June 2026 Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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Welcome to June!

Writer Support Threads are here for you to discuss your monthly goals and challenges, comment about any burning ideas you have, find support, share resources, ask questions, and more. Participant as much or as little as you’d like — participation here means much more than you think. :slightly_smiling_face:

Continue reading for dates and reminders, featured WIPs and requested feedback, and monthly resources.

Dates & Reminders

On the 15th of each month, we host Snippet Day to help writers feel comfortable with posting their work publicly. Post as much or as little as you want. If you post, ask for feedback as wanted.

  • :rainbow_flag: Happy Pride Month :rainbow_flag: – Special thanks to Choice of Games that allows me to play games and be Asexual. Not many games allow this option—not from what I know.
  • 1 of June – Toxic Yuri VN Game Jam opens.
  • 5 of June – Comfy Jam Summer 2026 Game Jam opens.
  • 15 of June – MetroidVania Game Jam closes.

Featured WIPs

Feedback helps writers strengthen their works and creates engagement that helps other readers find their content. (Please feel free to add your own works.)

The following writer(s) have requested feedback:

WIP List

  • None at the moment!

Monthly Resources

Each month, our support thread provides resources for discussion and support.

I have been reading a book called Mastering Plot Twists by Jane K. Cleland, website linked here (the website uses affiliate links) to create scene-by-scene tension. Plus, the book covers building stronger characters and knowing what (1) motivates your characters and (2) what are their perceptions of the world that causes the story’s conflict. In the sample, there’s a notable line:

When characters surprise themselves with what they say, do, think, and feel then we’re surprised too. […] [Cleland’s] discussion of perception gaps is an important step in understanding the interplay of reader expectations and character’s actual, unpredictable behavior.

Mastering Plot Twists, Foreword, page 20.

Other resources are:

This resource gives you quick, bite-sized information on how to add a little tension and conflict in any genre. A great start if you’ve no idea how to begin.

The website overwhelmed me at first! That said, this article describes character and plot-driven twists. It also mentions combining genres to create unique plots that feel creative and novel.

Closing

I didn’t achieve my exact goal, but I achieved way more in ways I didn’t expect. I also purchased a new computer, so now I gotta set up everything just the way I like it.

My goal for June is to do heavy outlining for my projects and continue with my War Sky review.

Good luck with your goals this month, writers. :slight_smile:

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Got the new demo up in May! Phew!

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Word Count for May: 30k~
Planned Word Count for June: 25k+

In May I had no goal except for trying to write anything, anything at all. I’ve been battling writer’s block for the last few months, but I managed to get the ball really rolling. I also only really had time to write during half of the month due to some IRL stuff, so I’m happy with what I’ve managed to do even if it’s less than my usual monthly average.

This month I think I’ll be releasing a demo for The Dragon’s Lament (I’m deciding if I still like this title). I am, however, getting some anxiety over it and not meeting expectations, both my own and that of the readers.

Some thoughts about life and writing

I’ve noticed my writing is becoming a lot more emotional. I find myself adding my own anxieties into the characters, and I just finished up a scene that I only now recognize as very therapeutic for me but not necessarily as engaging to future readers. Idk. Not sure what to do about it, but I’m not planning on deleting it.

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My brain is still protesting about writing in June thread when it’s still May, but I’ll do my best and my current ponderation is about beginnings so it’s somewhat more suitable…

I’m going to be busy IRL so I don’t expect much writing, but I can still think.

So, I’m still wondering about the beginning of my detective story. More precisely, I’m wondering how much I want to ease up the readers’ descent into the apocalypse. Should I tell them right away that’s what’s happening? Or should I let them see little oddities in otherwise-mundane-ish setting first, and let the weirdness build up?

Should I get some eyes on the linear draft before making an actual interactive demo?

And, should I give the player an option to choose whether they want to get the in-world book excerpts interrupting the story or not?

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For June (it’s still May 31 here in Manila), I’ll aim to develop and finish chapter 1 of Lily Adventuresses! Episode 4. And thanks to @myeraland, I’m reminded that the climax of the entire episode will involve a huge plot twist that is guaranteed to be heartbreaking, but I’m keeping it under wraps for now.

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I’m pretty sure there’s no place in the world where it’s already June, although there is a large chunk that’s still at 30th.

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Yeah, I think the creation of the thread was a little premature this month.

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It’s practically June for me, so I’ll bite.

I know how most readers feel about having a back button available, but what’s the general consensus on having the game code visible? As the writer, I’d thought that it might bring unwanted spoilers, or, well, I don’t know, maybe disappoint readers to see how certain choices might not be as impactful on the story as they thought. It might be helpful to have, though, so I’m considering making mine visible to possibly get some feedback too.

Thanks!

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Goal for May: 24/31 writing days.

Result: 23/31 writing days.

