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When will we meet ROs?

At some point during Chapter 2.

Basically:

Prologue — the events in the village.

Chapter 1 — leaving the village and going into a certain other place.

Chapter 2 — arriving at said place.

Each type of the MC will meet ROs in their own order, some later, some earlier. But, as I've planned it currently, by the end of Chapter 2, the player will have met all of the four ROs.

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Heyo!!!! Can I just say I love that

Our little peacekeepers came looking for a damsel in distress only to find… well, something (in my cause v stoic and unnerving and just a little too willing to slice Philip’s throat, sorry Brenna), but are still willing to be like: MC is still a person who like went through some shit, we should be gentle.

Only for MC to (possibly? I haven’t tried any other choices so no clue if you can be a wet meow meow) literally have feral murderer energy??

Like poor Theo thought mc was going to defuse this

A Nat 20 for intimidation

Throwing the gauntlet.

Our weary band is probably like: oh shit, why did Theo let the amnesiac robot with hallucinations (and apparently a lot of rage) take over?

x10 regret for not just looking for a cave

Haha, yeah, the second Theo and the group encounter this particular kind of MC, it will be hard for them to find at least a moment of peace. However, in the next updates, it will be possible for the MC to make things go even more downhill for the group than it already is, and I'm not even referring to the whole village situation.

As for other choices, the closest MC can be to 'wet meow meow' is if you choose for them to regret Burchard's/Philip's death and then choose neutral/polite options throughout the whole game... But, even with that, the MC is still very competent, no doubt about that... I just don't dig the whole 'damsel in distress' archetype, not for the MC, at least.

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Hi! Are there stats check in your game? If yes, is it possibile to add cheats in your game?

Hello, No, there are no stat checks in the game at the moment. To add to that, there are no opportunities to increase any stat, at all. Everything is calculated solely from how you've chosen to interact with characters and what emotions you've chosen for your character.

When I'll get to the point where stats will play a role, I'll make sure to remember about your request.

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great update i loved explaining what I did to those two lol, mc personality not taking anything serious with a grin the whole time. keep up the great work

Thanks! The whole emotion system I came up with is something I want to develop further in order for each MC to feel unique, fleshed out, and dynamic.

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AMBUSH UPDAAATTEEE!!!

This calls for a praise dance

Whoop whoop!!

Yeah, thought it'd be better to just focus on finally finishing writing the update than to post another progress update.

Although, here's a somewhat funny screenshot:

It took exactly one year to release the new content... Believe it or not, I didn't plan for it to be this way and only discovered that after I wanted to update the 'Update Logs' section.

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The new update is now public.

Hello again, people!

That's it. This is the day.

The new update is now public.

(You're required to start a new playthrough if you don't want any game-breaking bugs, by the way.)

What's done:

All three routes are finished.

All the POVs are rewritten to be in the third person (they actually feel way better than I thought they would be).

Some parts of the first fight scene are fixed and clarified.

Some pronoun bugs are fixed.

What's planned:

…

Writing another update, obviously.

Word count:

Including command lines: 271245 Excluding command lines: 260837

But, I would ask you to temper your expectations in terms of the new content's single playthrough length. I'm going to paraphrase this from my previous post: the actual amount of content that was added with this new update is somewhere between 15 to 25 pages (approximately).

Even though the word count increased from 53k to 260k, the only event to happen in this update is one conversation/confrontation (ridiculous, I know). This is primarily due to the overwhelming amount of variable text that changes depending on your earlier choices and due to the number of routes you can take. If you're interested in the reasons for me to decide to do that, check out my previous post.

So, basically, each reader will experience the new content very differently but may not get as much satisfaction due to its shortness. If that is the case, I can only suggest you make another playthrough with different choices, but, if that's not your cup of tea, I would totally understand. But, overall, the game is very… how do I put it..? Multiple-playthroughs-friendly, I'd say.

Safe to say, the update will be incredibly polarizing, no doubt, but I'm always open to feedback.

And, even though I haven't found any bugs or inconsistencies, I am obviously aware that someone else may find them, so, if you are that someone, please report the bugs to me.

I think that's all regarding the update itself, so go ahead and play it. Hope you will like it!

PLAY THE UPDATE

Now, onto other interesting things…

From this point onward, I'm starting to take writing seriously, and that's why I've finally decided to open my Patreon page.

