Tell Me If There's A Way Home (WIP: UPDATE 1.22.22)

haha hey thanks for wanting to check this out ! : )

i’m really, really aiming to be as inclusive as possible with this story, so it was really important for me to have features in this story that everyone can relate to and find themselves with. Thank you so much for having an interest in this little ol’ thing of mine! <3

1 Like

this whole story makes me sad! but ultimately that’s what the story is about, finding yourself, trying to find your way back home - wherever, or whoever, that is.

thank you so much for your interest, friend! <333

1 Like

hey!! thank you so much for your comment! you are so incredibly kind and sweet! <33 especially for even bothering to check this out and providing feedback!

ahh I love hearing that people are having a good time with the purgatory-stuck-in-a-terrible-nightmare vibe I’m trying to go for!! I’m buzzing about it!! and that’s exactly what I was trying to do, create a juxtaposition of the harder, grosser stuff with softer and more agonizing aspects of this story.

thank you so much for reading!! <33 i hope you have a good rest of your day!

1 Like

This whole story has a very ADHD gothic vibe, if that makes sense. The Traveler doesn’t seem like they have a concept of time at all (mood) and their memory is spotty as all hell in the “I can only remember this extremely specific thing, and it’s not important at all” sense. Memory spottiness comes with my inattentive adhd and it’s nice to have something to relate to.

4 Likes

Oh my god, that never occurred to me but it makes perfect sense!

1 Like

thank you for picking that one up! I can absolutely relate to the feeling of like “god I GOTTA do something but I can’t remember what it was or what I’M doing but I do remember the color shirt I was wearing the day I found out that I needed to do this.” I’m hoping that continues on to work well with the overall feeling of “what the fuck is going on and where the hell am I and who are these people”

1 Like

The biggest mood so far is The Traveler’s complete lack of sense of direction. Not having a sense of direction goes hand in hand with time blindness, which is a very common ADHD thing. I know one (1) direction and it’s north.

3 Likes

that’s so funny you said that because I don’t think lack of direction was something I was consciously trying to implement, but in real life, I’m shit at directions so it’s interesting that it worked it’s way into the story. It’s laughably bad. but time-blindness is for sure a big part of the story, alongside time loops ruining people’s lives and everything is Terrible.

thank you so much for your feedback <3, it’s really making my day : )

2 Likes

No problem, the protagonist of this game makes me feel seen & we don’t get ADHD rep often

2 Likes

just some small updates for chapter 1 part 1…

  • added some title art - dashingdon cut it off so I’ll be posting it on my tumblr here and in the intro post above if you guys are wanting to check that out
  • I also created an asexual choice for those who were looking for that
  • I fixed the choices for the sexuality reveal as well and took out the bashfulness of the phrasing.

I’m hoping that the next part of this story will be out shortly! thanks for sticking around to see <3 i really appreciate all of you!!

10 Likes

The premise is interesting, and the writing is atmospheric.

1 Like

The only thing I can rn is that I think cog won’t publish a story that doesn’t allow choice within 10 next page buttons. Idk I didn’t count yours for few but there seems to be a lot so something to consider you.

1 Like

I hope you consider adding a save system.

1 Like

hey! thank you so much for the suggestion!!

unfortunately, I’m still super new to coding so I’m not really sure how to code that into the game… but it has been on my to-do list for a while now. thank you again!

1 Like

hey thanks for checking this story out!!

i didn’t know that!!! there’s a few reasons i decided to not have a choice implemented until the first choices in the prologue, but I will see I can move those choices up sooner to fit into the first 10 pages in the event I do want to send this over to cog. Thank you so much for letting me know about this <333

well, thank you so much for reading this! i hope you have a good day<333

Hey there,

Just to let you know regarding the save slots, all you gotta do is export your files with an extra line of code in your startup, after the variables and achievements. It’s “sm_init gametitle | slots”, which could be something like “sm_init tellmeiftheresawayhome | 5” in this case, or whatever else and however many save slots you wish – though too many can get a little buggy so beware of that. Spaces don’t work which is why it’s a single word there. Once you upload your files, all you gotta do is make sure you check the sm plugin checkbox in the dashingdon settings and you should be good to go!

Concerning COG regulations – while there are some peculiarities to publishing, the more format based ones only concern those under their Choice label, which isn’t available to first time publishers. Under the Hosted label, I don’t think having multiple pages with no choices would be an issue. They have all the stipulations laid out here; Write a Hosted Game - Choice of Games LLC To be fair I don’t think multiple pages with no choice would be an issue under the Choice label either.

3 Likes

hey!!

oh my gosh thank you so much I didn’t know that it would be that easy of a fix. and here I was reading all these forum topics trying to figure it out, lol!!

and thank you for taking the time to double-check that one… not having any choices available until it was right to introduce the glitch in reality was really important to me from a creative standpoint so I was about to be really bummed so that’s a huge relief but I will pour over the article and read those guidelines, too <333

4 Likes

It no problem (tbh it been a while since I looked at the requirements myself so it may have changed don’t quote me on that). Asking a staff member directly will just give you the answer you need.

1 Like

Way too confusing and lacking variety for me as now. I think I’ll check it and write more in a few updates.

Good luck with your project, though, and congrats on publishing the demo. You have a good writing style, it is interesting what will you do with your story.

1 Like