Devblog for Valhalla (Choicescript game)

Dashingdon link here. Forum link here. On hiatus as of 3/30/22.

[palette-jack]

Hey there still alive?

Yes, still alive. Sorry for disappearing lol I'm just burnt out.

I haven't abandoned the story, I just don't know when I'll be able to put out an update. Progress has been incredibly slow.

But thank you for the asks :D I miss you guys lol

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Pulse check for PJ. Are you okay? Just bogged down by life, and living? It's alright if you don't want to share what you've been up to; the internet isn't always the best place to air out personal things you don't want to share, but if there's anything safely neutral going on with you, feel free to share the deets. I've missed seeing you answering asks those times you had a moment to spare. 😁

I'm alive! Thank you for asking lol I know it's been a while since I've been on.

I have a new job now, and between 8-10 hour workdays and about an hour's drive in both directions, I haven't even had a chance to look at Valhalla, much less write anything.

Which, now that I think about it, means I should really go on official hiatus. I know that's not the news you guys were hoping for lol but there have been a bunch of awesome new IF WIPs announced lately, so I'm sure you'll have plenty to play in the meantime :D

(I've also been trying to play Elden Ring in my free time, since I've been too tired to write. I'm only 40hrs in but I've died 260 times lol. It's great)

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Valhalla Update; 12-26-21

Hi guys! Happy Holidays!

Has it really been four months since my last update? Ugh, I did not make the progress I was hoping to lol

The game has been updated once again, adding 3k words which brings our total up to 68k :D

Here is the link again. Please let me know what you think :D

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Is there an informational post/write up about the ark species? I cant help but wonder about things like their anatomy/biology i.e do they need to eat/sleep/produce waste, how do they reproduce? Do they propagate like plants,"build" their offspring, require a partner or reproduce asexually. If its the later are they live births/eggs etc? And what about their culture? do they have courtship rituals? All these questions are swirling in my head XD(and yes im 100% onboard for the Val romance XD)

Hello! Thank you for the question :D

Since this is really long, I’ll keep it below the cut.

Minor spoilers!

So; arks all look wildly different. So much so that they could easily be mistaken for separate species. Like, while one might look like a jellyfish, another might look like a metal whale, and a third is just a boot-leg Enterprise. But, regardless of appearance, they all share certain traits.

First; Arks are psionic. They’re not just a physical entity, but an ephemeral one as well.

But their psionics are weird. If you have a decently-high psi skill, there’s a scene in chapter 3(?) where you can meditate to get a sense of things. If you do so, you’ll get text like this:

“Most minds make sense, if only from a distance. Tangled balls of thoughts and feelings, lodged in every skull, leaking emotions and bleeding dreams. Even across species, sentient minds are more alike than not- hell, even animals aren't that different from people.”

“Most minds make sense. Not so much this one.”

And…

“Most minds are like tide pools, each full of their own thoughts, their own little ecosystems, emotions swirling like seawater. But this felt so much bigger. A pond, a lake-“

“An ocean all its own.”

Second; Food. Arks will snag comet-chunks and mineral-rich asteroid-bits every now and then, which they will either rapidly breakdown to facilitate repair, or store and slowly digest to promote their own growth. While this is the main source of their mass, arks can also break down their crew’s garbage to supplement it. For small arks, this is not a big deal, but large arks with large crews generate a lot of recyclable refuse.

(Also, they don’t really produce waste like we do? Like all creatures native to the void of space, their bodies are very efficient. For arks, when they “digest” things; if they can’t recycle it, it gets broken down completely into energy. The only waste they produce is “slag,” which is anything that they can’t or won’t break down all the way. Like something toxic to them. Slag just gets dumped.)

Third; Arks are intensely symbiotic, far beyond just eating their crew’s food scraps and melting down their plastics. All of the ambient psychic energy that their crew generates just by living- emotions and dreaming generate the most- is harmlessly siphoned off. Like how a plant uses your CO2. Arks use it to maintain their own health and well-being.

(The full extent of this symbiosis, as well as the benefits/side effects on the crew, are spoilers.)

While this energy keeps them going, it does not account for all the energy present in their bodies. Not even a quarter of it. This relates to how…

Fourth; nobody actually knows where arks are getting all that energy from. They can absorb stuff like sunlight and radiation out in space, but there is absolutely nothing going on that can explain how they’re able to generate entire wormholes.

Fifth: Reproduction! They don’t reproduce sexually, instead doing so through something similar to parthenogenesis.

Since space is so big, arks can’t rely on the same mechanics of evolution we do. Their genetic code changes throughout their lives/travels, and can even be edited by the arks themselves.