I've made a free introductory post there that explains what I'll be offering, but, right off the bat, I want to tell you that I can't offer you things that other creators are usually offering: Q&As and What-if scenarios. If we're talking about Q&As, I don't want to do them because I consider mystery to be a big part of my work, so I don't really want to wiggle around every question that people will ask me because it won't be fair to them and won't feel good to me. As for What-if scenarios, I don't want to write out some hypothetical scenarios when I can spend that time to progress the plot forward in the actual story. And, trust me, if I'm going to spread my attention too thin, I'm never going to finish this project… And I don't think you and I want that.

What I will provide, however, are progress updates, sneak peeks, early access, and monthly side stories, which the community will be able to choose by voting.

So, I'd advise you to read through the new update first, decide whether you're willing to put up with my approach to the content, and then consider subscribing if what I offer on Patreon is enough for you. If, after all that, you decide to become a member, I'll be very grateful to you. If not, I will still appreciate you being interested in my work and taking the time to read through it.

Thanks for tuning in, and have a pleasant day or a peaceful night!

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Good news.

Hello, everyone! I come bearing incredibly good news…

I've finally finished writing the update.

Not only that, but I've also already rewritten POVs and adjusted clunky scenes, meaning that the update is ready to be released.

I would've probably released it without warning you all, so it would've been a surprise, but I just want to give you some heads-up.

Even though the whole project is now over 260k words, the actual amount of content that was added in terms of singular playthrough is somewhere around 15 - 25 full pages (very approximately since I've already lost count because of all that branching and re-reading the same content over and over again), depending on the route and some other variables. As you can guess, this is due to the overwhelming amount of branching, the different personalities of the MC, the changes between said personalities, and stuff like that. To add to that, a big cause for such a large word count increase is the number of times I had to copy and paste some parts of the scene to make slight changes. So, in many places, the content is not entirely new, but rather slightly altered because, at that moment, I couldn't find an optimized approach to make some scenes changeable depending on your choices without copy-pasting them.

So, this whole situation is not very typical, so to speak, because in some other cases, this amount of words would've sufficed for a whole book already. But, in my case, it's just… one conversation. Yes, you've heard that right.

Basically, all that this update contains is the encounter with the crowd that the MC sees after exiting the hut. The new content ends right after the said encounter ends.

After you choose your approach to said conversation (personality of the MC at that moment, put in other words) you then also choose one of the three routes (tell lie #1, tell lie #2, tell the truth). After that, you only get some choices when something that may compel your MC to change what they wanted to do mid-way happens.

I want to highlight that, you don't really get to decide what exactly your MC says on each page. The tone of how they speak and their opinions about subjects and people are all derived from the prior choices you made, starting from whether your MC shook Theo's hand and told the group the truth and ending with whether your MC went into the tunnel and what they thought of Philip's/Burchard death… The MC's behavior may change very drastically just because of one choice you made earlier.

I'll admit, this is a very experimental approach from my side, but that allows me to shape your MC into a full-fledged, believable character without it feeling like you don't have control over them. Maybe my words don't convey my point exactly, but I guess you'll see it with your own eyes.

There are different sets of choices to make in the routes, even though sometimes they may be similar. Each route uncovers some information that the others didn't, so it adds to the replayability.

All in all, this may be a somewhat polarizing update due to my decisions, but I fully understand that and am of course willing to hear your feedback about the new content.

Give me somewhere around 24 hours so that I can set everything up and roll out the update to you all.

Also, there were some old questions in my inbox that I couldn't answer because, quote 'your blog was restricted by our anti-spam control' (I found that out one month and a half later after sending a ticket to Tumblr's support), so here are those questions:

Yeah, I'm okay. In fact, now I'm okay more than ever due to me finally finishing writing this update.

Thanks for catching that! It's fixed now!

Sorry, you two, that I'm answering you only now.

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So please 🥺🥺 when are we getting a playable update next

First off, sorry for answering so late.

As for your question: Considering that I'll get back to fully working on Duskguard somewhere in the middle of June, and considering my own evaluations (which I am known to be very bad at) as to how long it'll take to actually finish writing what's planned for the update, I'd say it's reasonable to expect a playable update somewhere within July.