Goal for June: 23/30 writing days.

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I massively prefer having it visible when I’m playtesting so it’s easier to report bugs. I can also give feedback more easily eg something like “this scene felt a bit short when I played, I can see there’s a lot more in the other branch so it might be good to even it out” wouldn’t be possible to say if I couldn’t see the code. I’ll also be able to see whether something is a bug vs something else going on that looks like an error but technically isn’t.

If I have some spare time to playtest something, I’m very unlikely to test a game without code visible because I won’t be able to give the most well-rounded feedback that I can.

I set code as visible when I put up WIPs. It’s incredibly useful. I’d strongly encourage other authors to do so as well - if someone doesn’t want to see spoilers they just won’t look at the code.

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Strong, strong support on showing code from me too; I debated this too when I released the Pactbinder WIP, and I have never regretted making code visible despite my initial reservations. It makes it so much easier for readers who are so inclined to find and identify bugs, and even troubleshoot them themselves. Especially if your game is even a little bit complex.

Goals for May:

  1. Have fun travelling for a few weeks. Check!
  2. Get back into the rhythm of having a job and writing after a great holiday. Check…eventually.
  3. Get 20k-30k words into Pactbinder Chapter 4. Check! - just hit 30k yesterday.

Goals for June

  1. Get through the bulk of Chapter 4 - if at month end I feel like I’m on track to release in late July, June will have been a success.
  2. Write ~40k words (or however many words are needed to finish C4, if lower) over the course of the month; will naturally happen as a result of 1, but as always, I find a number target useful to keep me moving per day…

There is another (good, but time-consuming) major life event looming over me this month, so I may get derailed - but I think I have my schedule under control. We’ll see how this goes.

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One more enthusiastic vote for making WiP code visible. The people who playtest your game are a small fraction of the potential audience. Make it as easy as possible for them to give you useful feedback; it’s likelier that your game will ultimately sell better because of that feedback.

If there’s something I’m working on that I really don’t want people to spoil themselves on, I’ll just cut that unfinished section out of the code before posting a ready-to-playtest version. For anything else, people can’t unintentionally spoil themselves by reading code; they’ve got to choose to code-dive, and spoilers go with the territory.

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I wrote 125k words this month.

Does that means I finished Act 3 of Shadow of the Eagles, which I was intent on doing this month?

No!
:smiling_face:

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May goals:

Chapter 1 for ‘Edges of Winter’ - Missed by a mile, I got a bit bogged down in reformatting how much of it worked, and then testing everything. But one major branch was nearly fully drafted.

June goals:

Chapter 1 - but with all 3 branches drafted. est. an extra 27k words to balance the branches

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Alhamdulillah, I surpassed my May goals! Though that’s probably only cause it’s the early stage lol

Anywho…
For this month, I hope to finish chap3 so i can finally move on to the timeskip and by extension get a little bit of chap4 done too

Bonus goal;
Reword/ add to the stats screen

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I know this is a pretty forwardly lgbtq friendly community, but one of my concerns for my IF is that I like writing queer characters as talking about their queerness, even to player characters who are straight. Am I odd for worrying that this will be a turn-off to players? I remember seeing some bad reviews for IF games because of that queerness that have otherwise been celebrated for being queer friendly

Perhaps it’s just my own anxieties getting to me.

Context

My male RO is bisexual and a pretty significant part of the early chapters is him getting over his ex boyf and having frank conversations about it. I get the feeling it’ll be off-putting to biphobics who think bi is a stop away from gay, but also to straight women who don’t want to romance someone who acts so obviously queer.

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FWIW, I would find any romance arc that started off with a lot of content around an RO being very hung up on their ex and wanting to discuss it a lot to be a bit of a turn-off, queer or not. Mainly just because I find it so unappealing as a trait IRL!

Which doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea or not worth pursuing, it’s objectively realistic and could be really interesting, but I personally do think it’s worth expecting some people to be turned off by the premise.

I’m not certain the queer aspect of it would do much to accentuate that, though, at least not beyond the usual risk of prejudice any queer content runs.

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More context, also trigger warning

Trigger warning: suicide

To be fair, “hung up” is probably a poor choice of words on my part. He’s less “hung up” and more sad about his ex committing suicide after the breakup. Lots of conflicting feelings

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Gotcha. To be fair - ‘hung up’ was my words, not yours, so that was my incorrect inference! It’s still a really heavy topic to weigh over a prospective early-stage romance, so I think my point still stands, albeit much less so…

I don’t know - I feel like there’s always going to be some folks who are turned off by ROs with histories that involve relationships with differing orientations to their own, but I think there’s enough of a viable audience here that also would feel actively enthusiastic about the representation.

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I’m pretty sure there are always going to be some folks who are turned off by ROs with histories that involve relationships at all, no matter the orientations involved.

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