Professor of Magical Studies (was: Advanced Studies in Pattern Magic) - In Copyediting!

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback! And great catch on the pronoun trouble, @stsword. I swear, I will never be so foolish as to write another scene like that where you’re talking about two different people and the pronouns are flying willy-nilly.

In my view, Darcy’s torn between feeling this near-overwhelming urge to succeed no matter the cost, and actual care for the MC. They’re a bit of a disaster friend who does awful things and then is all, “but it’s okay, right? We all understand that wasn’t for real!” To answer your last question, I figure that, if the MC had given up magic and then re-met Darcy, Darcy would feel so guilty and hide it under disappointment/anger at the MC.

Oh, if the MC dates Manisha, Darcy is one thousand percent jealous. And Manisha’s not in a good place where Darcy is concerned. It’s the power of friendship!

I have been waiting impatiently to reach this point of the story because Blankenship’s return is going to complicate everything in delightfully terrible ways.

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Gosh, I am so interested in Blankenship for plot reasons and my MC, but I’m most concerned for Gabriel! He’s just trying to get through grad school, man.

I need to replay, but I was having trouble navigating the conversation at the party. I just kept failing every which way. I’ll have more feedback on that after I try a couple more times.

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I’d be interested in any thoughts you’ve got, especially if there are parts where you thought you were making choices that should work out and then they didn’t.

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Definitely have enjoyed this so far, even though I keep getting my plays interrupted by computer problems or my own forgetfulness as I move to another task.

I especially like how you’ve organically worked in the flashback as the after effects of a spell gone wrong. The flashback(atleast as chapter 2 starts) is needed to contextualize the rest of the story, and with this set up it’s still forced, but it feels better than just a random flashback at the beginning.

one thing tho. I don’t have the screen cap (al la computer problems making me restart) but my MC chooses to study mind magic before we follow the Theta’s and when I try to compromise between Darcy and Mani the text has their names swap so that Mani is apologizing for coming on too strong with their advice, even tho it was darcy.

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No screencap needed! I figured out where the error was and fixed it. Thanks!

That cliffhanger though…

I really enjoyed this WIP :slight_smile:. Flashbacks were incorporated nicely, and I’m surprised by how it goes in depth about the intricacies of pattern magic. I chose the nullification power, just because it seems cool to weaken stuff, and judging by how many portals to other universes we have opened (accidentally or not), it seemed to be a ok choice.

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A question for people more conversant with the save system than me: if an author just happened to have to add more variables to startup as they wrote more chapters, that would hose previous saves, right? Asking for a frenemy.

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Adding new variables to startup does not, in and of itself, break saves.

The reason problems sometimes occur is that authors often add new content to earlier chapters in addition to these variables, which means there are times where these variables are supposed to be set in, say, Chapter 2, but everyone’s saves are from Chapter 4. So when you later check the variable in Chapter 5, any player who loaded a Chapter 4 save and hasn’t played the scene in Chapter 2—where the variable was supposed to be set to 1, 2, or 3—will run into a bug, because their variable is still the default value, which (depending on the circumstances and your coding practices) may not be recognized as valid at this point in the game.

This isn’t a problem if you add a variable to startup with the intention of setting and using it solely in the newer chapters that people will be playing through for the first time, regardless of whether they load a save or start fresh.

Speaking of the save system: the “mygame” in the *sm_init command is supposed to be a placeholder that you replace with something more specific to your game. Saves are allocated based on the keyword you put here, so right now your game is using the default save location that gets shared with other games that also leave “mygame” as it is.

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Thank you for that information, and argh at my foolishness about not replacing the placeholder. Sorry, everyone!

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On that note, you can, of course, fix this problem any time you want by just going in and changing the keyword in your *sm_init command, but unfortunately that definitely will purge all existing saves because you’ll then be dealing with a completely different location in memory.

So if you do plan on making changes to earlier chapters that would break saves anyway, it might be a good idea to make both changes at the same time to minimize the number of times people have to replay.

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This was really good!

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Chapter 7 is now up, and I have a new title! Did you know that craft books and websites totally own the phrase “pattern magic,” a fact I would have discovered with even cursory Googling beforehand? Because I know that now!

This chapter starts your second semester as a professor. You’re going to have to co-teach a class with a professor who totally shares your every opinion about how classes should be structured. Gabriel makes a surprising cross-dimensional discovery which will have no ramifications for you whatsoever. You still have too much to do and too little time in which to do it. Good news, though: if you started dating someone in chapter 6, you can choose to slack on your work to spend time with them.

Oh, and something explodes. Literally.

Unfortunately, with all of these changes, I broke the saves. I took @CorvusWitchcraft’s excellent suggestion and fixed my mis-use of the *sm_init command so we won’t have that problem again. Sorry for that.

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For some reason it starts with saying my MC’s name is Jay Shelly.

Aha, I hadn’t turned off my debug flags in the version I uploaded. I’ve now fixed that. Thanks!

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I have the same problem - also all ROs are set to they/them pronouns which I’m pretty sure last time I played I chose their genders?

You’ll have to reload the page and re-start the game to fix that.

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Hey, just finished reading up for the first time and it’s a really great work so far ! The pacing feels natural and I enjoy the many options. I feel like the playability of this is amazing : plenty of content to go through, plenty of choices to make as well as things to balance.

Also, I love the way we choose how to handle our relationship with Darcy after the past events. Its all very nicely written. I’ll definitely need to go through all of this once again though.

Just one thing though, I chose the option to go with Kayla after the party, yet when it moved to the bedroom scene, the name was switched to Haley. I think there’s a little bit there.

Anywho, great job and I hope you can continue on ! Wish you the best : )

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Thanks! And good catch. I’ve fixed the problem with the date scene.

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Error and bug that need fixing. When I press Maybe Second Time Dating’s the Charm it sends me to the second picture.

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@Here_Not_There Fixed, thanks! Would you mind editing your post to spoiler-tag or remove the images?