Trying to write my game, but it’s doing slowly. Mostly I’m either too anxious to begin, too confused to code or too lazy to write many words. Even if I somehow finish the game, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to publish it. I want to abandon the project, but I feel I’ll be letting my old readers down. On top of that, I’m having trouble with other creative project I’m doing.
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I’m trying to separate romance from the plot (aside from certain ‘quests’) so players can have some say over the pacing of the relationship (it’s still limited by how far the RO wants to go, but it should solve the issue of the player feeling like they have no control over the relationship or courtship).
It’s not a method that will work for more structurally novel-like games though but hey, Vampire Regent did it, Zombie Exodus did it etc so nothing new here.
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Random question, I was going through some of my notes and some forum threads and, would this sound weird as a forewarning/content notice?
“You are not going to be the most powerful character in the story. You are, however, going to be able to have a life that doesn’t revolve around keeping said powers under control in order to not accidentally cause the end of the world in your sleep. (If you want to cause one on purpose, well, that’s another story.)”
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It’s humorous, to say the least. Just the right amount of power- not too much, not too little. I don’t think it sounds weird or out of place.
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Trying to be 100% honest here. I think commercial speaking is a very bad move. Watching streamers and stuff of if. Chats turn off and mocker games that put text like this on front.
In English language chats for what I have seen is even worse than spanish chats.
“I don’t want to be a f%&cking loser. I want be OP. Lolz wtf I want to destroy everything…”
Joing that to factor that is a text game in the market is difficult already mostly in mobile get new fans putting a text that will even make more people not even try the demo.
Let your game talk for itself. When the story grabs them they won’t mind the not being Op. But without the engagement, they will complaint.
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But some people want to know beforehand what they’re getting into, won’t they? I was at least under that impression. I personally don’t, but I’m not everyone. (Also, it would be on a separate page in the game you can choose to read or not to read before you start, same as warnings.)
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I don’t think it sounds weird! But it does sound a little negative - when I’m looking for things to play I would rather learn about what you are and what you can do and what you get up to, rather than what you aren’t/don’t do. I think as Mara says, the game can speak for itself: it deserves it!
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I understand that, but I am being 100% pragmatic and honest. Those people can be a 0,1% of your possible audience to. try your game. And even those rarely will turn their heads of your demo saying “Oh this game does the same as 99,9% game and don’t spoiler me if the game is about me being Op or not. So I won’t play it.”
However there is a minority far greater than see that message that as hannah says sounds really negative and won’t bother to even give you the chance of read your demo.
Let your game talking by itself. Trust you and trust it.
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Fair point, yeah. It wouldn’t be in the actual blurb though. (There would be things you can do.)
But… but… trusting me would require me to include all the weird stealth-worldbuilding half-joke warnings. (I have a weird obsession for “choices that don’t matter”.)
This is hard.
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In my experience, the blurbs you see in the store pages are enough to give the reader an idea of the basics.
The notes I place at the beginning of my alpha tests and the general warnings (ie “This is a work of fiction bla bla bla”) as well as the trigger warnings are all there under a simple choice menu.
Note Menu
*label beginning_choice
*choice
#View the General Disclaimer
*goto general_disclaimer
#View the Trigger Warnings
*goto trigger_warnings
#Start the Alpha Demo
*goto demo_start
and here is the basic template I start all my tests out with:
Note
Note to Readers —
Thank you for participating in this alpha testing phase of the Patchwork project.
This alpha ends on ??-??-??.
I have a feedback questionnaire at the end of the demo for you to fill out.
Everything in this alpha demo is a work-in-progress and is subject to change, evolve or even disappear from the final game.
This demo is the latest version of the common route. The demo should allow someone to play through it and see the major systems of the game working together.
Hopefully, this will give you an idea of the atmosphere seen in the final game.
I hope this helps, @LiliArch
Yeah. Moral of the story, my brain absolutely can’t be trusted as far as marketing goes.
I do, in all seriousness, believe that “don’t worry about stats too much” might, in some form, be a useful thing to inform about, however. Not that certain games don’t do just fine without. Hmm.
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I would say if you’re trying to write something popular, yes. But often times I find the best works aren’t the ones trying to be popular - in fact there’s multiple instances in all forms of media where, after something got popular, it got worse. That’s why often times sequels tend to be not as good as the originals. Because they were original.
