Turncoat Chronicle (political fantasy) - updated 24-APR-23

Just a few posts up, I wrote explicit instructions on how to apply for beta tester.

1 Like

To reiterate: beta invitations have gone out. If you haven’t gotten one, submitting the request form a second time won’t change that. I also can’t and won’t consider applications that don’t include your forum username at the top.

The form is now closed for submissions. If I reopen, I will announce it here.

4 Likes

A fun thing I have discovered in the course of editing out some typos and variable errors: multireplace does not collapse spaces, so in order to get the nice, neat text that I want, I have to stomp out my habit of liberally sprinkling spaces after important keywords. And remind myself that I’m not editing files in Windows Notepad anymore, thank heavens.

Game dev: you learn something new every day.

5 Likes

If it feels more natural for you, could you just move punctuation into the mutireplace phrase? (IIRC it was mostly spaces between verbs and punctuation?)

1 Like

The changes weren’t much of a big deal to handle. I smoothed out all three chapters in about forty minutes (with some other bug fixes and assorted changes). I was just taken aback. For some reason, I expected the script to collapse the whitespace at the end of the expression, which it doesn’t do. Not sure why.

4 Likes

Since I just added it to the WIP social media masterlist, I’ll link my Twitter handle here, too. It’s my general writerly Twitter that’s tied to my (dormant) blog, so it’s not specific to TC or CSGs in general. I do follow and RT a lot of writers, though, and I sometimes post writing updates or short snippets, so it might be of interest to some of you. I also have a general fannish Tumblr, but I’m not linking that.

4 Likes

We had some fun with memes in the unofficial Discord…

Image transcript

Alternative responses to “I love you”:

  • thanks” - Lux, Belinon Suthis
  • laughs nervously - Kidia heir
  • I’m sorry” - Crow
  • who doesn’t?” - Consort Harim, MC (probably)
  • a horrible decision, really” - King Orust
  • finger guns - Kidia heir
  • i know” (said ominously) - Sheyer
  • why” - Crow
  • if only there was someone out there who loved you” - King Orust (vindictively), Sheyer (matter-of-factly)

Image transcript
  • would never stab anyone - Mother Cyrala, maybe? Consort Harim (has a husband to do their stabbing for them)
  • would stab someone in retaliation - Lux
  • yells “I won’t hesitate, bitch” first - Kidia heir, MC (possibly), Belinon (but then he hesitates), Kady Pradun (probably)
  • would stab without warning - Sheyer, Crow (probably)
  • would stab as a warning - King Orust
7 Likes

Audience participation time!

Due to the project’s limited scope, there are a lot of minor NPCs and background figures that I don’t get the opportunity to develop and showcase in the pure game text. I’m curious to know if y’all make note of these characters, and whether they’re of any interest to you.

Which, if any, of the following characters are you interested in?

  • Iral and Valini Kidia, the deceased monarchs of Koth.
  • Belinon Suthis, the MC’s younger brother.
  • Kady Pradun, the MC’s cousin and childhood friend.
  • Members of the palace staff, like the captain of the guard or the chaplainess.
  • Royalty of neighboring countries, like Tigonne.
  • Figures from Koth’s history.
  • None of these interest me much.

0 voters

Thank you for participating!

4 Likes

Damn, this WIP is awesome. Can’t wait to get toe to toe with dear old dad.

Speaking of family - what kind of relationship do the MC and their brother have at the beginning of the story? Will it be possible to involve our him into our plot or …?

3 Likes

Sooo… Am i late to join the beta testing group?

That’s not in the plans. There is some communication with Belinon and he may appear briefly in the epilogue, but he’s not a part of the conspiracy. And I can tell you it’s by no means guaranteed that he would have supported his elder sibling over his father.

I will, however, include some references to their past relationship. Belinon is a good six years younger than the MC and often occupied the role of “annoying kid brother”. Suffice to say, a lot has changed since he was twelve.

3 Likes

I come bearing news, but sadly not of a game update.

I will be losing my job quite soon. On the upside, that does mean I’ll have more time for writing and be able to progress more quickly with the game. On the downside, I still need to make a living somehow. I’d been waffling on the subject of Patreon for some time, since I had a dormant account that’s been offline since my last attempt to be a full-time writer, circa 2015. More recently, though, Patreon announced a change in their account model and fees, and also that legacy accounts will be spared the additional fees. That put some urgency in the matter.

That means that technically, I’m launching my new Patreon… right now.

Because of my day job and other real life matters, I’ve not yet had time to fully hammer out the pledge levels and rewards. I haven’t written a new introduction post. I haven’t created an appropriate banner, because the assets for my Turncoat Chronicle -themed graphics are saved on another computer. And I haven’t cleaned up the detritus of my previous patron-only posts. So, the Patreon is launched, but not fully active.

Once these basic tasks are accomplished, I will link my Patreon here, and add the link to the top post, as well as my Twitter and Tumblr accounts. I hope that some of my readers will see fit to support me and I already have some material prepared for patron rewards. Some of these rewards will be Turncoat-related, and others will be to do with my next CSG project, which is still in planning phases. Rest assured, though, that I’m not planning on relying on Patreon as a sole source of income. If you can’t afford to support me monetarily, your support as a reader and player was and remains valuable.

19 Likes

Hey 40 dollars per person should suffice if one thousand people help.

Thanks for that, I needed a laugh.

Patreon is live!

I have a scheduled post about patron-only content, backer tiers and so on. I will be watching closely over the next three weeks or so as I try to find a balance that lets me post exclusive content every month, without taking away too much focus from the game itself.

Comment on backer tiers and rewards either here or on Patreon.

9 Likes

I’m pleased to report that I am making progress on writing the game, and that the beta testers have given me some excellent feedback. Current word counts are not very impressive, because the changes I implemented needed me to remove code, not just add it.

I have also spruced up my Patreon a little. Of interest to readers & players is the patron-only Q&A post, where you can ask almost any question your heart desires, about the game, the world or my writing process.

While I’m working on chapter three of TC, I’m also beginning to brainstorm my next ChoiceScript game. Patreon is also the place to go if you want to be the first to hear about these upcoming projects, or if you’re interested in my other writing.

6 Likes

really looking forward to the rest of the game, nothing helpful to contribute but here are some sketches:
princess mc, teven, consort harim, king

7 Likes

I enjoyed this alot

1 Like

I always love seeing fanart (and can still hardly believe people would draw fanart of my little game), so this really made my day.

3 Likes

Poll time!

What’s your main goal for your MC?

  • Fall in love.
  • Get married.
  • Defend the dynasty.
  • Become Monarch.

0 voters

Here ‘main goal’ is defined as the goal that you would sacrifice achieving other goals for.

4 Likes