When arks meet each other out in the wild, they will email each other their genetic code, which they can each use to create their own baby or babies. Or they can just keep the info and do nothing- it’s their choice.

The ark gestational period is measured in years, if not decades, but is something that the parent can put on hold at any time. The babies are born live, rather than in eggs. The amount of babies produced in one gestation depends on both the size of the parent and how much of their own resources they can dedicate to reproduction. For example, a small or starving ark would struggle to make one baby, while a massive ark with lots of asteroids around for them to eat could have a dozen babies in one go.

(And they can technically reproduce without a partner, but the sheer amount of time, energy, and materials required for arks to make babies means that they have to be very careful about not passing on genetic anomalies or illnesses. Like how you wouldn’t build a house on sand. Having two or more sets of DNA from the parents keeps the babies healthy.)

(If you play Mass Effect, it’s similar to why Asari try to avoid having babies with other Asari. Bad things can happen when they double up on that DNA.)

Once the DNA is sent, the arks will generally never meet each other again. Once the baby is born, it sticks around with the parent ark (and its crew) until its ready to live on its own.

(That’s not to say that none of them ever stick together. Each ark is different, and some may very well mate for life or remain with their parent forever.)

Sixth; Culture! They don’t have one that you or I would be able to recognize as a culture. It’s certainly there, it just doesn’t happen on a scale that we can truly understand. This is thanks to three things; their ridiculous lifespans, their isolation from one another, and their powers.

The DNA Exchange that arks do when they meet each other- the same thing that lets them have kids- isn’t just genetic information. They also pass along memory chunks, both useful and useless information, bits of their personality, and everything else that they want the other to know. They basically pack years-worth of knowing each other into a single email. And since they live so long, they’re also passing along the same info from all the other arks that they’ve exchanged with.

Like, imagine you high-five a guy, and you suddenly learn that he like long walks on the beach, hates the color orange, and also his grandpa killed hitchhikers in the 70’s. That’s what the exchange is like.

This is sort of its own courtship ritual, I guess? If they don’t like the info they get from the exchange, then they won’t use it to make a baby.

Anyway, that infodump ended up a lot longer than I thought lol. I’m glad you’re excited for the Val romance :D I hope you have a nice day!

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That scientist who needed us to plant those sensors out in space is probably really annoyed we lost one of the machines (is it even still functional after crashing into Val?), but on the bright side, the gravity distortions should have subsided by the time Val, and MC make their triumphant return to the universe. 🙃

The sensor is still working, yes, at least as far as the MC can tell. Even if you stole some parts to boost your ship's scanning ability, there was enough extra tech in there that nothing stopped working.

Still; from a scientist's perspective, losing a scanner or two is a small price to pay in exchange for both detailed readouts and first-hand accounts of an actual wormhole lol

Don't worry, though- he'll come up again later.

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I’ve only had Valhalla for a day and a half but if anything happens to her I’d kill everyone in this room and then myself

That seems like a perfectly reasonable response lol. I'm really glad you like them :D

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So I'm going back through wips in a list I made and I was wondering if this is still being worked on? No rush! Or anything like that im just curious. Hope you're doing OK!

Yes, I'm still working on it :D

And I'm doing okay! Thank you for asking :D I've just had some personal stuff going on, so progress has been slow.

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I just got done playing the demo and I am *in love* with the whole thing! It's so good! I love sci-fi so much and I see your taste in those nickname choices and I approve SO hard lol. Thank you for sharing your talent with us ❤

I'm so glad you liked it! Thank you!

I may have gone a bit overboard with all the name choices, but I'm glad I did. I got to cram so many references in there lol

Also, I've been following your blog for a while, and your story looks awesome! I'm really excited to see where it goes :D

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Purely for headcanon/fanfic and cuddles purposes, are there android's and is it possible in some way shape or form for Val to maybe control one if not I hope you're OK with people writing an au where it is possible 🐨

I am 100% okay with people writing fanfiction! Just make sure you tag it correctly if you post it on tumbler. We use #valhalla-cog because everything else belongs to assassin's creed.

So; androids exist, but not in the way you might be thinking. None of them could ever actually pass for a person- even the most convincing ones are deep in the uncanny valley- and none of them are actually sentient. So they're less like Data from Star Trek and more like the mechs from Mass Effect.

Like, the LOKI mech from Mass Effect 2 is pretty much the best android-style mech you can get without spending an exorbitant amount of money on it.

Val could technically have a computerized hub and its accessories installed to give them control of a handful of mechs like that, but they would sooner vent you into space than allow you to perform that sort of techno-organic surgery on them. So, no, they can't control an android lol

But! For fanfiction purposes!

