So, after some deliberation, I’ve decided that instead of submitting Foundation of Nightmares for the Choice of Games Interactive Fiction contest, I’m instead just going to submit that to HG as soon as it’s finished, and then begin working on The Magician’s Task for the competition. This is because FoN is the third book in the series, so it has an even smaller chance of winning.
The Magician’s Task, however, will be the first of a trilogy, where the MC is a magician trained by a wizard in Lume (the setting of Demons Among Men.) In the story, you must travel to a distant kingdom to be their general and help them fight against a large army of demons!
I got interested in chess after watching the Bobby Fischer biopic Pawn Sacrifice. Sadly I am rather lacking in any notable potential with the game although I am quite intrigued about a CoG that can tell a human story about the mental sport and how it shapes the an individual and their relationships through the many stages of life.
Pawn Sacrifice was pretty good! Most chess movies do a horrible job portraying the chess elements, and in that regard they actually did a decent job.
All it takes is practice. About three years ago, I was like any other novice, and now I’m in the top 90% because I play in tournaments and study all the time.
Thanks! I hope I can do a good job of it. Either way, I’m excited to write Chess Master in the future, as it will be the first and only interactive novel about chess. I’m going to write it after I become a Master, so I have tons of personal experience in the subject matter and I’d be an authority on the topic.
Oh, I’d read Chess Master. I learned the game when I was younger and I still manage. Even though I only know how the pieces move and don’t know what a Sicilian Defence is.
Great! I plan on making Chess Master very accessible, even for novices or people who don’t play chess.
The Sicilian is when Black responds 1… c5 to White’s 1. e4. It’s considered the most aggressive and one of the most varied openings in chess. I used to play it a lot, but after realizing that I’m stronger and more comfortable in slower, more positional games, I switched to more closed, strategical openings with good success.
Just in the last two days, I’ve written about 5,000 words for FoN and I’ve also done about 10 hours (literally) of typo and bug fixing. I’ve definitely got my mojo back!
There is actually multiplayer chess and chess on continuous surfaces (like a torus). I’m not sure what the second is called but both may become more and more well known as the ideas become more developed.
There are tons of other chess variants, too, like Fischer chess (the first rank is jumbled up and randomized), three check (three checks win), king of the hill (whoever gets their king to the center first wins), etc, but I don’t play any of them. I’ll always like original chess the most.
So since I started playing tournament chess about 19 months ago, my United States Chess Federation rating has gone up from 701 (beginner level) to 1647 (above average and in the 90th percentile). This kind of progress is basically like that of a child prodigy’s, except I’m 21. My goal is to keep this extreme improvement going as I try to attain the National Master title (2200) which would be like having a PHD in chess.
Haha, don’t sell yourself short. That would be nice. If you want, you could add me on chess.com and we could play a live game or a daily game (where we each get 1+ days to make each move). My username is mastersamuelhyoung
Woo, I’ve written 5k words today which is more than I’ve done in years. (My record is 7k in one day but usually I only write 0.5 - 1 on days when I have work.) I’m actually pretty confident that I can get the final chapter of my demo out in the next few days.
I’ve just submitted an update for Captive of Fortune and since that’s done, it’s time for me to start writing The Magician’s Task! I’m going to try to get a demo out for this new HG in the next couple weeks.
About three years ago, I was like any other novice, and now I’m in the top 90% because I play in tournaments and study all the time.
