Adding more reactivity and variables is soooo fun! but I also know future me is gonna hate myself shsjshshshsj
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I wish I was at that point in my writing! I’m still hashing out the main plots (and I need to get that done first before getting lost in the variations).
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Question about word count, currently I’m at 51,928 words with code and 39,718 words without code. So the amount of code I’ve written is 12,210 , is this a good balance? Or did I write too much or too little code? The game is pretty branch heavy so there’s that to take into account but I’d like a second opinion from y’all if that’s okay
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Really hard to say - intuitively 23% of the work being code feels on the higher side to me, but that doesn’t mean that it’s too much. Are you including the startup menu and the like, though? I normally don’t count my stats menu and my variable initializing in startup when factoring in word count.
If you have a lot of branching and complex mechanics (e.g I rack up the code word count when I’m doing particularly complex checks), then you’re inevitably going to skew code-heavy. At the end of the day, as long as the writing reads well and the code is doing something of value, I don’t think it matters too much either way.
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Yeah, it really depends on what the code is. Do choice options count as code? Having a lot of choices shouldn’t be a bad thing, in principle. Is there a lot of complex math going on in the background? You’re obviously using it for something, so it’s needed. Do you have a massive amount of *comments where you keep track of your ideas and thought processes and write out changelogs (hello, this is me)? Those you may want to cut out of the wordcount.
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I did include the startup and stat screen in this but those we’re only a little less than 2000 words combined for code and content. And yeah there is a quite a bit of branching, though I think there’s a lot more code specifically because there’s a lot of customization and different dialogue depending on those customizations.
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Don’t really use *comment much other than for sorting stuff in the startup file. So it’s probably just the amount lite branching I did sjshsksj
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I have files where I have more comments than content and I still can’t tell what’s happening there!
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You’re likely fine, it’s more important to keep in mind how the game feels to play.
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In today’s news, I ended up reading about laws of war and rules of engagement because I tried to figure out whether superhero/supervillain fights fall under law enforcement or military conflict rules and whether or not a supervillain who’s stopped fighting and tries to de-escalate by not participating but hasn’t explicitly surrendered or retreated counts as a non-combatant.
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My two larger games have a 40-49% code average simply because I code complicated game elements and have complex character customization. I’d imagine the number gets lower as I write more content.
I say it’s better to calculate percentages when you’re halfway into Act 2 of your game. From the games I’ve played, code it’s usually 5% for simplistic coding up to 20% for more complicated coding.
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I’d add, calculating average playthrough length will give more information than code/not code. I don’t use CSIDE and I use sublime text for wordcount rather than VS Code, so I don’t have any sense of how much is code vs player-facing text 
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If you feel you have a lot of code it could be because you are doing one of these things:
- Coding inefficiently.
- Coding something insanely complex.
- Coding a lot of different things.
- All of the above.
But bear in mind, no-one will ever read your code only experience what it does. (Except code-divers but that is a separate issue). So long as it works and does what you want it to, then the amount of code is largely irrelevant (which is why it personally irks me to include it in wordcounts - but again I do see some merit in it. Again, separate issue). Having said that, learning to code efficiently will save you time as you write, so points 1&3 are something you may be able to improve on, but this comes with another caveat… it is sometimes easier and quicker to write simple code many times than it is to write complex reusable code once, and often for the unique level of reactivity and branching in a game, there simply is not any other way around it.
I look at it this way, ‘Code’ is an instruction manual for the game to run, ideally you want to make it detailed enough to tell it what to do, short enough so it doesn’t crash, and clear enough so that you don’t cry when re-reading it later.
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I do this!! Well, sort of. In my game, you are a command officer on a ship, so I pick a few of my favourite command officers from fiction I like, and write four options for each of them.
Captain Picard: “Perhaps you would be willing to come aboard and discuss this? I’m sure we can reach a compromise that suits everyone.”
Captain Janeway: fire a warning shot - then try to talk!
