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Don’t worry about that mate,life comes first, please don’t worry abt us!

If it isn’t to much of a bother I am always up for hearing abt the Kidia Heir,they seem so sweet when we met them so I find myself wishing to know more about them

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Our mc’s younger bro, particularly in the case where the mc is also male.

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I shoulda known you hellions would zero in on the characters most difficult for me to work with.

Can’t explain why, spoiler reasons.

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Today was a writing day, so I’ve made progress on the game, and also got around to final proof-reading for my first public piece of Turncoat-verse prose. So here it is:

Sweet Decay

Link: Sweet Decay - lea_hazel - Original Work [Archive of Our Own]

Excerpt:

He turned his back on the gaping gallery and the ruckus below and, sweeping aside the train of his coat, made ready to storm out into the corridor, as though charging a fortified stronghold. But before he could enact his melodrama, he paused and sighed and turned around again, offering his arm to his spouse. Consort Harim took the King’s arm, balancing their gloved hand on it lightly, as though his outburst had been nothing unusual at all.

The link leads to my AO3 account. Yes, I also write fanfic. If you end up following the author link, you can find it all there. I do want to add a CONTENT NOTE because some of what’s posted is sensitive material, so proceed at your own best judgment. Everything should be appropriately rated or labeled, if you wish to avoid explicit material.

If you want to see exclusively my original works, you can try this link here.

If and when I end up posting more Turncoat stories, they’ll get their own series, so that those of you with your own AO3 accounts can subscribe to the series and get notified of every update (without subscribing to my general account).

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It’s NaNoWriMo! I’m a NaNo rebel this year, so I’m using it as an impetus to progress several writing projects, including TC. Today I had a write-in and put in a healthy 1,500 words or so. It’s a scene to do with Crow, about midway through chapter 2. Can’t tell you anymore, big spoilers.

Below: live footage of Crow trying to foil your plans.

Insidious plotting

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I took it on my way home from the library. Grey crows are everywhere, where I live.

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Can’t wait to see what he’ll be getting up to. Also, eee beautiful bird!

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charge that crow with a conspiracy to murder

you guys, get the joke

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image

Word Count

Including command lines: 63409
Excluding command lines: 51429

Also of note: chapter 2 is currently 60% of the whole word count. I expect (and hope) this will change once I get deeper into chapter 3.

So, safe to say that NaNoWriMo achieved its intended goal.

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I hope to put up version 0.4 this week, and after that I have another poll planned. I also saw that some WIPs have Tumblr accounts where people can send in asks and stuff. Would you all be interested in something like that?

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YESSSSS
To both the update announcement and the tumblr thing.

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I’d read it, but I don’t really do social media. It’s fine as long as you also consider answering some forum thread “asks”.

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YES, it’s always fun to interact with authors and see them answer your asks

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Well, it hasn’t seen much use, recently, but if you have questions or comments, especially ones you might not want to post here at the forums, you can direct them to my game dev Tumblr: http://zincalloygames.tumblr.com

Yes, I am (in theory) a one-enby game dev studio called Zinc Alloy Games.

I will post an updated Q&A policy when I get home from work.

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I went and updated the first post, as a bonus. I’m not sure when exactly I will get around to updating the demo itself, but hopefully soon.

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I really ought to have asked my question here so we could’ve had a back-and-forth about it. I confess, I was the one who asked the question on your Tumblr about historical counterparts from our world and I’m chuffed about your response. This will be a little messy so bear with me.

Between the naming conventions and descriptions, playing through the demo definitely reminded me of Moorish architecture and the synthesis between European styles and what we might consider more exotic, along the lines of Ottoman, Persian, Mesopotamian et al. I reckon the Dolmabahçe Palace and Livadia Palace, though a bit modern, also demonstrate that strange, eclectic mix of styles very well. I know you didn’t take to Game of Thrones but they did a similar thing when choosing locations to depict the Water Gardens in Dorne, and a quick Google gives me the Alcázar of Seville.

