Master List: ChoiceScript Games/WIPs Social Media (Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, Patreon)

Hehe, thx for the heads up. Added my WIP for shills :innocent:

1 Like

I was hoping to create a Discord server for teens who play interactive fiction. :grin:
I don’t know if any teen would be interested in joining once it’s created :man_shrugging:t6:

1 Like

Oooo, a chance to advertise myself for free? Don’t mind if I do!

1 Like

What a wonderful list @rinari :smiley: Now I know how I will be spending my rainy autumn days …

2 Likes

Hi everyone, a user pointed out that this list would be more navigable (God that word doesn’t look right) if the games were in alphabetical order, so I went ahead and rearranged them! I also separated the lists out into Published and Works in Progress games. (With the advent of our new Hobby Project category, I should add that games that are “HPs” should also go into the WIP list. :slight_smile:)

Alongside alphabetizing, I also added release dates and dates of the WIP’s first posting to the forum columns. This was to preserve the old list’s roughly chronological order, which had older WIPs near the top and newer WIPs towards the bottom. I guess it can be useful to know how long a game has been in development?

If you collectively hate the new organization, I can easily revert to the old version (yay Discourse wiki technology)!

Finally, you may note that some WIPs’ statuses are listed as “WIP”, “Hiatus,” or etc. Please do not change a game’s status to anything but WIP unless 1) you are the author of said WIP or 2) you can link me to an official post by said author announcing a hiatus, etc. Do not change any statuses to hiatus simply because forum threads were automatically locked by the system over time, etc. Please respect this request!

Again, this list is only for ChoiceScript games, Hosted Games, Choice of Games, Hobby Projects, and CS WIPs that have other dedicated social media that readers might want to follow. Newer WIP writers who haven’t seen this thread yet, feel free to add links to your relevant social media! Others who may know WIPs not on this list, also feel free to add!

Thanks and enjoy!

19 Likes

Do you mind adding my WIP The Day After Ever After to the list? The author social media info can just be the same as what I have on there for The Parenting Simulator.

Link: The Day After Ever After: A Cinderella Story (WIP, 16,700 word update added 4/1/21!)

4 Likes

Wow, cool! Now seems like a good time to thank you for doing all this work, both before and now. It’s a great way to connect the COG/CSG communities on several social media to the forums.

6 Likes

No problem! I added TDAEA (?) to your entry in the Published list and added WIP after it, but would you rather it be its own separate entry in the WIP list? Up to you!

Thank you for the thanks, haha! It’s no problem at all, I agree that I’d love to see the overlapping and orbiting fandoms for the same projects connect! Authors can have so much content spread across different platforms that it’s good to have a place to keep track of it all. :slight_smile:

8 Likes

Hi! Do you know if Thom Baylay, The Evertree Saga’s and The Grimm and I’s author has tumblr?

Can a ‘tipeee’ account be put under patreon as well? it’s basically a europe-based patreon (thus easier for taxes if one’s in europe)

Hi, I don’t think it does, but you can always ask the author! Hope it’s okay if I tag: @ThomB

Sure, I don’t see why not!

1 Like

Thanks <3

Sorry to bump this, but I thought it was the most appropriate thread and I didn’t want to start a new one.

Today I just found out that community college hero has a very cool little Tumblr following. Seriously I had no idea it even existed. Should I start a Tumblr account? Any obvious pros and cons? I know it’s geared toward younger people and I am constantly anxious about seeming too old and uncool for those sorts of platforms. I have been considering dropping Twitter because the toxicity seems to keep creeping in even as I constantly prune my following list, so I might consider swapping Tumblr for Twitter.

5 Likes

If you can handle Twitter you can handle Tumblr. I’ll say go for it because, from my experience, the forum community and the Tumblr community and the Reddit community are 3 different worlds.

Tumblr is a rite of passage for some of us that are starting new, it helps established a fandom and put your story out there for when it comes out for sale.

Yes, there is drama on tumblr, but there are also some lovely people.

What to expect:
A lot of anonymous ask from people that have read your stories and want to know more about the characters. Sometimes the ask are fun, deep, interesting but sometimes there will be that one Anon that just woke up on the wrong foot and just want to slide in your inbox to give you hell.

Overall, if you can handle Twitter, you can handle tumblr. Make sure to post your link on the forum first for the people to find you, and I’ll even give you a reblog :blush: Hope that help.

