Monthly Update - May 2025
May has been quite a productive month, I must say! To begin with, Chapter 6 is finished and already available to all patrons, and it will be released to the public on June 9th. Another chapter full of emotions, and with an extra branch that wasn’t originally planned but brings some interesting stuff for the future :D. Honestly, when I started this story, I didn’t expect it to get this intense so quickly. My original idea was for it to build up more gradually. Oh well, it is what it is xD
After this, there are only two more chapters left to finish Act 2! Although I still need to see if everything will fit into the next one, because there’s a lot to cover and I don’t want it to get too long either. If that’s the case, I’ll split Chapter 7 into two, and there’ll be three chapters left to finish the Act. In that case, you might be getting two new chapters in the next update instead of one, as I’ll probably write it completely before deciding if I should split it or not :P
Also, as I mentioned recently, I’m editing Act 1. The prologue is already done, with new scenes, tweaked variables, and more dialogue options for the protagonist. It’s been… a bit painful rereading what I wrote back then, lol! But that’s a good thing. It means I’ve improved :D This new version is not released yet, though. I want to at least finish the whole demo before updating it, and then the rest.
I did run into a couple of issues with the APK, though. I managed to fix them in the end, but it definitely took some effort. I still haven’t been able to get the music to play properly without static or weird interruptions, unfortunately. All these problems made me seriously reconsider adapting the story to HoG since, at least for me, I much prefer reading interactive novels on mobile rather than on PC. I even played around a bit with ChoiceScript (it’s pretty fun, ngl). I’d be sad to give up the music since it adds an atmosphere I really like, but I think in the long run it might be for the best. Plus, that way there could be an app for iOS as well. What are your thoughts on Twine vs. ChoiceScript when it comes to interactive novels?
Last but not least, I’ve finished all the summer specials for Patreon! In June we’ll start with Albert/Lavina and then Ada/Omar. July will feature Rayco/Gara and Leire/Luca, and finally, in August, we’ve got Mako/Iasa and Belicar/Nisa. I was really looking forward to writing something for our favourite villain that didn’t involve spoilers xD And of course, I haven’t forgotten about the Leire/Luca illustration for June ;)
Now it’s time to dive into Chapter 7. If all goes well, I might even finish Act 2 before the end of the year! :D
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Have a great month, and see you at the end of June ;)
Comments
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Personally, I prefer Twine. CoG novels often don't have the save option, which is a crime for huge projects with permanent death options (and I will died on this opinion xP). Besides, I think that for continious projects one have to have a CoG account to save the progress for the next game.
Additionally, I like what your project looks like right now, its aesthetics and the music. I acknowledge all the efforts put into the styling of fonts, sound FX and transitions. But I only play on PC and cannot vouch for other people's exerience, neither for your convinience. You should do what you think is best :) As long as I don't have to create yet another account somewhere (like CoG) to play a game, I will be fine.
I find it so strange that at this point there’s still no save option in CoG novels. It shouldn’t be something overly complicated to implement, should it? It’s such a basic feature! But I have no idea how ChoiceScript works, so maybe it’s not as simple as I imagine. It’s not the end of the world, obviously, but in examples like yours the lack of it is very annoying.
The good thing about Twine is that it allows me to take this project and turn it into a visual novel, which is what it was in the begining until I run into some problems and decided to make it text-based. I honeslty doubt I’ll do it at this point since I don’t have the time I’d like to draw all the backgrounds and character sprites, but it is something I’d like to consider for the future. With CoG, that option would be completely off the table.
We’ll see. I’ll probably just continue with Twine for this story. Maybe take the demo and post it on CoG forums to to get feedback from the community and see which format is preferred.
I think making a demo in ChoiceScript could help you decide. At the very least working on it will show you what works and what doesn't. There are novels from CoG that actually do have a save option. It could be that the authors simply chose to not include it in their work, aiming for "replayability" 🤔.
The thing is only demos have the save option available, and it's only provided by Dashingdon (Now CoGDemos), not CoG. The final game which is later released by HG or CoG never has it. I think it's because they think going back to a previous point isn't how these types of games are supposed to be played. Like, if you make the wrong choice you should just go along with ir because it's how it's meant to be. Like you said, for replayability purposes.
This is just my guess, of course, but if it's true, I disagree with them.