ShoH Update [Important] (Patreon)

Hi everybody, I hope you're settling in (or getting ready to go out for) Halloween weekend--if that's a thing you celebrate! I've been plugging away at the update for the alpha build--I haven't got as much on it done as I wanted to this month, for reasons I'll get into below. But I did manage to finish this month's entry of Trouble and Riel's CSI shenanigans early, along with a bunch of other stressful non-Shepherd stuff--this last week I had an author event/launch party at our local bookstore, which was amazing! But also stressful leading up to it. But also so incredible! I even got to meet a dear friend that I met through the Shepherds community, which was so awesome! :) And I just got done with an interview with NPR, prepping for a brief TV spot, and some other secret Book Business that I'm not allowed to talk about right now but which unexpectedly took up a LOT of my time this month... I kind of just want to be done with WHABH for now and put my head down and concentrate on Shepherds and my next (eventual) novel lol, but sadly, it doesn't seem like the career of an author always goes that way! 😅 

Anyway, all of this to say, a lot of things cluttered up this month for me, not least of which is this thing I'm going to talk about. And I would like to stress that this is not an announcement or anything official yet by any means, but more of an update of what I'm thinking and where my head is at. So, here goes!...

I am exploring my options and thinking of moving Shepherds to Twine. 

There are a myriad of complex reasons I'm contemplating this move, but I'll try and outline at least a few of them here. If you follow other ChoiceScript authors or their Patreons, you may have noticed that many CS alpha demos are being removed: Choice of Games recently explicitly requested that authors no longer post their alpha previews as Patreon rewards. I completely understand this decision, as it's their right to protect their proprietary coding language. However, this is a big catalyst for my thinking about moving elsewhere: while I understand the decision and respect COG's rights to their property, I personally don't want to be tied to the decisions and moves of a company that I ultimately have no control over. I work so hard on Shepherds, and it's so near and dear to my heart, that I'd really like to have total control over what happens with it, and to not have to factor in the whims and decisions of a separate company that I have no say in. In short, I would like to make myself and Shepherds completely independent, and I can do that with Twine. 

Another big factor of why I'm liking Twine is that I have felt constrained by ChoiceScript's UI and coding limitations lately. Don't get me wrong: I still love ChoiceScript's code, and I never would have gotten to where I am today without it and its simplicity. However, I just know that I can make Shepherds into something more. Interactive map with little random encounters as you travel to Heth Macoll? I can do that with Twine! Actual character cards you can click on and interact with, or ways to play the Rangers of Blest trading card game? Pretty fonts, menus, stat bars, and buttons? Music? Inventory system? A little storefront for Chandry? Incorporating more of our art commissions and creations into the final product for the game?? We can do it all, baby, and even more! This is the biggest reason for why I'd be excited about Twine, even if learning the code at first would be a bit daunting. It can 100% do everything ChoiceScript can do--and then some. A lot more, in fact. Like, the sky literally is the limit, and I find myself so excited thinking about all the new features I could add to the game--I've even been dreaming about it and waking up scribbling down ideas! And I haven't had a feeling like that in a while!

So I'm exploring my options, and Twine is looking very good. A further breakdown of my thoughts about Twine, if you're interested:

• If Shepherds was a Twine game, what would be different for you, the reader?

Honestly, I can only think of the experience being better on the reader-side of things. The game's interface would look much more appealing, and you would gain access to all of the fancy features I'm planning (plus basic quality-of-life stuff, like pop-up notifications when the codex is updated, things like that). Other improvements on your end: the save system that comes with Twine isn't as prone to being broken by updates, and you have the option to save your files directly to your device instead of storing them in the browser cache, meaning you have a physical copy of your save. It can't really be corrupted by stuff I'm doing on my end or accidentally deleted, if that makes sense. That means your saves are safer!

As for differences: the final product of the game wouldn't be included in the Choice of Games omnibus, and the alpha build would either be hosted on my own website or itch.io rather than on dashingdon. I don't know how much that matters to people, but I figure it's good to outline all of the consequences!

Most importantly, the writing, choices, story, characters, and everything else about the game would stay exactly the same. It would only be the interface and presentation that would look different, but the content would be exactly the same in the Twine version as in the ChoiceScript: this is very, very important to me. The most important thing, in fact. If I didn't believe that porting Shepherds would result in an identical-but-better version of the story, I would stick with ChoiceScript! So that's my promise. Everything that's in the ChoiceScript version would be in the Twine version, just with more goodies added (and in a way that didn't compromise or distract from my finishing the main story). 

• What would be different for me, the writer?

