March 2024's Writer Support Thread

Game Development Writing and Content
1

Welcome all to the support thread for March 2024!

:spiral_calendar: :

:cherry_blossom:

The Cherry Trees are starting to bloom – it still seems like winter here though. We have salt on the ground tonight, in case it snows.

:snowflake:

:birthday: Happy Birthday to March babies.

Thank you, everyone who continues to participate in these threads – it helps others when you do participate, sometimes more than you think.

If anyone has specific questions or concerns I may help with, please let me know.

:open_book: :

This month I start work on my UX (User Experience) elements in Patchwerks, so I am going to feature a couple of game design articles that you can use to help you design and build your Interactive Fiction game.

First up is an article that goes into detail on what User Experience design is all about and how to enter the game industry as a designer.

Game UX Design: The Complete Guide In 2024

The takeaway from this article for our purpose in this thread is to focus on: game mechanics, narrative flow, and the overall presentation of our interface.

Narrative is the normal focus in this thread, so my plan is to follow up in the months to come on both mechanics and presentation.

To start our journey off on the right page, I’m going to link a detailed article on design documenting and planning a project.

In this article, the author goes over how:

  • story

  • visual style (UX)

and

  • interesting mechanics

all form pillars in your ultimate success.

The takeaway from this article should be:

Your style-focussed game design document should focus on:

  • Characters

  • Story

  • Lore

  • World & areas

  • Dialogue

and should explain exactly how each of the above of are supposed to work within your game.

My March goal is to work on the User experience elements of Patchwerks.

Things like Chapter and Statistic headers and features such as codices and character indexes are all going to be worked on.

I got a good start, a day early (Thanks Leap Year), so I hope to keep the momentum going month-long.

41 Likes
2

This month I’m hoping to complete drafting Chapter 9 of Honor Bound and get started on Chapter 10. March is a fairly clear run so if all goes well I hope to be able to make decent progress on Chapter 10. Fingers crossed!

22 Likes
3

Best of luck to everyone this month. While I can’t speak for everyone. You’re mostly starting off better than me this month given I got a sore throat, so hey, if you’re feeling bad. Remember, it could be worse.

…wait that isn’t all too posi-

Anyway My goals are the following.

  • Finish all 3 hangouts planned and accompanying 3 non-hangout days.

  • Get some progress done with the next Chapter once said hangouts are done. Since finishing it ia a little unrealistic.

  • Probably figure out the full plot line as well.

Fingers crossed I complete atleast one of those. I’ll be rather happy.

18 Likes
4

As I stated at the end of last month’s thread, I will be splitting this month into two chunks. Before the 15th, I hope to complete the side story I had planned out. If I can get that done before the 15th, maybe I could post that as a snippet, lol.

After that, I think I’ll take a moment to consider what to do for the rest of the month. It is very probably going to be starting the first part of act 3, but that is subject to change.

Slight side note, I always feel like I’m not writing enough when I realise I’ve been working on my WiP for a year at this point, and I’ve only just now reached Act 3. But then I remember that I split each Act into three roughly 40,000 word sections, and I feel a lot better about myself. Looking at it that way, I am technically on chapter 7!

Hope you all have a good month. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

15 Likes
5

By the way, if anyone reading likes to write in text editors like I do (CSIDE doesn’t quite gel for me so I’d always used Sublime Text with ChoiceScript highlighters) I can’t recommend @Sargent’s ChoiceScript VS Code extension enough. I started using it this week and it’s an absolute joy. So much more efficient to fix annoying little errors that I’d only have spotted through automated testing, which means the automated testing is focusing on more involved bugs. It’s really good!

22 Likes
6

My goal for this month is to outline my next chapter from start to finish. Last chapter I had a vague outline but didn’t stick to it well enough, overdoing it in some parts and underthinking in others. I had a hard time wrangling the whole mess together into a coherent chapter.

So, for this chapter, I want to nip that in the bud by making a more detailed outline and deciding from the start what can or can’t be included. No more random detours!

16 Likes
7

I hear you on the need to nip chaos in the bud, but I’d just warn against being too “structured” and not allow yourself flexibility.

Sometimes characters, arcs and the narrative itself will want to speak to you as you work on them.

