Me, a fool, starting the demo blind: “Callum seems cool! I hope we can repair our relationship later and he’ll open up to me!”
Me, about 2 minutes later: "I am a fool."
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I know it literally said in the premise he’s a traitor but wow… it really hit different when he actually tore out our soul in the demo
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Hey, I actually managed to make a deadline! This is probably the only time this will ever happen.
For those of you who don’t care about my inane ramblings (i.e. all of you), you can skip all the forthcoming nonsense and just head straight back to the link in the OP, which takes you to the same destination as before, but somehow reaps greater rewards. Like magic!
For the remaining two or three of you who actually care what I have to say, here is my best attempt to out-babble Valerie:
First, some (not so) quick comments on the Callum backstory poll
The poll is now officially closed! (This also means that any new fans from this point on are now officially irrelevant in all matters Callum-related and will not be counted in the Callum census later this year. This is definitely how statistics are supposed to work.)
Despite some surprising turns in the first day of polling (more on that later), final results have been…close to what I expected. Rivalry seems to have been met with a lukewarm response, which isn’t too surprising. I do think that it’s less inherently interesting than the others, but hopefully I’ll be able to win some people over once we get to the actual flashback chapters and you see some of that rivalry play out in person.
One thing I can say surprised me—pleasantly—was how much traction the brother paths got, with the mercy variant even tying with the lovers path in the end! (Though, I sure hope you didn’t all pick that backstory because you can relate to being killed by your brother(s). RIP @LouisTheBassman.) Interesting aside: for those that missed it, the revenge path actually had a significant runaway lead in the first day (beating out the lovers paths in the process!). Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, given the subject matter) it apparently couldn’t keep the momentum up as the poll went on, and ultimately fell pretty solidly into fourth place, well behind its merciful sibling counterpart. I am now taking the results of this poll as definitive scientific proof that compassion always wins out over vengeance. This is also correct procedure when dealing with statistics, I’m pretty sure.
Interesting—but of course not surprising—to see Callum-lovers take the lead for most of the poll. I do find it intriguing how many people picked the “conflicted” option—my intuition was that people wouldn’t want to appear wishy-washy by failing to commit to one extreme or the other (especially since the option explicitly says that the attempt to remain civil with both parties doesn’t work), but apparently people liked the inherent tragedy enough that they didn’t care about that! Notably, I notice that it’s the only example for which this is the case—the ambivalent rival path is somehow even less popular than the other two, and the “walked away” brother path is considerably less popular than its more extreme counterparts.
Meanwhile, the people who actually felt bad for Charlotte are in a two-way tie for last place, because apparently compassion is only popular or relevant when you’re dealing with literal arsonists and murderers. Or, perhaps it’s because people with siblings are inherently more merciful than people with lovers? Statistics don’t lie, as they say.
In any event, perhaps the most interesting thing of all will be seeing if anybody is persuaded to jump ship a few months/years from now when certain individuals hear about the content they’ve permanently locked themselves out of by making the choices they have. 
And now, our feature presentation
The new update is out! Chapter I-2 contains 16,380 words, bringing the word count total up to ~52,000. This means I’m about 10% of the way to my projected total word count of 500,000—but I don’t feel anywhere close to 10% done with the story, so I guess that’s an indication that the whole thing will be even longer than I originally estimated. Somehow, this news is not surprising.
Fun fact that some of you are already aware of: this update was specifically released on February 12th to coincide with Valerie’s canonical in-universe birthday! I probably won’t always be able to time updates to special dates, but this one felt too perfect to pass up. Incidentally, for those who care about this sort of thing (if any such individuals exist), this makes her an Aquarius. This will actually come up in the update for some of you!
But on to the actual content. As I mentioned in a previous post, this update—in keeping with the event it is ostensibly celebrating—mainly consists of talking to and getting to know Valerie. (The “ghost attack” event has been moved to Chapter I-3, for the sake of story balance and pacing.) A lot of the dialogue is technically optional—those of you who don’t care for Valerie and/or don’t want to waste your time talking to her can skip the majority of your talk, though this of course will leave you with a fair bit less to do than other players.
That’s not to say that the Valerie conversation is the only thing in this update, of course! In fact, if you enjoy seeing Valerie squirm, you might like what happens near the end…
In other news, for those who like to keep track of this sort of thing: I decided to set the beginning of Chapter I on January 22nd, to coincide with the public debut of the WIP. Even though this update is timed to Valerie’s birthday in real life, it’s still the same day in the story, i.e. January 22nd. (Shockingly, it doesn’t take you three weeks to trek back to Valerie’s apartment.) Depending on your choices, this might be relevant to a certain discussion you can have!
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about all this for now. As a reward for reading all this blather, here’s another link to the demo, so you don’t have to make the perilous trek all the way back to the top of the topic.
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I think this is a result of the funky way the save system works where it kicks you back to the beginning of the chapter, but retains all your stat values from the previous run-through. It shouldn’t be possible in a single playthrough of Chapter I-1 to get a negative value there.
For now, I’ll implement a quick fix by resetting Valerie’s stats to the default within Chapter I-1 itself.
Edit: okay, it should work properly now. Let me know if the problem persists, though.
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I probably have forgotten to mention this, so I’ll just say it now: I very much like this WIP.
Oh, it’s Valerie’s birthday today.
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Whoops! Fixed now.
To be clear, though, you can still reach the new content, right?
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jupp
Just came across this WIP and I have been ensnared. The storytelling and handling of stats and skills all feel natural. Valerie is very alive. Especially liked the minipuzzle of the detective’s interrogation, which actually requires the reader to think.
Also kind of glad that this doesn’t have the standard appearance questionnaire, considering we’re a disembodied spirit and all. (Cough)
Can already tell this is going to be a long, long trip, considering the word count when the branching hasn’t even started yet. Oh well. 