Well, obviously, learning the ins-and-outs of Twine will take some time; I've already got a basic grasp on it (enough to start porting over Shepherds, though right now the port is looking fairly basic--that'll change as I figure the more complex stuff out!), but it will definitely be a learning curve as I first start out. I've coded in ChoiceScript for so long that starting over again from scratch makes me feel like a dummy, but luckily I've got a very good friend who's been willing to help guide me through the process!

Mainly, my updates to Chapter 7 of the alpha build would probably slow down for a little while (same size updates, but every 6~ weeks instead of 4, or updates every 4 weeks, but they're reduced in size) until I got the port up and working. 

And, when the product was finished, more would fall on me when it came to getting the game out to different storefronts and figuring that whole bonanza out. I wouldn't have a publisher to help me market the game or bundle it into, say, an app on the Google play store, but I'm optimistic that I could figure it out! And honestly, even if my final sales or outreach didn't match that of Choice of Games, I would just be happy knowing that I made the game the best product I possibly could, the way I wanted to do it--so that part isn't as much of a concern for me anymore!

• What are the potential downsides?

Aside from reduced outreach with the final product, I don't know how much the COG forum factors into the "discoverability" of the game: that's probably something I'd lose if I switched to Twine. I'm not sure how many people find out/hear about the game on the forums versus, say, Tumblr, so it's probably something for me to consider! 

Aside from that, the only thing I've found that ChoiceScript has that Twine doesn't is the ability to calculate the game's wordcount without code! So on that, we'll probably have to guess or figure out something down the road? 😅

• What do you all think?

Again, nothing is "official" yet: I haven't made any public announcements or concrete, irreversible decisions, but I am heavily weighing my options, and thinking about this has notably slowed down my work on Shepherds this month as I wrestle with what I want to do. But think of this as a litmus test of your thoughts rather than a final decision on my part. Ultimately, I'll have to do what's best for my future and game, but your opinions matter a lot to me, so I'd like to open this up to your thoughts! What would you think of Shepherds becoming a Twine game? It's important to me to be transparent with where I'm at and to hear what you all think!

Thanks for bearing with me as I contemplate these changes. This was certainly not what I was expecting to do this month, and the need to think about switching was unexpected, surprising, and stressful. I was struggling with a lot of anxiety earlier, but ultimately, I feel more at peace and determined to just make my game the best it possibly can be, whatever that looks like. I hope everything I said makes sense, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

And again, happy Halloween! 🎃

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Edit: Hi everybody, thank you for your feedback so far! Your thoughts have been very valuable and your support is extremely encouraging: I'm very appreciative of it, and I'll continue to ruminate on your comments moving forward!

I noticed some common questions coming up and, while I'm not 100% familiar with Twine or other Twine games yet, I can offer some answers if that helps (again, not indicative of a final decision yet, just offering some information):

1) Would the ChoiceScript alpha build remain up?

Yes, the ChoiceScript version of Shepherds would remain up and playable until the Twine version was ready for consumption--AKA at a point that I was happy with and caught up to where we currently are in Chapter 7 (or thereabouts)! This would be to ease the transition and make it as smooth as possible, rather than making everybody start from scratch and wait for me to port everything bit by bit. So the ChoiceScript version would not be going away any time soon--in fact, this transition would take me a long while, and you would still have all that time to continue enjoying the current version until it came time for the switch. I would also continue updating the CS version while porting the Twine version in the background, though again, my pace on the updates would either be 1) slower (usual amount of words, but every 6 weeks) or 2) the same frequency of updates, but smaller (every 4 weeks but a less amount of words)--it'd basically be whatever you guys preferred! This way, I could take my time with the port and work on it at my own pace, rather than feeling obligated to rush it and get it up as soon as possible. Definitely would want the first impression to be a good one, so I wouldn't be publicizing it until I felt it was ready and would work on it slowly but surely! It means less free time for me in the coming months, but when is that ever new, lol... 💧C'est la vie!

2) Can we still code-dive?

There are actually ways to see the code of Twine games; they usually involve downloading a decompiler that would convert the HTML files of Twine games into plain text files, so there are a few extra steps involved in doing it, but there are technically ways that let you see the code in pretty much the same fashion as you would looking at it from dashingdon--you'd just have to download the text files to your computer rather than viewing them online! I'll have to make sure that people can't, like, do anything bad with these plain text files, but if all seems fine, I wouldn't really care too much about it personally! Heck, a lot of you code-divers have saved my ass in the past with catching mistakes! 😂 I'd keep the notes and everything 😌.  The only thing would be that you'd have to learn how to read Twine, but it's not that different (except there are a lot of missing spaces and paragraph breaks in Twine--but a lot of it looks like <<set health +=100>> instead of *set health %+100, so it's not insanely different)!

