honor bound from choiceofgames out now! | crème de la crème, noblesse oblige, royal affairs; blood money | date everything, king of the castle, fallen london, love island | they/he
Hey! I’m Harris Powell-Smith, a narrative designer making games and stories. My pronouns are they/he.
I’ve created five games with Choice of Games and have two in progress. That's what I mostly post about on here! I also worked on Date Everything, King of the Castle, Love Island the Game, made an Exceptional Story for Fallen London, worked on various other indie games, and created lots of interactive fiction. Find more on my project page!
If you're interested in skintone references for characters in the Creme de la Creme series, there is a collection here based on the Humanae Project; there are also character descriptions on each of the Creme de la Creme forum threads. I also have a small FAQ post: feel free to ask me questions if you don't see yours there.
On my Patreon you can find in-depth progress reports, early access game chapters, and more! You can also tip me on my ko-fi!
Buy my games on Steam at a discount in the aptly-named Harris Powell-Smith bundle!
If you're looking for where I am online elsewhere, check out this post for details.
My latest game is HONOR BOUND:
Guard students and secrets at an elite school! Recover or trash your health, purpose, and military career as you enact or thwart shady schemes in this 595,000 word interactive novel with Choice of Games, fourth in the Creme de la Creme series of standalone dark academia games.
Steam | Play Store | Choice of Games on Android | Choice of Games on iOS | Choice of Games on Amazon | Webstore | Forum Thread
My current WIP is THE EARTH HAS TEETH:
Heal the broken wilderness with the help of a torn-off piece of your dying god and companions who must never guess what you carry. What will you sacrifice to survive the storms and bring your god back - and do you want her back at all?
My series of standalone games with different protagonists in the same setting. Expect romance, dark academia, and intrigue!
Book 1: Crème de la Crème. Climb to the very top of the class at your exclusive private school for socialites! Will you study hard, find a perfect match, or embrace scandal? A 440,000 word interactive novel published with Choice of Games. Winner of the 2019 XYZZY Awards for interactive fiction (Best Game, Best Writing, Best Story)
STEAM | PLAY STORE | APP STORE | FORUM THREAD
Book 2: Noblesse Oblige. Spark romance amid secrets in a crumbling mansion! What will you sacrifice for love? Can you trust your own heart? A 140,000 word interactive gothic novella published with Choice of Games.
STEAM | PLAY STORE | APP STORE | FORUM THREAD
Book 3: Royal Affairs. At your exclusive boarding school, will you rule the roost or be a royal disaster? Court publicity, sway the fate of nations, and find love! A 490,000 word interactive novel published with Choice of Games.
STEAM | PLAY STORE | APP STORE | FORUM THREAD
Book 4: Honor Bound. Guard students and secrets at an elite school! Recover or trash your health, purpose, and military career as you enact or thwart shady schemes in this 595,000 word interactive novel with Choice of Games.
Steam | Play Store | Choice of Games on Android | Choice of Games on iOS | Choice of Games on Amazon | Webstore | Forum Thread
Blood Money: By the power of your blood, you and your ghosts will take over your crime family! A standalone dark fantasy 290,000 word interactive novel published with Choice of Games. Selected for exhibit at AdventureX 2018.
Hello for the emoji ask, could you provide a 💯 about MC's parents in creme de la creme.
I really loved their characters.
💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.
-The MC's mum is more ambitious and a bit smarter than their dad, but more reckless
-The MC's dad yearns for a modest lake house /cabin in the woods with a mere handful of staff for the truly self-reliant atmosphere
-The MC's parents are deeply loyal to each other and love each other a great deal, even as friends of theirs would have advised them to break up in the wake of their disgrace
I ended up experimenting a lot with this painting, pouring layers of ink washes over the watercolor and building back up with gouache and pastels. I'm trying to get a look that is soft and highly textured but still has clear strong details in places. I haven't gotten it down yet quite the way I want, but this is a step closer!
Did Royal Affairs get mentioned somewhere or something? I've been having so many asks about it recently and it's super lovely, but I'm curious why people seem to have suddenly started playing it again!
I guess it might be because I wasn't so active for a bit. Maybe people saw me turn up again and were like "I HAVE to tell Harris about Royal Affairs!"
which is also utterly wonderful, please never stop!
I voted on it myself guessing which would be the least popular, and I was wrong! (at least at this moment, who knows what it'll look like when the poll ends)
Wheat Googling #6: how do I turn a ship’s sick bay into a proper field hospital?