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Progress Update #7

Hello, everyone! I'm not sure if what I'm writing right now can be considered a progress update because there's not much progress in it, but I've been silent for way too long (when did I say I would roll out the progress update? 10th of March? Yeah, we all know how that went), so here I am.

If I'm remembering correctly (I checked just now to be sure), there were no progress updates for February, March, and April. I'll be frank right out of the gate and tell you that, despite such a seemingly long period, I have written only somewhere around 20k new words. So, first things first, I'll write the usual 'what's done', 'what's planned', and word count, and then share the reasons for the delays and overall stagnancy (has to do something with my personal life, so if you're just interested in the state of the project, you can just check out the information about the progress and don't waste much of your time).

What’s done:

I know I previously said that the truthful route was completely done, but, after some testing, I found out that there was a branch that led into nothingness (because I forgot about some combination of choices that resulted in a whole other sequence of scenes, which I didn't write, accordingly). As a result, much of that little time I had, I've been writing these scenes to finally finish that route.

Polished some of the already existing scenes in the truthful routes, and fixed some bugs in the other routes (as it was my first true playtesting across all the new content).

What’s planned:

Rewrite POVs, change some fight scenes, and decide what to do with the stats (more about stats later).

Write the scenes where Theo is the one who is talking first (notice the slight changes in phrasing and how I don't call it the fourth route. More about this later, too). 

Word count:

Including command lines: 229937 Excluding command lines: 220416

Now, moving on to the explanations... I'll go through this in chronological order, starting with February.

February: in this month, I wrote 5k words, give or take. Such an undercut of my productivity was caused primarily by some headaches I started to experience and by somewhat of a burnout after writing 50k words in January (and the end of the one-month break I had). During that month, I was trying to find out what was causing me health problems (as in headaches and overall weakness), and the answer was quite a simple one... I very rarely (and I mean, VERY rarely) went outside. So, after I realized what was the root of the problem, I incorporated regular 'grass-touching' sessions into my daily routine, alongside time-fixed exercises to keep my body more or less in shape... After half a month or so following these rules I set for myself, I recovered, and all these headaches and most of my other physical health problems went away... Spending way too much time being coped up inside one's room might sound like a very stupid and obvious mistake to make, but I still urge everyone who's reading this (and not already doing it) to allocate some time in your schedule for going outside to do some physical activities or just walk and breathe some fresh air. (In case some of you are worried, well and healthy, don't worry.)

March: here, I wrote somewhere around 12k words. At this point, I was fine physically and was writing as usual, but soon hit some kind of a mini writer's block, so I had to juggle some ideas back and forth as to how to write the scenes I missed in the truthful route. It was also at this time that I started to doubt that I was going to be able to write the route where Theo was the one talking as the fourth route, as it was originally planned, and began to feel that I'd have to shorten it in some way to avoid being overwhelmed and just release the update already.

April: it was this month that the university I'm studying in began to take up more and more of my time. I haven't told you all this before because, in general, I wasn't really burdened by the university before April and could just write 20k words a month normally, but since the end of the year is nearing, I had to start dedicating more and more of my time to my studies in order to successfully pass. So, at the end of this month, I wrote 3k words or something.

So (I've just now noticed I like to use the word 'so' often, huh)... Now that it's May and the exams are just around the corner, I can't quite relax and immerse myself into writing fully, not to mention there's a noticeable amount of stuff I need to be doing in regards to university. As a result, I'm focusing on my studies almost entirely since I would be probably just wasting my time trying to write when I can't concentrate on it as much as I would've wanted to.

I'm saying all this just to be clear and to let you know that there won't be much progress until the middle of June because that's when nearly all of the exams end, and I finally go on a two-month break, when I can dedicate myself to writing 100% (Promises, promises... Sometimes I really feel like like the whole project holds only on promises I make. Although, that might be partially true since I don't actually share the new content with you all).

Now, regarding the last route and the stats... As for the route - which I was previously calling the fourth route - where Theo was supposed to take matters into his own hands, I have now decided to significantly shorten it and change the way it is incorporated into the project... I made this decision because I can't imagine going through all the interactions with the crowd for the fourth time in a row and coming up with new ways, decisions, and reactions to these scenes, and because I think that the reason why MC is the one who needs to be talking with the crowd is narratively justified (even though it's not apparent... You may think it's somewhat railroad-y, but I think three routes will be enough already). So, I want to move the choice to try not to involve your MC with the crowd somewhere earlier and to make two choices that will lead to you then choosing one of the three routes... Check the diagram below for a better explanation.