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I took AP Stat and can confirm that this is definitely how statistics works.
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This…might actually be coming at some point, haha. I have ideas on how to justify it in the context of the story, however.
For the record, since you bring up branching—this story is going to be mostly linear. Your choices will generally cause variations of scenes to occur, and there will be opportunities to follow one path to the next plot point instead of another (like the instance in the prologue where you choose where to go with Dyren, for instance), but the overall plot will tend to follow the same general trajectory.
My goal with this approach is to affect how the player experiences events more than what they experience, which I feel is a more efficient use of my time when the game is already so loaded with content. That’s not to say that branching won’t happen, but it’ll generally be subtler than in other games where the plot wildly diverges into what basically amount to completely different stories.
That all said, there will be one major branch in Chapter VIII that will drastically change the last two and a half chapters (plus a whole bunch of ending variations that will probably be a nightmare to code). That’s all I’m going to say about that for now, though.
Thank god, can you imagine what a scandal there would be if I was actually wrong about something? Nobody would take me seriously anymore!
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Personally I approve of this. Focusing on a linear story simply allows you to tell that story better, as making a properly written story with large branches will multiply your workload for every single choice. As long as I get to react to things the way that I want to and solve problems the way that I want to I don’t mind what actually ends up happening.
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Today is Valentine’s Day, AKA the worst holiday! Since today is all about hollow, artificial romantic gestures, what better way to celebrate than to discuss romances that are literally artificial and made up? (Hint: the answer is ‘none’.)
Given that the last poll was such a rousing success[citation needed], I think the obvious course of action is to make a new one for this very purpose, since everyone knows that statistics are the most romantic form of human interaction possible. I believe @Isabella_Taylor will corroborate this fact.
Thus, the question I pose is this:
Putting aside the fact that you haven’t met most of the ROs, which one are you most interested in pursuing right now, based on what you know?
- Valerie
- Cortez
- Kira
- Merrow
- Andrei
- Farah
- Still holding out hope for Callum…
- The RO I want is the wrong orientation and nobody else interests me
- Not drawn to anyone yet; waiting for more info
- Nobody. Why does everyone care so much about stupid fake romance?
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Some guidelines to prevent skewed results (please read this)
- The Callum option is specifically for people who would drop everything to romance Callum over anybody else. As the last poll told us, a lot of people are into Callum, but pining for him doesn’t count if you still plan to ultimately choose a different character. If he’s legitimately your first choice and you have somebody else as a backup (in the
likelyevent that Callum isn’t the secret RO), however, that’s a valid reason to vote for him. - The “waiting for more info” option is primarily for people who don’t have much preference at all right now. I’m sure most of you would like to know more about the ROs before making a final decision; that’s normal and expected, but a final decision isn’t what this poll is asking for (there may or may not be a separate poll for that later). I’m just feeling out what people’s initial gut instincts are, so please only pick this option if you aren’t feeling that instinct pulling you in any particular direction yet.
- I did not include an option for the secret RO because, all jokes aside, you haven’t met or even heard of the majority of the characters I’d consider realistic potential candidates. However, if you’re interested in a non-Callum character that you think might be the secret RO, go ahead and pick the “waiting for more info” option.
- On a similar note, if you don’t plan on romancing anyone, but don’t actually have anything against “stupid fake romance”, you can still feel free to pick the “nobody” option. I think people will understand that the last bit is just me putting words in your mouth, like always.
- Obviously, Valerie (and to a lesser extent, Farah) is in a slightly different class of character because she’s actually gotten some screentime and characterization. Try not to let this sway your vote too much, if possible.
Side note: you have no idea how hard it was for me to not add a joke option like Magus Legless 
, which would be really funny[citation needed] but would almost certainly skew the results even if I told people not to vote for it, and I’ll be damned if I let that sort of thing ruin my sterling reputation. The day I willingly allow the results of an Official PollTM to be tainted in such a way is the day you’ll know that I’ve finally been killed and impersonated.
The real punchline, of course, is that Magus Legless is actually the secret RO. But we’ll save that reveal for next Valentine’s Day!
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I impulse hit Callum completely forgetting that it submits automatically, my brain betrays me once again!! 
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This is a fact. If you disagree, you’re W R O N G
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I really love your demo dude, so far its amazing, its well written and honestly its just great, writers like you are the very reason I keep reading these.
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Hey, genuine question(s) for y’all, since Callum seems to be leading the non-agnostic members of the audience by a pretty decent margin. This has been discussed in bits and pieces in the past, but I’d like to get a deeper sense of how people are feeling:
What is it exactly that draws you (yes, you, specifically) to Callum? Is it the hope that he can be changed or redeemed? Is it because you think he was controlled somehow (e.g. by the talisman), and he’s really a better person deep down inside? And how much would your opinion change if it turned out that that wasn’t the case?
Or do you not even care about that? Do you like that he’s kind of evil, and if so, where do you draw the line (if anywhere)? Given what he does in the prologue, is there anything he could do to lose your affection?
I legitimately ask this out of curiosity, because to be 100% honest, I don’t fully understand the appeal, myself. To say that the man is not my type would be putting it mildly. (This isn’t an indication that he’s not the secret RO, for the record, because, of course, he is. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t ever go for him, were I to play my own game.)
Incidentally, I know I joke around a lot, but in all sincerity, I hope none of you mind that I like to rib you about this issue in particular. I really am appreciative of the fact that people feel this passionate about a character I wrote; I just find it amusing and a little strange how much stronger everyone else seems to feel about it than even I do.
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Auh man this is so ooooooooooooh good. I really enjoyed this. Please keep up the good work 