I have a different perspective than many, I think, so I thought I’d share it with you:
A reference to pop culture is relevant and “fun” until it isn’t.
What I mean by this is that some references will work for 10+ years, and people will feel a connection that they would not feel otherwise.
Other references will feel outdated or passé in a year, after they are made and changing times might take such references out of the collective at any point in the near future.
I know many, if not most, authors writing their games today won’t consider what readers 10 years from now think of their games, but many favorites in the CoG and HG catalogs are now approaching such age.
The good news is if they are in achievements, you can always change those in updates, whereas if you use pop references in your main writing, you may not be able to update that as easy.
re: Romance achievements: I feel these are reasonable to signal to your readers that there are options/paths available that may be different from where their current choices have led them.
You’re the author of the highest-rated game in the HC omnibus. I feel extremely confident in predicting that most people are going to like this one too.
I’ve finally sent off my full draft of Honor Bound! Seventeen months or so in the making and 540000 words put together in very complicated ways I’m really pleased.
The ChoiceScript author community is on a roll these days! Lots of great games in or near beta, and a promising Hosted Games lineup for the rest of the year too. It’s an exciting time to be a fan.
@leiatalon Feel free to drop me a note any time you’re feeling doubtful and I will ramble on a bit about how awesome you are.
And @LiliArch thank you and I hope your headache improves!
@leiatalon you’ve got this! I’ve really enjoyed all that I’ve read of your games and I’m certain Ink and Intrigue will be a ton of fun based on what I played for Spring Thing!
Thank you so much it’s been quite intense this month as I was desperate to get it done before the end of July and I’m really glad I could do it in the end! Now time for a bit of a breather!
When I read translated books (which I do more than not translated books), especially those taking place in real world, there’s always this little disconnect/confusion, where the narrator clearly expects certain things to be familiar to the reader, but to me, they don’t always be. Geography, for example (which is why I’m always put off by people requesting maps because being unsure of where places are is something I feel all the time when I read) or some cultural things (I have no idea what school dances are like in the form they appear in American media). This, to me, is normal reading experience, and I tend to get annoyed when readers protest when it happens to them.
I want my work have that feeling. (I also want to name-drop “the dance of the elder ones” and watch my readers scuttle, but I don’t have a good location for it.)
For example
So you set sail from Twofold along the irradiated Straw Coast, past Slowriver and Bearfort, setting your sights to the half-collapsed towers of Giant’s Jawbone.
(Which, I must add, my test readers were immediately able to put on map, apart from the one place that doesn’t exist yet.)
I see them as kind of a personal imprint of what I was at the moment those achievements were written. Even if the references are dated, they’re a reflection of me.
Slipping a reference to a Bo Burnham song which might not be relevant in five or ten years into Lords of Infinity’s achievement list doesn’t really bother me because in five or ten years, I’ll still chuckle at that song and my enjoyment of that song will still be a reflection of my personality (probably).
At that point, it ceases to merely be a pop-culture reference, and starts to be a reference of my own personality as well.
That’s the point, though - I once read a book that very lovingly described the locations in the city… using references that were completely meaningless if you weren’t local.
Still a good book though. Great prose.
And here I am, sitting on a joke in a story that got outdated before I even properly started the story.
My current project is very local, and regularly references local landmarks and events - which is why I’m including both maps and references, as well as an “out of towner” origin which gives me the justification to have other characters explain these things to them.
If you want to lose your readers on their journey through your story, then I guess going mapless or guideless is okay.
Imparting a sense of “mystery” and perhaps being “lost among the locals” is different from leaving your readers stranded along the way, lost in a daze of confusion, unable to find their way forward.
I may not be making myself clear, and if not, I am sorry.
I agree, I really like maps, especially in fantasy worlds where I might not otherwise understand what’s going on. If an author can paint a clear enough picture with words, that works, but if something is too confusing that can make someone stop reading.
Nothing mysterious about it; like I said, it’s what foreign books tend to do to me. I simply want to turn it around and show what reading a foreign book is like.
I subscribe more to the philosophy in the meme and pretty much just don’t sleep anymore some weeks and try to hold it together until I have the time for a proper nervous breakdown. (Maybe one day when I have one of those seemingly mythical “time off for a holiday completely free from anything work related” things I keep hearing about.) Not worrying when there’s something to deal with or process just means at best frequently you’re trying to bury it in denial, at worst the problem is probably deteriorating so it’s many times worse, you’re just pretending it’s not there. I guess each to their own. I admire people that can just let things go and let it be as it’ll be.
I’m sorry to hear about your problems @levviathan. Some of that stuff really does just need time to process and heal. Be kind to yourself. Stress is a mind killer when it comes to creativity in my experience. That you reached your goals at all is impressive.
I’m really pleased.
I’m also loving that our games are going into production at the same time. 
it’s been quite intense this month as I was desperate to get it done before the end of July and I’m really glad I could do it in the end! Now time for a bit of a breather!