Writer’s Diary #4
June 12th, 2022
Hurray to the 4th official Writer’s Diary for my upcoming political fiction game, The People’s House! Feel free to look at the first post here to learn more about my story and play the demo.
First of all, I wanted to stress how great of a week this has been for writing. In this past week, the word count has skyrocketed and I’m finally really able to get into writing Chapter 2 and fleshing out my ideas for the story as you try to fight your legislation through both chambers. I am also happy to have brought on two people that will be helping me out with beta testing so that when the time does come to update the demo, there will ideally be no game-breaking bugs.
The Updates
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As always, huge bug fixes to the story. I’ve fixed even more typos and coding bugs. I’m really thankful for my bug testers who were given the updated version of this demo a few days ago and have already helped me out tremendously.
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The first Cabinet meeting and Congressional Leadership meeting have been written! All nine different legislation focuses have their own unique dialogue, versions of the bill, and all will impact your relationship with your Vice President, your party, and the opposition party depending on what you go with
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With that update, I’ve also decided to swap out the centrist focus of balancing the budget, and instead am replacing it with education. Since I’m adding in a budgeting system for this or the next chapter, there really would be no point in having legislation to change the budget twice.
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I’ve also gone back in and added a few more scenes into earlier chapters. Some smaller ones like picking out “the button” and expanded the scene where your spouse talks about taking on a cause they’re passionate about after a suggestion.
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I’ve also completely rewritten the scene at the end of your first day and I’m pretty proud of it. People mentioned that they really liked moments in my writing where the MC takes a step back and acknowledges the insane reality of managing a nation of 300 million (probably closer to around 450-500 million by the time the story takes place). If you’re a fan of that concept like I am, I really think you’ll enjoy this new scene when you get to experience it.
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The scene and coding for whether or not your first bill passes is written! You’ll have the opportunity to spend your own money to lobby Congress, and whether or not the bill passes depends on your party, the party of your Vice President, and if you can get it through committee.
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A scandalous affair is in the works! A certain staffer from the White House Office of Communications might catch your eye
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Finally, a new character from Congress is introduced to the story. As usual, I won’t say too much and spoil it for you.
Updated Word Count : 60,000 words (!!!)
Progress Update: 15% → 17%
This week, by far, is the biggest one for progress regarding actually getting things written. In just a little over 7 days, the length of the story has almost doubled from 33,000 words last week to about 60,000 as of this posting. Bringing on two bug testers has dramatically helped with that progress as I no longer need to spend hours each day bug testing – I can just get right into actually writing the story.
Other Links
First Post
Writer’s Diary #1
Writer’s Diary #2
Writer’s Diary #3