WORKING HARD OR HARDLY WORKING

development blog for in-progress interactive fiction The Working Dead STATUS: snafu

[theworkingdead-if]

You died! Congratulations on making it through your first life, and we welcome you back into the world as an fully independent* Undead!

*Registered Undead will be expected to upkeep civil responsibilities as stated by law under the Undead Rights and Regulations Act 1982. Any failure to do so will result in court action as stipulated in section 14.2.

The Working Dead is a current work in progress interactive fiction looking to delve into the mundanity of office life while answering the questions posed by life's great existence, such as "who keeps storing their yoghurt in the employee lounge freezer?" and "how do you define humanity?"

Explore the intricacies of your unlife as a file clerk at Homer & Richards Legal. Whether that be keeping to your undead self down in the archives, or getting a little too involved with your Managing Director. Keep your undead status under wraps or delve into those messier instincts at risk of losing your job... amongst other things.

UPCOMING FEATURES

+ a customisable player character including gender, pronouns and general disposition. + build potential relationships with colleagues; a fresh face, your married boss, an overworked HR manager. + skew that interest between the human emotions of love, admiration and devotion, or the fixation, obsession and hunger of the undead. + rediscover your past life or take this second chance at a new one.

GENRE: slice-of-life(death?), comedy, supernatural, light-horror WARNINGS: mild descriptions of gore, obsessive behaviour STATUS: CHAPTER ONE in draft

NO GENERATIVE AI WAS USED IN THE CREATION OF THE WORKING DEAD. ANY USE OF AI IN RELATION TO THIS PROJECT WILL BE SUBJECT TO ORBITAL STRIKE ISTG.

[theworkingdead-if]

I AM WHEEZING AT THE NAME OF THE ASK BOX

please don't wheeze on the water cooler.

[theworkingdead-if]

i really lucked out when my dashboard recommended me your if introduction post! The concept is soso interesting, i'm super excited!!! If I may ask, even if it's a pretty broad question, is there anything/any fun facts we're allowed to know about the potential ROs without spoiling anything? Thank you for your time!

a fun fact would be that I am scouring pinterest as we speak to set up their little introduction posts with appropriately relevant pictures.

in the meantime, here's their favourite colours, you'll learn their names soon enough;

× A enjoys the dark muted colours that wash over the hills in the distance. That dreary, pale blue that seeps into the hazy morning.

× B's favourite colour is the rich turquoise that breaks through mundane blocks of colour. A ring on a finger, or a stone on a necklace. The bright blue hue that is meant to draw attention.

× C loves the deep reds of maroon and burgundy. The stark mark of a pen across white paper, the slow drawn trails of nails across cold skin—ahem, that isn't very appropriate now, is it?

[theworkingdead-if]

I don’t know if you are planning to publish to hosted games for commercial purposes, but I don’t think it’s possible for a twine and cs version of the game to exist if you were to publish an cs one.

https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/question-about-the-hog-contract-can-you-publish-the-same-story-in-different-code/101804/2

thank you for this, but I'm not looking to publish under cog/hg. at most it will be a free complete game on cogdemos.

[theworkingdead-if]

What's your stance on the use of AI in the interactive fiction community?

(I don't mean to come across as direct, I just know that it's a bit of a mess atm 😖)

no, it's alright. though I don't think my thoughts differ much from the usual.

writing and creating interactive fiction is a hobby for most of people here and on the forums. I think people should work harder in a hobby to find genuine enjoyment out of it rather than turning to generative ai/LLMs to give them that "extra boost."

when it comes to providing a story to a community like this one, it's apparent that it takes time, as so many inactive blogs will prove. it leaves many people disappointed to never read a story they found interest in, and I don't think ai can support a long-term interest in something like this when you're not committed to making it yourself.

if you need the science side of it; learning takes time and effort, studies have investigated into ai's effect to people's memory retention and learning.

end note; if your using gen ai for your hobby, my opinion is figure out what it does for you, then figure out a way to do it yourself.

[theworkingdead-if]

Hey!! I hope you don’t mind me sending an ask. I was wondering if you were planning on using twine or choicescript for your story.

hello there! yes, yes, send as many asks as you'd like to this little corner of the office.

the current plan in mind is to release a full demo on cs, but ideally I would like to get around to publish both a cs and twine version of twd. for the moment though, you can expect the demo to be in cs.