Captain Aubrey: we shall decline the engagement and do some fancy sailing involving crossing their wake by night so that when we next meet, we will have the weather gauge.
Captain Sheridan: do something sneaky to give the impression we are far more powerful than we are.
And I mix up who my imaginary players are! But I try to basically make sure that there are at leasy four broad approaches available for each important choice.
Space opera you say?! You interest me strangely…
This is really, really smart.
I mean, I have no idea, but fwiw my demo is currently about 20% code.
My mirror twin.
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It’s kind of a Star Trek meets Babylon 5 meets Mass Effect with a side of Star Wars twice removed and a hint of John Carter of Mars, seasoned with Nordic folklore and submarine warfare.
Or something.
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As much as I would like to, I don’t have much semblance of a routine, aside from Sunday exercise/family time. So taking breaks is also a huge question mark to me. Feels like I’m simulataneously always taking breaks and not taking any breaks all the time.
That being said, I did take a 12-day trip in June and filled it with museums, tours, and exploring the local scene. One of the said museums even had an event going on, a writer’s talk, that I was able to attend. Being in a creative space listening to people talk about writing, life, and spaces in between, felt… really good. And it made me really want to write again. And learning and witnessing at all the places I went was also fulfilling. Made me wonder why I don’t do more stuff in my hometown (partial answer: monetary costs—there’s one place in particular I remember going to as a kid but it’s actually so expensive currently?!) so I looked up museums and stuff after I got home and bookmarked virtually everything to keep an eye on 'em when I can. I think that’d help a lot with the “refresh your mind and creativity” part. The “when” of that, I’ll leave up to when the interesting temporary exhibits, events, and special free days occur.
As it were, I also did end up managing to write something for the Neo-Twiny Jam that wrapped up end of June. I wasn’t planning to, with everything going on, and then a week before the deadline I was like maybe I can do something… but I also had no ideas. And then a few days before the deadline I was thinking about IF character name customization and thought of a silly idea that I then wrote out ASAP and used for Neo-Twiny. I’m still fiddling with the cover image and how I want it to look but the writing itself was finished and that’s the most important part.
Almost read “stats” as “status” there.
Oh this is awesome. These are all such distinct and expressive character profiles. I love it.
You have my wholehearted good-luck wishes on this.
Wait I love these
Taking a dog for a walk for candy
Two potential outcomes for “at least the grass is green”
I’ve never actually made these for social media specifically but the few times I have made little moodboards, half of them were photos I’d taken myself. Mostly the others were from online Google Image Search (unsure on the legality part there heh) but uh that was before the time of AI images… I was making a poster earlier this year and even just trying to find legit clipart felt like parsing a minefield. Ended up saying “eff it I’ll do it myself” and used a mix of shapes and free-drawing to get what I needed.
July goal, read and write IDK :') Just something. Finishing the small Neo-Twiny thing felt a bit nice so I wanna finish something else but I’ll keep my expectations low. I’ll likely try to revise one of my previous Halloween Jam entries for release/re-release next. As for something to read, well, I have a ton of options so we’ll just see which way the ADHD wind takes me.
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I have a technical choicescript question that isn’t worth a separate thread: can we make a choice that’s hidden and only appears if there are no other choices? E.g.
The orc brandishes his short sword and charges at you!
*choice
*if (has_spear) #Set your spear.
*if (has_sword) #Duel him with your sword.
*if (none of those) #Die a horrible death.
So in the above, I’d only want the (none of those) option to appear if none of the previous choices are available. Is that possible?
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i think this is doable for sure! there’s probably a more efficient way to code it that a more experienced coder might know, but i’d probably just do:
*choice
*if (has_spear) #Set your spear.
*if (has_sword) #Duel him with your sword.
*if ((not(has_spear)) and (not(has_sword))) #Die a horrible death.
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Ooh, brilliant! I have 5 conditions, but I can just make a temporary boolean for it. Thanks!
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That sounds just massively up my street! You’re main notes are my faves, and your minor notes are things I like in small doses! Let me know when there’s a demo I can play!
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