How I wanted to do it first:

How I want to do it now:

(Very symmetrical, I know... At least I'm not torturing you with Paint).

Now, onto the stats... At first, I wanted to make the MC gain stats both during training and fighting. So, the MC was supposed to gain endurance if you chose to tank Philip's strikes during the encounter in the hut, for example. But now, I am not so sure about allowing the MCs to gain stats during fights, even though it seems quite reasonable... The main reason for my indecision is that the aggressive MCs will have more opportunities to engage in other battles down the line, making it quite tricky to balance and track the stats since those MCs that prefer not to fight because of their own reasons will be behind the MCs that like to battle it out with other folks. I'm not saying that battles are the only way one can gain stats, but I think you get my point.

After some further pondering on this topic, I came to the conclusion that it would be best if I allow the MCs to increase their stats solely during training or any other opportunities that will be present there for any kind of MCs during fixed points in the plot so that I have more chances to realistically track the stats of MCs and balance the encounters around them. That doesn't mean that your decisions during fights will not impact anything, of course - there will be different reactions to your chosen fight style or immediate choices during the brawls, and the MCs may obtain some scars (again, if you choose to).

Phew... I think that is all I wanted to tell you. As a closing note, I want to ask you all to wait until the middle of June, as I said earlier. That's when I'll be able to get back to writing and dedicate myself entirely to Duskguard... And sorry for disappearing for such a long time, should've let you know all this much sooner.

Thanks for tuning in, and have a pleasant day or a peaceful night!

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Hello, everyone!

Wanted to ask you all to give me a few days to roll out a progress update. I didn't write as much this month as I did previously (yes, even less than 20k), so I want to get a sizeable amount of words in before posting any kind of progress update. Yes, delaying the monthly progress update means defeating the whole purpose of MONTHLY updates, but bear with me.

I'll share the reasons for this worsened performance of mine (or excuses) when I post the progress update itself… As for the date, it'll probably be around the 10th of March.

So, again, my bad.

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Was reading this game for the 10th time and a question suddenly appeared out of nowhere in relation to how scars will work, gameplay wise and story wise.

For example, imagine if you will, the MC is in a 1v3, and (for some reason) is half naked. I assume that this will be too difficult to implement but I'd love to see the enemies having an even bigger reaction to an MC that doesn't have any scars rather than having a bunch of them ( This happening obvs down the line). Either they think that the MC is inexperienced or they're so strong that nobody has injured them bf (could be an interesting mental battle). Will this be smth that is in the works?

Aside from that, loved the game to death and seriously can't wait to see where this story will go. This is a gem and you should be more than proud of the work you've put into it!

First of all, I'm glad to know you were so engrossed in the story that you made ten playthroughs!

Regarding your question: honestly, I haven't even thought of the scars and their influence in this way before… Your example does sound quite interesting, and it is something I'm intrigued to implement myself! If the MC is known for having participated in a handful of battles and heavily relies on a physical approach, it would be indeed unsettling for their enemies to see a scarless body. Even though there's still a lot of time before we actually get to the point, I'm confident that you can expect me to add such reactions to a few encounters because, as I said, the concept you've proposed is far too fascinating to just pass it up.

And thanks for the kind words! Hoping I can match your and everyone else's expectations, if not exceed them! 😊

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Just wanted to say I absolutely love this IF so much. And I hope you are doing okay! 😇♥️

Thank you for this! I'm glad you're enjoying my story! 😊

I'm doing quite fine. Good, even! I was writing just now and then decided to check Tumblr, and here it is - a dose of motivation! Makes me want to finish writing the update faster and finally feed everyone who's starving for more content!

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Progress Update #6

Hello, everyone! It's time for a progress update! Though, I'm pretty sure that I'm one day late by every possible timezone… But, I did not want to ruin my sleep schedule and make the current day completely unproductive for me, so there's that.

As you can guess, I'm still working on the prologue. Even though I can confidently say that this month was the most fruitful in terms of progress and word count increase, all my efforts went into polishing the first two routes (I know, I know) and expanding the third one.

What's done:

Three out of four routes (untruthful #1, untruthful #2, truthful) are completely done.