Romance focused games changed how we view writing for this medium; what you do next could do the same thing. Write the story you want to tell in a way that makes you proud. At the end of the day, as artists, that’s all we can do.
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Dew it
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There is a reason why there are things called Mission-Pack Sequels. See this TV Tropes article for details.
In short, if you are trying to be popular, than you lose track of your ultimate goal: To try your best. And when you try your best, you will produce a good work, not necessarily the best, but your work will shine. I learnt that the hard way.
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Me writng the histories I want Ended up with absolutely anyone giving me feedback on my games and never replied the betas.
It is beatiful saying "Write what you want. But with that I only achieve failure and more failure. People want to pretend that oh, do what you want and someone will like it But of course that someone is not in this forum and won’t play your beta.
And you need a beta to be published as hosted now.
If you want to be published you have to do what people want. As harsh as it sounds except if you want don’t sell a game and have terrible reviews
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I do not think WH and others changed the way we all “view” writing IF, but rather they showed a way to approach the genre differently than was done before successfully in Choice Script games.
There is a huge but nuanced difference, and I think as people are exploring what was done, they are now figuring out their particular nuances.
The testing part of getting a game ready is hard. I believe it is one of the hardest things to do, and even if your project’s genre, plot beats and such are the “popular” subjects, that testing is very hard, regardless.
Each test I run, I usually lose 10%-20% of my readers that I ask … some take the game link and I never hear back… others never finish the game and only provide feedback on part of the game … and tons of other happenings that make it hard.
One thing that I would say is, never stop looking for testers.
I believe that the testing environment in this community is different then it was years ago, so I believe going on what happened then is not necessarily a predictor of what will happen in the future.
I also believe that different types of testing work for different people and even different types of testing will work differently during your project’s development cycle.
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i wish that this is true for all new people in the forum. I am to burned out and bitter to trying a testing here again. I don’t think I can handle the inevitable failure.
But I am happy to knew that is getting better
I would Literally Pay Money to see your outlines both full-game and chapter-scale. I can feel the amount of knowledge we could glean from them. <3
The important question here isn’t whether you’ve written it. It’s whether you’ve read it. If you’re going to write well in any genre, the important thing is to read within that genre, somewhat. Learn the rules and tropes of the genre, and how they can be subverted.
That said, does it matter if your story is an Isekai? The general definition of Isekai is that the main character is transported to another world. So the Oz franchise counts, as does Wrinkle In Time and The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe. Harry Potter only BARELY doesn’t, because it’s more of a secret society genre than him ACTUALLY being transported to another world.
Portal Fantasy is in fact the english name for the genre! There are also SUBGENRES of Isekai, such as “Transmigration” (where a person’s soul is put into the soul of someone already existing in this other world, rather than taking their own body with them) and “Otome Isekai” (where the MC is transmigrated into specifically Otome Style games. This usually takes the form of a modern-day person being shoved into the body of the Villainess of whatever novel/game/show they’ve recently been playing/watching/reading, and having to fix things or die.)
I have a normal level of interest for these genres.
This feels a bit strangely worded to me, and I had a hard time parsing it. I think maybe if I had better context, I’d be fine.
In DND we have a name for these kinds of players. “Murder Hobos”. Thing is, you often have to figure out, as a DM (the person who runs the game) whether you’re going to entertain the murder hobos, or just run the game as you do normally, and not entertain the murder hobos. Each person has to make that decision on their own.
I do however agree with this. Let your game speak for itself.
OH THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT. I love it. I’mma use it.
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I’m really happy, I’ve just broke the 10k mark on the redraft for Shengzhang!
I finished integrating the translation system using loops, so it’s very future proof! I also integrated visual indicators, and I’ve finished the start-up character creation setting! I still have to do some presets for people who prefer that kind of thing, but I don’t anticipate it taking very long. Other then that it’s grunt work to put in place some appropriate names and then it’s off to the races with grinding out words!
I have about 2k written in the redone prologue… I already feel like the gears are turning more smoothy, I’m just hoping it’s not me blinded by that ‘fresh writing’ jitter. I don’t know how much further I’ll get before the end of the month, but I wanted to do a little celebration! 
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It’s a post-post-apocalyptic superhero story (society is back to a high-tec glory, but it’s a well known fact the world did end at some point and the land is ruined), and there literally exists a character who would accidentally tear down the barrier between the world and the dimension of the eldritch abominations that plague the land if he used his power too much.
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