Hello!
Over the last few letters, I’ve been trying to work out what the crew of my fictional ship will need in order to be happy. Today, I want to focus on medical care. Of the five negative feelings listed on the World Happiness Report, four of them are stress, anxiety, sadness and pain. A robust healthcare system capable of keeping people alive who have been badly hurt, and of dealing with chronic pain, would obviously massively help with all of these.
So in this letter I am going to decide on the changes I’ll need to make to the traditional 19th Century naval sick bay.
Today's Tumblr Special: Why did RO Ellis Evans become a ship's doctor?
The Death of Nelson by Arthur William Devis
What did the British Navy really do?
Well. Usually, the sick bay was under the forecastle: right at the front of the ship, under only one deck. Comparatively light and airy. But that was a pretty dangerous place to be if people were firing cannons at you, so during battle, the sick bay was moved to the cockpit, in the orlop. That was at least a couple of decks down, below the waterline. Much safer, but also with zero natural light, and no fresh air. Sailors would bring their injured mates down to be laid out on the Midshipmen’s sea chests for beds, and the surgeon, his two mates, and the loblolly boy (not a boy, a sort of untrained nurse) would do their best to stop them dying. This involved pulling out bullets, removing splinters, and occasionally hacking off limbs that were too damaged to save.
How did that work out for them?
On the Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar, 102 of the 832 people aboard were injured, and I was surprised to learn that almost all of them lived! The Victory’s surgeon, Beatty, reported that he lost five patients, and a further fifteen had to be left at various hospitals or were still convalescing, but the other 82 made full recoveries (though not necessarily with the same number of limbs they started with). With a medical team of probably four. Amazing.
What do modern field hospitals do?
I started by looking at what the Royal Navy does now, which is usually to have one Medical Officer (who must have completed medical school, among other more specialised training) and two Medical Assistants (requires GCSEs but no other starting qualifications) if they are going far from home or into battle. But this actually isn’t a great analogue, because a modern frigate is only expected to look after people for a maximum of 48 hours until they can be airlifted to a proper hospital. Strictly emergency surgery only, for example. My ship will be nowhere near any support.
So I’ve been looking at the WHO guidelines for Foreign Medical Teams (FMT) providing emergency care for Sudden Onset Disasters. Both SODs and naval battles require very efficient triage for a sudden influx of injured people with limited medical personnel.
The smallest FMT, Type 1, can provide emergency care for up to 100 outpatients per day and has three doctors and nine nurses. Type 2, the next one up, has to do everything Type 1 can do, plus have the facilities for 20 inpatients and one single-bed operating theatre, and the ability to do 7 major and 15 minor procedures every day for two weeks. They should also be able to triage 200 cases daily.
They need:
One surgeon
One anaesthetist
One internist (an internal medicine physician - kind of like a holistic doctor who looks at a range of different conditions in the same patient and makes connections)
One general physician
One dentist
One hygiene officer
One pharmacist
One head nurse
Two intensive care nurses
Two OT assistants
Ten nurses/paramedics
One radiology assistant
One lab technician
One dental assistant
Two ambulance drivers
Eight support staff
Crunching some numbers
10% of the sailors on the British side at the battle of Trafalgar got killed or wounded. On the Victory, 57 were killed and 102 wounded. In the absence of better data, and because ‘killed or wounded’ is usually listed together in the records, I’m going to assume that the ratio of killed to wounded is about 1:2. About 6.6% wounded, then.
The losing side at the Battle of Trafalgar had about 30% killed or wounded, so we’ll call it 20% wounded.
What shall I do?
The navy in my story wants to give its sailors the best. That means preparing for a worst case scenario in which 20% of the crew - about 17 people - are badly injured during one battle.
Luckily, I don’t need the full 33 staff members of a Type 2 field hospital because a lot of those jobs literally don’t exist in my world. No anesthetist, hygiene officer, radiology assistant, lab technician or ambulance drivers. They will also be triaging a maximum of perhaps 20 people rather than 200, so they should manage with the WHO recommended minimum of one nurse per eight hospital beds.
