My baby Void has recovered so well from eating string and having to get surgery that she’s allowed on the catio again. Oblivion has been very suspicious and hostile towards her after the surgery but is slowly letting her back in because Void is so sweet and persistent.
This has given me so much happiness and relief that I’ve been writing really well and really often. I’m gonna submit a 52k word update to The Mage’s Adventures in a few days, and I’ll also get close to finishing Chapter Three of Meteoric this month. I’ve been writing 500 words a day on average, despite being exhausted from my new job so I feel pretty good
At the end of my second week of May, things are picking up in pace for me. I started my pre-beta test and there has been actionable feedback given already, which is tremendous because I can get started on improving my story immediately.
In addition to working on improvements on part one of Patchwerks as feedback comes in, I am also trying to work on part two daily.
My goal for this upcoming week is to establish a sustainable commitment to work on both part one and part two.
Artwork and assets for part one will be a challenge for me, but I hope to make progress on these soon as well.
Finding a balance that does not overwhelm me will be key to succeeding in all my goals.
So, what do you do when your brain refuses to be able to picture the MC wanting to do something completely reasonable, and keeps insisting all variants of said MC do something completely unreasonable instead?
I have written some of most bizarre characters know by contest from Cannibal clown assassins cults to Racoon weremen and zombie woman with snakes in the nether regions to The god of Janitors.
No single complaint about. My grammar big complaints but no single complaint about credibility.
If you sound confident and doesnt show anything that goes against basic rules you have put before all will be fine.
Never contradict yourself with the portrayals and all will be fine
Time continues to be weird. How are we two-and-a-half weeks into May already?
Still trying to bring my sibling here as an international student and we’re behind schedule (haven’t even applied for the study visa yet and estimated processing times are… long) so that’s not great but we’d be allowed to defer to the next semester if we don’t get the study visa processed in time so it’s not necessarily game-over (in theory). In any case, I have to write a letter as proof of funds for that, not the fun kind of writing. But surprisingly I did do a lot of creative writing in the first week of May—just, not for my novel. I think it was important though, doing something unusual and fun like that. And I’ve been reading more IF in general this month, too. Though the situation is still tough, it was different from April in an unexpected but I think (or at least hope) net positive way. The past few days, I’ve been thinking about about the skill sets and the mechanisms I’ve got planned, and how to make sure they’re balanced and lend themselves to the kinds of experience I want the player to be able to have. My brain’s buffering a little on not wanting to be so vague about those considerations but also not wanting to overexplain something I don’t even have a demo for (i.e more accessible context for my ramblings) yet. Sooooo I should probably get sleep because I need to get better at sleeping earlier (it may be approaching 3am now).
I got a bit distracted recently, but CSIDE is now downloaded and installed, and I am working on porting Cloak of Darkness to get a feel of the different commands of the system.
It is surprisingly similar to INK in some aspects (labels/goto) and sometimes completely different (choice formatting and conditional). I’ve been mixing some commands a few times already
Hey all! It’s been awhile!!! But things are finally looking up!! I’ve made more progress on my book Beneath a Bloodred Dawn. And I am almost finished with the first RO’s POV that I intend to post. I’m very excited!! I hope everyone is well!!
Also is there a good time to unveil some of your writing to the public? Like snippets? I don’t have a demo at all and I am nowhere near ready for that. But I want to at least put what the story is about, the RO’, s povs etc. I just wasn’t sure when I should do that. I didn’t know if I could post to my CoG page … my book is a WIP. But I do not have a demo ready. And won’t be for awhile. I guess what I’m asking is how do you garner interest in your book before it is published? I mean how do you hook readers into wanting to know more or read more etc?
Finally, I had a question about using AI artwork for my profile page. I have yet to find someone to commission my official art work for the cover of the book . Where can I find artists to do so? I know Tumblr you can but I’m not on Tumblr right now. I had to take a step back from social media. So where else can you look for artists to commission? Thank you!
