The Wolf Bride

Welcome to the Land of Forest and Night. https://ylvanaar.itch.io/wolf-bride

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Less than three weeks for Wolf Bride - Summer!

I have been very busy with three things:

Work

Meeting deadlines

Fixing bugs in Wolf Bride

But as of today, the game should be running bug-free. Please look forward to it! 21st of this month!

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First teaser for Wolf Bride - Autumn

Summer will come out on Midsummer, so in less than two months!

(Or, if you're impatient, it's on my Ko-Fi already <3 )

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Wolf Bride - Summer is out on Early Access!

Here you go:

Wolf Bride - Summer Early Access - Ylvanaar's Store and Stories's Ko-fi Shop

An Early Access product of Wolf Bride - Summer! Please refer to the installation instructions!

Enjoy ;)

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Wolf Bride - Summer is done and out on Early Access tomorrow!

It is done! Wolf Bride is officially nearly 120 000 words total, and over 1100 passages in Twine!

I have sent the file for my beta reader, so as soon as the last-minute checks are finished, I will upload it for Ko-Fi patrons here:

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Become a supporter of Ylvanaar's Store and Stories today!

What to expect? Without any spoilers, things related to that very last major event of Wolf Bride; Azar being stubborn; trauma; and perhaps the greatest of all - worldbuilding!

In my previous project there was no great exploration of the world around the characters, only their immediate surroundings. This time I am going far more out there - and so are you!

Are you seeing this for the first time and are wondering what is this about? Then start from here:

Wolf Bride by Ylvanaar

Romantasy interactive fiction about the werewolves of the Forest Kingdom.

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Whose route are you most excited for?

I only have 55 passages left to write for Wolf Bride - Summer (and will put it to my Ko-Fi as soon as it is done, exciting!) and to observe that, I want to hear whose route sounds the most exciting at the moment!

The most exciting route seems to be...

Calev's!

Azar's!

Shai's!

Ze'ev's!

I want a Selene route!

Voting ended onApr 29

I also know people want Selene's route! I'm doing my best to keep it in my mind as I work, to see if it could be reasonably added to this, because damn, people... at this point, *I* want a Selene route, too!

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I think characters that make you frustrated are well-written characters!

And with that out of the way...

Who makes you most frustrated in Wolf Bride?

Calev

Azar

Shai

Ze'ev

Someone else, comment below who!

Voting ended onApr 19

You may elaborate in the comments if you want!

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I think characters that make you frustrated are well-written characters!

And with that out of the way...

Who makes you most frustrated in Wolf Bride?

Calev

Azar

Shai

Ze'ev

Someone else, comment below who!

Voting ended onApr 19

You may elaborate in the comments if you want!

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I want everyone to know that Said The Stars FINISHED with less passages than this, and for Wolf Bride, this is just the approximate halfway mark.

In two weeks, the entirety of "Summer" will be available to read in my Ko-Fi! I thank everyone who has become a supporter, and genuinely believe this will leave you with many thoughts and feelings <3

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NO WAIT HE BIT US HOORAY, ahem i mean, oh my.

Oh no~

How awful~

:3c

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April update

Thank you to everyone who has sent messages and asks - I have been working at my day job, writing, migraine and life updates, so I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to everyone yet!

We are currently standing at 100k words and a bit over, AND Summer is almost done. This is also a reminder that Summer will be on Early Access in my Ko-Fi as soon as it is done.

ALSO. MY KO-FI HAS A SPRING DISCOUNT GOING ON. So if you want to grab Summer Early Access as soon as you can, make sure you go and grab the tier that is currently discounted. Because the discount won't last forever.

By doing that you will also support this game being done sooner rather than later!

Thank you so much for your support so far <3

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Who is your favourite Love Interest in Wolf Bride so far?

I got to know, okay?

The best Love Interest is...

Calev

Azar

Shai

Ze'ev

Selene...!

Voting ended onMar 30

Comments and elaborations beyond welcome!

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In the honour of celebrating these votes and Ze'ev getting over half of the votes as the best love interest...

Have a sneak peek from "Summer". ;)

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Who is your favourite Love Interest in Wolf Bride so far?

I got to know, okay?

The best Love Interest is...

Calev

Azar

Shai

Ze'ev

Selene...!

Voting ended onMar 30

Comments and elaborations beyond welcome!