13 Likes
8

In February, I actually wrote about 20k words which is the fastest I’ve written in over a year. This month I’d like to write as much if I can

20 Likes
9
I'll just open the month with this.

“Lord Denwatcher?” you ask.

Vega shrugs. “Varg don’t have a concept of medical lieutenant who was formerly a commander before being court-martialed, who was a lord before going MIA and disappearing into the timestream.”

“There’s a concept for that?”

“My point exactly.”

13 Likes
10

Bye February :heart:, Hello March :four_leaf_clover:

March 1st is my sisters birthday, celebrating that!

Goals:

1. Get chapter 2 of Vengeance done!
2. Get chapter 6 of Pushed done!

MUST DO: Work on spice scenes with RO’s.

:star2:

17 Likes
11

My goals for March are pretty straightforward:
1)Finish the outline.
2)Get back to writing as soon as possible.
3)Finish the second half Chapter One.

Wish everyone a wonderful and productive month!

13 Likes
12

Happy birthday to her!

4 Likes
13

Made my goal of finishing the Chapter 9 rewrite! Early, too :smiley: Kind of in shock I was able to do it - it was a lot of writing but I also had a huge mental block around it. I’m going to an art show to celebrate :sparkles:

My March goals:

  • Weeks 1-2: Finish everything in Chapter 12 related to the game’s climax.
  • Weeks 3-4: Finish either the Chapter 12 main-route epilogue, or the Chapter 12 RO scenes.

Good luck to everyone!! :shamrock:

13 Likes
14

I have to admit, I’m getting a little tired of being stuck in game-editing purgatory, especially since I initially estimated I’d be done by this time!

So I’m going to try and push myself a little more to make quicker progress, and my singular goal is simple:

  • Finish edits through Chapter Six of Asphodel.

No Diaspora goal this month, as coordinating edits for that one is Hell and will just be slow and there’s not much we can do about that.

Good luck everyone!

12 Likes
15

And at the start of the month, when everybody is reeling and going ‘oh no, I didn’t achieve the goals I set last month’ and setting their goals for this month and going ‘but what if I fail to achieve those goals’, I’d like to remind you all of something:

You’re not your productivity.

I know capitalism has bamboozled nearly everyone into thinking their worth is tied to how much they produce, but I say fuck that. If you want to really increase your worth, next time you go get groceries or a cup of coffee*, give the cashier a smile, a hello, and a have a nice day. Make the world better by making the day lighter for one stranger.

*this presented here only as an example; I do not condone the drinking of coffee, an addictive, foul-smelling sludge of a drug that nobody should take

23 Likes
16

I totally agree with this, but sometimes it’s hard not to fall into the trap of measuring success by what I get done. I’ve taken the last two days off writing after going hard for months. It’s been a good break, but I may be measuring my success by how much food I’ve made instead (6 hours in the kitchen yesterday). :rofl:

This morning I woke up from a dream that hit hard and had me reeling. Bittersweet and tragic with kindness at its core. I just finished making notes in case I want to turn it into a short story. Doubt I’ll turn it into a game but who knows? As soon as I ask my mind to come up with alternate endings, there they are. Maybe I could use it for a game jam at some point…

Anyway, my goals for this month:

  • Finish drafting chapter 6 of my WIP
  • Start on chapter 7 (I have 8 chapters outlined total so we’re getting close!)
  • Get demo ready for Spring Thing back garden & forum
  • Do closed beta testing on first 3 chapters in prep for ^^

I’m tired just thinking about all of this. Maybe I’ll get back to writing today, maybe not. Trying to honor my energy over here and sometimes a break is the best thing.

I hope you all have a wonderful month, whatever it may bring! :herb:

15 Likes
17

This is amateur shit. Measure success by how much yummy food you can experience instead. :stuck_out_tongue:

EDIT: My goal for this month is to see if I can finally finish Pathfinder:Kingmaker, instead of starting a new playthrough 3/4 of the way through. :stuck_out_tongue:

10 Likes
18

I mean, the apple crisp was divine so… winning?

10 Likes
19

Unfortunately I still need to pay rent. :pensive:

8 Likes
20

And pay your utilities and groceries.

But your worth is not tied to your ability to do those things.

9 Likes