Hey there! Having recently submitted Nuclear Powered Toaster for publication, I wanted to move on and try something very different before deciding whether to do a sequel to NPT or not. The title is a WIP too; I will likely drop the Quite App-Parent part and just go with The Parenting Simulator. It’s dry but easily searchable, and that has value.
In this game, you don’t fly spaceships, use superpowers, go back in time or confront eldritch horrors. You do something a lot more intimidating: you have a child. Quite App-Parent will feature a large (as in 50+) variety of small scenes that provide you the opportunity to raise a child as you see fit. Many will be randomly selected from a pool of available scenes for each year of their life (2 out of 5 in the first year, 2 out of 4 most others), although some are mandatory (such as potty-training, the first day of school, etc). It’s a stat-lite affair, with only a handful of opposing stats that will help shape who your child is and how they see you. Later chapters will have specific scenes generated based on your stats, as well as the outcome of previous years. It’s sort of an experimental thing, so all feedback is definitely welcome!
1/27/19
Sure enough, the word push did allow for a second January update. Year 12 weighs in at a respectable 8,588 words, and pushes the total to 83,00 and change. I have just a few days left in the month to hit my 20,000 word goal, but I am also less than 2,000 words away so hopefully it will happen.
1/15/19
Words over 70,000. This chapter’s just a hair away from 8,000. It’s late (I mean, for a work night), so see ya!
1/4/19
The rest of year 10 is completed and the gate has been lifted from the activity section. The 9,036 word length of year 9 lasted as the record-holder only until this new chapter, which is the new champeen at 9,349. Starting a big push in January, so hopefully at least one more update this month. Perhaps two? Stranger things have happened.
Random reminder: while it’s not that similar thematically, if you like my peculiar blend of sad attempts at humor and laughable attempts at dramatics, my first story has already been published and is available for sale on Steam, Android, iOS and Amazon. Nuclear Powered Toaster gives you a lot of insanity and hopefully a fair amount of fun for just $2.99! If you enjoy it, please leave a good review, it’s extremely helpful and in the case of Steam would keep my own cold, lonely review company. If you don’t enjoy it, just say you did anyhow, and then direct your enemies to purchase it as a really roundabout form of revenge. Genius!
/shilling
12/22/18
Woof. Ms. Quick kicked my butt this morning for nearly an hour and a half, but we are here! The 9,000 word Year 9 blows away all previous chapters in length, despite having only one long scene and another shorter one. I also included the half of year 10 that was done. Aside from more words, this brings the money mechanic into play, introduces the option to de-randomize (which may or may not remain in the final build, as has been discussed at length elsewhere), and brings a handful of achievements into the mix. I’m going to take a nap.
11/18/18
Years Seven and Eight are live, bringing almost 13,000 new words in for a total of about 47,000. Words per playthrough is about 15,000. Semi-NaNoWriMo total for November is about 14,900 words, leaving just over 10,000 to hit the mark between now and the 30th. Why did they do this on a 30-day month again? Just poor forethought. No surprise since we’re talking about writers here.
11/4/18
Year 6 is finally done. I am hoping to have the next chapter up a lot faster than this one was. 6,035 words in, so pretty much right at the 1/3 mark if this story actually does end up around 100k like I was thinking.
10/8/18
Year Five is up, and is by far the longest year yet at 7,224 words. There are only three scenes instead of four due to the length of each one. The total is now 28,768 words with 28.3% (or about 8,164) seen each time out.
9/17/18
It was a long time between updates, but on the plus side Year Four is also the longest chapter to date, at over 5,600 words. This brings the total to 21,000 and change. Playthrough length is around 6,600, so still hanging within that sweet spot for words seen per run at about 31%.
8/7/18
Year Three is in the pan, the total tops out in the high 15,000 range and just over 5,000 per playthrough. Vacation is coming next week (woooo Daytona!) so might be a while before Year Four pops, as it will have four sequences to write that do not yet exist.
7/25/18
The new word total is 12,400 words, and Year Two joins the list of completed chapters. Next up will be to complete Year Three.
7/15/18
The initial demo clocks in at around 9,500 words. The opening chapter and Year One are both complete, barring minor alterations. Year Two and Three are partially completed.
To try your hand at raising a virtual rugrat, go here: https://dashingdon.com/go/2877
As mentioned above it definitely feels like alter ego(how have you not played that game up till now btw? 
I always assume pretty much everyone on here has played that game at least once). Glad you will get to play until your child is eighteen, and agree with your logic about being a single parent, though some background(of the player’s choosing?) about what happened to the other parent could be good. And again as already mentioned love that it deals with normal situations, I’ve said it before, but yeah that’s definitely one genre under represented on COG, can’t wait till the next update. I also like the idea of the random events, that too is kinda similar to alter ego, as in you can only pick so many events in one playthrough(and it has some random events kinda too), will definitely increase replayability.