Thank you so much, I’ll check those out!
4 Likes
Five days late, but here’s a snippet:
Snippet
There's so much you would want for yourself as a concubine that you wouldn't be able to do more than dream about as a servant. You daydream sometimes of climbing the social ladders enough to make all and sundry gaze at you with awe and respect, of spending your time reading literature and discussing philosophy, and earning the kinds of accolades you thought once were impossible for you.
The chance to enjoy wealth and influence, instead of wasting away slaving over @{(dept_palace = "Clothing Department") needle and thread, slowly losing your eyesight,|}@{(dept_palace = "Palace Kitchen") boiling pot and sharp knife, worrying over poisonings,|}@{(dept_palace = "Tea Store") boiling pot and dusty shelves, worrying over poisonings and national tributes,|} would be a once-in-a-lifetime miracle you sometimes felt compelled to create.
Of course, to be a concubine and gain access to all of this, you'd have to catch the emperor's attention even just once. After that, however… Well, there were concubines who never once set eyes on the Emperor after their initial night.
Would you prefer to be one of these overlooked beauties, or would you seek the Emperor's eye at every opportunity?
*fake_choice
#[i]I want $!{Chengling_title}'s eyes on me to the exclusion of all others.[/i]
*set HCL_rom_attract %+low
*set HCL_sex_attract %+low
*gosub_scene relationships HCL_Relationship
*comment Attracted the Emp's attention with something (choice) & then keep it.
You imagine, in your heart of hearts, winning $!{Chengling_title}'s attentions with your mind, rather than your @{(charisma >= low) sterling charm|lacking charm}. You puzzle over what it would be that would draw his attention.
Honestly, I’m SO FUCKING SICK of writing this section. TAT It’s boring and repetitive but the player’s only ever gonna see one version of it, but there’s so many variables into WHAT VERSION of that version they see that I can’t just make it a single section of prose with like, two @{}s to fix it. It’s intricate and fussy and I hate it. TAT
And this doesn’t even take into consideration that I’m going to have to go back and do a MASSIVE bug-fix on the ENTIRE GODDAMN CHAPTER after I’m finished HERE, because I have to figure out how *ifs work. It keeps changing on me, and I can’t… ugh.
Whatever, not gonna keep complaining. I brought this on myself.
Your PFP is Punpun and that boy gave me depression-by-proxy. XD thank you for reminding me of his existance.
I get this in my real life job because I have to follow a script and I’m already bad at tonal control. XD
8 Likes
Reminds me how I’m sometimes better at interpreting what’s happening (if I can’t see it) by listening to dogs rather than people.
2 Likes
I also tend to act out scenes as I write them. I try to completely lose myself in the writing. I write a lot of action scenes, and I usually get myself worked up, breathing hard and feeling the stress of the character. Since I am writing First Bull Run, a Civil War game, I’ve been doing a lot of saluting, musket drill, aiming imaginary guns, or swinging imaginary swords. My girlfriend just ignores it at this point. It sounds kind of eccentric, but sometimes acting it out will bring out some detail that otherwise would be missed.
9 Likes
Yes to this! Acting out and talking out really does help. Just this last week I stopped writing 3x to act out Pearl’s hand movements and facial expressions. All the better to observe and describe.
9 Likes
Start of week “4+ a couple of extra days” status update: I continue to focus in on my editing passes and changes I am making based on the feedback I have received.
This past weekend, I also spent time away from my editing tasks and was able to come back to Patchwerks with fresh eyes today. This is the second week, I accomplished this.
Good luck on your writing this week, everyone!
12 Likes
Good luck for the last full week of July, everyone 
I had a good writing time last week and although I’m feeling a bit poorly today, and don’t have much time for the next few weeks, I’m hoping to submit my Honor Bound draft this week. Fingers crossed!
11 Likes
July 2024 - OiAL Returns!
Hey, everyone! I hope you’re having a dazzling July.
Work has resumed after a brief health-scare hiatus on Once in a Lifetime, my in-development Life Simulator built in ChoiceScript.
For this update, I’ll do a bit of a preview reel of where we’re at, before talking about where we’re going. This includes all functionalities built up until the present date.
The first WiP build of Once in a LifeTime will include gameplay up until Age 10. As many bigger systems are being developed, I still need feedback on core systems in place, and as such feel this is a solid point. The content planned for inclusion in Update Zero: Beginnings is outlined below in the snippet from the Roadmap.
As you can see, there’s plenty planned that I’m excited for. What I am stoked to confirm is that two of the features on that roadmap are already heavily implemented.
Anyways, we’ve got a few things to see, shall we?
Where We're At
Up to date, I’ve implemented several systems and pieces of information to the player. Amongst these is the Character Creator, which allows for you to design your character as you see fit. Over time, I’ll look to expand the Character Creator but nonetheless have provided a bevy of options for your initial start. 
Amongst these options is your Attribute Selection, Attributes have a direct impact on key elements in life. To give an example of how these may provide an effect, I’ll showcase the Intelligence Attribute:
Upon completion of selections in the Character Creator, you will be presented with the following review screen.
This brings us to the (Work-in-Progress) main ui of Once in a Lifetime. From here, you’ll have access to a bevy of menus and options and will have information placed on display.
Please Note: I am heavily working on the User-Interface to create something as streamlined as possible using ChoiceScript. Whilst doing everything I can, the realities of using ChoiceScript are clear and I can only condense so much. I appreciate your understanding and patience! The User-Interface presented in the image below is Alpha State and heavily unfinished, thanks!
You can see a series of menu options from within the Main UI.
