It’s okay to make edits to characters in a published WIP, let alone an unpublished one. Once people have started paying you for it, you should try to avoid confusing or disorienting edits…but until then, you’ve got to be free to change whatever you want.
11 Likes
It’s ok to change an unpublished character’s design. If it’s really giving you so much trouble, keep BOTH things and add an extra bit where the black hair is the result of them dyeing it (maybe to purposefully look like the stereotypical vampire?).
5 Likes
I considered dyeing it, although in that case it could be to look less like a vampire (well, depending on which tradition you’re going for, but if my research is correct, red hair makes one traditionally more likely to be a vampire on Balkans) or potentially just because it fits better with what they’re wearing at that point (it could be some temporary or easy-to-remove dye or something). But I already have a black-haired character who is described to look “like a Victorian vampire”, so I really don’t need more (making me even more confused as to what the original logic from me was). I like the idea of matching the color of the clothing though, hmm. 
Thanks, all. It’s not like I didn’t intellectually know I can change it, but I needed confirmation for being capable to do that on emotional level (since I had, you know, actually written it already. Call it a counter spell if you will) but I think I’m capable of that now.
8 Likes
In the original release of Creme de la Creme, Rosario made an offhand reference that I don’t even remember now to their younger siblings. When I decided to include a younger sibling (singular) in Royal Affairs, I edited the first game.
@LiliArch it’s entirely reasonable to swap things around as needed however much you like! - though I totally understand it feeling weird if it was settled in your mind as one thing first.
7 Likes
I may have disappeared for a while, but I finally have a head start on a new project and I’m back, so that is good! Not sure where I stand with Shengzhang atm, to be honest, but I’m going to be changing a lot with how I handle the new project I’m working on, starting with completely finishing a zero draft before preparing for the demo. I’ll be excited to share more about it once I’m closer to getting ready to make a demo! 
Also I forgot it isn’t April anymore.
12 Likes
I understand this feeling so much! I have a friend who I regularly call and essentially ask for emotional permission to spend my own money which is absurd but the anxiety wants what it wants lol. It’s sometimes hard to be confident in validating your own decisions, but trust yourself! And in cases like this, there’s no wrong answer anyway. The character will be what you make it unless and until you make it something else and since its unpublished, nobody will even know the difference so it’s not like they’ll read and make comparisons to an earlier version.
3 Likes
Ludum Dare 55’s voting period has just ended, and the reception to Project Missionary is overall more favorable. Going forward, I’ll definitely make a compilation game that includes this.
On the other hand, I’ve been lurking the Hosted Games subreddit for reactions to Falrika the Alchemist. It seems the hardcore IF enthusiasts are split over my approach to making an IF game. But I pay them no mind. I’ve made what I wanted, without much editorial interference, so I’m most likely ready to make a Heart’s Choice work, which was my original intention here at CoG.
4 Likes
You realize that if you were approved to write for Heart’s Choice, you would be working with an editor and expected to conform to the CoG/HC style?
9 Likes
And, seeing as people are far more likely to be vocal online about things they don’t like than about things they do, this means you’re onto something that pleases the majority of people.
3 Likes
I fully know it. And thus, I will develop another approach that complies to the style encouraged here without losing my trademark style of writing and narrative. For one, since my intended HC game will take place in a fictional Japanese town, there will be lots of walking around, which will necessitate a series of choices that rely on map movement. Combined with the per-day approach to how will I write the story, I’m confident it will conform to the CoG/HC style.
2 Likes
I just finished my diversity jam entry! (And I made it completely on phone to boot. 
All 1.2k words of it. In a day. Ha.)
I need to get some sleep now.
10 Likes
Storefront feedback is a bit double edged IMO. On one side you are getting feedback from a section of buyers not on this forum (which is often quite different). On the other side you can get a lot of non-actionable and overly harsh/unfair complaints. I’m trying to edit Wizardry at the moment and to be honest the majority of reviews are completely unhelpful and just make me feel terrible about it all over again. (I did try to go through them to see what might need to be changed.) Thing is the reviewers in the storefront don’t have to care if they are harsh and unfair. All they see is they downloaded something (and maybe paid for it) that wasn’t what they wanted. They see a company putting out products (many don’t seem to be aware that HG is a freelancer platform rather than something released by the same team each time. If they complain, then maybe they’ll get more of what they actually want like not more games under 500k.) Example- I got complaints about why wasn’t Wizardry like Life of a Wizard? Why was it priced differently to Life of a Wizard? And the ever present too short! There were a few “helpful” ones sprinkled in there For example I’m trying to add appearences and tasks for the familiars a bit more often through the game (there was a complaint about that which I felt was fair), but many of the others are not actionable for me to fix.
The other thing I’ve noticed, is for shorter games (which all mine have been), some of the first reviews usually are complaints about length. My assumption is that people who speedrun games and only play them once, are probably going to finish most quickly and be most ticked off to leave reviews fast about length.
