First of all, the Lux beta is coming. And I do actually mean it this time. Watch this space because I plan to put the full game out for testing from this weekend. (Details and instructions on how to help test will come soon)
But for today, the big announcement is that - Lux, City of Secrets will actually be Part 1 in a two-part adventure set in the city of Lux. The reasons I’m doing this are many - partly because one book was becoming too unwieldy for the level of complexity and choice I wanted to offer (the variables were starting to melt my brain). But also, because of how much there is to explore in Lux, making it a two-part adventure will mean there is a save point halfway through the story which will hopefully make it easier to try many different paths with different characters.
I have gone to a lot of effort to make sure that City of Secrets, even though it is Part 1 of 2, is a complete game in its own right, with more content than the previous two books combined (there’s a side mission in chapter 2 which legitimately could be a book on its own!) It introduces many new characters and mysteries and also dedicates time to expanding existing story points and relationships (the good and the bad!) And while I toyed with the idea of waiting until Part 2 was written and releasing both together, that would have meant a much longer wait, and I really want to get book 3 out to you all as early in 2021 as possible.
I hope this announcement will be exciting for everyone. Working as a solo author on projects like this takes a long time, and I’m so grateful for all the patience and support this community gives. I can’t wait to hear the feedback for LCoS when I put out the beta (This week! I swear!).
Until then, stay healthy, stay safe, and make good choices
T x
This makes me so unbelievably happy to read!! I’m so excited for all the content we’ll get to explore. Plus, to have two parts of Lux to enjoy?! It will be real immersion in the city life, the world build, all the characters… Can hardly contain myself
TBD. I’ve been playing a lot of ZE:Safehaven and that model works quite well. But I also like the idea of a separate book with separate cover art etc. Even though they are two parts of the same story, they will have two very distinct feels to them.
Thank you for the nice comments everyone. I’m glad you’re as excited as I am
Saaaaaame. Lol I think this page is officially on my list of most visited sites! XD
I’m so, so, so excited about this! Seeing this update earlier this week gave me something to look forward to for this weekend. Congrats on meeting another big milestone!
…and don’t mind me, just watching for those beta deets.
Tomorrow (or Sunday, more likely Sunday) I’ll be putting the link to the full beta of Lux, City of Secrets on this thread. It will be free to read and available to anyone on this forum. Please don’t share the link anywhere else (social media etc.)
The character loading feature is not present in the demo. However, there will be a number of test characters to try, and also a quick creator to try different options. It is not a full character creator and will not allow for all the nuances that will feature in the final version, but hopefully it’s good enough for now
I’m happy for anyone on here to read it, and if you don’t want to give feedback, that’s fine.
For people who would like to help with taking the game to its final form, these are some of the things that would be really helpful to know:
Glitches that break the game! There shouldn’t be any of these but please let me know if they occur and I will aim to fix them as quickly as possible and update the beta accordingly.
Errors in the code - Sentences that stop halfway through, pronouns getting mixed up, clues getting updated at the wrong time or into things you haven’t uncovered. All that is useful and important.
Continuity errors - In chapter 1 I met X but in chapter 3 she didn’t remember me etc.
Your opinion of the difficulty of various challenges. Did you find your character failing a lot? Did everything feel a bit too easy? I might have follow-up questions on this as difficulty is hugely variable in this game depending on various factors, but it would still be good to get feedback!
Typos - There will probably be a lot But if you see any big ones, do send me a screen grab or a description of the error.
Missing choices - Did you find that you weren’t able to choose the answer you would like? I can’t allow for every choice all the time, but do share if you ever felt there was an obvious missed opportunity.
Constructive criticism - This is tough. I want people to tell me what does and doesn’t work, but if there are aspects of it that you don’t think work, I’d really appreciate the effort to frame it in a constructive manner. The goal here is to make the game as good as it can be.
Things you like - Apart from the fact that this obviously will make me feel good about myself and my writing this will also help me to know what works for the next book, what people are hoping to see more of, and which characters/mysteries deserve focus.
If you have any comments or thoughts like these, please send them to me either as a direct message or an email (evertreeinn [at] gmail [dot] com)
These next things are not helpful. In the interest of saving time, please do not send me:
Vague corrections - ‘There were a lot of typos in Chapter 2,’ or ‘the first half was buggy’ are not useful. If you see mistakes, please let me know exactly where they are. There’s only so many times I can comb through half a million words to find missing commas
UK English vs US English - I’m a UK author and I write using UK English
Personal Opinions - Obviously you can tell me what you think, but if you’re looking to give constructive criticism, it helps to consider why you have that opinion. ‘I don’t really like character X’ isn’t particularly helpful. ‘I had trouble understanding X’s motivations in scene Y’ is helpful
Okay, I hope that’s helpful for everyone. As I said, if you’d rather just read the beta and give no feedback, that’s fine! If you’d rather wait for the full release and the chance to play your own imported character, also great!
Ultimately, I just hope you all enjoy it. I will be leaving it up for roughly the rest of the month and will bring it down once I start preparing to submit the final files.
Whew, that was such a long post. Thank you for reading!!! T x
I want to read this as soon as possible but I am stuck now with my assignments and . Hopefully,I will be free by Christmas so this would be a Christmas gift for me…. Can’t wait for the full release.
oh man im so excited for this. got a quick question about the choices with the quick creator: will you be able to pick your RO? and if so will recognise that they were with you in evertree/sordwin?
I would like to help you, but I don’t speak English as a native language, so I don’t know how much I can be of help. But If I’ll see big errors in your story I’ll tell you with a screen.
The hype train I’m on right now has just sped to lightning speeds I’m so excited!! Though I’ll probably be too nervous to report anything because I’m a coward
I’m very excited, but given how “eaten up” I was by both Evertree and Sordwin, I can’t allow myself to play it before next weekend. I’ll lose the entire work-week, otherwise.
It will be real immersion in the city life, the world build, all the characters… 
But if you see any big ones, do send me a screen grab or a description of the error.
this will also help me to know what works for the next book, what people are hoping to see more of, and which characters/mysteries deserve focus.
Congratulations!
. Hopefully,I will be free by Christmas so this would be a Christmas gift for me…
so today will also be added the save feature to Sordwin?