The current last scene is after the king intervenes between the Spire and Surge at the end of chapter 6.
I’ll take a look this weekend and see why the game was ending earlier for you.
2 Likes
Is Myrrina asexual?
Yes.
I hit this bug:
I’ve found it sometimes happens on compiled games, though I’m afraid I can’t remember what I’ve done in the past to fix it.
1 Like
Thanks!
So far as I can tell, the festival_master achievement is in the startup where it should be – I’ll double check that I’m spelling everything properly!
2 Likes
It’s been a busy couple of months for me at work (plus stuff related to my debut short fiction collection being published at the start of November!), but I think that’s mostly done now and I am feeling eager to seriously get back to this project.
I’m about 6k into my next set of two chapters, although one of them will be going after chapter 1–after feedback from @AletheiaKnights I’m eager to try and implement, which suggested it might be nice to show more of “Gigantea before” in an episodic fashion.
I also played a few other choicescript games (The Martian Job, The Fleet, and Jazz Age) on Jason’s advice to spend a bit more time thinking about how I’m approaching soft locks and ROs. Hopefully those insights will be useful!
I’m thinking I will probably post the new chapter 2 and chapter 8 in the WIP thread when I’m done with them–chapter 8 is when things really hit the fan! That’ll bring me up to probably 230k, I’m guessing.
I’ve also moved (on Jason’s advice) the “shallows” scenes and “fleet” scenes out of the main game with plans to use them for a DLC that I hope I can finish at the same time as the main story. I will likely reserve those–and the rest of the game–for when it’s out / in beta testing. Got to keep some secrets in the bag! 
(ETA: The fact that I’m changing my chapter numbers around probably means any saved games on my site will break completely once I do make that upload.)
8 Likes
What is a soft lock?
I stole it from @jasonstevanhill so might be using it wrong, but I think it’s when players are “locked” to a particular route but then given a way to change routes again later on.
In Spire, Surge, and Sea, for instance, most playthroughs will end with you choosing to support the Surge or Spireguard factions. I’d been repeatedly re-confirming that with the player, and am going to check and make sure I’m not doing that too often when players have already decided they support one or the other.
2 Likes
If you like I can do some faction switching in future playthroughs to see how smoothly it goes.
Btw, would more playthroughs in the near future be helpful to you, or would you rather I wait until the new chapters are out?
1 Like
I am thinking it would probably be more useful to wait, but I’ll leave it up to Jason if he thinks more testing now would be a good idea–I don’t really have a good handle on that part of things!
1 Like
I’ll hold off for now, then.
1 Like
Quick update just to say that there should be an update with a new chapter in a week or so. (That makes this a meta-update, I guess.)
This will be a new chapter 2, which lets you spend a little more time in Gigantea and explore the various career options in depth before things get all explodey. Probably it will be a good idea to start a new game if you have a save file, just because you will have missed out on some extra stat boosts–but I don’t think it will break existing saves? Maybe?
In other Very Important News, I am pleased that I just used the modulo command in a multireplace. It’s the little things that keep you going, right…? 
6 Likes
What’s that?
It calculates the remainder from dividing two numbers.
I have a fake choice for flavor text that has two generally upbeat and two generally pessimistic feelings for options, and in one place instead of writing four totally different options I just had two (pessimistic and upbeat). Since variable options 2 and 4 were pessimistic feelings, while 1 and 3 were upbeat ones, I just did this:
@{((variable modulo 2) = 0) pessimistic reaction|upbeat reaction}.
Overly complex? Probably! Lol
2 Likes
Hello all!
Given some excellent feedback from @AletheiaKnights, I’ve written a new second chapter which gives players more of a chance to explore who they are and how they fit in in Gigantea before things start going pear-shaped!
With that and a few other adjustments here and there, the game is up to around 207,000 words.
Here’s a link to the demo for your convenience!
Note that if you have an existing save file, you’ll probably want to start over. The new chapter two has a few more chances to increase your stats and faction relationships, and you’ll miss out on those if you keep going with a prior character—plus this was a pretty big change that involved renaming basically all the chapter scene files, so I’d guess it will break your saves anyway.
10 Likes
Hello, all, and happy (almost) new year!
The demo (linked above) is now complete through chapter 8, bringing it to roughly 220k.
We’re getting towards the endgame now (well, sort of – I have 3 full chapters left in my outline, plus a very short one of endstates), so this chapter ends as the elbow-shaped pears are truly hitting the fan. Enjoy!
8 Likes
Why are the pears elbow-shaped?
You might want to replace the demo link in the OP, it results in a 404 error. The link in the above comment works fine however
1 Like
Whoops, thanks for the heads up. I’ve fixed that now! (And, uh, I hope nobody emails that address, which certainly does not exist. 
)
The situation is so bad in the game that it isn’t enough for things to just go pear-shaped! On second thought, I’m not sure “everything goes pear-shaped” even exists outside the UK…?
Well, it made sense in my head at the time. lol
3 Likes
I think it does, but maybe I’ve just read too many British books?
As for whether the elbow-shaped pears make sense, I must admit I didn’t think so, but I’ve been a bit fever-addled lately, so maybe that’s a good sign and it will all seem brilliantly lucid when the fog blows away from my benighted, elbow-pear-shaped brain.
(I’m also trying to decide whether entering “elbow-shaped pears” into an AI image generator would be funny or an apocalyptically bad idea.)
1 Like