Only two options are implemented at this time:
- Relationships
- Advance to Next Month
The Relationship System took quite a bit of a monumental undertaking. I’ve created a heavily dynamic procedural generation system that builds out family (both immediate and non-immediate), friendships (if applicable), and relationships (if applicable).
For first passes, I’ve built out the immediate family generation, which is showcased below. This includes your Paternal/Maternal Grandparents, Parents, and Siblings.
The game dynamically generates all of this, including determining if you have siblings, if they’re your brother or sister, how many you have, and so on so forth. The game further determines if your Mother passed away at birth (yes, events happen), if grandparents are alive, so on, so forth! It’s all quite intricate, and I’m still working on the UI, interactions, and the like. However, I think many will be quite pleased with the two images provided below.
Please Note: This specific run-through the image was captured from included parents that did NOT share the same last name as the player. This is a dynamic chance that is rolled during character generation. Further, Spouses do NOT have to incorporate their partner’s last name either, as this is further dynamically generated. You can see this in both the Maternal Grandparents and your Parents in the image below, as they do not share last names. However, the Paternal Grandparents do.
As seen above, quite a bit of information is dynamically generated. Birthdays, personal appearance information, closeness levels, all of it. I’ve even got the code dynamically appending the birthdate calculation to the starting era (in this case 2004), so the age of 51 for your Grandpa is calculated appropriately to January 11th, 1953. There’s still bits and bobs on age ups that I have to work on, but we’ve got quite a bit of fundamentals down.
Lastly, I have Monthly Events. I need to add an image tagline for the appropriate months, but we’re working on it. In this case, this is advancing on from March 2004, and providing five events that actually occurred in March 2004. Once we reach the point of 2024/2025 or so, I’ll begin fictionalizing events at that point as I no longer have a historical basis to go off of.
Please Note: The events in this image are real and not dynamically generated as they’re a sort of ‘newspaper’. That said, I am working on a dynamic event generation system for events in the player’s life, which will be talked about further down this post a little bit.
Where We're Going
I’m going to keep this part a bit short and sweet.
I’m beginning heavy work on the Dynamic Events Sequencer.
At the heart of any life simulator should be dynamic events. This ranges from health issues, relationship/friendship troubles, job issues, events in education, and much more.
I will be building out dozens if not hundreds of unique events that will occur to players, weaving those into code, and then proceeding from there. At the heart of it will be the Dynamic Event Sequencer Master SubRoutine, which will be quite the large file. I may need to split it into a few depending on how things go.
Nonetheless, I am beyond excited for everyone to continue to follow the revamped progress on Once in a Lifetime.
Take care, stay safe, and remember…
4.54 Billion Years.
54479940295 Months.
1657100000000 Days.
It all comes down to this.
Your chance. Your story.
Your…
11 Likes
looks around at everything that’s happened so far in July
I picked a hell of a month to have multiple releases, huh?
Been a bit slower on the writing front so far this month. Sitting at about 25K written this month so far. A bit behind schedule on…all my projects. More than a bit on one of them. Going to have to push the finish date on the fantasy serial back probably two weeks. New romance novel chugging along at a much better pace, but still behind where I was hoping to be.
12 Likes
Only other post I’m gonna put here for this month!
Had a victory today. Upon pushing forth on development of Once in a Lifetime and beginning work on the Dynamic Event Sequencer…
The first event was a resounding success!
Once the game runs the initializer script that generates starting values, family, etc, the game runs a 1 in 4 chance that your (Potential Trigger Warning in spoilers!) Mother will die upon giving birth.
I began working on a mockup rest in peace screen, and the first iteration (it’s missing polish and some additional details I want to add) is up and operational. This pulls the dynamically generated information of your Mother, including her Name, Age, Birth and Death Dates, and the Children she left behind, which further shows your dynamically generated siblings.
When your character is mentioned, they are appropriately mentioned by their gender identity as selected in the Character Creator as well.
Whilst I won’t be showing off events often, I figured I’d show a small sneak peek at the rough draft of this first event! It’s a short one as I plan to expand it later, but wished to get systems running.
TRIGGER WARNING POSSIBLE IN IMAGES BELOW
Anyways, super excited to see dynamic event functionality beginning to form, now to begin working on the big parts within the normal game functionalities itself!
~Zach
6 Likes
What other releases do you have? I just started playing These Thieving Hearts tonight. Good luck with the rest of your projects!
I’m rooting for you! I think you do a lot more playtesting than I do. lol!
I’ve just sent in a full draft of Ink and Intrigue. I need to do an update on the forum thread, but right now I’m going to have a stretch and take a moment to celebrate. I know I’ve got revisions coming, and then beta testing, which was intense with TMP, but these are good things because it means we’re getting closer to completion!
Happy writing, all!
13 Likes
As in, finished? 
5 Likes
As in first draft finished. 
I added 60k words in revisions after finishing the first draft of TMP. Hopefully Ink won’t need anywhere near that amount of revisions, but we’ll see what happens!
In other news, I’ve been playing through @Barb’s Thicker Than demo and honestly it’s my favorite thing right now.
12 Likes
That’s great!
You should see if they’ll let you add Poetry and Passion as an in-app bonus feature.
5 Likes
8 Likes
I also put out a new contemporary romance novel. Home renovation show swoops in, fixes houses, and one by one, they fall in love.
9 Likes
That sounds like a fun premise. Congrats on the release!
5 Likes
I saw that on Amazon! Do you think it’ll ever come out in paperback? It looks really good.
5 Likes
I have the paperback file ready to go, i’m just waiting on the rest of the cover.
8 Likes
Awesome! Too bad it’s not available for pre-order yet, I was gonna go buy it right now.
Do you have autographed copies of your work for sale anywhere? That’d be worth paying a little extra for.
5 Likes