Both untruthful routes have been polished, adding some interactions, reactions, etc.

What's planned:

Finish writing the route where Theo is the one talking with the crowd.

Perhaps, polish the third route (the truthful one) if I find it to be… lacking.

Readjust stats, rewrite POVs, and edit some clunky scenes.

Word count:

Including command lines: 209507 Excluding command lines: 200332

No sneak peek this time (insert megamind_staring_into_the_camera_meme.jpg)… If I'm being serious, there's already a big chunk of content revealed through the other sneak peeks I've posted, and I'm kinda feeling that I'm giving away way too much. I'll post a sneak peek of the silent route if I don't succeed in finishing it by this month. Promise.

I think you see that I'm following the previous progress update structure: that is, fewer words and more concise. This approach kind of frees me from writing whole walls of text and also frees you all from reading the same walls of text… Maybe some of you do like to read them, but I just don't have much to talk about right now.

What I want to note, though, is that I've actually written 50k words in one month, which truly is a record for me. However, I also want you to know that, due to the nature of how Duskguard is written, the rising word count does not necessarily mean that each new word is meant for a whole new scene, no. Sometimes, I have to copy and paste sections of text and slightly change something in them to account for different choices made previously. I know you may think that the same can be achieved by using multireplace, but, uh… Well, the thing is, sometimes the said chunks of text are already just big multireplace, and, unfortunately, there's no option to use multireplace within multireplace (a case of 'Be careful what you wish for' because getting confused would be ten times easier if it was possible.) But, recently, I started to reduce the amount of the same text by using some temp variables and placing the repeated text into them and then just using ${} syntax to 'shove it' inside multireplace. Thankfully, it's possible.

But, all in all, I'm beginning to feel like I'm finally nearing the finish line, now that I'm thoroughly confident about the two of the routes. So, not gonna touch 'em anymore. Just need to write the rest of the last route, make sure the quality of the third route is good to me, and then do some finishing touches.

I think that's all I wanted to share with you. So, with all that said, I'm off to writing!

Thanks for tuning in, and have a pleasant day or a peaceful night!

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Progress Update #5

Hello, everyone! Today is the day I finally fix the schedule of progress updates, which means that I'll be posting them right at the beginning of each month from now on, with some slight deviations depending on your timezone (that whole 'today is the day' bit might've sounded like I'm actually releasing an update today, but, alas, no…)

I'm still working on the prologue - my focus, right now, is on expanding the routes, and later I plan to finish writing the fourth one and make necessary adjustments to stats, rewrite the POVs, and fix some other scenes. So, lower from here, you can find the usual list.

What's done:

I've finished expanding the first and the second routes.

And I've begun to expand the third one (it's the last one to expand because I'll be writing the fourth one with the expanded options in mind).

What's planned:

I need to finish writing the new options for the third approach (the truthful one), and I need to write the rest of the fourth approach (Theo is the one talking there).

Then I can take care of the stats, POVs, some scenes, etc. Finishing touches, so to speak (write?).

Word count:

Including command lines: 157593 Excluding command lines: 150109

Sneak peek (here you go, though be careful that it may spoil the end of one of the routes. I'm mostly putting it here to show how specific the MC's reaction can be.)

You may feel that the amount of text I've written for this particular progress update is quite smaller than for the previous ones, and you won't be mistaken - but it's like that due to me not wanting to repeat the same things over and over again, so I've decided to keep it more concise.

Plus, there are not many worries for me to express or questions to ask, so there's that… I do want to note that I have actually succeeded in writing more words in one month than I usually do (20k for ~30 days => 20k for ~20 days). I'm also quite hopeful that the next month will be even more fruitful for me now that I've removed some of the distractions (addictions, rather) from my life that kept hindering my productivity, and since there are not many matters I need to be highly concerned about in the next thirty or so days.

So, nearing the end of this progress update… Since we now find ourselves in 2024, I want to wish you all for this year to be better than the previous one and for you to achieve your goals or otherwise make a giant leap toward them no matter how distant and impossible they might seem. I also wish for you all to be able to overcome your struggles easily and resurface as an even stronger person as a result. And, if it is allowed to say this slightly later than when the 31st of December turns into the 1st of January - Happy New Year, everyone!

Thanks for tuning in, and have a pleasant day or a peaceful night!