But they do still have to work within the physical limitations of the ship. I can’t make the ship bigger without losing maneuverability or speed, and I can’t increase the size of the crew I’m cramming into it without reducing quality of life. So I have a maximum crew of 87 to work with, and 60 of those have to be the actual people making the ship go. Of the remaining 27, some are officers, or officers-in-training, but most are what’s known as ‘idlers’ - crew with specific, technical expertise that makes it a waste of resources to have them standing around on deck for four hours. They don’t stand a watch, so they’re idle! These are the surgeon’s mates, carpenter’s mates, gunner’s mates, and so on. I’ll have to draw my medical team from that 27, but I also have to leave enough spaces for the other essential ‘idler’ roles.
This is what I can spare the sickbay:
One fully qualified doctor specialised in surgery (drawn from my pool of officers).
One newly qualified, inexperienced doctor (also drawn from the officers’ pool).
One nurse with a specialism in practical dentistry (the game is inspired by the Napoleonic Wars - I don’t think they know enough dentistry to warrant a whole job). Drawn from the Idlers.
One nurse with a specialism in pain management and apothecary (this will cover pharmaceuticals and OT). Drawn from the idlers.
One trainee doctor (drawn from the officers-in-training).
That’s my core team. Five medics to look after a realistic maximum of 20 people. I am also going to make it a rule that every idler has to be trained in basic first aid, and that their job during battle is to look after the injured. This is taken from what the real navy does now, in which 10-15% of the crew are deployed in this way. I’m imagining them as kind of on-foot paramedics. Another incredibly logical thing the navy does now is split its medics into a fore station and an aft station in order to make it much less likely that the entire medical team gets wiped out in a single hit. So I’m definitely writing that in too.
It’s funny how quickly I abandon my high ideals, even in this thought experiment. I started this letter assuming I would be able to provide my crew with full hospital care, then swiftly discovered this would be literally impossible. The entire concept of this ship is that despite being a ship of war, it is built around making the crew feel as happy and safe as possible, but despite that, I am still having to compromise based on simple physical limitations. It makes me feel a little bit more understanding of the people who actually have to make these kinds of decisions - and don’t have impossibly large imaginary budgets to work with.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
Grace xx
PS: What do you think of my compromises? Would you do anything differently?
Next time
I have massively reduced the crew of my frigate, but I still need to fill all the essential technical roles with enough left over to actually make the ship go. Next time, I want to work out how to make that possible.
This week’s interesting link
Royal Museums Greenwich account of the painting above
Very short, but with interesting details about the painting.
Game
Right now, the project for which I am doing most of my wheat googling is a choose your own adventure IF game I’ve been commissioned to write for Choice of Games. You can find out all about it, and play the 60K word demo, here. You can also sign up for my newsletter here.
Tumblr Special
Why did RO Ellis Evans become a ship's doctor?
Ellis became a doctor because all they have ever wanted to do is help. The real question is why did someone so fundamentally opposed to violence decide to become a doctor on a warship? Answer: their parents. Ellis's parents are both pretty important diplomats, and telling their friends their child was a doctor wasn't going to cut it.
Luckily for Ellis, who has never deliberately disappointed anyone in their life, the Measarrean navy works differently from the Royal Navy. All warrant officers have the option to join the command track and pass for lieutenant. That meant Ellis could qualify as a doctor, and get to help people, and satisfy their parents that they might one day be Captain Evans. The only unfortunate trade off was that Ellis ended up doing their doctoring on a warship... where people put quite a lot of effort into hurting each other as much as possible. Which is really the opposite of what human cinnamon roll Ellis wants.
Did Royal Affairs get mentioned somewhere or something? I've been having so many asks about it recently and it's super lovely, but I'm curious why people seem to have suddenly started playing it again!
I guess it might be because I wasn't so active for a bit. Maybe people saw me turn up again and were like "I HAVE to tell Harris about Royal Affairs!"
which is also utterly wonderful, please never stop!
I'm no longer a fan of DA but enjoyed Origins and 2. DAI is a slog, the best way to enjoy it would be to watch a video only showing the story, with added context in some parts. It was meant to be a MMO and it shows.
(this is related to this ask/answer about Dragon Age)
I've seen my wife Fay play it several times which is how I absorbed it after I stopped playing!
It has a lot of good in it and I do really like some of its elements, and I admire various things about it but unfortunately I just don't have time for such long games that aren't Exactly What I'm Looking For In This Moment. And, well. As much as I do like a bunch of the characters, it doesn't have my horrible and beloved Dragon Age 2 disaster crew of NPCs so it just doesn't quite end up being the aforementioned EWILFITM.
