New Beginnings : Medieval Era

[The_Armored_Fish]

Will attempt to make it less confusing.

And, gosh golly you are right! (Was so intent on making sure my complicated custom pronoun dialogue works, i forgot to test the easy option)

lol ^^

Ty for helping me to get to the bottom of that ^^

Edit:

Error Fixed And Files Re-uploaded ^^

[Foxboi]

Currently, this is a great start to your story! It seems interesting and the characters have potential to grow into well-developed people.

Here’s some current things I would personally edit and change.

What I would change:

• Implement a save system, makes it easier for testers to go through every route and check everything without having to

• “From within your cozy bubble, you can sometimes hear a murmur of sounds from an outside world, you have not seen, and you have yet to begin to understand. These murmurs, if nothing else put you at ease.”
  should probably - for flow reasons - be changed into "From within your cozy bubble, you sometimes hear a murmur of sounds from an outside world, yet, one you haven’t seen nor have begin to understand. These murmurs, if nothing else, put you at ease."

• Whenever writing thoughts, I recommend putting them in italics. E.g. “You might ask yourself, i’m a baby, just what do i dream of?” might be formatted as “You might ask yourself, I’m a baby, just what do i dream of?” so that reader can differ from thought to narration.

• “Sometimes you move around and make a fuss, trying to the best of your effort to say. “I hear you!”,“I’m here!”.” probably should be changed into "Sometimes you move around and make a fuss, trying to the best of your effort to say, “I hear you! I’m here!” " Try not to put any punctuation (! ? .) marks directly after a dialogue section that ends with a punctuation mark, those usually constitute as the end of the sentence. Before you do dialogue, ensure that the preceding descriptive sentence ends with a comma.

• “So, with nothing left to do for the lack of better understanding, you dream.” could become "So, with nothing worth-wile to do in this unknown landscape, you dream."

• “While you have no way to know for sure, you feel that they have never been more proud.” ‘Show don’t tell’ could be implemented here, maybe something on the lines of ,"While you have no way to know for sure, underneath their tears of joy and their beaming stressed smiles lies a certain positive aura you can’t pinpoint"

• “They spoil you, and everytime you cry there is never a lack of someone waiting to soothe you.” Show don’t tell could work again, "Every-time you cry, there is always someone there waiting to soothe you, showering you with gifts, compliments and even the occasional wet kiss."

• In general, capitalise your ‘i’, specifically when used alone, in " I’ll " or " I’m ".

• 
  I would include the option of being welcoming, I would make the options more explicit, as I wasn’t sure whether the ‘pissed’ option was ‘bawling your eyes out’ or ‘destroyin everything’. I would also include a sad and curious option as well

• 
  Either seperate the action and attitude into different choices or change the agile choice to fit the ‘accepting’ tone that the two other choices provide. Some players may want to be accepting of your father but also be agile and some may want to be intelligent but reject your father, etc.

And that’s currently what I’ve got! Good luck with future endeavours!

Also by the way, are you thinking of including the non-binary identification pronouns choice later on? Just wondering for any future players that desire the choice.

[The_Armored_Fish]

Will fix these by next update.

And yes definetly, i’m currently working on doing my best to understand it. I don’t intentionally leave it out ^^

If i do i’m simply getting more knowledge todo it right ^^

Ty very much ^^

[The_Armored_Fish]

Hey guys, improvements update is up. Here is a list of some changes (it wont be perfect but i did my best)

-Removed The child option from the birth scene. This is because, when you are born you aren’t automatically assigned an identity you develop it when you are a bit older. It just makes more sense to remove this to pave the way for the player’s identity selections in part three.

-Made minor improvements to startup text(Rewording, etc.)

-Changed some button texts to make them fit better, and/or to improve the story quality (Chapter titles should now all use the same format, which should hopefully make things less confusing.)

-As requested, I removed the day old reference and turned it to reference infancy.

-As requested, I looked through and capitalized all the non capitalize I’s I could find.

-As requested, i did my best to improve on the dialogue tags.

