Tonight’s word count is 2815 words. More rewrites so not as fun as writing completely original scenes, but I’m happy with how the rewrites are going.
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Ooh I like this idea. I was actually thinking to just make all the player and marriageable characters in their young-adult years, so it’ll make sense, but I would have to remove the older-adult characterization I have for them because it wouldn’t make sense for them.
I really want to have older man/woman marriageable (Like Shane and Harvey). 'cuz I’ve read in Stardew Valley forum, someone thing to marry Marnie, I see her in her forties (this older woman manning the barn and taking care of her niece and nephew).
Thank you, this helps. I think I know how I want to go on about this without removing my older marriageable.
I think I’ll he locking out the player who chose the 18-20 age range from marrying a Marnie-like character, who’s in their 40’s. The same thing if the player chose the 40-50 age range, they’ll be locked out from dating 18-20 player. But they’ll have another form of relationship like friendship or being that parental figure, if the player wants to go that path.
Also, I’m sorry if I talk about Stardew Valley too much, I can’t articulate my thoughts as well as you all so I’m giving an example 
Yep. It’s not written in interactive fiction, but I love my characters when they forge their own paths. I have this antagonist that I made for my MC that is meant to be hated, but later in his story just fits perfectly to the I’m evil but I don’t want to be trope lol. It becomes my most favorite storyline. He didn’t get together with the MC, but I made his own one-shot so he could properly have his own character development and love story, which ended up to be the best-friends-to-lovers trope (my most favorite trope hehe).
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I love this! Will you find MCs underwear in their room and then display them at the fair? 
I like the idea of having set ages for the other characters and your relationship changing with them dependent on your age, rather than their ages scaling to yours.
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I might have something like that if the player made some certain choices 
Thanks again for the help, that age set is the best set up for the story I have it mind 
I’ve been overthinking age thing because I think it’s weird if the romanceable older adult npc knew you since you were a child spending summer at your granpa’s farm, then have this weird romance as if they’re just waiting for you to grow up years later. But now it’s fixed, so I’m going to overthink about other things lol
Now, I’m going to think of a way to slip in the age-range choice without it being awkward or out of place. And subtly hint the romancable’s ages without it being too vague, but also not being said outright. Subtlety is a challenge for me when writing lol
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If this a topic you’re interested in talking about, I’m curious to know. 
I have a Validation folder in my Google Drive for saving those, including comments from Creative Writing and English professors, and general encouragement from friends that touched me. Truly good.
Hello friend! I’m working on one such story too (though, I use the term “working” very loosely).
Impossible, in my professional opinion.
What I’m thinking about with my writing is that I feel like I should work on my Halloween Jam, but I want to work on Wedding Crashers instead. But whether I’ll make the time to is another question, still. The past couple days I played Minecraft though, after intending and forgetting to hop onto the server for days. So that’s nice. I also got a PC game controller from a friend and (re)started playing Hollow Knight! I love it. Still going through learning curves at my new job, went through some harder ones this week and then today went more smoothly. Now it’s later than I’ve been going to bed lately so I should go prepare to sleep. I hope everyone is taking care of their health as best as they can!
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There’s not much to talk about, I’m afraid. I just used a fancy name for “palace economy”, a system where wealth flows to a single administrative centre (such as a royal palace) and is then re-distributed to the population, after the nobles in that palace take their generous cut. It’s a distant precursor to feudal economy, where wealth only really flows upwards and goes through many hands before some of it gets to the ruler, who enjoys far more limited power as a result of this de-centralized system.
I only mentioned this to demonstrate my point about how most fantasy worlds don’t really have governments we could talk about. A feudal king and a “palatial” king are different on a conceptual level, but an average fantasy writer doesn’t need to grasp even this distinction. They know there’s a king who rules everything and is really rich and that’s it. They won’t stop writing their high-stakes plot and go “wait a minute, this feast is a bit too lavish for a feudal realm of this size” because they don’t care and neither do their readers.
