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True, was just basing that observation off published HGs that I know of, few have authors in their early 20s or below in age. (But I don’t know all the author’s ages out there so overall I could be wrong and WIPs could be quite different :slight_smile: )

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Should there be a thread for authors to reveal their age (if they have not on their profile)

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I suspect most of us are happy to be anonymous and ageless :grin:

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I just read some of the early posts here, I haven’t been through all of them… but…

How about how the MC always starts out single? Sure, tons of people are single, I’m single, but it always seems like the MC of IF stories starts unattatched to anyone.

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Since a significant amount of IF games have you making your own character, and being in a romantic relationship is such a big thing (that some people just aren’t interested in) most would rather leave it up to the player to develop one later on if they choose.

I’d be interested in a game that gave you the choice to start in a relationship already, but I’d prefer if you had some control over what that relationship looked like and who it was with.

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Oh, I agree JMH, but I still think it quite amusing that no epic adventures ever happen to anyone married or in a long-term relationship. XD

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A better writer than me needs to make a game where you’re off saving the world but the perspective is only from your spouse left at home reading the letters you write to them updating them on your adventures (and in the letters are where you make the choices)

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@JMH
Well… @MeltingPenguins curious cuisine had us married with a child

And Love at Elevation , although not technically married ,we already had a long term partner who was separated with us via misunderstand, in the story we have a choice to either reconcile with our Ex or leave her permanently by pursuing another love interest :slight_smile:

In Great Tournament 2 , we could start with our choice of wife and continue our adventure, especially we could be husband of the Queen with our children :slight_smile:

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I actually started a fiction story this way and “sent” the letter to @Shawn_Patrick_Reed as a test to see how well it would work… he was confused and befuddled … lol.

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I count Love at Elevation as being unattached- although, hmm, ‘pining’.

I haven’t read Great Tournament 2 or Curious Cuisine- I like there being a counterpoint to my statement- it’s nice that there are some stories out there with an attached MC. Thank you for the point outs on them. : )

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There’s Hero Unmasked!, too in which we start off engaged

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Tokyo Wizard started the MC in a relationship. However imo it was pointless and poorly executed, as in the first few pages the burden was put on the player to break up with them, whether you wanted to or not.
I would certainly welcome more of it regardless if it’s done poorly or not tbh. It could be pointless almost to the point of being frustrating, like in Tokyo Wizard, or it could be interesting and perhaps be your main romance/be a main part of the story if done well. Regardless, I would be interested to see more of it, for sure.

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I think a letter game could work very well under the right circumstances. See this one (I think it’s inkle) by Emily Short et al Story

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Hopefully this won’t get me in trouble, but this is what’s always bothered me as a reader about a lot of CoGs with nonbinary characters. When I meet them for the first time, my MC always automatically knows to call them ‘they’ or ‘zhe’ and it just pulls me right out of the story. Like it wouldn’t bother me at all if the character explained their gender and pronouns, but just immediately having the MC’s internal dialogue calling them ‘they’ seems very awkward and I wish there was a way to do it which felt more organic. I’m not sure how that would be accomplished though.

I have a character in my ‘Werewolves 2’ WIP who is nonbinary, but I’m trying to make it feel organic. Like, when they are introduced, it is mentioned that their breasts are bound. I’ve been taking advice on how to portray it naturally and sensitively without it being stated as though the MC magically knew all along even though they just met this character.

I just turned 37 this month.

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Thanks for pointing this out.
I need to go through my game and see if the mc does this at any point, or if it is only the narrator

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Might be that the people with a partner, do not have the time to save the world :joy: (I can tell, since the time I got a child I definetly would not have had the time to save anything) :grin:

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Also normally, people who are married and/or have kids to look after often don’t go about incredulous adventures unless the world is about to end. (Shoutout to Zombie Exodus Safe Haven to pull off the nephew path incredibly)

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The way I approached this in my contest entry, was to introduce the nonbinary characters as already “known” to society in general as being non-binary.

One NPC was a famous super model that “had taken the fashion world by storm” and the other was the child of a powerful US Senator. In both cases, the MC would be aware of them due to the characters being in the public eye and the media reporting surrounding them.

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Aww that’s not always true :smile:

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(Edit: Ok maybe in the case of Heroes now that I think about it, but anyways…)

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Oh well I did say normally! :joy:

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