7 Likes

Thanks for the primer! I had obviously googled the basics but that doesn’t compare to hearing from real folks about their experiences. I’m not sure that I “handle” Twitter. :slightly_smiling_face: I guess I more survive it, but that’s only after I purged 99% of political stuff. I don’t think I’m a good match for all of the snark and “hot takes.” It’s hard to encourage substantive discussions when everyone is trying to outsnark each other.

I appreciate the warning about randos! I’ve gotten a little of that on other platforms, but not a ton. But yeah I don’t have a lot of time for extended back-and-forths (who does?). I just check out your Tumblr page and it’s so active! Oh my that looks overwhelming, but maybe in a good way?

Thanks again!

5 Likes

I’ve got about 250 followers, which is nothing and I’m sure you’d get more, but with that caveat in mind I’ve found that it is more manageable than I feared that it would be. My experience is that you’re less likely to run into randos and trolls than on other social media: people who find your blog will be, in the vast majority, people who actually like your work. The comments will be supportive, a little community will spring up, and it’s a great way to encounter things like fanart that might otherwise pass you by (Tumblr users seem to be very creative!). I still don’t think I’ve yet found the perfect balance of what I should be posting, but it’s been a really positive experience for me overall.

9 Likes

Don’t let the very active part discourage you, the asks are the most interactions you will have with the community. The asks will stay in your inbox for whenever you’re ready to respond.

You can ignore and delete the ones you don’t want to respond, no one will come at you for that like I’ve seen on Twitter.

Some authors reply to the asks weekly, or on a quiet Sunday night when all the chores are done, and the children are asleep, me, I do it daily because I’m always online and hate having stuff sitting in my inbox (I have a personal grudge against notifications) lol My head explodes when I see people having 37575 unread emails.

Really there’s more pros than cons. :upside_down_face:

5 Likes

I definitely think it’s worthwhile to make an official Tumblr account for CCH, even if you don’t plan on using it a crazy amount or checking in every single day! I started a Tumblr account for Shepherds later than I think a lot of people in “my generation” did, and I bypassed Twitter and Instagram (and MySpace back in the day, lmao) entirely, so I was a complete novice when I started out! My experience with it has been overwhelmingly positive, though! The interaction and engagement with fans (and the possibility of being discovered by new ones) is really great on Tumblr, though slightly different from the lengthy critical feedback you can get on the forums. But it’s a really great place to have little Q&As and back-and-forths, flesh out the world or characters of your games with trivia tidbits you wouldn’t be able to include anywhere else, see and share fan creations, and otherwise! I think creating an account couldn’t really hurt!

There’s also a thread here that discusses some pros and cons of Tumblr for writers specifically, and I’ve made a breakdown of my own thoughts if that’s helpful! :slight_smile:

Pros:

  • Discoverability and reach are definitely expanded on Tumblr. Every now and then, someone reblogs (shares) one of my posts, and I randomly get an influx of new followers as a result. Word-of-mouth and sharing content is really great on the platform, and probably the best out of most social media that I know of!

  • The ability to type longer blog posts (rather than being limited by wordcount on Twitter or even having posts on the forum get lost in a thread of subsequent replies) is really nice for sharing original content, thought-dumps, updates and announcements, etc. So is the ability to “pin” posts to the top of your blog!

  • Fan engagement is wonderful on Tumblr: people can send in questions, you publish your answers, and it’s more focused than mass-replying to multiple questions in a single thread: people don’t have to read through 300 of the latest replies to get an understanding of what’s going on or follow the thread of the conversation. The whole thing is more focused on your content having a singular repository and everyone accessing that repository individually. Also, again, things like fan art and fanfiction or reviews or other people’s blogs talking about your game are much more common and widespread on Tumblr than anywhere else, which is always fun to see!

Cons:

  • It can feel time-consuming or overwhelming if you are easily stressed out by unread or unanswered messages. Back in the day, I used to try and clear my inbox of asks every single day, which resulted in hours of extra work for myself… Now, I pop in and answer what I can every few days, which takes maybe half an hour to an hour if I’m slow, and I’m still having fun! But I also have–(checks)–uh, 2,065 unanswered messages in my inbox, so if that’s something you don’t want to invite into your life, it’s something to consider! But, as noted, they stay in your inbox for whenever you want to answer them (if ever), so there’s not a lot of external pressure to reply if you don’t have the time or inclination.

