Yes, I am aware that Dashingdon is removing support at the end of the month. This has been a long time coming. Dashingdon was a fan-run hosting site run and hosted for free, which we all benefitted from greatly for years.
However, my only current WIP, The Flower of Fairmont, is hosted on itch.io. It's not affected by Dashingdon's closure, and you won't be losing access to the demo when the site goes offline. In fact, I've been using itch.io for a while, for unrelated reasons.
So, while I'm grateful to Dashingdon for providing a valuable service for so many years, the shut-down doesn't really affect me directly. You can stop informing me about it because 1. I know; and, 2. it doesn't affect my works.
Welcome to the new year! I hope 2024 has been treating you well, so far.
My first piece of news is that, going forward, I will be switching to making update posts every other month, rather than every month. This is because I am working on two projects in parallel, and one of them is not ready to be made public. Because I have less to update on, I feel a bit silly making monthly posts.
The second piece of news is a much happier one. Since I've been making good progress on The Flower of Fairmont, I will soon be able to share part of chapter 3 with you all. Though I can't set an exact date, I hope to update the demo in February or March. It's been quite a while since the last demo update, so this is very exciting for me.
Chapter 3 of Fairmont has some bigger choices than the ones that appeared in the first two chapters, and also some meaty foreshadowing. I can't wait to see which of the investigative options sparks your imagination the most. It's all very fun. I'm excited to see what you make of it.
December is upon us! It is now truly winter (in the northern hemisphere), and National Novel Writing Month is over. I hope everyone who participated in NaNoWriMo had as much fun as I did. This year, I used the month of November to focus on two projects in parallel: my ongoing work-in-progress, Turncoat Chronicle, and a brand-new short story.
Speaking of Turncoat Chronicle, I am currently working on the final scenes in chapter 4. When I am satisfied with them, I'll put up a call for beta testers through the game's development thread. Testing will be done through the COG forums, so if you're interested in participating, you'll need an account.
Once the beta test has helped me locate any glaring errors, whether of code or of continuity, I will make the entire game public, for a limited time. This will help me get a wider range of feedback on the different paths within the game, especially on combinations of choices that I didn't anticipate. I hope that patient players will enjoy this period of open beta before the game is ready to be submitted for publication.
I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are, too.
You probably noticed that, despite my announcement, the final version of Turncoat Chronicle is not yet publically available. I am experiencing some delays, mostly due to health concerns, which is why the private beta testing is taking a little longer than the 4 weeks that I initially set myself. However, I assure you that I'm making excellent progress on edits and the game is very close to being finished.
I look forward to sharing the finished game with all of you.
It's October, which means time for holidays, at least for me. On the con side, that means that I've been busy with holiday gatherings and have not gotten as much writing done as I would have liked. On the pro side, since I'm currently working on the holiday masque scene, it's a wonderful excuse to tell you a bit more about the summer solstice in Koth.
Summer solstice is the longest day of the year, due to the interaction of the sun with the earth's axial tilt. For the sake of convenience, the solstices and equinoxes in Koth's world work the same way that they do in our world.
Madara's religion is syncretic and based around the three Disciples, once minor messengers subservient to more senior gods. In Koth, the most venerable of the three is Ariel, the god of war and also the god of the sun. This is why Koth's flag has a winged lion on it, which is Ariel's symbol. Because the summer solstice is the longest day of the year, it's naturally become a holiday dedicated to the god of the sun.
Solstice celebrations in Koth can be extravagant. Special foods prepared for the holiday are usually very sweet or very spicy, sometimes both. In the cities and in some wealthy noble households, red and gold banners are used as decoration. Otherwise, people mostly decorate with red flowers, like poppies and clovers.
The oldest tradition, however, is the Masque of the Sun. This ancient play, which recounts the mythological tale of the sun disappearing and reappearing, has had countless variations over the centuries. Early versions were taken quite literally as the story of the sun god traveling to the highest mountaintop to force the goddess of the mountains to end winter. Contemporary versions are generally regarded as fables or allegories.
The Masque of the Sun is first mentioned in chapter 3 of Turncoat Chronicle. In chapter 4, you'll have the option to view the masque for yourselves. The MC, as a royal, has a major part in the play.
I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into the world of the game. Now, it's time for me to get back to actually writing the masque scene which, naturally, comes in several different variations. I'll be back again in November with a new update.
This month's update is going to be very brief, I'm afraid. The main piece of news is that I've recently started a new job. While this is very exciting and important for me, it does mean that I have less time to work on personal projects. My progress on Turncoat Chronicle has been slower, and I expect that trend to continue in August. In the long run, however, the plan remains the same: I still aim to complete TC and submit it for publication, ideally before the end of 2022.
The only projects that are likely to be put on the back-burner are the nascent ones that I've been working on behind the scenes, which is something that's not likely to affect any of my readers directly.
Wishing you all a very happy and productive August!
Welcome to summer! July and August are usually the hottest months of the year, where I am. I myself am fresh out of an apartment move and looking at my to-do list, I have a lot of work, this summer.
Turncoat Chronicle is progressing steadily behind the scenes. I have a list of edits and additions that I want to make to chapter 1, and a brand new scene for chapter 3 drafted and ready to code. Once those tasks are accomplished, I'm going back to working on the final scenes of the game. In particular, I'm eager to write all the variations of the coronation scenes -- there are three separate ones, depending on which route the player takes.
In June, I spent a lot of time on both testing and research, rereading old code to make sure that the parts of the game I wrote three or four years ago are still up to my current standards, when it comes to the quality of the prose as well as matters of representation. The first chapter of the game contains several subtle cues of characterization that are starting to look too subtle in retrospect, and a few threads that were put down but never picked up again. All of that is on my list of planned edits.
At the same time, I have certain other projects in the wings, mostly things that are in early stages and too soon to speak about publicly. I have work that is not related to my ChoiceScript games, as well. I hope everyone is having a good summer (or a good winter, for our antipodean friends) and I look forward to the work that's waiting for me, this month.