Spoilers

Valhalla can create drones, but they are not limited to the pillbug shape you've already scene. Back before this story became IF, the plan was for Not-Val to steal some of the MC's DNA to make a person shaped drone. Then they'd take full control of the drone as if it was just another extension of their body, which would potentially cause issues as the drone tried to become its own person.

It was... a whole thing. I'm glad I abandoned that storyline lol

Also, it would look more like a humanoid creature in techno-organic armor more than it would look like an actual person, but that doesn't matter for fanfiction lol

But feel free to change it up however you see fit! AUs are great :D

And if you'd like to message me directly, I'd be happy to info dump on you :D

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Im part of a fandom called Titanfall where I found some people that ship themselves with giant robots (not ridiculing them, whatever works for them I say) so I'm not surprised people literally fell in love with Val 🤣 it's all about the personality I guess

Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be surprised lol. It's just funny that people brought it up so early. Like I think I got my first ask about it before the MC had even talked to Val at all :D

Also, it sounds like I should start playing titanfall. For research purposes lol

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So... is Val an RO? And if yes, how is this going to work exactly? Sorry, I'm new to this blog and the search on this site is tricky.

Val is a tentative RO. I've never written romance before, nevermind romance with a spaceship, so I'm just worried about it lol. I'm going to do my best with their route, but if I'm not happy with how it goes, I'll remove it entirely.

And I haven't haven't entirely decided how it'll work, but it will definitely be an asexual route, if that's what you're asking lol.

Fun fact! Back before I decided to write this as interactive fiction, Val was the only RO. And also a terrible person. They're better now, but some of that storyline might pop back up as a Bad-End Yandere!Val route lol.

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Not an ask, but just wanted to say I played the latest update and I'm glad we got to converse more with Val and is actually now helping the poor ship, that spear must hurt yikes. Looking forward to the next one whenever, keep it up! 💕

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

And yes- the spear sucks, but it's just the start of what MC needs to do to help. Val is a mess, but not for much longer :D

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orin can be an RO?, his personality is amazing and he is also sexy

You haven't even met him yet lol. I'm glad you like his so much, be he's not going to be an RO.

Orin is a three-foot-tall dinosaur and is the group's resident grumpy old man. He is not interested in romance with any of the crew.

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How would the Ro react if the MC left hickeys on them? And they did not know until it was pointed out to them

Ace: Bashfully proud lol. Like, they'll panic a little and try to hide them once they're pointed out, but then they'll be all smiley about it. May or may not lie and say they got it in a fight, which nobody will believe with the way they're acting lol.

Blue: Really nonchalant about it. They just shrug and say they got a bit carried away. But then, in private, they'll ask MC to leave a few more, and to leave a few of their own.

Hyde: "And? What about it?" On the surface, they seem pretty casual about it, but they're making a threatening face like they're daring the person to keep talking about it.

Raza: Has fur, so this ask probably shouldn't apply to them. But let's ignore that. If somebody pointed out that Raza had very obviously been making out with MC (dopey grin, ruffled hair, tail that won't stop wagging lol), Raza will immediately die. Or wish they did. They clam up, stutter, and go into denial before fleeing the room.

Orin: Not an RO. He's the one asking, and thinks that you guys are disgusting. (And adorable, but he doesn't admit to that part)

Val: Immune to this ask. But they will also ask about it; the only problem is, they think it's an injury, and will worry over your RO until someone draws the short straw and explains it to them.

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me wanting to romance Ace and then falling for Val 😧😔

I'm glad you like them both :D I didn't expect people to want Val as an RO back when I started this lol

But you can always do multiple playthroughs :D

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Hi, hope youre doing well today~ I just finished the demo and it was one of the most memorable cog yet even though there's not a lot happening so far but I'm looking forward to when we get out of the wormhole and meet the other cast. Speaking of, is Orin an RO or not? (I see him listed in ro asks but then theres a "not an ro" beside his name?) Anyway, thank you so much for making this, I'll definitely keep waiting for an update whenever it may be. Lots of love XXX

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it :D

I know there's not much happening right now lol but I'm working on it. I just want to get done with the wormhole stuff because I am SO sick of this scene lol.

And no, Orin is not an RO, but he is an important part of the crew. I include him with RO asks so that I can give him (and your platonic relationship with him) the same amount of attention that the rest of the crew gets

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Valhalla Update; 8-26-21

Hello everyone! Today marks the one-year anniversary of the game’s original demo launch :D

I’ve updated it once again (+4k words), which brings our total to 64k, not counting code.

It includes pronoun selection for both the MC and Valhalla, plus the start of how you’ll be getting out of the wormhole.

Also; I will no longer be updating this on a once-a-month schedule. The next update will be out once I feel it’s ready.

Here is the demo again. Please let me know what you think!