Wait, interactive RO gender issues aside (I have many thoughts but none particularly helpful), I'd be interested in hearing your and your wife's thoughts on the Dragon Age: Inquisition romances and tragedies that you mentioned in a previous answer, if you're comfortable sharing?
(If not, just delete this ask lol. Pure curiosity)
Oh haha, so I used to really dislike how the Blackwall storyline went and I felt like the combination of that and the Solas romance meant that female PCs got unfairly tragic romance stories in DA:I. Spoilers for an old game below:
When we were chatting about it the other day Fay talked me round to recognising that it's more that there's more romances overall for female PCs than that they get disproportionate tragedy levels. And... however many years later, I like the writers committing as much as they did to Blackwall's evil actions rather than him having a ton of angst about something relatively minor.
All that said, although I was incredibly excited about DA:I and its romances when it came out, and I'm familiar with it from watching Fay play, and I know the stuff that happens in it, I've not played it myself past the fancy Orlesian party. I was romancing Iron Bull and liked it a lot, but there was some weirdness with the dialogue triggers so some stuff was paced oddly, and I lost my momentum. I've tried playing since, and started a Cassandra romance, but didn't get all that far. I just don't really have time to play such big games in a sustained way!
Also ultimately my favourite Dragon Age game is Dragon Age 2. So if I'm going to spend time on a Dragon Age game it'll be that.
I need to finish Death of the Outsider before I do any of that though, and who knows when that'll happen...
My wife Fay and I were talking about this newish game idea I've had, and we had approximately this exchange:
Me: I don't really see why XYZ would stay in a romance if the PC did [a bad thing that's totally against XYZ's values and goals] so you'd have to allow them to start a romance with someone else after
Fay: yes but say the PC did [thing] for [a reward that basically saves NPC XYZ but at great personal and moral cost for both]
Me: ok yeah maybe the pc didn't even believe in [bad thing] or really want to but they do it FOR LOVE
I originally played CDLC in 2020 and I just discovered your blog and that there are more parts to the universe :'D
I'm literally catching up on every post about characters that was ever written here holy heck
So I'm guessing I'm part of the Royal Affairs newcomers that are coming there ^^
Eeeek that's absolutely lovely, I hope you enjoy! I've had loads of fun expanding the universe and exploring new places and characters. One day I hope to go back there!
I'm so happy Royal Affairs is getting the recognition it deserves! It's easily my favourite out of all your amazing stories and I get so excited whenever you mention fun (or angst) facts about the characters or worldbuilding
Also, Trevelyan is my favourite RO, but Asher was the first RO I fell in love with and Javi was immediately after that. All three are so lovely in their own ways
Awww that's so lovely 🥹 thank you! I'm delighted to hear it.
It was tough to make Royal Affairs - I started it just as covid began - but I'd learned so much that I was able to put into it, and learned so much from it in turn.
And I loooove when people have multiple favourites, it's always so exciting to hear!
Did Royal Affairs get mentioned somewhere or something? I've been having so many asks about it recently and it's super lovely, but I'm curious why people seem to have suddenly started playing it again!
I guess it might be because I wasn't so active for a bit. Maybe people saw me turn up again and were like "I HAVE to tell Harris about Royal Affairs!"
which is also utterly wonderful, please never stop!
i think it's funny when a character is almost exclusively referred to by their last name by other people and this carries over into their internal monologue when someone writes from their pov. not even on a first name basis with herself
Imploring other ChoiceScript writers using cogdemos to make their code visible, I love giving feedback when I have a minute but the time I have to play through a whole demo is... limited. I can give great feedback from reading the script but if I can't see it, I just end up not getting round to it.
Plus if I can see the script I can:
-give more accurate feedback so the author can look up what I've seen more easily
-see multiple paths so I have context for other branches compared to what I've seen ingame
-see whether behaviour I've seen that looks like an error is a bug or something else
I get that not everyone is sharing a game for feedback purposes, or you might be worried about giving away spoilers etc, but when I can see the code it makes a huge difference and my feedback is So much more effective (and yknow. Exists).
Did Royal Affairs get mentioned somewhere or something? I've been having so many asks about it recently and it's super lovely, but I'm curious why people seem to have suddenly started playing it again!
I guess it might be because I wasn't so active for a bit. Maybe people saw me turn up again and were like "I HAVE to tell Harris about Royal Affairs!"
which is also utterly wonderful, please never stop!