  • Potential drama. I don’t think you could ever seem too old or uncool for Tumblr: there’s a huge mix of people on there! Neil Gaiman hangs out on his Tumblr regularly and is extremely popular–and people on there range from, like, French farmers making bread to young fans of Sherlock to academics dissecting vampire literature, so I don’t think it’s intimidating in terms of a single monolithic culture. There are definitely some bad takes on there, but you curate and follow your own content, so I think it’s easy to avoid a lot of that toxicity and exhausting snark that runs rampant on Twitter. However, as with any social media that enables anonymity, there are still occasional nasty elements and–as @CC_Hill put it–a handful of people who wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decide to try and ruin your day, and no ‘moderation’ other than your own to appeal to. But simply deleting and blocking has worked excellently for me so far!

  • The level of “feedback” (as you would get with beta-testing) is not as robust on Tumblr: it’s more about enthusiasm and fandom and sharing than it is about receiving lengthy testing feedback, but if you have other means of gaining such feedback (i.e. the forum, Patreon, Discord, Google Forms), this isn’t really an issue–in my mind, they serve different purposes!

Finally, as someone who started Tumblr relatively late and felt absolutely ancient as I tried to figure out what was going on, I whipped up some tips I wish I’d known when I started my account!

Tips
  • Tumblr uses a tagging system so that people can sort through, filter, block, find, or search your posts easily. This serves two functions: organizing your blog’s posts internally, and making them discoverable externally. For example, if you tag a post with #CCH, anyone on Tumblr who follows the #CCH tag might see your post pop up in their feed, even if they’re not yet following your specific account (this is closer to how Twitter and Instagram use tags). However, tags also work as an internal method of organization. If someone asks you a question about Hedonist, and you tag your answer with #Hedonist, anyone going through your blog could ‘sort’ with that tag, so they could read all your posts centered around Hedonist rather than having to slog through every single general reply to get to the content they were looking for. I hope that makes sense! I did not understand that aspect of tagging at all, and it really bit me in the butt when it came to organization down the road.

  • One of the first things you should do when creating your Tumblr account is to make a ‘master post’ that you’ll pin at the top of your blog. This should contain all of your game’s information and links, and it will make it very easy for people to share that post and thus boost visibility and awareness of your game! You can’t ‘share’ accounts on Tumblr, but sharing and reblogging specific posts (especially posts that have all of the pertinent information gathered in one place) will be really helpful in attracting new followers. Here’s an example of what my master post looks like!

  • Tumblr features something called a ‘queue.’ Rather than publishing all of your replies all at once, you can have Tumblr auto-post them at predetermined times (say, 4 times a day) and essentially drip-feed content at your own set pace, if that’s your preference.

  • There’s a browser extension called XKit that adds several quality-of-life features to the Tumblr experience. This is absolutely not necessary to use or install, but I wish I’d known about it when I was first getting started!

  • You can attach custom domain names to Tumblr accounts. The default URL format is something like communitycollegehero-tumblr.com, but if you own a domain like communitycollegehero.com, you can link your Tumblr to that instead!

  • Again, deleting and blocking unwanted messages is totally okay!

Sorry if this is over-long or overwhelming; I don’t want to put you off with an excess of information, but I totally remember facing this question myself a while back, so wanted to lay it out in a hopefully cogent manner… :sweat_smile: I do think Tumblr is 100% worth it, and if you have more questions, feel free to ask! :slight_smile:

11 Likes

This is incredibly anecdotal and I am not at all trying to be a Sociological Media Authority Figure with this comment, but I definitely get the impression that tumblr asks–and especially anonymous tumblr asks–are a massive draw for fan interaction. It seems like a lot of fans are shy about asking questions, and from what I can tell I feel like tumblr asks are one of the primary ways authors are interacted with. (Authors specifically, not other fans.) I know there are other ways to get questions from audience members–you can ask an author questions on Twitter, and I know CuriousCat is A Thing although I don’t know how popular it is–but it just seems to me like a lot of author-to-individual contact goes through Tumblr asks.

6 Likes

Yup, I would absolutely agree with you there, I think like 90% of my interactions on Tumblr come through receiving and answering fan asks–and of those, I’d say 95% of those are anonymous! (I’m reading this as you expanding on my point, but if I wrote something that gives the opposite impression, please let me know!!) Asks are definitely a big (if not the biggest) draw for fans to interact with an author on Tumblr!

What’s nice is that, after you publish your answer to an ask, other people can share/reblog the whole exchange to their own blogs, so it’s another way to pique the interest or curiosity of other followers or readers, who might think, “I wonder what this situation or character this ask is in reference to?” and follow the trail back to your blog! It’s like a cool web/ecosystem in that way that’s hard to replicate on other platforms!

5 Likes