This is really excellent. ‘Garrison officer during the Napoleonic Wars’ is something I don’t think I’ve read before, and it’s already such a wonderful mix of civilian and military, serious and trivial. Definitely keeping an eye on this one.
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It’s really good to see you are still working on this. It was the standout game of the competition for me and I thought you should have won.
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What a fine thing to say! The game sort of won’t let me abandon it, even though I have to sneak writing time in around the edges of Real World work.
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As y’all may have seen, the CoGDemos site URLs have changed. The URL for Your One Moment is now https://cogdemos.ink/play/andrew-wetmore/your-one-moment/mygame
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I am pushing along with a little side adventure. Actually, four of them: the MC gets to suggest what the prince and his retinue will do for amusement. Drinking and horse-racing are all set, but I have to complete the boat race across the harbor and the gambling-den options before I can make the whole sequence available. I already have cribbage in the game; now I am adding faro, stook (a variant of 21), and the dice game bunco. Folks had such complex fun in the early 1800s…
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This is the WIP that finally motivated me to make an account and comment. What a thoroughly delightful read! Reminds me of Thackeray. I mean it! Can’t wait for more.
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(blush) More is coming! In the next few scenes, the MC gets in a horse race, a boat race, romantic tangles, conflict with a Navy press gang, a dramatic performance…and all of that is long before they get to the signal tower that I thought, when I started, would be the site of most of the action.
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Will the game go as far as the British-English war of 1812?
The War of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain? This game is set in 1800 or 1801, and will not get as far as that war. However, if the MC survives, there could well be a sequel in which they, now higher in rank than a mere lieutenant, are ready for the challenges of live-fire battles at sea and spying and sabotage on land. John Boileau’s book Half-Hearted Enemies is a great review of the ambiguous relationship Nova Scotians and New Englanders had during the War of 1812, as the main fighting took place elsewhere.
But now you have put the idea in my head…
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Interesting but why sabotage and spying on land? That doesn’t sounds like something a officer of a relatively high/middle rank would do.
My mind went to s & s because there were no pitched battles on land in the Maritimes in the War of 1812. Nothing to stop me from inventing a few, of course…or adding the MC to the expeditionary force that captured northeastern Maine in 1814 and renamed it “New Ireland”. See Battle of Hampden - Wikipedia
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What are the ROs in the story?
Strange for an army officer to be in a naval battle
There are several, depending in part on the orientation of the MC. They include Mrs. Bergen, who keeps a small hotel or boarding house in Halifax; Captain Poynter at the Citadel; Madame Julie de St. Laurent; the daughter of the commandant at Annapolis Royal; and several others we meet elsewhere in the province.
I would make sure it is a sufficiently-strange battle. Later in this game there is a confrontation between a French frigate and some land-based troops, so almost anything may happen.
Who would win in a fight? A French frigate or just some British lads
British lads with bright ideas, mind.
They don’t have to be in the maritime, the MC will inevitably get called to war especially if they got “their one moment” in 1800/1801 (who wouldn’t call to war a prestigious officer?)
Let’s get the MC through this first game and then see if he is engaging enough to be worth a sequel
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