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Progress Update #4

Hello once again, everyone! I am here to post another progress update, albeit slightly off the schedule - to be exact, two days late if relative to the previous progress update, which was on 8th November; and ten days late if we are talking about when the monthly (emphasis) updates should normally be released…

So, straight to the business: I'm continuing to work on the prologue (that's a new one, eh?). At first, I was only focused on developing the last route you can take in confrontation with the crowd - and that is to let Theo handle things. However, after I took a glance at all the branches and routes I had already written, I realized that there is a place to… add new ways, so to speak, in which you can finish the whole conversation with the villagers. More about this lower in the text. The things that are done:

Somewhere around 1/3 of the route where Theo is the one talking: it's like that because the point where you can choose this branch is earlier than all three other ones, so I had to look through the older text to get a better grasp on how the story felt before the split into three different routes.

Expanded the first untruthful approach: I inserted a scene, which I took from the truthful route, somewhere in the middle of it. That's cause I deemed that scene to contain... way too much variability to be present in only one branch (basically, it's like one page that has 10k words or so in it because of all the different combinations...). To add to that, I also made a few choices closer to the end of this approach so that you can make your MC suddenly admit the truth (due to different factors) or continue lying.

The things that are planned:

Finish writing the route where Theo is the one talking.

Expand the other approaches: the second untruthful and the truthful so that it's possible to finish off the conversation in a different way compared to how you started it.

Rewrite the POV scenes, readjust the stats, and check for bugs or any inconsistencies. Word count:

Including command lines: 136601 Excluding command lines: 130115

Unfortunately, there's no sneak peek this time because I feel that, at this point, I'm going to spoil a big chunk of the upcoming update. If I don't release the actual update by the end of the year (which is more likely than not), I'll add a sneak peek of the last approach in the next progress update.

Okay, now that I'm done with this part, let's get to the whole 'expanding approaches' thing... You see, I was in the process of writing the last approach when I suddenly got the desire to look through what I had already finished writing - the other routes... And, while I was looking at each one, I started to think that something looks... kinda lacking? Then, upon giving it more thought, I figured out that there is not enough flexibility after choosing how to interact with the crowd. Particularly, you cannot change MC's course of action in the midst of the conversation: if you choose the untruthful route, your MC commits to the lie to the very end, and if you choose the truthful route, your MC is way too cautious and reluctant to reveal what happened with Philip and Burchard... So, to change that, I have decided to implement another set of choices toward the end of the confrontation, enabling you, the readers, to be able to make the MC admit the lie in the untruthful approach or be quite blunt in the truthful approach (for a bunch of different reasons).

However, variability in the MC's behavior is not really the only thing that inclined me toward making the choice to expand the routes with additional choices. What else impacted my decision is that, after you choose the approach, you have quite a few pages to sit through without being given an opportunity to make a choice - and, even if I, as an author, see what's under the hood and how many things change depending on what you had chosen earlier in the game, you, as players, do not see it. As a result, it may feel like a drag to read through all the text without being able to make an explicit choice. So, I think that the implementation of new choices toward the end of the approach will help with that, at least slightly.

Now, regarding the POV subject: after reading through all the different POV scenes and through the messages in the thread on the forum (and thinking about how I, as a reader, would have preferred them to be), I have come to the conclusion that it would be better for me to rewrite them in... drum roll... the third person. That is because it would be, as I only now understood:

The least confusing one out of the bunch.

The one people are miles more accustomed to seeing.

All in all, I think that the third person should be the one to cause the least irks among the readers, so I believe that's the best option.

The last thing I want to talk about is when I want to release the update: as you saw in the things that are planned section, my plans consist of only finishing writing the last approach, expanding the other approaches, and rewriting POVs + other minor stuff. That's like that because I have now decided to release the update after the whole conversation with the crowd is finished, and not when the fight is finished - the longer I take the more I want to release what I have written to the public. But, I think that, by now, you all have already figured out that nowhere in my decisions was I adamant and that I always change what I seemingly had finished with.

