Killing Vivec: “I sleep”
Killing Caius Cosades: “WE HAVE TO GO BACK!”
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Caius is an ass. He says you can rest here. Then enter in rampage about why you touch my things. I am a telvani in the making imperial outlander
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After writing and publishing a major update for my game… some reflections.
When Dragon of Steelthorne first came out, there were plenty of complaints about length, and I did feel bad about it. Meanwhile, I had just received advice to abandon my existing projects and start over, and from there, I made the decision to cancel Scarlet Sorceress and throw Dragon of Steelthorne 2 in IFcomp. Even then, I was unsure how I would start over exactly.
Fast forward to two months later, and @Samuel_H_Young released a pair of major content updates to his games. I saw it, felt inspired and decided to do the same. I had originally cut out some chapters from the first game to put in the sequel, but I decided that this was a good opportunity to bring this content back to the story. I could address the most common complaint, show the people who liked the game that I valued their support, show the people who didn’t like it that I listened to their criticisms and give the folks who didn’t buy it a reason to take another look.
I received feedback both for and against my plans to write an update, and was thinking of giving up at one point, but I ultimately pushed through in the end. It was crazy towards the end. Two days before the release, I noticed a few typos (I didn’t have copyedit this time) and sent corrected files to HG. But K. was pretty helpful even with the last minute changes.
Anyway, the game took 10th place on the bestseller rankings after the sale (it’s gone down quite a bit now) so I guess there was some kind of bump. 
Extra sales would always be nice, but my main hope is that some of the first buyers decide to open the game again and get to try out the new content. Nothing matters more than the people who decided to support your work.
So… would I do this again? Absolutely. Just want to tell newly published writers that it doesn’t have to end on the first day of release. There’s still an opportunity to go back to your game and make it better. Even if it didn’t get a sales bump, I would have been happy knowing that players who enjoyed the game enough to try it again later will now have more content to play with.
Plus, I think the story is much better now.
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Now how to actually do that is the problem.
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Congratulations! That’s awesome news 
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I’m not usually a fan of onomatopoeia, but I would probably go with something along the lines of “he made a derisive thbbbbpt noise” if I wanted to be very clear about the sound being made.
Or maybe “he made a derisive rasping trill”, if I wanted to be more vague.
If well designed, I prefer challenging and difficult CSGs. While I can enjoy ones that are easy, it feels that much more meaningful when failure is a real option and accomplishment reflects actual accomplishment. From a roleplaying standpoint, if stat checks are too forgiving I end up playing a character who always succeeds and gets everything they want. I find it makes for a less interesting story, because I don’t find it interesting to read about a protagonist who never struggles or has set backs.
One published CSG I played recently had factional and idealogical conflict as a core part of the game, but said conflict was (IMO) made less compelling by how incredibly easy it was to get everyone to like you. Sworn enemies for generations? Factions I’d ignored or opposed at every turn? By the end of the game, they’d all come around to the PC’s side thanks to the one or two low DC speeches, all without the PC having to compromise one iota in his actions or ideology.
Challenge doesn’t always have to be traditional stats management crunch either. One of my favorite difficult challenges was keeping the punch bowl in Cakes and Ale from meeting an untimely demise.
I’m no expert, but in my experience the best way is to let the player fail and have something interesting happen. Other games have conditioned players to be afraid of failing, but if you consistently prove to players fail states are compelling, they’ll catch on quick.
If you really want to hammer it in, you could use achievements and *selectable_if to hint at cool paths/states only reachable by failing.
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I think the best way to do that is to telegraph it early, give the player some relatively low stakes challenges where they’ll fail at least one. That’ll give them the impression that it’s okay to fail sometimes, and failure will make for interesting stories and gameplay.
The best example I can think of is a nearly impossible check in the very beginning of Disco Elysium, where you’re confronted with an outstanding damages bill by the manager of the hostel you’ve been crashing at. If you succeed on a skill check, you kinda just slink away like an asshole. If you fail, you make a spectacular dive-tackle into an old lady in a wheelchair while throwing two middle fingers at the guy you’re trying to escape from. Most players will get the latter option, and they’ll be given a pretty clear signpost that failure isn’t just acceptable in many contexts, but will lead to more interesting and entertaining outcomes than success.
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Grappling with the climax of a scene right now.
It’s not necessarily long, but the general point of it is showing off how easily two of the MC’s leaders discard everyone besides their scrimblos, and having the MC and his companions react to the very scary likelihood that they’re basically just collateral damage to two beasts squaring off.
