Given that I have a fully functioning project with only “choicescript_stats.txt”, “startup.txt” and “story.txt”, I’d wager that yes.
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Well, I really liked that name, so it sucks. But I guess I can come up with something else. Thanks for the input.
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Regarding titles: Go with your instinct. Once everything else is done, you can go back and change it if you want or need to.
@Marmus – Use Rivers of Blood for now as a working title and review it later.
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Solid advice. I guess I have all the time in the world, so I’ll be thinking about it as I work. Thank you as well.
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Funnily enough, I’m having a similar struggle, but my title resembles a movie and a related game. 
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Even though there are other WIPS with my title, but I know that it suits it.
I mean (WIP) Drink Your Villain Juice! (Superpowers, Horror | 160k): Updated 20th March 2024 is the literal theme but it really suits the story!
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I honestly didn’t try your game for the longest time because I thought it was a comedy based off the title alone lol. I’m glad my friend brought up that it had body horror or I would have been deprived of such a great game 
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I’ve got one that’s (partially) in first person as well (Raishall). I’m actually surprised to see so many listed using first person due to its perceived unpopularity. I thought it was far rarer than that for CSGs.
Super variable. Sometimes weeks if I’m having an episode of writer’s block or the code is buggy and giving me trouble. Sometimes I can write several thousand words within a single day if I’m really on a roll (so could potentially manage 10k within about 2-3 days (with a few hours per day writing, not the entire day!)), but it’s usually somewhere in between. I generally find that I can write faster in the earlier stages of a game than later due to the build up of consequences/variables and storyline merges/diverges that need to be taken into account. Putting together a demo of 10k is generally no problem for me. Moving a game that’s already over 100k up another 10k is generally harder. Exceptions to this can include where you already have the frame work for something like a battle or resource management scene where you can use a lot of preexisting code and structure to speed up the process. (Although the opposite is also true with these sorts of scenes where if you start taking into account too many variables and rand rolls you can dig yourself into something that takes forever to write by needing to readjust, balance, bug squash.)
If I really hit a wall, I usually bounce over the section and write on something else and come back to it (preferable within the same game (a different branch or next chapter), occasionally on a adjacent project.) Sometimes giving it a break and coming back to it with fresh eyes does the world of good rather than continuing to slog along in a section that just doesn’t seem to be working.
Edit: I write for Ectocomp petit morte most years. Super fun. Highly recommend it as an experience and to learn some time management/planning tricks from in the process. And it’s kind of satisfying to have a finished game in a couple of hours (a big change from the average HGs that take months to years to complete.) You basically have 4 hours to write and test an entire game but you can brainstorm before you hit the start timer. Perfectly do-able to get a working game of up to a few thousand words in that time frame. Key is planning. If you know what you want to write about, the approximate structure, are fairly confident in writing basic CSG code and don’t make it too complex you can write fairly quickly and get something that works with minimal errors. If you want to see how fast you can put something down for funsies, I recommend planning out the chapter, then writing it down. (Don’t have to wait for ectocomp, can do this whenever.)
By the way, thank you so much to everyone who helped me get my Raishall testing/tester errors sorted out! I think it looks bug free now. Need to make some more edits and try not to break it again in the process 
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Sorry for the double post but was just chipping away a little bit more on some of the edits to Wizardry Level C today as it sounds like it’ll get a steam release so need to keep working though it. Opinions on how do you feel about edits to old works? At a minimum I’m giving it a good edit, adding in extra flavour text and choices etc. Will probably add in a few more mini scenes/extend scenes where I feel it’s needed. But I’m debating how much extra work to put into this.
I mean I could go all in and add entire extra scenes etc within the limits of time I have before it needs to go in, but how worth it is that Iikely to be? I was looking over the app store comments and the reviews are pretty awful. (I still can’t work out why this is my best selling game to date 
).
It’s such an old game of mine that fits the HG style even less well than it did on release, that short of completely rewriting it from the ground up (needs less branching, more characters throughout, ROs, better use of variables etc) and doubling the length, I’m not sure if it can be “fixed” into what would be considered a decent HG game. As much as I could do a lot with it, I’m not sure if I should as the best use of time if that makes sense.
I’ve already spoken to one person who made some really good points about updating games and why it’s good and nice to give the readers a better game, but their’s are also a lot more popular than this one. Anyone else here update their games once published? (Rather than add-ons, sequels etc) How/Why/Opinions on doing so 
(Your not going to hurt my feelings on this one if you want to comment on Wizardry directly btw even if it’s negative. Those app store comments were harsh enough to knock that out of me years ago. It’s one of the reasons why I hadn’t looked at them until not but figured I should check for anything useful I should and can fix.)
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I did a 10,000-word-ish update for Blood Money which added some more chances to start romances, some more romance/friendship screentime for a couple of the characters, and a new hookup/romance with an existing character. Plus some extra scenes and responsiveness with a ghost character, and adjusting some of the late-game difficulty to make it easier. It didn’t add significant extra paths or endings.
