I understand that very well. I can not stop feeling that I am doing a terrible job with the jam. I try hard every day to improve but the feeling never fades away. So I just working my ass off someday I will do a good job and the feeling will go away.
I do not let my depression impose me what can or I can’t do
You are doing a wonderful job with the jam Mara. I’ve actually started getting feedback after your earlier post and it’s given me some food for thought.
Thanks to this advice, I finally got that error fixed and am able to work on my game again. You’re a GENIUS.
Oh boy do I know that fear. Tumblr helped with it a little, by telling me, “Cringe is dead, write that self-insert if you want to, revel in it.” And I think about that sometimes, and it helps. Imposter Syndrome is a bitch, and if booktok has shown me anything, its that SO MUCH SHIT WRITING has been published in the world, and can continue to be published, and if that’s the case, your work (and mine) can too.
You’re doing amazing Mara! You actually encouraged me to provide some feedback for some of the jammers! So don’t ever think you’re not doing well!
I’m usually silent on the forums, but I’ve read a lot of your previous topics/comments. You should be really proud of yourself; others would have given up entirely. Your dedication and persistence to improve are really something to admire.
You’re right. I still write every day, no matter how negative my thoughts get. I’m also making an effort not to be overly critical of myself if I don’t reach my daily word goal since that used to get me feeling really down into the gutter.
I don’t know why I think that I can work well if I’m holding myself by the throat like that. 
This is my first time commenting on this sort of thread. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in my struggles!
I am trying to finish putting the last 1/3 of my second chapter to code. Hope to finish that by the end of the month. Also in planning is chapter 3. However, chapter 1 needs some brushing up too.
How do you guys move forward with your stories without constantly questioning whether the previous chapters were good enough? If I keep going back to fix things I don’t know if I’ll ever move forward.
Brute force.
I go back and mentally tick all the boxes I wanted to check for what I wanted to get done in a scene. If it’s a heartwarming scene, it has to make me feel cozy inside. If it’s a sad scene, it has to make me cry. If I want the reader to go, “Oh… shit…” Then when I go back to reread it, I better have that reaction. If I react how I imagine the readers reacting to my work while rereading it, then I know it’s good enough.
Granted, that doesn’t work for everybody. That’s just the way I like to gauge whether or not a scene is good. I’ve actually gone back and rewrote scenes because I didn’t think they checked all the boxes I wanted them to before.
Welcome to the thread @QuincyAdams. You are not alone!
Form a plan and then stick to it.
My first goal is always to complete my story.
Once it is completed, you can do everything and anything you want to improve it.
With the release of your demo in phases, keep track and record the feedback you have been getting and ponder on it, but continue writing your story until it is complete.
Now, there are exceptions to this, such as if you receive feedback that indicates a full rewrite would be wise (i.e. because the pov was confusing and your readers didn’t know who was speaking in the dialogue) but …
… the single most difficult thing to accomplish when writing and developing an IF project is to actually finish it.
So, that is my general advice to everyone in your position.
Amazing advice, thank you so much! I always fall into the trap of trying to perfect everything and then getting nowhere. You’re right that it is just best to get everything on paper (or Choicescript) and then go back and revise later.
I might print out your advice and put it on my mirror 
I’m going to focus on Daemonglass this week, get a revised and improved opening chapter done and ready.
The next week focus on A Familiar Magic and get an opening chapter done. (I plan to stick with leaving the MC as female during this initial rewrite. But spend a third week writing a second version of Chapter One - I’m doing this so people can see the original concept and then see how reworking it to add a gender choice.
I do have some concerns storywise, the magic side can be done pretty easy with magic, however I would be concerned with a young female witch having an older man (I see the protagonist being in between 25-35 and the witch being 14) being her mentor, and sleeping in the same room as her(in universe familiar have to stay close to their master, they can increase the range eventually but initially they are confined to the same room as soon as the bond is started), this isn’t in a romantic way but it could still come across as creepy.
I’d rather keep the young witch as their own set character so no switching genders for her. At least with the two versions I can experiment a little to find the best course of action.
I’m confused. The witch is underage?
Either way, as long as you establish the rules and practices of a familiar and their witch as having hard boundaries … I do not see there being an issue. ymmv.
The protagonist is an older witch who is trapped in the body of the familiar, they are meant to teach and mentor a young witch as part of their sentence.
In other news, I seem to have deleted my original version of daemonglass so I’ve lost about 50k words of work, I’m gutted now. - EDIT: I think I’ve found an even earlier version of it so I might not of lost as much as I think. I’m going to get some sleep and then access the damage tomorrow.
If the story is up on dashingdon, you should be able to either download the files or look at the files on dashingdon and copy and paste what you had before, right?