Also, I wanted to make something clear: the new update will bring (if we are talking about one approach) somewhere around 15 pages, more or less. I'm highlighting that because, for such an increase in the amount of words, there is little new content for one playthrough. I know that that is most likely disappointing to hear, but I want to be as transparent about this as I can so that the expectations won't be crushed that ruthlessly. I know I'm sacrificing my and your time to write an, perhaps, unneeded load of different flavor text without making the plot progress. I also know that you don't want to wait so much just for a minuscule amount of pages when the other projects would have increased the length of the singular playthrough by multiple times compared to mine… But, I hope that the differences in the interactions and the ability to shape your MC into whatever you desire (and make it believable) will make up for that at least slightly.

So… I think that's all I wanted to write here. And if that's the case, time for the usual:

Thanks for tuning in, and have a great day!

[rainstormwrite]

Progress Update #3

Hello, everyone! Sticking to my promises, I'm here to post October's progress update! (although, a little bit late.)

The work on the prologue continues, but I don't think that should come off as a surprise for all of you. The word count increases while the overall plot stays in place, with me continuing to develop and flesh out the branches/routes. Of course, I've made some progress and actually (and finally) finished the path where the MC decides to be frank and tell the crowd the truth (or not all the truth, depending on how much they had previously shared with Theo and the group.) With that in mind, allow me, as usual, to list what I have already done and what I have yet to do.

The things that are done:

The truthful approach. It's quite big (like all the other ones) and contains a lot of variability in text based on what the MC did back at the beginning of the game. And since, back then, I didn't really know how many different interactions and their orders in the initial conversation with Burchard should I allow for, now I had to account for each one of them. Again, not sure if it was worth the effort, but I feel fulfilled. (Oh, and there's another monologue and inner reflection of the MC about what happened in the hut with… um… quite a large amount of ways the MC can feel about themselves, let's say. Here's hoping it'll pay off. (At least I know that you'll notice it, Aspen.))

…That's all. Yeah. Probably should've written: "The thing that is done."

The things that are planned:

The branch where Theo takes charge of the conversation with the crowd.

The fight scenes and everything they involve.

All that comes after the fight scenes. That is, some time to inspect the village for one route, something else for the other route, and conclusion to the prologue, which differs depending on blah blah blah.

Word count:

Including command lines: 115776 Excluding command lines: 110070

[Sneak peek]

There are a couple of other things I also need to fix, but I didn't feel that they needed to be listed above. These include: rewriting the POV scenes so that they are done in the first person rather than the second to minimize confusion and tweaking the amount of the stats gained, so it's easier for me to keep track of all the possible variants of their distribution in the future. Therefore, when I finally release the update, I'll need everyone to start a new save so that everything sets itself up properly.

I've also been pondering about how much time it will take for me to release an update, which contains the whole prologue, and came to the conclusion that it'd be best if I do it when I finish writing all the variations of the fight scenes. I want to do that because:

I realize that my audience has been waiting really long, and I know that the interest in my project slowly falls off the more time I take. (Note: I am not stressing over and not pressed. Just in case.)

I want to get readers' input on how the story flows, what makes sense and what does not, and all that stuff.

I just want to release at least something already, let's be honest.

So, I'm keen toward finishing writing everything up to fight scenes (included), polishing the stats, rewriting the format of POVs, releasing an update right after, and then continuing to write while people enjoy the new content. I'll probably stick to this idea because I'm scared of how much more time it'll take me to finish the whole prologue.

I am also planning on opening up my Patreon page along with the release of the update so that those of you who want to be more engaged with my writing process and Duskguard and/or are willing to support me financially will be able to do it. When it opens up, I'll be releasing detailed and frequent sneak peeks, progress updates, side stories, and some other stuff there. When that happens, I'll start to take things far more seriously and responsibly.

And, as I always say (write): Thanks for tuning in, and have a great day!

[rainstormwrite]

So is been awhile, sorry to ask this and it might stress you up, but like have you made any progress or you just gave up on it? either way is fine and I respect your decision.

Hey, it's nothing to be sorry for! I'm steadily making progress, and I plan on posting a progress update today or tomorrow. It's just that there were some delays in my writing process this month, and I've been writing not continuously but in some kind of… surges, so to speak. That's why I wanted to make a slight hold-up with October's progress update until I write enough words.

And there are no plans of abandoning this project, just in case!

(Also, I realize that I've established my progress updates as monthly ones, and I know that they are supposed to be posted at the end of the month and not when I want them to… Yeah, I kinda cheated. Sorry if I made anybody worried!)