3) Mobile support and accessibility.

I would do my best to ensure that the game is mobile-friendly; while I can't promise perfection, I know there are definitely ways to enhance mobile viewability and playability with extra coding, and for the features that might be a bit harder (such as an interactive map), I would find a way to provide either a mobile alternative (such as a static map or text list) or find some way to make it work. I'm more confident in this because my brother-in-law is a professional coder and developer whose job is basically to develop apps and software, and he has assured me that he can help with the mobile side of things (and this version of Twine relies on Javascript, HTML, and CSS, rather than its own proprietary language like ChoiceScript, so he can basically do anything with it, given enough time and tinkering). So I am optimistic that, while the mobile interface might not be exactly what people are used to with ChoiceScript, I can promise to devote resources to making sure the game is as optimized for mobile as I can make it! I can't control certain aspects such as how itch.io itself looks on mobile, but since the game would eventually be available on other platforms, that might be another ray of hope? You just may have to be patient as I learn and garner feedback over time!

My prototype port of the game, just from my experimenting, already has several customizations so that players can adjust their font size, types of font (including Open Dyslexic font), and different color themes. If a font or font size is missing and would be more helpful to the user experience, I would be very happy to incorporate that and add those in--it's actually quite easy! And in my prototype, I already have two working color themes: one that's "pretty", and one that I'm calling "vintage"--the latter uses the exact same font, font color, and background color as Shepherd's ChoiceScript version, and is more minimalistic versus the "pretty" version, so it emulates the simplicity of the CS interface. Players can switch freely between these settings, and in the future, I would add even more options! Hopefully knowing that there's a theme that emulates the ChoiceScript UI helps!

4) Steam and other publishing. 

My current plan (heavily subject to change, but my thinking for now) if I were to go the Twine route would be to have the alpha build on Patreon while it's in development, and, when the game is finished, Patrons would continue to have perpetual access to the complete product and whatever DLC would be released over time: the Patreon support would essentially be your product key to the game. The game would also be available for separate purchase on itch.io for anyone who didn't want to become a Patron to access it, or for anyone who just wanted to buy their own copy. Itch.io is accessible on their website (similar to dashingdon) from both desktop and mobile, but there is also an itch.io app (desktop and mobile) that you could access the game and marketplace from. I don't know if the app helps things in terms of file size, downloads, offline play, or performance, but it is a thing!

In addition to all of this, I would plan to release the game as its own app on Steam as well as the Google Playstore. Ideal world, I would also release it on the iOS Apple Store, but I don't know how to do that yet, whereas the process for porting Twine games to Steam and GPS (is that the acronym?) seem pretty straightforward from the quick Googling I did, so those are the ones I'm confident in saying will happen eventually. I know that sounds like a lot, and it's wayyyy down the road, but that would be my ultimate plan if I did all of this myself (and at my own pace, so it wouldn't be just total chaos: I'd have a lot of time to research and prepare)! I would basically do everything as if I'd released it as a ChoiceScript game, but as an independent developer; possibly (probably) with less final outreach, and it would mean more work for me, but also ultimate control and freedom!

5) Other features.

As I mentioned above, I'm going to strive to provide a setting of the game that emulates ChoiceScript's more simplistic interface (same colors, same text, with more options for the player to customize sizes and fonts and etc.) but also add other fun features--I'm very excited about these! Imagine the day-off hub literally being a map of the city where you could click on the icon to go to Whitestone to visit Chandry (and all while music is playing!) or interactive codex entries, or more detailed stat bars! There would definitely be options for the player to customize their experience (such as turning off any sounds or music through the settings; I already have that in the prototype, as well) and since I'm so far into the story of Shepherds, I'm absolutely positive that adding in these new features would not take away from writing the actual content for ShoH. It won't be a matter of flash over substance, but enhancing what's already there and presenting it in an even better interactive format. :) Also, I would be very excited about the prospect of being able to have unlockable, optional side missions (probably selectable from the main menu) added continually to the game even after its completion! This would be much easier to accomplish with Twine and would allow me to continue expanding on the world of Blest even after the game's main story was completed, which would be a very cool look for my future! 👀

Anyway, I don't want to over-promise or anything, but I just wanted to offer some of the information I'm working off of as I consider this move. I hope that all makes sense, and if you continue to have questions or thoughts, please feel free to keep leaving them below! Thank you again for your feedback! ❤️