It gave a significant sales boost: it came out after 2 years, and for two months it had sales comparable to month 2 that it was out. It then returned to what it had been, but I suspect that it would have been lower without the update.
A couple of things though: that update didn’t take a massive amount of time, and I also got paid a fee for it upfront. So if an update takes a lot of time and energy to do without a sense that it’ll give a sales boost, it may be more worth focusing on current projects. If the reviews aren’t good, even if it goes on sale when the update comes out, if may not tempt new players even if existing fans are excited to see the new scenes.
I’m talking purely financially with the above - the satisfaction of polishing things up and building on what you have, and rewarding longtime players, is also very much worth bearing in mind too.
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I’m currently working on a big update for The Mage’s Adventures that will add about 70k new words. I’m also going to eventually update The Magician’s Burden with about 10k words, each of my Trial of the Demon Hunter installments with about 15k each, and The Nascent Necromancer with about 100k words.
All of these updates are to complete these games into standalones/a completed trilogy, and I’m going to be adding in lots of flavor text. Although I do think that ultimately, focusing on new works is more productive and enjoyable, the updates will still boost sales significantly and make me feel a lot happier about finishing my old games.
That being said, after I’ve updated those old games, it’s full steam ahead with bigger/better projects like Meteoric and A Specter Over Kilerth that won’t need updates to be great 
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Wow that’s awesome mate! I was wonderful the same thing.
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As the third week of working on my stat pages comes to an end, the narrator voice from “Gossip Girl” has started to voice (in my head) my character entries for the compendium.
I find this hilarious and when my characters talk back to her, I end up with better entries because the characters are defining themselves better as I write the entries and both these entries and the character sketches I revise end up better for it.
The disadvantage is that it slows my writing of each entry down, and I need to refocus at times, so I can say enough is enough and move on to the next entry.
Also, this is great for the companion characters and even the romance option, but when this happens with the “minor” characters, it can be a waste… but I am hoping fleshing out the sketches of these characters pays off for future purposes.
Here is an example of a Compendium entry for the Dandy character.
I hope the last week of March goes well for everyone.
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I found out I have lost a section title from my book 
probably accidentally hit undo one too many times or something.
On the other hand, my shiny new writing software claims I have written way more words today than I actually have, since I’ve been copy-pasting my text to it. On the plus side, I can track wordcounts by page, chapter, and section now! Which is great.
On the third hand, I’m trying focus sessions now. We’ll see how that goes.
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I’ve thought about these, and I have some thoughts to share.
My decisions on these things would be based on my motivation and enthusiasm for doing the revamp and revisions.
If doing this is based in the desire to complete or clarify your vision, I feel the motivation is in the right spot.
If doing this is based on fan/audience service, whether that is bug-fixing and correcting problems, or adding new content at the request of fans, then I would look into your motivations here a bit more.
I’d question myself here, asking if this is in furtherance of my original vision, or if the motivation is to address something else.
From your post above, I am not sure you have clarity of this nature yet, and so, I would figure more of this out, before moving forward.
I think this is key. Will your revisions and revamped game material actually advance your original vision of the game, or are you doing this to “fix” stuff that those who did not connect to your original vision complain about?
Your visions for games are uniquely yours and I feel the community and gaming world are richer because that is so.
I sort of get the feeling you are trying to force yourself into being more “marketable” and “mainstream”. These are legit goals for some, but I’d urge you to be you and if these are factoring into your decision making, to be sure to give them their proper weight in your assessments and not an ounce more.
I feel @Samuel_H_Young has recognized that his vision for his older works needed clarity, so he is working to provide that, so he can then move on and close out past projects for good.
It is okay if a project you have released is deemed at an end and you feel it is time to move forward. Please give yourself permission not only to be okay with your original vision for this project, but also to be okay that it is not necessarily a vision that needs to connect with everyone.
It is okay to have closure on a project and move on.
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I’m lying on a couch in a posh office with the Writers’ Therapist, who is speaking in a calm, compassionate voice, saying the words every writer needs to hear…
I gasp in epiphany. Surely I’ve thought these words before, but hearing them again rings true and clear like the call of freedom.
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Don’t think I will be able to finish anything this month… Good luck to you brave writers, godspeed.
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Thank you to everyone that replied . It’s great to hear from people who have updated games why they did it and how it panned out.
Those are indeed some deep thoughts thank you and probably do cut to the center of my uncertainty on what to do about Wizardry. TBH I’d kind of been largely ignoring it as a coping mechanism since starting work on a new WIP after it was released given how much the initial reviews did hurt before I learned to grow a thicker skin and stop letting these things bother me as much and try to learn from it and move on. But the negative feeling I have towards this game is still very much there. (Actually I’ve probably gone a little too far in the opposite direction and gone for the well if I’m happy with it then that’s what I’ll write and that way I can justify my games’ existance regardless of how unpopular they are 
) It’s actually been on my “I really should give this an edit” list for ages, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to even read it again in recent years until kicked into action by a steam release which on one hand is cool and a good thing (none of my games have steam releases so that’s a positive right) but also kind of scary as I really can’t see it not getting a lot of negativity on re-release again and it really needs so much more work than my more recent game for me to be happy with it being brought to light again.
