Games by JimD Newsletter – Game Development & Museums (Patreon)

Hello friends, readers, and (mainly) zombie lovers! It’s the end of summer, and I’ve been busy. Between doctors’ visits, my normal work schedule, and writing, I wish I had the power to stop time. Anyway, in this newsletter I’ll share the progress of my games and delve into the topic of linear vs. dynamic, once more.

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven

This past month, I worked on several parts requested by patrons, namely Madison’s romantic encounter in chapter 8 and adding options for choices that already existed. I also added upgrades for the Junkyard, completed an important mission, and wrote the intro of a new faction (hint: for some of you, this is a reintroduction to her gang).

Next month, I’ll work on the first male romantic interaction, Cristian Lopez. He’s the most popular male RO for sure. I’m also going to work on the research station again, hopefully finishing the large and important mission.

To add even more opportunities to leave the Junkyard, I have once again enlisted Ethan Underhill to write a mission. I discussed in a past newsletter my process of collaborating with Ethan. This mission was another important one as it has you visiting a museum of regional history. This entire mission was crowdsourced on Patreon, and many of the major plot points were decided by my patrons. The mission is also unique, because it’s the first you have the option of inviting three survivors: Cristian Lopez, Tommy, or Bailey. While you could go to the lake with Tommy and Bailey in Part 2, that was a social excursion. The museum mission has combat, social interactions, moral dilemmas, new weapons to find, and more. I’m already coding it to share with my testers in December.

There’s lots to write, and I’m thankful for Ethan and all of my testers for helping to develop and test Part 3.

Vampire Fiction

I have definitely slowed down on writing this game, so I can focus on ZE:SH. I’m two-thirds of the way through Episode 5. Once I finish, I will let everyone know.

Game Development – Linear vs. Dynamic Revisited

In my last newsletter, I stated that Part 3 will be more linear than earlier parts. This statement stirred up some emails, and many of my readers asked me to clarify this statement. While many of you enjoy more linear choice games, they view the customization and replayability of Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven as the major strengths of the game. Therefore, I felt it is important to delve into this area of game development.

Most visual novels and graphical interactive fiction is linear. Some offer little impact from choices (I’m looking at you Bandersnatch). On the other hand, there are numerous games from both Hosted Games and Choice of Games that tell a linear story but have paths that greatly impact the story. Games like A Study in Steampunk, my own game A Wise Use of Time, or some of my favorites by Lucid are linear in structure but create branches to explore on each replay. Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven goes even farther with branchiness, so even seemingly minor choices could create a big impact.

Part 3 will still have an open world structure for chapters 8 and 10. My goal with the other chapters is to tell the real story of this  part—the struggle to build a safe haven while navigating the “politics” of other factions and groups. Think of these chapters as the same structure as visiting Jaime at Chipper Ridge High School in Part 1. You will still be able to explore different paths and face a variety of obstacles, but the major story is fairly straightforward.

Why not make all chapters open-ended? 

For one, these chapters take an enormous amount of time to write, code, and test. If I continue to development in this style, this Part can easily take another year to write. The majority of my readers would find that unacceptable.

Secondly, many casual players don’t make use of the restart button. In fact, the vast majority of players only play the game once or twice. If I kept the bulk of content hidden in complex scenes, most readers never see it. I’ve read numerous comments like “Who’s Dante?” or “How do I save Tommy?” or “Where do I find the drone?” In a way it’s fun to see the surprise from these players when they discover hidden content or characters, but a significant number of readers never hop on forums or my Facebook pages to ask these questions.

My Zombie Exodus games will truly never be linear, but I have to limit some of Part 3 in the interest of time and casual players.

Health Issues

I’ve had my surgery pushed back until mid-October. I’m still going to push out all of next month’s content, though the schedule may change. I’ll update everyone once I firm up a surgery date.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support!