@manonamora it blew my mind swapping between ChoiceScript for my CoG work and Ink for the game I worked on last year! What always catches me out is the different multireplace style. I hope you enjoy continuing to get used to ChoiceScript!
@Nessy_Lovegood There is posting on the interest check thread, which I think you did already, and posting here. Generally the forum is more for posting the WIPs themselves and gathering feedback, and a separate thread should only be posted once there’s a playable demo.
There are Tumblrs for games without demos, but I would recommend only setting one up once you’re sure about when you’ll share your WIP. There are a lot with an unspecified “coming soon” that either fade out, or continue to post answers about the characters, lore, etc for months or even longer without showing any writing - this does sometimes build up hype, but I’ve observed authors being stressed by the sudden pressure of that hype, and also audiences being sceptical about whether the game will end up happening at all.
Ultimately the best marketing, and the way to get useful feedback, is showing off enough of your game for players to get a feel for what it’s like to play.
MFW noone asks me questions about my characters and lore even though I have a whole ass demo out I swear I’m using tumblr wrong.
Honestly, don’t stress about this too much. Most authors come into their first demo with fairly little hype, building a massive ball of interest before even posting your first demo is absolutely not the norm.
Every 15th of the month, I open the Support threads to snippet (or excerpt) posting as a way that can help get used to showing people your writing. If you have not already looked at past months sharing, you should, so you see how it is accomplished.
Pushing a demo out into the wild, either privately or publicly, can be overwhelming – so to help alleviate these feelings, posting something on the 15th of each month can help.
Participating in jams can also help by allowing you to write something shorter and with a deadline.
The only true way of doing this is by sharing your writing. You can do one-on-one exchanges with other authors, exchanging feedback and encouragement.
There are also writer groups, such as the one @Robd5822 started, or that you can find at local universities or even libraries. These are great if you can find one you have a fit for.
You can begin by looking at the credits for games; look at the artists that have a history of making art assets by going to these credit pages and then look for portfolios that these artists have shared (most have links to portfolios, pricing etc on their individual pages.)
It might be a social media page you find that has these, but since you are targeting specific artists, hopefully this will be acceptable.
AI work is okay to display in your WiP page, but it is not accepted for publication.
Tumblr is shift software. I had to go hunt down an ask in a tumblr a couple of days ago and had to do it BY SCROLLING THROUGH EVERY GODDAMN POST because the thing ate half the search results. Tumblr is the cybertruck of blogging. I refuse to engage with it except in the direst of circumstances. >_>
I never ask questions about characters outside the game. A big part of a game for me is learning more about the characters, so doing otherwise would hurt the experience for me. And I only ask questions about the world if I find something appears to make no sense in relation to other bits of the game.
While I agree that all relevant information should be given in the game, readers asking questions (and the author thinking of answers to them) can, depending on questions, actually be beneficial to the writing.
Anyway, in today’s news: I think I have settled on the title for my game.
Ah, I wasn’t trying to be a tease, just state a fact… but if you insist. It’s either “The Ashguard Files: Offerings”, or “Tales of Ashguard: Offerings”. I think.
(Even if I had earlier decided to not call the series that, but all alternatives I can come up with are already franchises.)
I think it was important though, doing something unusual and fun like that. And I’ve been reading more IF in general this month, too. Though the situation is still tough, it was different from April in an unexpected but I think (or at least hope) net positive way. The past few days, I’ve been thinking about about the skill sets and the mechanisms I’ve got planned, and how to make sure they’re balanced and lend themselves to the kinds of experience I want the player to be able to have. My brain’s buffering a little on not wanting to be so vague about those considerations but also not wanting to overexplain something I don’t even have a demo for (i.e more accessible context for my ramblings) yet. Sooooo I should probably get sleep because I need to get better at sleeping earlier (it may be approaching 3am now).
I swear I’m using tumblr wrong.
(I kid, I kid)