No and that is probably a lot of the problem. The thing is, Wizardry was my first CSG and it’s written a lot more in the style of the short old school CYOA paperback book (which has problematic elements for a typical HG like not having a lot of deep relationships, skipping about in the story with multiple endings that may lack a really satifying wrap up for the character’s life more like a novel as you either die or can imagine what happens next- they’re not meant to be epically long, not really well designed for a sequel due to the branches, frequently shallower level relationships rather than again deeper novel style ones, focus on task completion rather than character building and deep emotional impacts etc), and I’ve learned a lot more about structure and coding since then so there’s a lot of spots where the game experience could be improved by better use and carry over between scenes of code and variables.
IMO it is a fairly average gamebook in any coding language and there’s a lot of things that could be done better even if I kept the basic CYOA style. But fixing to what I’d write if started the project today with a similar MO would mean a complete rewrite from the ground up which I think is not a good use of my time instead of finishing one of my many other projects. (Given it’s an old release there’d be comparitively poor visibility for the game and no guarantee that the rewrite would be received any better anyhow.) So yes some of it does come down to what would be popular, but others are what would I do if I had nothing else but time to rewrite this. (Which let face it I’m often time poor and so time is something I have in very limited supplies.)
This game has zero fan base so basically I guess it comes down to what I want to do with it as you say. It also comes back to time. I would like the steam release to be at least playably decent as I don’t want to disappoint anyone kind enough to read the game, but I can’t help but think I’m throwing good time after bad after a certain point if I can’t fix it enough to make the difference. This is a game that cannot be popular as a HG release especially these days, it’s just where it’s going to sit on the neutral to negative scale. Some things that complaints are largely about so far are really hard for me to easily “fix” like pulling the game into a more linear format to increase playthrough to wordcount or just doubling the size of the game, adding ROs, removing the CYOA sort of format to rewrite it into a more novel like one, needing a sequel to allow people to move up the grades etc.
Given I’m also on a bit of a timeline, probably the best course of action is to complete the planned QOL edits (it needs some extra checking of variables, flavour text to stop the game repeating itself as badly in places, additional choices to stop the “next, next” syndrome that appears in places, added in a foreword explaining the game’s premise so people aren’t caught off guard by not having a long single playthough with a single goal etc) and probably see if I can work out the new save system to put in a check point or two where the game starts branching out to stop the annoying restarts. I’ll also likely add in a bit more interaction with the familiars if I can work it as they are seen less in the second half of the game/disappear in some of the branches which is my bad and I think will help with the continuity if I can pull it off without requiring major rewrites. (I have seen a few comments about this one which I think is a fair point).
Other things probably need to be put on the backburner as a to think about how much I want to do them/if I have time as more difficult to pull off or requiring a lot more time and rewriting potential which could blow out the edit timeline complete (the net effect of which would be that I’d need to ask for an extension and the next of my WIP’s lined up for finishing would probably end up getting sidelined for who knows how long so it’s kind of getting down to a what is most important scenario). For example updating with a series of additional tasks, adding ROs (I know this is pretty much a prereq but also probably really hard without a rewrite to create a recurring characters that could somehow fit into the game and fill that category), maybe some epilogues, working through multiple licence levels etc.
I think what everyone’s being saying about adding to increase clarity or add bonus scenes/aspects to the game that people will want to see, rather than trying to “fix an existing game to be marketable” is a really good point. Major rewrites are probably going to fall largely into the latter. (TBH I can’t justify writing these games primarily for profit due to their poor sales, it has to stay as hobby for me. But I also hate disappointing people who have been nice enough to buy my games as well seeing something in the demo they thought they liked.)
By the way @Samuel_H_Young wow those are some big updates on NN and the mage’s adventures! As big as many smaller stand alone games.
Anyways enough overly long rambling as I sort through my thought from me for one day. Thanks again to those who replied and game me a lot to think about and reflect on why I’m so conflicted about this one.
TLDR- I need to do a bit of soul searching as to what, why and timeline criteria as to what probably should or should not have large amounts of time put into them for updates. Probably should start with the essentials and then go from there seeing how much time is left and what I think it needs
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Currently right around 45,000 so not too bad. The game has ballooned up however, so I am now targeting about 80,000 total words. Apparently, these stories have a tendency to do that. But hey, if I can finish the game in April that would be great.
In general, I’ve really hit my stride the last few days. Feeling the passion for the story again, instead of just grinding out words to hit a target. I could write ten more of these at this rate but the first step is to finish one. Wish me luck!
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Good luck!
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