Games by JimD Newsletter #39 – Project Updates (Patreon)

Welcome to my 39th newsletter! This has been an extremely busy month of work and writing during the holiday season. As you may know, I work at in clinical research at a medical university, and many of my projects want to make progress before winter break, which starts December 24th. I’ve been working 10 to 12 hour days, five days a week and several hours on Saturday and Sunday. It’s been a grueling schedule, but I’m making progress and preparing for ten days off from my university job. I can’t wait. Those days off mean I can breathe again and put in focus time on my two writing projects, both of which I will discuss below.

Let’s get started.

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, Part 3

Part 3 is currently at 401,238 words! It has broken 400k. When I post the next alpha version for patrons, it should be over 405k. I can easily see it reaching 500k at the time of release.

You will also notice this part reads more linearly than previous parts. Through all my years of writing interactive fiction, I have come to realize that open ended parts of the game don’t appeal to readers as much as I thought. When I think of a role-playing game, which I tend to think of ZE:SH, I consider dynamic opportunities for players to experience. Why should I as the game developer pigeonhole you into a specific narrative? When I started developing Part 1, I thought of making each day as a unique experience with variable events, such as meeting different characters if you are at home at a certain hour, and giving multiple houses to explore and scavenge. Many reviewers considered the game to be short, because they skip certain houses or events as they rushed through the game. If they don’t replay often, they miss whole sections of content and then complain the story is short. The same thing happened with Part 2. Even though I went back and added several new missions, one of which was a lengthy mission written by Ethan Underhill, most people still feel Part 2 is short. Both of these parts have bulky word counts (Part 1 at 600,000 and Part 2 at 350,000). But a reader skips content, they may only read 30,000 words of a part. Therefore they feel the game is too short.

I also was under the illusion that replayability needs to be stretched so far that almost random events occur and each playthrough can share very few experiences. This is much different than how I wrote the original Zombie Exodus, where most of the game flowed in a linear fashion.

With Part 3, I decided to make chapter 8 and open ended chapter to give room for the main character to explore the Junkyard, meet new groups in the area and new characters, and gives opportunities for crafting, securing the safe haven, and other sandbox style activities. However from chapter 9 on, I lead the player through a single branch of a story until the end. The replayability comes in how you handle each of the elements of those chapters, but you will experience all of the major content. You won’t miss opportunities to meet key individuals or important battle scenes. You will take part in all major decisions and experience the death of major characters. There are still numerous paths to take off that main branch, allowing a great deal of replayability. But I have found a balance which will provide a very lengthy experience for anyone reading this part.

If you are a player who restarts this game and plays through it fifty times, I still believe you will enjoy Part 3. You will encounter numerous major challenges and decisions throughout each chapter and will find hidden paths and new scenes during each replay.

I’ve worked hard at this Part and hope you enjoy this new game structure.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Out for Blood

Earlier this month I finished chapter 12, the last chapter of the story. I’m now performing the arduous but necessary task of fixing all of the notes my editor provided based on his initial review. Most of these edits relate to continuity issues. I’m planning on turning in these edits this week and will then move on to doing my own series of playthroughs to make sure the game is balanced for all types of characters.

In mid-January I have to turn over the next major draft which will head to editors at the World of Darkness/Paradox. They will look at the game from a lore standpoint. Have I written anything about vampires or the occult which doesn’t work in their system? Have I introduced a character that doesn’t fit their vision of the game? Am I providing an experience that fits the rules and theme of a Vampire: the Masquerade hunter game? These editors will read the entire game and provide feedback related to the above.

After I implement their changes, it’s a long process of testing and retesting. The game will also go for line editing and proofreading by others more professional than me in both of those fields. I’m also excited to say I will be getting original artwork drawn by Amy Wilkins! If you’re not familiar with Amy’s work, she’s done the artwork for Night Road and for numerous other projects in the World of Darkness. Most notably she’s drawn characters for the fifth edition of Chicago by Night. She’s an amazing artist, and I’m extremely excited to work with her to bring some of my characters to visual life.

A(nother) Note on Beta Testing

On December 15th, I released a public beta of Part 3, Chapter 8. Hundreds of people have played this chapter, and I’m receiving a considerable amount of feedback. I’ve heard some positive comments and constructive criticisms, especially dealing with pacing. Most people think the time you are given during the first day of Part 3 goes on too long. Some characters don’t have enough tasks to complete before the end of the day. Therefore I will be tweaking the amount of time you are given. I’m also going to allow MCs to choose whether or not to help out with tasks around the Junkyard. I will be finishing their romantic interactions and also providing opportunities to chat with each character.

For those of you participating in the closed alpha testing through Patreon, you will be getting more of chapter 11, almost to the end. In January I will continue chapter 11 and start a large chunk of chapter 12. Since my time for writing Out for Blood is drawing to a close, I will be spending much more of my time focused on Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, Part 3. As I’ve said a number of times, my goal is to take no other projects in 2021 and work solely on ZE:SH.

Until next time, stay safe and thank you for all of your support!