For Pride Month in June, Interact-IF is bringing back one of its beloved events, spotlighting queer (LGBTQ+) authors and their interactive fiction projects (here’s the 2021 series).
Throughout June, we hope to celebrate the massive queer representation these stories and games help provide, as well as the awesome IFs created by and for the queer community.
We will feature a masterlist of interaction fiction written by queer authors, and select a couple to interview about their experiences and creative process! The interview will be done fully via a text Q&A format.
Prep:
If you wish to be featured (whether in the masterlist or the extended interview, which will be done fully through a text Q&A format), do fill out this google form. Or, if you prefer, you could drop me, @allieebobo a message or an email at [email protected] with the following information:Â
Name
Background/About you
Game(s)/Projects
A link to the game(s)/IF/intro post
A short blurb/description of the game(s)
Genre/Tags
(Optional) If your writing or experience has been shaped by your identity in any way, feel free to share more here as well :)Â
Contact information (or how you’d like me to reply/contact you)
Do drop me a DM if you have any questions! Note that interactive fiction includes those written in ren’py and twine as well, not just Choicescript.
Interact-IF mods will contact selected authors by email/DM by the end of the month with a full set of questions that you can type out replies to, and send back to me via email. I’ll try to feature everyone who’s interested, but will discuss further if for whatever reason I am unable to feature everyone who reached out.Â
P.S. If you know any authors who you’d wish to see featured, feel free to share this post with them or @ them when reblogging :)
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I hope you’re all safe and healthy. You can also read this devlog on Itch.io / Patreon / Ko-Fi ♥♥♥
First things first--did you play the new update? ;))))
In this new public build:Â
Finally start Mathias's battle route and try (or not) to ignore the smaller and bigger ways he's already changing.
Deal with Matt and Val's rivalry--before it ruins your plan.
Depending on your choices, watch as their relationship implodes.
Find an old, friendly Knight and a group of Younger Knights that might need ​way more than your help.
Start shaping the face of the new Dragon Order, even if your Dragon Commander doesn't know they're already doing it.
Fight the invaders!
Choose your actions wisely--time is ticking, and you're gearing up to face one of the most well-kept secrets in Five Kingdoms... in December's update, when I'll release the second part of Mathias's battle route!
Cool right? ;)) If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it! But for now here's the rest of the devlog, including all the cool stuff I worked on for the supporters build/the final version of the game...Â
This month was a little hard for me. A lot happened at work and in my personal life—some pretty stressful things, some anxiety-inducing things, and others just plain annoying, hahaha. But you all, mainly the amazing members of Ko-fi​/Patreon​, and everyone on our Discord server really helped me through that. Thank you for being amazing!Â
In all, everything’s okay; I managed to focus on the game and in my personal life, but I didn’t have much energy to spend on social interactions, which is why I was a bit quieter this month.
That said, I also realized that I’ll need to add another month of editing to my schedule. Last month, I edited 73k words. This month, I edited 70k and added 10k words to the story, which now has 265k words in total, yay. ;) But that also means I still have 122k words ahead in my edits, and I don’t think I’ll be able to finish all that in December.
Do you remember when I said I could edit 100k of my own words per month? Yep, I can—but only, apparently, for linear stories that don’t have any code—read “novels”—hahaha! I have ~8 years of experience editing stories for myself and others, but interactive fiction is definitely its own beast. I’m spending sooo much time checking/rewriting my code, adding new variables, planning how they’ll impact the story, then reading and re-reading every branch in every scene to make sure the story is flowing well, that the editing itself is suffering a bit. :’)
So yeap, I think for interactive fiction, my editing speed is more like 70k per month, hahaha.Â
Btw, one additional month of editing won’t impact my plans that much. I’ll do my best to do all my other tasks (drawing sprites/BGs, bug-fixing, and balancing for the 4th chapter as well as start working on the assets next game) while I work on the editing. In times like this, I miss working with a team. Doing all this solo is quite something, haha.
Finally, here’s everything I’ve worked on this month for the supporters’ build:
Added more depth to some scenes, including the duel between Mand and DC in the garden. Now the crowd reacts to DC's body after Mand and DC's short conversation in the woods.
Added an option to let DC choose how they feel about their scars being exposed to a crowd while fighting Mandra in the gardens (which will be referenced in the next game too)
Fleshed out the conversation between DC and Dr. Filtchen in her quarters on CH03, giving the reader more insight into Filtchen's mind and more general info about the plot.
In the same scene, I added DC telling Filtchen about what Mand did to Fergus.
Added a more significant boon to each choice in the scene when DC must choose a focus for the knights during the ceremony.
Created Knight Jillean’s sprite
Fleshed out the scene in which DC receives a ring from Mathias to add a little foreshadow of what's to come in the final chapter.
Added a new choice to the same scene, in which DC can choose between 3 rings (for the romance route) or 3 pendants (for the friendship route) that will give them a buff during the next game (and maybe in CH04 if I have the time to implement it).
Edited 3/4 of chapter 3 (another 70k words)
Also, I finished reading/signing/sending/paying aaall the things Valve required of me, which means we're a few steps closer to seeing LtGBtK on Steam, yaaay!
For ko-fi/Patreon, I also wrote a cozy short story filled with fluff that shows Mel and Mathias nursing DC when they’re sick. It’s a very cute scenario written in Mel’s POV that should show you all about Mel’s more secretive side—in there since she was little. ;))
Read it on Patreon or Read it on Ko-Fi​
I’ll take a week off from 23 to 26 to spend the Holidays with my family, but I’ll be working the rest of the month, so if you find any typos, bugs, etc, feel free to reach out on Patreon/Ko-Fi/Discord!
If you’re not part of the Many Kingdoms Discord yet, but would like an invite, just send me a DM! ♥ Things are often calm and quiet there, but everyone in the server is amazing, I’m getting ready to do an art stream over the next week, and it’s a nice place to be if you’re looking other people who enjoy LtGBtK. If this is something you might be interested in, let me know. ^^Â
Are you a queer game developer who want to design awesome queer games?
Then please message me and join my discord workshop that is running this upcoming week (14-20 March) where I and some other queer developers brainstorm game ideas based on research on queer players and their desired game design concepts!
The server is now OPEN and I would be thrilled to work with you!Â
Have questions? Message me!
Want to join? Message me!
The workshop is a laid back, join when you can event where the goal is to chat about games, perhaps make some new friends and have fun :D