-As requested, made sure that dialogue was not cut off be a line break in the middle of it.

-As requested, added new paragraphs for when a person is speaking.

Stat screen has not yet been finished (Half done but didn’t wanna release a half finished feature lol)

Tuesday will be another improvement update, before I start working on adding more chapters/ content (Unless it is decided that we really need another improvement update)

For Tuesday, I hope to have:

-Basic stat screen and it’s toggle 100% done.

-Additions to/rewordings of all current chapters (Such as for part two i was looking to add a negative stat choice, and non-binary pronouns to the screen, and possibly more genders will be included.)

-Everything suggested by you guys. This includes:

-Reducing the words per page on longer pages.

-Adding in a save system

-Making rewrites you guys pointed out

-Making thought processes a slightly different text format from narrative in order to better separate the two.

-Making already present options more detailed/varied.

-etc.

Hope you like the game so far, and enjoy ^^

[F4-OT]

I breezed through the new update, and I can say that improvements have been made!

As for Rowan’s exposition, perhaps you can try padding it out and letting the reader find it out by the exploration? Seems like Rowan is a character that we can get attached to, so this information, pertinent to his/her character arc, may be explored later.

Oh, and I certainly do love the slightly beefier end to the first chapter. There is a tad more characterisation made there, much more than it was before.

I do encounter an issue here, and this one is more important than the nitpicks I wrote below; the error happened during the pronoun selection: nothing_stays_young_forever line 100: bad label continune_young — you may want to have a look at that.

More style nitpicks here, in case there is a need for them:

• Back to the dialogue: some of these are continued with an uppercase, but some are not. Sometimes these can be fixed by substituting for a comma, but consistency is what matters. One I can point out is here: “It would be much easier if you just saw for yourself.” he says[….]
• I do still see some stray lower-case ‘i’ (two can be seen in the choice before the transition to the second chapter). Don’t beat yourself over this one though, I do prefer the story progression than grammar correction for now

Keep up the good work!

[The_Armored_Fish]

You make a point with Rowan’s exposition, i’ll take that into account, but no promises. I do have an idea for Rowan, one i think putting Rowan’s exposition up front will help. (I promise to look it over and think about this tho) ^^

Thank you for pointing out that error, i can already tell its only because if a typo, so i’ll get that quickly fixed.

And oh, the ever so illusive uncaps I’s XD.

Glad you are enjoying my work, i’ll add everything you brought up into Tuesday’s update considerations ^^

Edit:

Error Fixed

I also fixed another error i found it was choosing player default pronouns based on the birth gender not identity, it now checks identity instead of birth gender.
^^

[jmar]

Small thing here but your could reword this and probably break it up into two sentences.

Summary

[F4-OT]

I suppose if you have plans for how the Rowan’s arc will play out, then I’ll be waiting for it will be. The current one felt as though it’s only there to third-wheel the player’s gender exposition/choice, and with them having the same topic, it’s ought to feel sudden to see as well.

I’m glad the error wasn’t anything big! Though most of the times, these errors are like that: stupid mistakes that doesn’t register at first test.

And the lower-case ‘i’ can be ignored if it meant slowing down the story! I do think it’s something that should be reinforced, as it’s a very common spelling mistake. I don’t know, my eyes are particularly too sensitive to this mistake in particular; I blame me for that.

Cheers for the Tuesday updates then. Will be waiting for that to see how you’re expanding on the story from here.

[The_Armored_Fish]

Hmmmm,i will do my best to rectify that feeling then. goes to the drawing board and begins to think

I will do my best to rectify the I situation, but i will still miss some most likely ^^ (The first chapter needs more improvements anyway, so the i’s isn’t the only thing slowing down more content) (I’d prefer to bring up the quality of chapter one before i goto another chapter)(Each chapter will probably have It’s own quality updates)

Ty for commenting, glad you are looking forward to the update ^^

[The_Armored_Fish]

Okay, guys dev update ^^

Stat screen in its core is functional.

