March 2023's Writer's Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
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A random potentially-writing-related thought: I have a vague recollection of reading, a long time ago, about a theory of people having X amount of words to use per day (and no matter whether I believe it or not, I think it’s a fascinating theory), but since different languages use different amounts of words to say the same thing (I used one word to indicate “get well soon”, which is three words, earlier today), I’m wondering if, according to that theory, the amount of words is different across different languages, or that one can actually say more in one language than another per day.

I think it’s funny to think about.

(Also, regarding that snippet I posted earlier - I wonder if putting some fake choices to indicate the player that the MC realizes things are proceeding oddly would be worthwhile.)

(Also also I just found a list of achievements I spent way too much time to make I can’t use anymore because the conditions won’t apply! Grblmbh.)

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Some people use their words really well.

Other people, like my mother, use words a little like a garden hose. A constant stream, and if you try to plug it and fail, it only makes the stream more powerful. She mostly makes everyone cold and miserable if she’s left to just kind of flail around, but if you aim her at something worthwhile, she does some good work.

I don’t think people have a certain amount of words each day. We all colloquially have days where we say practically nothing and then days where we’re constantly trying to talk our way out of things. Drink a glass of water or two and you’ve got another hour in you.

My writing progress so far:

Chapter 6 of my unreleased project just hit 24,000 words, pushing the whole project up to 85,000 so far, I think. I got all the orc stuff out of my system, and now we’ve got to design a few different approaches to storming a dungeon. I keep thinking “I’ll stop here and just post what I’ve got” but I don’t want the demo to just kind of end mid-chapter, so I’m pressing on. There’s a lot of really fun stuff I’ve got planned in this chapter that I want to do towards the end, so that’s what keeps me going.

I also keep getting distracted with the prospect of going back and adding cool stuff into the previous chapters. I’m using a “tag” system which will become clear when I post and I keep thinking of new tags to add. I want there to be a lot, but I have to draw the line somewhere. I think 23 is as good a stopping point as any other number.

One thing I’ve burned myself on is writing chapters that the player can straight up skip, and other kinds of one-off scenes that only occur if some obscure set of *if statements is triggered. For example, if your character’s mother is a shapeshifter (one of three options at the start of the game) and you don’t accidentally get her killed, and you also manage to rescue her husband, then a scene is unlocked where someone asks her why she doesn’t just shapeshift into a younger version of herself. If all of these conditions are met, you get a pretty touching scene between her and her husband as she explains her reasoning for choosing to grow old alongside him. Very easily missed.

Plus, at the end of a few chapters, you have the option to see what the villains are up to, and of three potential scenes, you only get to see one! So much writing that people simply will not be able to see in a single playthrough. Ridiculous. Why do I do this to myself?

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Because you love doing it? And because some of the scenes you love most are those obscure ones? I know I have something like that in my system.

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You’ve struck me right where it hurts. Yeah, that’s exactly why I do it. Sucks to be me!

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I definitely feel you there. Some of my currently-favourite scenarios are a combination of illogical choices and fail-states, which as of itself indicates a lot of players try to actively avoid them. (I’m planning some achievements for achieving them, so I hope that’ll give some people incentive to try and see them.)

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Why does the opossum scream?

Because he’s not a honey badger.
image

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I can fully relate to all this about unique and obscure scenes one can basically stumble upon by chance. Sometimes I feel as if my game is as bloated with such things as someone who’s spend the night feasting on vulgar amounts of bread and beer.

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First time posting in one of these, though I’ve always read through them for how many perspectives they showed. I’ve always had a habit of disliking what I write, and who knew that posting it publicly would amplify that? Sometimes my brain will just spiral and I have the urge to delete everything I’ve ever made and hide in a little cave for a while. But I know that both that, and going over everything with a fine-toothed comb won’t help too much with just forward progress, which is my current goal, so I guess I’ve got to learn to really just ignore those thoughts.

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@EnaMeena – Welcome to active posting on the thread. I know others that have the same thoughts and that they have to deal with them as well. Just know that you are not alone in feeling what you do, and that every day you fight for forward progress, it is a good day.

@will – Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts about your current project. My branches tend not to be as “bushy” as your first example (the shapeshifting) but I have branches that do split into thirds, as in your villain example.

As long as I do not go too obscure in my branching, I feel okay with the possibility that a reader may not see up to 2/3 of a major route branch. As long as I make each branch satisfying, then I feel the one-time reader will get as much out of that route as those that play multiple times and/or code read.

I also feel that having a check-point system that allows a save point right before such branches will encourage people to explore the different branches more.

The checkpoint system I use is not pretty, and it can be a bit of a drag to code and implement… but it is worth my time and effort, if it means more enjoyment for my audience.

I have been hearing good things about @cup_half_empty 's version of this system, so I do think this is something worth pursuing.

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Another weekend down, with about 2,100 words of content written and some tweaks to the code to make character creation a little easier to handle.

I’ve got a section where the player picks their skills, all pretty standard stuff. Six skills, you pick one to be very good at, one to be kinda good at, and one to be bad at. The rest get to sit at average.

