I did find one technical punctuation mistake. You can find it while playing the protectorate route as a Decker. I chose to call the (drone?) Sparky and when it is referenced an exclamation point proceeds the name in text. I think it’s only on this screen. So only when referenced by Donovan when you visit “The Drop Dead.”
Speaking of which, Sparky is absolutely adorable and although I haven’t played Shadowrun I defiantly think I should now!
Neon Dreams is wonderfully written, captivating, and fun to play! And I hope this screenshot helps with revisions.
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Thanks for the kind words! I’m planning for the Messenger route to be the more decker-oriented as it’s the tech-heavy starting background, so expect some more drone interactions. Issue’s been logged and I should get around to uploading the first set of batch fixes by this weekend.
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Oh boy it’s been 2 months. I’m not dead, but I’m definitely hoping for some sweet release from the work I’ve been having to do. I haven’t been forgotten, have I?
Next update should come sometime in February, but I’m dropping a quick comment now to avoid the thread from being axed. Turns out exams, dissertations and a master’s application really slow you down. Content-wise I’ll be moving on with one of the paths and starting on a new starting path, so keep a passing interest I suppose.
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I enjoyed this a lot. I must have missed it when you first posted it, because I didn’t see it until today, and the description really caught my interest, because I’m a big Shadowrun fan and current Shadowrun tabletop GM! I liked the world a lot: it’s recognizably Shadowrun, but different enough to feel like your own. The Vertical is a great original setting. I was a little surprised by the quality of food available: in Shadowrun, only super-rich corporate types get real food, everybody else eats crap made out of soy or krill!
I played a female MC, and there seems to be an issue with the feminine possessive pronoun. Quite often, it displayed as “hers” rather than “her” (e.g. “I’ll stop when hers reaction gets less cute”, when talking to your boss). Also, early on, I found a few moments where the prose slips into past rather than present tense, so you need to watch for consistency on that. Otherwise, a really promising start!
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First off, note to self: never mention a date window if you didn’t intend to stick with it in the first place.
Right, with that out of the way, I’m finally back with a relatively small update. I still don’t have permissions to change my initial post, so the changelog will be down here for now until that changes eventually. Now that I’ve gotten my motivation to exist again I should be able to provide more frequent updates. Well, hopefully more frequent than a tiny drop every four months.
Update 2: Of Science and Steel
New Starting background: The Messengers, envoys of technology and knowledge, explore North Hub and discover life under the cable canopy.
3 Activities:
- Watch fights or duke it out yourself in the Drone Dome. (Under Construction)
- Hit up the Jackpoint for some food, or waste your time browsing the subnet. (Under Construction)
- The market’s always open, grab some gear that might come in handy. (Complete-ish)
Currently this update is just over half the length of the Protectorate opening act, sitting at around 16000 words and (slowly) climbing. Two of the activities are still mostly incomplete and not up to standard, but I need to put something up to make sure I’m still committing to seeing this through. There’s still some major holes in the code with the unfinished activities so I’d recommend to save often and watch out for bugs/continuity skips so I can get them crushed pronto. In the event should anything shatter the fabric of reality and delete your saves however, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help.
Moving Forward:
Having planned to write 4 completely different versions of the opening act really started to cripple my motivation mostly because since it felt like I wasn’t progressing the plot. It’s even worse since I planned for this first act to a slow burn in the first half to set the scene before things get rolling. As a result of all this, the next update after I finish with this Messenger opening act will be to advance the plot with the Messenger and Protectorate routes, up until about the end of the first act. Act two is relatively more linear so I won’t feel like I’m idling in the same spot story-wise for months on end.
On top of that, I still haven’t decided whether or not this should be a more accessible work, or one that might be better suited to a mature audience, as there are a few themes I would like to explore but worry might be a bit too much for some. The remaining two backgrounds are very well suited to exploring these themes and living out a proper dark “villain” style power fantasy, but for the moment I’ll won’t be starting work on them. At points like this user feedback would be greatly appreciated to help me weigh my options.
My current life schedule is in shambles and hopefully this gives me some structure to work around. Thanks for sticking around, and I’ll endeavor to give another update sooner than later.
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