One thing to be mindful of when it is released tho is:

After you select an option here:

you must press next at least once in the story, or make a choice for the changes to take effect. (Trust me, i spent a good chunk of time going wth cause my code wasn’t working. In reality it was, it just hadn’t yet refreshed)

I will remind everyone again when the update is out tuesday, for now enjoy the lil sneak peak ^^

[Arcane_warrior]

That cheat menu is just beautiful.

[The_Armored_Fish]

If anyone would like to beta test early versions of the game (before the public release) please pm me.

I got a demo (beta) version on dashing don for anyone willing.

Currently me and one other person currently scout out errors the best we can.

Let me know if interested ^^

[The_Armored_Fish]

Hey guys just letting you know i didn’t forget i promised to upload an update today, you will be getting it within the hour ^^

[The_Armored_Fish]

Files Updated:

-Stat Screen (And the choices that were supposed to affect stats, now do so)
-Cheat Menu (You can now edit any stat you see on the stat screen, simply enable it via settings, then find it within the glossary)
-Before the game wasn’t properly setting the “Son” or “Daughter” usage to fit identity, this is now fixed
-A couple rewrites and grammar fixes

-Save System (Will only currently work in the second version i will be posting soon)

Enjoy ^^

No day for next update yet, i’ll let you guys know when i get an idea. It will generally be when i think i can get my list done by ^^

This is that list:

Summary

-basic glossary

-clean cheat menu

-further clean stats menu

-add more options

-chapter 2

-health points?

-Consider delaying Rowan’s exposition.(feels like third wheeling)

-Dialogue Consistency!

-Making already present options more detailed/varied

-Additions to/rewordings of all current chapters (Such as for part two i was looking to add a negative stat choice, and non-binary pronouns to the screen, and possibly more genders will be included.)

-descriptions for the condensed layout stat screens

-explanations of stats on the different screens

-consider stat page heading pictures?

-since stats are up and running, so does the basic of the stat alert, etc

-reduce words on some pages

-dialogue consistency

-work on show, dont tell

-non binary pronouns

-action/attitude different choices

-As always, I’s/Grammar fixes

Special Thanks too:

All the beta testers:

Witches Brew
Soprano
Hydrophobic_Spider

And
CJW for designing the save system the second version will have ^^

[Bathala]

That’s a long list you got there…

[The_Armored_Fish]

Yeah lol, but all things that need to get done. I might separate them into two different updates, but i also might not, am undecided.

I’d like to push forward on decent foundation. Pushing on a broken one, will only lead to It’s crumble ^^

Untill then, please enjoy the new stat screens and cheat menu (beta testers can tell you, i spent a long time on them ^^)

[Bathala]

I just envy you 'cause you got your shit organized and I’m just sitting here like “You know what, I feel like writing today”.

But good luck! :

[The_Armored_Fish]

Haha, mostly ^^

I do get distracted sometimes. (Which is why you all got a cheat menu you didn’t ask for, while i pushed off the adding of more varied options to the dialogues) XDDD

^^

[The_Armored_Fish]

Save version is up. (Again thanks CJW)

Here is some screenshots of it

Summary

Also, don’t forget, that the stat screen wont reset with any changes (cheat or otherwise) without story progression or choice ^^

[F4-OT]

I played through the update — one without the save system — and I just have to say that the grammar fixes are making some of the paragraphs squeaky clean to my easily disturbed eyes.

Some nitpicky things here:

And, it didn’t turn out well, his parents just couldn’t accept him.

I feel like the ‘his’ already highlight Rowan’s possible gender, but why does the ‘him’ get the bold attention?

That insignificant and strange nitpick aside, I have to say, things are improving great here. I haven’t felt the need to write “hey, there’s some stray lower-caps ‘i’ you’re missing here,” because I didn’t spot any. Well done!

Oh, one more minor thing: why does the stat screen keep prompting me what display mode I would like to use? Is an intended behaviour? I answered ‘Half-Expanded’ to it, but it kept asking me if I want to use the other options. Other options didn’t seem to dismiss it either.

Long message aside, I’ll be waiting for what Father has to say!