the risk and went for it, I have a pile of other game craft books that were much less useful (luckily most of them were expensed from when I had a studio job, but still).
It makes me additionally keen to put a post together about some of its topics, to share some of the insights I got from it
Hannah, Eiwynn, and others: Just thanks for listening and responding. Listening to you all discuss intelligent approaches to game testing and game making is helpful. The private first approach would of kept me from embarrassing myself to a large group of strangers. Hopefully someone else, besides me, learned from my public mistakes ha ha.
The frustrating thing for me is that I held onto my WIP for so long my friends and family really thought I was scared to share it. In hindsight, I think I knew it had flaws…but did not know what they were…but I considered their words and sent it out. Now everyone knows I am a moron so I might as well keep going. Maybe I needed that. Although, there was a 3 day mental breakdown period where I didn’t sleep and babbled to myself in the back yard. My dog was worried. In the end, the goal is to “get it right” and not to “be right.” As much as I wanted to “get it mostly right” the first time, I ended-up getting it “mostly wrong”. I took a lot risks. I have not looked into game crafting books. I would welcome any information shared freely. I still have this idiot’s faith that I can create something new, fun, and insightful before I become homeless or something.
I took yet another step back to appreciate the level of skill in this forum. Another thing that is hard to judge right away. Now I’m questioning whether, or not, I can compete. Like so many of us, I have this annoying habit of being skilled at things that I don’t really want to do everyday but suck at the things I would love to do everyday. Anyhow, I think I will go for another public beta release and put my big boy pants on. I tend to learn quickly under trial by fire…and the humiliation is good for me, sort of.
I will continue to learn from you all. I’m not sure why we think this stuff is cool. I honestly was hoping IN’s could get more people to read for fun instead of flipping on an tappy app game and binging Netflix cake shows. Now I want cake…
I can’t speak for the people here who have already been published on this platform, but I can tell you this: you can. Anybody can. Everybody can.
It might seem like you’re trying to get to Z and you’re starting at A and so many others are starting at M or T or even Y, but that’s not it. Everybody starts at A. Some people started at A in 1998 and have their first short story complete with 6 year old spelling mistakes saved on a floppy disk. Some people started at A the first time they ever took a creative writing class in high school or wrote fan fiction on the internet. Some people started at A yesterday, on this forum, reading someone else’s amazing WiP. Some people are going to start at A tomorrow.
There is nothing wrong with feeling like you aren’t “as good” as others, but the point isn’t to catch up with other people, it’s to move along your own alphabet metaphor journey. And whatever letter you’re at, it’s a great thing that you can see the gaps between your letter and the next one: that’s how you get better. We are all on the same path, really, we’re just all at different points along it. But all of us can get to where we want to be.
For whatever little this internet stranger’s opinion is worth, I have faith in you too. For myself and for anybody else, just as much as for you. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself credit for knowing you can improve, for figuring out how to do that, and for having the perseverance to try. Maybe you haven’t made exactly what you want to yet, but you are making it. And that’s great. And it’s worth celebrating, your work and yourself as its maker. It wouldn’t exist at all without you.
It’s just happening that I feel this urge to draw (writing projects related). Problems are: My drawing skills just suck, I can’t afford an artist and I don’t like AI art (seen one, seen them all).
So above all learning some mistakes from my last little hobby project attempt, I did find a new one. How much should I have the character “speak” for the player. Cause if I go for every sentence spoken chosen that feels like they might be too blank outside of them, but too many and it’ll take agency away from player. What’s a nice balance?
That’s an interesting one. In my first game I only ever had dialogue in option choices - nothing in the body of the prose. As I’ve gone on, I’ve had more player dialogue shown in the prose. But I think it’s important not to have dialogue that doesn’t feel natural for the MC, or expresses emotions that might not be applicable or feel jarring.
In Noblesse Oblige and Honor Bound, I’ve been using personality stats more to inform what the MC says and help it feel more organic. But I don’t really like having more than a couple of lines in one go, because of the risk of that jarring feeling, or of it feeling like the player is losing control of their character/the game “speaking” for them.
There are numerous factors that go into this, including if the MC is set or a blank-slate, or something in-between.
A MC closer to being a set character would normally dictate that more of the narrative is driven by author fiat, where a blank-slate often calls for more options for the character to act in different ways.
This is where testing and asking your readers where they feel you can add agency into the narrative is key.
My advice here is:
Ask your testers/readers to identify what types of reactions, dialogue, and agency you can add that would help, and ask them to identify any choices that failed to provide them the agency they wanted.
Then use that feedback to help you refine and grow your story.
Thank yall! I’m gonna try leaning in on the former first and see how that goes. Excited to try this out again in a more character centric idea, good practice with some star wars fan project before going completely original XD
Is it possible to have an IF statement rely on two stats like “if X + Y = 40, success”, or would I have to make it step by step like “if X = 20 goto Ytest. If Y = 20, success”
*create Xthis 40
*create Ythat 30
*create Zanswer 80
*if ((Xthis + Ythat) = Zanswer)
It is
*else
It is not
Doing the above would work for one off scenarios.
@Natman1025 If you plan on running this same check a lot and the sum is not constantly changing, I would do as Eiwynn suggests and just turn the sum of the variables into a variable. Just don’t forget to update the sum when appropriate.
Just wanted to say: well done coming back. It’s not easy when people have criticized something you’ve poured your heart into.
I like to think we’re on a journey together as authors – fellow travelers rather than competitors. Keep reading, keep writing, and you’ll keep improving. And you can expect support and encouragement here.
PS: Some thoughts here on how I deal with readers pointing out quality issues in my own game series:
Well, going into the slow final week of July, I’m pleased that I was able to submit Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of Honor Bound, and I’ve broken past 170,000 words on the game which continues to be wild to me. I’m amused that I originally intended this game to be shorter than my other ones but I will eat my slate-grey baseball cap if that ends up happening.
I hope to get the chance to do my initial outline for Chapter 5 by the end of the month. We’ll see! It’s a bit intimidating because I realised I wanted to rethink something (there were too many parties in the original outline, and I was concerned that it would be samey) and there’s a lot to do in it, but I’m pretty sure I’ll figure it out.
Hi everyone, It has been a very rough week for me. My anxiety attack returned and I wrote well, I write and rewrite and erased the scenes that triggered me the whole month so even if I have written the equivalent of The Hobbit I just have 4,000 words or so to count.
But… I still trying and I still want to make Eiw and Havie, people that support me every day proud.
I am a hardcore pessimist, but I still believe the phrase Chesire Cat says in Alice in Alice in Wonderland “If you don’t know where you going any road will take you there.”
I have always since kid understand it. like You will always reach somewhere If you walk time enough.
I’ve been working on and off on my writing, but since I need a break here or there I have taken to drawing a little guy I call Momo. Hope you all enjoy them as much as I do, and that they might lift your spirits!