I want the player to come out of it feeling… not scared, necessarily, but awed, or at least uneasy, because a big portion of it is essentially:
“I’m not the target. I’m not even being recognized. This is just the spill of being in their vicinity.”
I’m trying to let the player not come out of it feeling completely powerless, so I’m trying to give them a few options, from trying to fight back against the intimidation and the ringing self-preservation alarms, allowing them to be frustrated with their (relative) weakness, and so on and on.
I need to show off this scene because it sets up certain actions in the following chapters, so I’m thinking of ways to make the player feel intimidated, but not useless.
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Give the player agency over one or more details within the whole.
They will feel they have some impact, if not control, over the whole
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How about “derisive noise like a child putting out their tongue” or something?
I’m more thinking of how to try to convince the people who immediately reset their game when they notice they failed instead of waiting to see what happens, but I guess those will do that no matter what.
I’m once again reminded how I kept reloading a save for at least an hour (although a lot of that time came from the loading time being kinda… long?) because I kept succeeding in a check I was trying to fail in.
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Yeah, the player does have some agency in how the scene gets to said climax, and there are a few checks beforehand that allow them to ‘show off’, so to say.
Their actions can also recontextualize how we get to that ‘showdown’, but it’s in the climax itself that I’m debating how much to give them.
One of my ideas was to let them pick on which of the two leaders they focus their attention on, since the way they ‘present’ themselves is different- one is a smaller, honed, soldier’s edge, while the other is more of an overwhelming ‘wave’, very uncaring.
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I love puzzles! Thank you for sharing. And thank you for sharing those post-updated reflections too, very lovely to hear.
Oof… I volunteered at a library book drive/sale last week, and the remaining books were to be recycled so the person in charge allowed us volunteers who were helping with the clean-up to take some books… Maybe I took a bunch… And I still have so many books on my shelf I haven’t read, I have a bit of a problem. 
I haven’t worked toward my stated goal for the month (honestly, I can’t find the notebook where I was working on it), but I have decided to change the name of one of the main NPCs. What their name will become, I don’t know yet, but I guess I’ll figure that out.
For the Halloween Jam, instead of waiting for me to get off my butt and do research, I’m just gonna start writing stuff and fill in the gaps later. Life in general is still messy but this at least is going alright!
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I have way much more books than shelf space, so I’ve just dumped the ones I’m not expecting to read in next five years in cardboard boxes. 
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Progress report:
I’m now making the fifth and final chapter of Lily Adventuresses! Episode 1. If all goes well, I’ll finish the entire game by the end of this month, as I already have an ending in mind.
Episode 2 will be dependent on what the themes will be for Ludum Dare 56 and/or GameJamPlus 2024-25, as I’ll participate either in one or both, depending on the circumstances.
Of course, I gotta watch out for my own health first, so I’ll take a temporary break from game dev once I release Episode 1 into the wild.
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Still planning to make any more games in choicescript?
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When I’m in the mood.
I already have plans for a Heart’s Choice work (in fact, this is what I signed up at CoG for), but I must be done with my current game dev plans first. So, please give it a few years.
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I want to say anyone that feels that they and their writing suck they are not alone in the feeling. But Still, I will write at least 100 words now to proof myself I can work towards my goal.
We all can work together toward our goals. I love you all. Sorry, for the emotional moment. I am a softie
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I realised that I’ve added about 34K-35K words to Honor Bound during beta testing. I’m pleased with the progress - I think it won’t be too long until it goes to copyedit. It is a little intimidating seeing the occasional continuity error still, but overall there have been much fewer and less bizarre bugs than on my other games.
Because there isn’t as much complicated/large-scale feedback coming in, I have a bit more spare time, of which I’m spending a bit thinking about potential future projects, a bit writing a mini bonus Honor Bound game, and a bit doing leisure stuff. Today I went for a 35 mile bike ride, saw loads of squirrels, and had a very nice time (even if I had a very minor fall… I was fine but that wasn’t pleasant!)
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Way to go! Chapter 6 of Sancta Sanctorum is finished! Time to celebrate! 
@HarrisPS so happy to hear you are ok. Watch out, those squirrels are treacherous 
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Does HG ever publish “anthologies”? Like if there were a few games, each less than 30K but totaling 30K (or over), would they put that out?
(I do not have games to publish; I was just wondering about it today.)
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