Edit- To be honest I’m kinda worried about what releasing these mammoth games like the werewolf one is going to do with length expectations across the board on published games going forward. I suspect it’s going to make the reviews on shorter games all that much harsher. From an author’s POV, not only the increased pressure of the sheer amount of time and organisation required to make something of that size, seeing the bugs that have popped up in a COG edited game on this size (which has an editing team on board + access to publicised beta testing to go through these games as being developed and before publishing) and I can understand why given the length and complexity, that sounds like a really hard call for the average HG author to accomplish. (I know it has been done before and there are a few 1mil+ games out there. It just makes my head spin trying to think of how I could ever manage a game of that size and keep it reasonably well edited and bug free!)
16 Likes
The expectatives are ridiculously high now.
Because for players they firmly believe that hosted authors have same editing, publishing only with a different brand.
I get their mentality. I paid X from this company. There has to be X words buck to their care.
Oh, they had deals with Paradox they must be swimming in money. Why don’t they have same art and same production quality in all games.
That is something I heard in another forum. Then don’t forget the piracy and the fact they change game code creating bugs that
PEOPLE WHO PIRACY COME TO YOU FOR FIXING
That happens to me and that person could run to the hills because I Have my Capital letters and I am not afraid to use them!
@Jacic You know that I have been critical with your games. But you are doing far better. So Cheers for that.
7 Likes
Thanks Mara 
There are actually ways to identify game problems due to people having pirated copies if you’re preemptive about it to save time looking for non-existent problems in the legit game. (Not posting my methods here on an open forum though for obvious reason lol.)
5 Likes
I hate to say it, but I’m one of the ones who really like longer games. I like getting to live in a story and get to know the characters and setting. If the game (and other media, honestly) is on the short side, then it’s just less fun to me. It goes from something I can enjoy for a few days to something I can enjoy for only one
8 Likes
Word counts are a tricky thing. I’ve seen some writers use extremely bloated writing styles to increase word counts without necessarily increasing the content. I was guilty of this before, back in college, plenty of students including myself, threw in plenty of academic jargon and roundabout phrasing to write a paragraph of a point which could be easily explained in one sentence - all to meet the word counts. Admittedly, in hindsight, college papers are just a ton of BS.
I admit that I like longer games too, but sometimes, it’s harder to tell how much you’re actually getting from that number you see on the word count box.
Previously, I had assumed somewhere north of 100k would still be within the lower bounds of “acceptable”, but I’m not sure how true is that now. Going back to a famous thread for new writers:
Readers have gotten a bit spoiled, and at this point, I have one major piece of advice for anyone planning on putting out a standalone story under 100,000 words in length: DO NOT DO IT
We might need to revise that number, upwards. 
9 Likes
Phase 14 of my 37 phase plan is now nearing completion
11 Likes
I wonder if Werewolf is showing us a ceiling, though. Its price point is getting an unusual level of pushback; it’s possible that we’re seeing the point where a game gets so long and complex that fewer people are willing to pay what it costs. When the dust settles and the numbers are crunched, we might see CoG more firmly encouraging its authors to aim lower.
Most of them do anyway, of course – 1m+ word games are still the exception, not the rule. And even if mammoths like BOHN turn out to be commercially inefficient, that won’t in itself get more people enjoying 100K word games.
In my own reading, I used to crave series, and the longer the better…more time to relish being immersed in the world, like Anna said. Over time I got more of a taste for standalone novels, and in the last few years I’ve finally started enjoying short stories. I don’t know that there’s anything that we can do to move other people’s tastes in that direction, though.
17 Likes
(Playing devil’s advocate here for a bit.)
Write better short stories. I see short stories (or short IFs) more as a different format of stories that work amazingly well for some concepts, but not at all for others.
Yes, a lot of people who leave feedback about the length of games do so because they were expecting more content, read through it once and never saw the other branches, etc, but it can also be caused by the length of the game making the events that happen feel rushed or making the game itself feel incomplete or lacking what feels like crucial choices to the people reading it.
Tldr:
If you’re writing a short game:
- Make sure your concept fits the format.
- Make sure each word you write counts. No filler words or segments.
- Make sure you’ve wrapped up at least the main plot arches at the end of it, and preferably all the minor ones too.
- Ask for feedback from your (beta) readers specifically about having gotten all the choice options in the game that they were expecting.
(Check out the Feedback Assist thread. We have feedback people.)
17 Likes
I am absolutely terrified as to what this one project I have on my drawing board will have for a wordcount. I know already it’s going to be massive, and I have written only a single page. (There’s a reason I have it on back burner, ha. And call it my magnum opus in my head.)
Speaking of storefront feedback, it seems to me Google Play is making it increasingly difficult to actually see the comments. I can’t see any on the newest ones, even after I change the language to English, which used to do the trick. As such, any feedback I might then get from that front would be totally useless to me since I couldn’t even see it (although from what I’ve seen about comments on Google Play, I haven’t found any that are useful for anything but laughs) unless someone with access would make a compilation.
Idle thought, I know. It’s not like I’d even have anything released like that.
6 Likes