You may be able to. I’ve uploaded games on itch.io and CoGDemos and was stunned by how slow the latter could play at times. I’ll try to check out your battle system, but I’m not very good at text-based battle systems.
Chance’s War Sky is kicking my butt. Even on God Mode.
For fun (for me, at least), I 99% successfully coded themes in my other project. That way, players can play with CoG theme defaults or use my own theme. I’m really happy it only took two hours (due to me coding while half-asleep and updating the wrong files).
I was also reading game development blogs (well, parser games). I added a few helpful buttons to my IF project—About, Help, and Credits. CoGDemos will get choice options in the stats screen.
It’s funny how the video or browser games I play have these settings, but I never thought to add them to my own IF games. Each author tends to add in their own flair and gameplay, so it makes sense to help the player understand what the game provides. I think, at least?
I also added different fonts under three alternative sources but forgot to check each one individually. The fonts work but… I’m not sure which source makes it work or not… Oh well!
itch is faster but CoGdemos is more custom made for choicescript. Admittedly, what I like about itch is that it gives you access to an extra pool of potential players.
I’m planning to make combat easier on God Mode. As of now, I’m still weighing if I want to add additional content.
It was in part your coding choices – there would be ways of making it work much more smoothly on CoGdemos if you chose to reduce scene numbers – but those coding choices won’t have an impact on the compiled version.
You might have fewer people willing to download a compiled file from you than click on a CoGdemos link? I don’t know. Worth a try.
It is impressive what you’ve accomplished, but it feels a bit like hammering a nail with a screwdriver.
This kind of battle system really benefits from a visual element, I think. In a graphical game, you can see as forces dwindle and may even get feedback on foes’ strength through them looking rougher when their HP is lower. Watching the attacks happen is also good feedback and keeps the player engaged. The visuals also anchor the scene and help the player keep the battle in their heads.
An audio element is also important, I think. The sounds help keep the player focused, provide feedback for attacks (e.g., sounds of spells, slashing swords, the ‘oof’ of a hit). Music also helps engage and anchor players’ emotions to a degree, even if that emotion is just the blood-pumping desire to win.
When moving to a purely text-based experience, I think you need to account for the feedback and anchoring the visual and audio elements provide. Just having screens and lists alone can be a bit unmooring.
Perhaps descriptions of the battle or why it matters. Or something else other than numbers going down.
Hello there fellows, I am back and late for the goals thing (sigh.. life) xD
I hope everyone’s doing okay so far, and Thank You @ChanceOfFire for the thread!
I’ve kind of decided to start at an entirely different point so I put the almost finished chapter draft (25k) on hold to start something else for chapter one. So between that and all the less and more voluntary distractions I will not admit to, I did not get much done last month I’m afraid. But hey It has a map now.
My goals for May:
Keep writing on the new chapter 1
15 to 20/31 writing days (taking inspiration from @will here)
On CoGdemos, it creates the button which allows you to view the notepad files which make up the game. If the author disables it and you try to work around it by entering the path in the URL, you get this:
You can’t view the code on itch since it has to be compiled as a html file, which messes up the original code structure even if you save the html to your computer and open it in notepad. Admittedly, it might be possible to upload the entire choicescript package on itch without compiling, but I haven’t tried it.
I could’ve sworn I checked while logged out, but I checked again and it does seem to work! Someone anonymously reported a bug by going into the code which is why I thought it wasn’t working, but I’m just realizing that I allowed code diving on the Patreon version so that must be where they got it from.
Setting my sights pretty low for this month in terms of targets, given I’ve been out of the country for the last couple of weeks!
One I stop travelling, my two main objectives are getting a 3.1 release out for Pactbinder (bug fixes and phrasing mainly) this weekend, then starting work proper on C4. Getting 20k-30k words into C4 by month end would be great!
This is true. I’ve coded a separate View Code button in my games that links to a code.html file. I’ve never found a way to natively view code from itch.io.
I did remember seeing a guide somewhere… a long time ago…
I am very late to the party this month, but for my monthly goals, same as the last few months – get my update for “All the Way” done and get an update for “Sense & Sorcery” and its excerpts done. Way behind momentum wise, due to periodic sickness, burn out, caregiving duties, and real-world stuff – but really hoping I can somehow get it together enough to get these updates where they need to be.
Recently went to a writing convention for the first time in a long time – was nice and inspiring to meet so many wonderful writers and hear their brilliant words – though I lost a few days due to going there and then recovering from the trip. Relatively small convention that was largely focused on the local scene, so it had a really cool community feel. While I don’t know that I learned super much there, hopefully I refreshed some of my core knowledge and techniques a bit so my writing will feel some benefit.
Happy may writing to everyone – good luck on all your goals!
P.S. Sorry to subthread in this way, but I didn’t see a good segway other than just dropping my month goal from the starting post – interesting discussions on here, but don’t think I had any 2 cents to share (especially now that the penny is so hard to find!).
I am once again trying my hand at this game stuff lol /lh
Anywho I just posted my game, Soft as Steel (i accidentally put the game title as TBN smh, pls ignore that)
Hopefully ill be more motivated to finish this as i am inserting players into my already established world/ story rather than making everything from scratch, but we’ll see
This time i hope to at least expand on the prologue and chapter 1, making it immersive. By the end of the month, I hope to at least have written a lil bit of chapter 2
Hi everyone! April was packed for me: first I was traveling, then I had one million billion doctor appointments (I’m fine). Chapter 9 went to the editor and returned with quite insightful ideas. I’m polishing up my monthly newsletter before I truly set to work on it. My goal for this month is to strike a good life-work balance. There are a lot of edits, there are a lot of Events; I need to not stretch myself like too little butter on an overlarge slice of toast.
(BTW I read Butter by Asako Yuzuki and it’s fantastic, do rec’d)
Oh hey, that old chestnut! Thank you for the shout out! Take care of yourself too. I’m sad to hear your health is wobbly. I hope you get to rest.
Congratulations!!! That’s quite the accomplishment
April wasn’t a great month as far as progress is concerned. Besides having health issues get in the way, I struggled with writing a difficult yet critical section of the story that’s important for tying everything together, and I really had to slow down and think things over very carefully, so it was kind of a slog to get through. One of the few sections I didn’t enjoy writing.
Additionally, after reaching the maximum character limit for GoogleDocs, I’ve yet to find a good alternative solution that works for me (despite many intriguing suggestions by friends and people on this forum), so I’ve split my story across three different Google docs, which isn’t ideal, organization-wise.
Another concern is that the plot to my own story confuses me sometimes, despite the fact that I have it clearly outlined and summarized in my notes. If this is a problem for me, then it’s almost certainly going to be a problem for players. Either I’m not explaining things clearly enough in the text, or my plot has become too complicated. That’s something I need to mull over.
A few months ago I gave myself a deadline of the end of April to finish my first draft, and I’ve clearly missed that. I’m okay with that, but I definitely could’ve applied myself better.
As of now, I’m still weighing if I want to add additional content.
That sounds really fun!