I have a question on this, with my wip I am writing. They are 3 major paths which Race the main character is, Human, werewolf, vampire.
Each path will have their own unique content per say and a special RO for the two supernatural routes. Would it be needed to add one for the huma. Route?
Trust me, I am not the person you want to ask for advice about doing Romances.
(that would probably be @HarrisPS)
All roads lead to Harris apparently.
Awww thank you @Cataphrak, thatâs really lovely!
I donât think itâs necessary to always make romance paths have equal screen time/roles, but if two supernatural PCs have a unique romance option and the human one doesnât, it would likely leave people playing human PCs feeling left out. If someone came to me asking how to handle it, I would recommend a few different ideas:
After all that, you may end up thinking that you just want to keep it as is, and if that works for how the game is structured, thatâs cool too.
@Valda_Reehux I have been feeling the strain the last month or two. In August I had very little writing time, September technically had more time but was incredibly disrupted because of building work happening (which was finished this afternoon, yay!). Then on the last couple of days of the month, when I was planning to finish up what needed doing before the end of Sept ⌠I got covid. (Iâm recovered now, it was a horrible week but it seems to have not had lingering effects so far thankfully.)
So, basically, sometimes life becomes intensely pressured and you need to concentrate on getting through it, and itâs OK to do so even if itâs hard. Honestly when Iâve been burned out and having life difficulties I embrace setting it aside - there need to be other priorities sometimes and the creative energy will be there when youâre ready.
In other news, before I got ill I beta tested An Imp and an Imposter and it was absolutely splendid; Iâm so hyped for it coming out once testing is over 
All of the ROs are available on each route. But the supernatural paths, that specific RO has to take on a mentor role with the PC because they are the person that turned them. Which in turn gives them âextra contentâ on that specific path. While the human route, takes bits and pieces from each of the supernatural paths and their own side content.
I could give one of the already existing ROs more time in the spotlight during the human route, I canât and wonât add another one as I am already at 7 ROs and judging them is the max of what I believe I am capable of.
Unfortunately as that isnât possible as shown above, they are forced to take this mentor position to own to their own mistake and make sure the mc doesnât do anything stupid.
This might be the only option for me, I was thinking of having the human route have two different pay offs, but I donât know yet.
This looks great! Iâm going to try and get in the beta test!
I updated my WIP with a new chapter. This one introduces some romance elements which were missing before. Please try it out if you want! Iâm increasing the âliteraryâ vibe of the game, which might be a bit polarizing. idk, just trying things out.
âI see two guards at the front and one at the back,â Afterthought says. âHow do you want to do this?â
âI want to kiss you,â you say.
âWhat?â Afterthought blinks.
You look at him.
âOh,â he says. âOh.â
Peak fiction.
âIf youâre waiting for cavalry,â your captor smugly announces, âyouâre waiting in vain. Your so-colled partner in this doomed endeavour has already bolted far away from here.â
Well, he has you there. What in the world had possessed you to trust Afterthought of all people to watch your back? The thiefâs a runner. Far as you know, heâs never thrown a punch in his life.
Doomed endeavour, indeed.
He leans closer and gloats; in that regard at least, heâs being a very generous host. But behind him, something shifts in the shadows, where the guards stand, and⌠hold on, you canât see the guards anymore.
âI never did like the cavalry,â Afterthought says, stepping into light. He has blood on his face and one of the guardsâ rifles in his hands, and the way he moves is uncharacteristically measured. Economical, even.
You captor spins around to face him. âYou,â he proclaims, âhave made a grievous error! Iââ
âYou will set them free,â Afterthought says. He doesnât rise his voiceâit stays as cool and measured as his demeanor, although it drops to a lower scaleâbut the ice cold look on his face, decepticely calm, is hiding a fury you never expected to see him express. âAll of them. Now. I will not repeat myself.â
These snippets are all peak.
Itâs Saturday morning, and I havenât so much as had a cup of coffee, but since I havenât done a goals post for October yetâŚ
For the past couple of years, since Turncoat Chronicle came out, Iâve been incredibly vague about my ongoing project(s). Now, it is finally time to be⌠slightly less vague. Iâve been finessing the outline of a game that Iâll be temporarily calling âProject Ghoulâ, and this month, amongst all the fuss and holidays, Iâve finally starting working on a proper chapter 1.
Itâs been exciting! My ChoiceScript is a teensy bit rusty, so Iâd say this came not a moment too soon, heh.
I have a weird urge to write a scene where a MC takes shelter in some backwater inn and is served âmashed turnips and barleyflour porridge with fresh butter, and hot nettlewaterâ.
I canât start a high fantasy project too! 