I have to admit, my brain skimmed over the operative ‘disciples’ part when reading about religion in Madara and so I jumped immediately to, as you mentioned, pantheism. I’d no idea that cherubs had four faces. Ariel made me think of lamassu and indeed symbolism in the Ancient World. On cherubs and imagery, It’s pretty interesting, although maybe not unsurprising given the proximity, how it’s all quite loosely related. Babylon, the Ishtar gate, bulls, oxen. I don’t know if you’ve seen it but Oliver Stone’s Alexander from 2004 had great set design for Babylon and Darius’ palace. You can tell I don’t know much about this, that I’m spouting words. But mentioning Alexander actually segues nicely into my last point about Orientalism and more specifically fashion…

With Consort Harim, it comes across as very sumptuous. I liked the scene with Ganent too! No idea if this will help you or whether you have time but if you scroll down a little, there’s a nice section about Orientalism in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars: Top 5 Costume Inaccuracies – and Accuracies – in War & Peace –
And then at the top, under Articles by Era, you’ll obviously find links to movies/shows. Re: historicity, who knows? More importantly, it has images. :drooling_face:

God, I love history but I suppose the point of this entire response was to say I think you’ve done a great job at depicting the world in TC and I really, really like it. So much so, it’s my new obsession in Sims sans political intrigue and murder. :grimacing:

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This was a lot of fun to read. Here’s a few thoughts I had:

First, although it’s been said already, I want to get the one negative out of the way – there are far too few choices. It’s the one major thing that stuck out at me.

So long as your father remains king, your star remains in the ascendant.
This line was when I knew I was going to enjoy your writing style. It fits perfectly for this sort of courtly drama.

I really liked how your character’s appearance is based on your parents’ and not something you can just pick and choose without any thought of what they look like.

Unless I missed a few lines, I thought it was a bit strange how in the prologue the MC’s father is “king” or “father”, but suddenly in chapter one the MC considers them “papa”. Having said that, I really liked the relationship between the MC and the king despite the king not actually being present.

Finally, I really enjoyed the MC’s ambition and the interactions with Sheyer.

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This is also something I really like! It is fairly naturally “building up” the King who is as close to a main villain as this story seems to have. He definitely feels like a character even though he has not spoken a single word of dialogue!

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Guys, I’m sorry, I really wanted to upload a new version tonight, but work has been overwhelming lately and it’s gonna have to wait for the weekend.

But if you’re wondering what you can look forward to…

  • Lux has a spoilery special scene.
  • Meet some old friends.
  • Some light correspondence.
  • Optional conversations with Sheyer and the Consort.
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@Hazel It seems that when we are choosing our personality traits that “complacent” is used by the MC’s father to mean “idealistic”, but I would suggest using “naive” instead.

I would like a Choice of response when taking Morun to the tailor and Morun asks about the price. Currently the conversation goes as follows:

“How much does all this cost?” asks Morun dubiously.

You roll your eyes and reply, “You must stop asking that question.”

Crow mutters something under his breath, but you both ignore him.

“No one with money to spend,” you explain patiently, looking at Morun but addressing yourself to them both, “ever asks how much anything costs. That is for accountants and their ilk to worry about. Keep your hands clean of it.”

I would like the Choice for the MC instead to say “You must stop asking that question IN PUBLIC.” A good ruler should always know how much things cost but should also give the impression that the treasury is full and that the Crown’s ability to pay its debts should never be in doubt. The MC’s explanation might need to be changed as well to match that addition.

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Friendos, I have big plans for a writing weekend. The plan for today goes like this:

  1. Brace for impact.
  2. In about an hour, I’m going to upload version 0.4 of the demo.
  3. Then I will ghost the forums for roughly 24 hours.
  4. Tomorrow morning I’ll be back to answer questions.
    4a. @ me directly on this thread only if you encounter a game-breaking bug that prevents you from playing version 0.4 to the end.
  5. I am looking for one (1) volunteer to DM me for a small experiment.
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