I’m trying to write a little bit of fluff text that explains where you picked up the skill - so if you’re an aristocrat you picked up your skills in Close Combat with a fencing instructor before the army taught you how to be a bit more brutal. If you’re a commoner you picked up the same skill just surviving in the mean streets of London Below.

You then get a tiny scene (a few hundred words) of that skill in action, and a choice at the end where you can go back a step and pick a different skill if you don’t like the sound of the one you chose. It’s resulted in a lot of content that most people won’t read (because they’ll commit to their favourite skill straight away), and a really gross looking section to reset the right skill back to default if you choose to go back.

On the bright side, I’m up to over 16,000 words in total for this chapter. Unfortunately the average playthrough is now down to slightly under 4,000. Over 75% of the words written won’t even appear in a playthrough.
Does anyone know of any stats that show this sort of percentage for other CoG/HG works? Words per playthrough vs total words?

@EnaMeena - I definitely know how you feel, but these threads have really helped with that problem - getting to see the way other writers handle their struggles is great, and everyone here’s proven to be lovely and supportive. I hope to see your name popping up some more in the future! :slight_smile:

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I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress this month, and since I decided to measure my progress in smaller chunks than entire chapters, I’ve felt a lot better about my progress.

I found these really helpful! Thank you for sharing them. :slight_smile:

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I’m asking forum members (especially women, but everyone is welcome) for help with a potentially controversial undressing scene.

The Scene

Premises: There are the Sidereal Empire and a city state. They both have their religious order, even if the former is a weird position within the Empire (they are both the “church” and a semi autonomous military corps) and the latter is a all women cult.
The cult provoked the Empire and the Empire conquered the city. The cult is incorporated in the order because they share the same religion (sort of).
Now the scene:
Kiia was a not initiated member of the cult, before she had known Christopher, a member of the order, and was his guide during his diplomatic service. Now that she is inserted in the order, she needs her uniform but she’s too scared to change her clothes. She asks for Christopher. The master watching her (a woman named Fubuki) initially refuses, but then agree to bring him even if just to tell her to calm down. Christopher arrives and tries to explain her why a men watching a woman undressing is not a good thing (keep in mind she’s a young woman grown in a all women cult), but she insists saying that he is the only person she trusts. Long story short Fubuki agree to let him stay and talk to her to keeping her calm, as long he is turn on his back for all the time.
In later moments Christopher will bend some rules to give Kiia some new clothes, and boots, to make her more comfortable.

Sorry if the details are not clear enough.
Any thoughts?

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What do you consider to be potentially controversial about this scene?

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I’m talking about a young woman who has just lost her whole world and “family” and she has to undress in front of the people responsible for that and wearing their military uniform. And the most likely because she wants a men overseeing her

PS And because with the highly sensitive readers of today, I never know what is controversial and what is not.

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It think it’s fine. They both consented, and he even turns his back. It would be another story if, for example, one of them forced the other to be there.

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I think these are two separate issues: controversy vs reader sensitivity. Just because some readers are sensitive to a certain subject does not automatically mean it’s controversial. For example, I may be afraid of needles, but that doesn’t mean that a scene where you describe a patient getting their blood drawn is controvertial. If you want to give people a heads-up about potentially triggering subjects, you can put a content warning at the start of the book.

Now for the scene itself, I don’t think it’s inherently controversial. It may make the reader uncomfortable, but I guess that’s the intended feel. If the woman is asking explicitly for the man to stay with her while she’s undressing, it’s fine, since she is consenting to that. The non-consenting part is her undressing in front of the other cultists, which isn’t what she wants to do, but again, that’s part of your world-building. At most, you could put a content warning at the start of the game (but I’m not sure what that would be, perhaps nakedness in front of strangers in a cultist fashion).

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My impression is that all of the complex in-universe explanations exist to create a scene where the male character is present while a female character (I assume that these characters will potentially be involved in a relationship, just because of genre savviness) undresses while he simultaneously does not have to take responsibility for any of the awkwardness around that because of the circumstances that have forced it to happen.

Write what you want to write, but like, don’t imply that the scene exists because it needs to for plot reasons – you wanted a scene where an emotionally vulnerable woman asks someone to watch her undress, and you designed your worldbuilding such that this scene would occur in your work.

That’s not a thing that only highly sensitive readers would pick up – that’s just what the text tells us.

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Is there a reason that she could not change in some closet all by herself? Not that it bothers me, but I do not understand, why there has to be a witness? If it was about keeping secret weapons or stuff, she could hide them with Christopher too, when he turns his back towards her.

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It could exist for plot reasons, why won’t it be so? Maybe it can show the developing attachment or attraction between the two, show male character acting differently than she expected. Many events can be a useful relationship-building tool.

No need to accuse him / her of doing it for titulation alone, anyway. No need to do it like an asshole either.

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I think that sounds like a good, tense scene from the premise alone. Is this an IF?
I don’t think there’s anything controversial about undressing, without sexualization, and in a room with someone who has their back turned.

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