Iâve reached the halfway point with my project and I think this is a good stopping point for public WIP demo release. Iâll write the rest of it without releasing additional chapters, and then do a closed beta. Probably 6-9 months? These things take longer than you expect, because thereâs always a lot of âcruftâ to do.
So now that Iâve finally announced what Iâve been working on these past two years., I figure I could post a few snippets - not very long snippets, mind (I donât want to spoil anything), but I can at least demonstrate what I mean when I say that the modern-day setting and relatively casual dialogue lets me cut loose a lot more than Iâve been able to before.
For example:
âI checked the signatures and the credentials and everything,â she says. âThey all track back to the same place: United States Department of Homeland Security - but once I try to go further, I get nothing - like, sixteen concentric firewalls and encryption Iâd either need a supercomputer or a tied-up cipher clerk and a rubber hose to crack.â
âSo the trail goes cold?â
âOui,â she replies flatly. âBut it goes cold in front of a large man in a ten-gallon hat, firing M60 machine guns into the air, screeching like a bald eagle and screaming âwhat the fuck is a kilometreâ.â
Wil snarls in frustration as he staggers up out of his chair again. âIâm sorry kid, I just canât fuckinâ do this.â
âYouâre giving up?â
He turns to you, his eyes almost manic as they shift from your face to the crate of alcohol on the other side of the room. âLook kid, we tried it your way, I gave it one more shot - and one more shot wasnât enough. Iâm done. I donât know how I let this shit ruin me this bad, but thatâs not a goat weâre gonna be able to unfuck in one day of improvised therapy.â He shakes his head. âI tried, I failed, I let you talk me into trying it one more time against my own second thoughts, I failed again. I can keep failing, keep making myself feel worse, and then be completely fucking useless when you all need me on my feet, or-â
His eyes slide back to the crate of booze, this time it stays there. âOr I can go for what works, even if it ainât great.â
The Knight of St. George sighs. âThe people she hung out with back then were other rich kids at UBC - nepobabies from Mumbai or Shenzhen whoâd read some Bakunin and wanted to spite their dads. They went to some protests, waved some flags, scratched âACABâ on some bus shelters, and that was it. They were always one cell-phone call away from help, and Mandyâs parents knew that when they got their degrees, theyâd ditch the black leather for suits and ties and go to the corporate jobs their families set up for them back home. That was safe.â Steveâs lips press into a thin line. âMandy didnât do that. Instead she started going off the grid, disappearing, thatâs what worries them. Thatâs how all this started.â
âSo how does it end?â
âUsually with something like this, and then with crying, then yelling- wait, thatâs weird.â
You sit up out of your armchair. âWhat is?â
Steveâs frown deepens. âNo yelling. Thereâs usually yelling by this point. In fact-â
The door opens.
When I first found this forum I was just finishing high school (although Iâve been playing these games for a few years already before), and at the time I thought that once I graduate and get a job Iâll finally have free time to write my own story. Almost 6 years later, I do have a full time job now, but unfortunately itâs still been pretty difficult for me to find good writing time. Thereâs been a lot of things that I had to take care of, but I think things are finally settling down a bit. Posting this here just to set a small challenge for myself to keep working on my project, and to be active in a place that has taught me a lot over the years.
i finally settled on a fix to a variable (character personality stat variable) that was just not quite working for me. the perfect word hit me as i was writing a different section, then i fixed all the old instances of that variable being added to in the code, and voila!!! thank god. that one thing was bugging me for ages, but iâm satisfied with it now.
Question about âpointlessâ choices. I gotta ask, how much do you care about a choice eventually leading to the same outcome? For example, leaving a character behind or bringing them with you. But you eventually meet up again after a scene. There are dialogue/scene differences and personality/relationship stat changes between the two options but you still end up in relatively similar spots after. Do you mind that? Or should I not bother adding a choice if youâll end up in the same scene later anyways. My problem with that though is that that choice makes sense there Gahhhhhshsghsgshs
I donât see them as âpointlessâ if theyâre used right. Iâd personally have some fake choices with flavour text and maybe some stat/variable changes that make the game feel more immersive, than ânext, next, next, next, nextâ until you get to a choice where the path diverges significantly 
Edit: if youâre talking about branch and return format, then that is there format followed by the majority of CSGs out there.
That isnât a pointless choice per say, it can lead to some pretty big divergence in a sense. For example in my WIP, you can either go after an RO or let them cool off.
If you go after them, you get to learn a little more about them and a few Extra bond points. If you donât then you meet up with another RO a little earlier and have a small scene.
A pointless choice would be using my own wip as an example again, deciding what type of car you have. They have different names and colors but all function the same in practice. You get different flavor text but thatâs it.