@Eiwynn’s above advice is really solid and I don’t always stick to it, but when I do I have a much better time.
I like to fix bugs and typos as soon as they arise. My preferred way of working with larger issues is that if something comes up (from feedback or from me thinking of it) that’s low-effort, I’ll edit it as soon as I can so I don’t forget about it. “Low-effort” would be things like clarification, changing wording, adding an additional choice etc.
For something bigger, like adding or moving a scene, altering information provided at a given point, or reworking a major element, it is better to let it rest a while so you can assess it more clearly and with the knowledge of what the bigger picture of the game looks like. If you are sharing work publicly, this will also give you a chance to see how many other players share the same opinion and whether there are players saying the exact opposite (which often happens!) It means you can triage and prioritise.
For example: I have had feedback on Honor Bound from a couple of players related to wanting different Attitudes to be tracked and tested for a variety of situations, ie being very compassionate with one character/situation, and very ruthless with another. This would be a very heavy lift to implement, so I’ve made a note of it to keep in mind and will return to it if many others bring it up (and if I did address it, I’d want to figure out how to do it in some sort of clever, less labour-intensive way).
When you have the full game at your fingertips, you’ll have a much better sense of what it needs and you won’t be stuck rehashing/overpolishing the same sections - avoid editor fatigue!
(I do not always do all this, and am currently second-guessing a lot - but either way do try not to edit by instinct or impulse.)
OKAY BUT YES?! THIS?!? Um, doing NaNoWriMo years ago taught me that the only way to progress in a manuscript is to avoid editing like the goddamn plague it is, okay? Remember, the first draft of anything is just you telling the story to yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect, That’s what editing is for.
This is super good advice for when you’re editing, but honestly I find that if I aim for this while I’m trying to write full drafts, I will fail, and fail HARD.
THIS.
Also this. I have a seperate document in my Evernotes specifically for BUG FIXES. And every so often I take a crack at fixing them. XD
I feel like bug fixes and typos fall into a seperate category from actual editing. At that point, you’re smoothing out the threads so that you can keep weaving, you’re not redying whole sections of the threads, exactly. (I use weaving as a metaphor for coding these games, and I find it makes it easier for me to explain what happens, so apologies if this is confusing).
Point out, VERY CLEARLY, how paternally the PC sees the young girl, point out little childish habits (like maybe this 14 year old picks her nose, or she hates spinach and bitches about it), and make it clear that it’s a FAMILIAL style relationship, not a ROMANTIC. The author of Samurai of Hyuga has a similar issue with the fanbase really clamoring for the Young Charge to be a romantic route, and it’s kind of exacerbated by scenes where the Young Charge is stated to be “the most beautiful person PC’s ever seen” when YC is appearing as a grown up in the spirit world. So just avoid stuff like that, and you should be fine.
Such great entries so far!
My goals: Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue: Show don’t Tell: Don’t confuse myself with branching conversation threads. KISS if I can. Don’t fret.
The Curse of Choice and The Illusion of Story: Moral, Romantic, or Other, the aspect of choice in a story highlights, even more, that the story is made-up. Of-course the stories we read are not in-tune with real life. They never are. Always too much coincidence. Never enough characters. And there always is something new and crazy happening. From Action to Romance, they were always unreal---- made-up by the author. You can’t let the reader do whatever no more than you can write whatever---- Otherwise the story falls apart. I can write a story about “My Boring Monday” and be true to it, but no one would read it. I could let someone play my IF “My Boring Monday” and allow the reader to set everyone ablaze or eat poison and die, or climb a very tall mountain or slay a dragon…but then its not really a story about “My Boring Monday” is it? Just like writing a fiction book, and even more so, there is this tricky balance to making a believable IF story and making it interesting---- The Familiar and The Strange.
100 percent Familiar = Boring
100 percent Strange = Confusing
Enjoy October and good luck to all entering the Jam!
And remember… It’s all an illusion… even the illusion…
Random thought, I’m suddenly having an urge to take the term “skeleton crew” literally in a project.
(Haven’t quite decided which one yet.)
A Halloween jam game, perhaps?
Nah, just one where ghosts and raising the dead are a thing.
(While I do have a Halloween jam game idea, it doesn’t include ships nor do I have time to actually write it in the required timeframe to be considered a Halloween jam game.)
The limit for the jam game is 2k…
Just saying.
And I think a skeleton crew it would be a nice idea mixed with Mirrors
Imagine you buy or find a Mirror that starts to summon randomly Necromantic beings.
Maybe You try to be hired for Halloween parties or using them to cause havoc maybe having a pet bone cat or dog.
Edit: I am like Bloody Mary is somebody say something about jam and is me appearing…