If you want to really get me talking, you’ll have to ask about something at least slightly more specific, like the impact of potatoes on the global economy or the way period dramas made us incapable of honestly empathising with past generations.
Or that. I have 380 hours in that game for a reason.
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As a playwright and screenwriter, as well as when I am working on these games, I try to remember that every character who appears considers themself to be the main character in their own story. They still may appear in just a scene or two, but I try to write them with respect and curiosity. I have even ended up writing new plays centered on a minor character in a previous play, because they became so interesting.
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I try to do the same as well. I’m amazed I found someone who thinks the same.
Just like in real life we are the main characters of our own lives and everyone else are side characters. But from the perspective others they are the Main characters of their lives. We all feel we are our own bosses when really we’re just pawns on a chess board lol.
Similarly in my writing I want every character to be written like an MC. Even if they’re just there for one scene.
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Even that much info was good to know, thank you for explaining, but I’ll make a note to take you up on both of these things sometime, probably after I get through the game at least once? 
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There’s a fine line when it comes to treating every character like the main one in IFs. I’ve read books where the authors clearly have a soft spot for their side characters, to the point where they end up overshadowing the protagonist. Sometimes, it even feels like the author has some sort of grudge against their own main character, which throws the whole story off balance. Sure, side characters can shine, but the protagonist has to be the one you care about most. Readers are pretty sharp, and they pick up on those things.
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It would be a fun easter-egg scenario to encounter.
This is so relatable.
My current worry is about stats – particularly in pass/fail scenarios. In general I dislike pass/fails based on stat management and/or min/maxing for best results. This is mostly because I’m bad at it as a player. The person who’s always finding death ends because they can’t always discern what stats a choice will test/effect? That’s me.
For my WIP I sort’ve just nixed failstates entirely and have opted for stats to be either: personality and basic addition stats (like + 1 point towards warrior, so now that’s the highest stat of the RPG classes and that’s your class). So… instead of pass/fail, I’ve leaned into the idea of having several passing choices for each obstacle, usually based on personality, class, specialization, relationship levels with other characters, inventory, or past choices. Like, there would also be neutral passes if you don’t make any other checks for the other passing choices, but the worst case scenario would be maybe party disapproval or the loss of an item.
I guess my main worry is that I know min/maxers won’t be a fan of it and that it might come across as too narrative or maybe even railroad-y? I just wanna win. 
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First of all, relatable.
Second, and this might be a small amount of people being the loudest voice, but I’ve heard more complaints about having to minmax in stories from the CoG/HG community. Seems like a lot of writers have a tendency to rely on there being more minmax readers than there actually is, so I’d advise against trying to make the game appealing to the few that do like minmaxing, as sometimes that results in a game that’s less appealing to the more regular audience.
As much as we all want to strike the perfect balance that keeps ALL readers happy, very rarely is that ever achieved. It might be better to focus on what you would find fun if you were playing your game.
Personally, I like having more than just pass or fail. Give it the D&D whirl of pass spectacularly (natural 20), pass, fail, and fail spectacularly (critical 1). Ofc that adds more writing/coding, but I love seeing the extremes of the two
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For the record, those things aren’t “spectacular” whatever, they’re just “regardless of modifier”*, and in 5E even that only applies to attack rolls, not anything else.
*unless you’re swinging a vorpal blade or somesuch
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I’m having some plans for a “lose/fail so spectacularly that you actually win” option, but we’ll see.
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Ah, my D&D group played it a bit differently. A nat1 would sometimes mean you accidentally hurt a PC (only happened once, and it was outside of combat). This one time, I rolled a 2 and failed to carry something valuable that would’ve shattered if it hit the ground, but someone else rolled a 20, did a whirl, caught both items, and huffed it to the next location like a champ
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Hey all!
K.P. Everly here!
I hope everyone’s January and February have gone well! Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to write much. Due to my chronic health issues I’ve been sick a lot these last few weeks. I’ve also been putting a lot of time into my other projects such as my art and video editing.