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That Ze'ev is in absolute lead of this vote comes as a no surprise to me, and Shai having no votes means I'm going to enjoy going full ham on writing "Autumn"...

Azar's scenes have been so far the most enjoyable to write and get feedback on! A surprising percentage of readers appear to be like... "I HATE him but I'm still picking up EVERY option which will bring me to his romance"...!

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Have you ever wanted to assist on writing an IF story?

Only the weekend to go, and I'll get back to writing Wolf Bride.

I have been thinking about the poll results, and how there were some people who would want to see the prologue of Farside already - after some careful consideration I arrived at the conclusion that if I want to get the prologue done sooner, I will need an assistant, a cowriter/coeditor for Farside.

This was something I actually considered and would have preferred to have for Wolf Bride, too! It just never ended up happening, so I set out to finish it anyway, because that is how I do things.

But for Farside... I do wonder if the writing community or interactive fiction community happens to have a writer who would like to work on a sci-fi project, or a writer who would love to work on an IF project but is a bit hesitant about making one completely alone?

For Wolf Bride, the complexity comes from the different love interests. For Farside, it is that, AND the fact that you can choose to play either as a pilot or as an operator, meaning there is about twice as much to write as there usually is.

Wolf Bride is an interesting project, and Farside will be a different kind of interesting!

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Frequent but small updates OR Rare but big updates

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I have not yet made up my mind about how I should go about the updates regarding Farside, once I will eventually get that far.

For Said The Stars, I updated 1-4 times per month, 10-40 passages at a time.

For Wolf Bride, the whole project will have 6 updates in total, one every three months, and there are absolutely no small updates in between. Each update is 25-50 000 words, 200-400 passages.

The question is, which do you prefer? Based on my gut feeling it looks like people INTERACT MORE if I push out small and frequent updates, which obviously keeps me going as well. (So, you know, if you prefer bigger updates and haven't yet left a comment on Wolf Bride... you could do that!)

Anyway! Poll time!

Frequent & Small OR Rare & Big

Gimme FREQUENT small updates! I want to be constantly where the development is!

Gimme BIG updates 2-4 times per year! I want to be able to immerse and binge!

Voting ended onApr 3

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Do people prefer to read prologues even when the "real" game is coming up only later?

Before I worked on Wolf Bride, I worked on Said The Stars. After Wolf Bride is done, I will be working on Farside.

My work style has been to work on one project at a time, to make sure the chapters and updates are frequent and come out on a timely manner, but I have only now started to delve into the Interactive Fiction community and noticed that many projects or accounts have several prologues out.

I guess what I'm wondering is... would people want the prologue of Farside even when the actual development will only start next year? I have scripted the prologue and the basics of programming, but I just thought people don't want prologues for projects that are far in the future.

But perhaps I have been wrong! Maybe I could and SHOULD be posting Farside's prologue online already? Let me know in the comments!

Or, if you're shy, here's a poll:

One project or many prologues?

One at a time, LEMME GET INVESTED

Gimme EVERY PROLOGUE at once

Voting ended onMar 26

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The vote has been cast! Most people seem to like their IFs one at a time, which I understand - there is always a risk that when focus is spread, some projects might get abandoned.

For me, my current realistic goals are to finish Wolf Bride by the end of this year (difficult but highly achievable based on my current word counts), and probably finish the walkthrough guides for Said The Stars at the same time.

Next year I will launch a small game (similar to "Hunger" for those of you who are familiar with my itch.io page), "Wheel of the Year", an Epilogue for Wolf Bride, and begin the pre-production for "Farside".

Whether Farside will be launched late in 2027 or early in 2028 remains to be seen. If I know myself well enough I will have to say late in 2027, because I am known to be impatient.

The biggest question is... should there be large updates at rare intervals (probably two updates per year for Farside), or small updates (10 passages or so) on a weekly basis? I will put up another poll regarding this.

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5 days and I will get back to writing!

Whenever I reach a new writing goal in advance, I give myself a week or so off before I continue writing from where I left off.

This has several benefits, of which the short version is that it lets my brain rest, and the long version is that it lets my story ripen.

Looking forward to getting back on that horse, I left off at a good spot <3

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Who is your favourite Love Interest in Wolf Bride so far?

I got to know, okay?

The best Love Interest is...

Calev

Azar

Shai

Ze'ev

Selene...!

Voting ended onMar 30

Comments and elaborations beyond welcome!