Also off topic but is there a guide on how to properly use a markdown formatting? Because I have no idea how! And I want to make sure I use it right. So back to my progress on BABRD, I’ve only been able to write Ezra Talon’s POV. I have not been able to get to my second RO.
I will be posting a small summary of the story since I haven’t said much about it other than your MC is a chronomancer, lives in a dystopian planet called Solara. It’s a whole universe I am creating myself. But for Book 1, it might be put on the back burner for a bit. Just because my life has been really hard to get anything done right now.
I am planning on working on some smaller projects one is called "Before the Dawn " and it will be from each ROs POVs before the beginning of the events of BABRD. I also am working on some other side projects such as my book of poems and I’m planning to work on a short chronicle of a mystery series called “The Radley House.”
My husband suggested I try and do a couple smaller projects to get used to the programming and figuring out CS. And I was feeling overwhelmed because there is a lot and I mean A LOT of world building and in depth story to BABRD. But anyway, I was going to post here a second post if that’s ok with one more update . Anyway here’s hoping to a wonderful March!
Thanks for reading my post!
K.P. Everly
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I can’t remember off the top of my head which game designer said it, but I’ve been a fan of the advice ‘if there’s anything cool happening, the protagonist needs to be the one doing it’. Not to say that’s a hard and fast rule, but why let an NPC do something badass when a player can do it? Especially in a choice based game, people tend to care about NPCs insofar as their relationship to the protagonist and how they impact the player’s choices.
My favorite characters are the ones that cause conflict for the protagonist, or complicate the protagonist’s goals, or thrust a choice upon the protagonist, so on, so forth. And if they’re romanceable, even better!
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My head knows this, but my heart needed to hear this.
I’m not the best at coding, but I think I could slap something like this together. 
Because the idea of having a choice that is literally, “I’ll take my chances” be random success sounds amusing as heck.
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This. If your side characters are stealing the spotlight and your protagonist is just sitting back like a doormat, then maybe they’re not really your protagonist to begin with. One piece of advice I picked up from earlier threads is that your main character doesn’t have to be doing all the cool stuff all the time, but they should absolutely be the linchpin of the story. If you can yank them out and the story still works, then they’re not really the protagonist.
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That’s definitely not the case. It’s not at all unusual for an author’s favorite character not to be the viewpoint character. It’s just that when the author really knows their craft, you can’t tell, because their first loyalty is not to any character, but to telling the story the way they feel it needs to be told.
That’s actually not such a great idea, unless you’re writing omniscient narration. If you have a viewpoint character - whether first-person, second-person, or third-person limited - part of your job as an author is to show your readers the world from that character’s point of view. Unless your character walks around fully invested in the complex humanity of everyone they meet, which would be exhausting even for an extrovert, there are going to be people who feel like background figures to them, and those people should be written as background figures. That doesn’t mean they’re dehumanized or unimportant, but they’re important as they relate to your character. Let’s say the server pouring the main character’s coffee in the diner has platinum-blond hair with visible dark roots, double-D breasts, a nametag that says HELLO I’M RUTH, a chipped manicure, a wedding ring, bags under her eyes, and a painstakingly practiced customer-service smile in danger of slipping. You could describe her just like that, but the reader would mostly likely better be served by seeing her through the main character’s eyes: does the character see a hardworking woman doing her best? probably a mediocre lay, but worth turning on the charm for those fabulous tits? just the waitress, whatsername?
To put it more succinctly, your secondary and minor characters should think of themselves as the main characters of their own stories and act accordingly, but it’s just as important that the actual main character think of themself as the main character of their own story. I know I’m not actually the center of the universe, but I can’t help defining the people around me by their relationship to me: my husband, my mother, my friend, my hero, my neighbor, my enemy. Your character should see the people around them the same way. The challenge is to write your secondary characters as people with inner lives and hidden depths the main character isn’t necessarily ever going to be privy to, while remaining true to the main character’s perspective.
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