February Progress Report: III (Patreon)

Hello guys! Just giving another progress update to let you guys know how's progress for the upcoming update.

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Bug Fixes

• There was some bug-fixing; the main problem being that the stat increases weren't increasing. I had to comb through the game and double check. Shit sucked lol. Thankfully, it is done and over; so your education stats should increase after this update.

• I have added in a "Please be careful" warning in the Relationships Tab. Again, it is experimental and finicky. Please save every time before use!

Some extra work I put in when i couldnt work on the main game during my work week.

• I finally established all the trade goods and resources a duchy possesses for the Tycoon Champion who will want to establish a trade empire in the future.

• Establishing these resources to each duchy will also aid in producing realistic struggles, desires, and needs for each Great House to fuss over. This will make higher quality storytelling.

• For example, Northern Houses are the main exporter of Timber and Amber for example, whereas the Southern Houses refine, manufacture, and export those goods back north or out of the kingdom. The south also exports foodstuff and livestock to the northern duchies to feed them.

• There are unbalanced trade deals going around, with some Major Houses buckling to renegotiate these trade contracts; or simply looking to diversify their assets and gain more resources since theyre overspecialized in one or two of those said resources, and it could be crippling to their economy if something bad happens.

• While doing all that, I also established the main trade resources the empire, the Jelaythans, the Sankri, and the Lymarkians possess. The Kin of Arava wasn't really included since they mostly only trade in herbs, medicine, and etc that isnt found elsewhere in the continent.

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Now for the main game stuff.

From where we left off, you now meet Zera and find him as a shy little boy who follows along with whatever someone with a more extroverted personality says.

Then we make a lil comment on his hair

 Then you introduce yourself to him

 Sadly, Zera's still a bit shy, so he just hides behind Master Feren alot.

Blah blah blah, you then get to decide who to sit with for extra opinion points, and to learn a bit more about the person.

 Each of the three have four choices that you can choose that affect your personality stats depending on how you choose to respond.

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 I try to make choices and responses that make sense to the personality while still letting players feel in control. Remember, youre still building a personality here and can freely choose whatever you want. It isnt until the three upbringing routes where characters will begin noticing what you choose the most. If however, you feel like a choice/response isn't right or it doesnt feel right, lemme know and ill give my thoughts.

• Friendly is considerate of others while still wanting to include people. Think of it as being more gung-ho about shit

• Carefree is literally just that, carefree in their approach and manner. The Champion does what they want and says what they want without consideration.

• Stoic mean preferring to be quiet, and considering what could affect other negatively. Think of it as the Champion trying to avoid upsetting people in the first place for situations like the above.

• Imperious, when not being "royalty" will instead be more headstrong, stubborn, and not as considerate. For instance in the above, the Champion does answer Aurelian in a way that would still respect Zera, but speaks in Argentian because "why would i change to High Belthean, when im not trying to hide anything" if that makes any sense.

That's just my thinking process for some of these responses that help me out when a personality isnt so cut and clear when applied to some situations. Besides, I really wanted to highlight the vulnerable and scared boy that Zera is currently. Because the contrast shown later once he returns to Emperor Otto will be startling as he becomes more prickly and defensive. For now though, he'll be raised alongside us for a few years, specifically in the Prince route.

The choice group here is 1,352 words in total.

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I also took a bit longer than I wanted here with Amina's part, but it's only because I wanted to offer scenes that differ upon whether or not you've actually met Princess Amina or not. Make them actually different.

• If you met her on Adelina's route, you get to talk to her a bit more and continue from where you left off last time.

• If you didn't join Adelina and went with Uriel instead, you get a more personal reintroduction so that when the exploring begins, the content is more uniform and easier to write since we're all on the same page again.

• Amina's two different versions of the carriage ride is 1,855 words together, adding in the intro scene makes it reach almost 2k words in total.

• This was needed to also help make the exploration not get messier as I was going to have to account for other details that wouldn't be known if you went with Uriel instead of Adelina.

Let's see how the conversations may change

Above, you see that the Champion falls back on the first birthday picking ceremony since they personally experienced it. Amina doesnt really care however, she wants devour ANYTHING she can regarding Argent since she loves exploring different cultures. I'm modeling Amina after Admiral Thrawn, in the sense of leadership style and how she will try to use their cultural, religious, and social identity to know her opponents.

For example: https://youtu.be/YEMh8ZZbZQM?si=hLq-eS6aYc9AfEz7
This scene, and others in the exploration, is just a hint of how she will operate in the future.

In the below scene, it is most of what you already know if you went with Adelina the first time around. The biggest difference however, is Aurelian jumping into the conversation giving it his flair lololol

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And finally, we can choose to sit next to Aurelian on the ride back to Blackwall Castle. Like the two scenes above, this scene serves to show the reader the type of person Aurelian is/will be and his relationship with you.

The total word count 1,106 words in total.

The main idea here is to make Amina and Zera jealous of your awesome relationship ;D

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All of the above, plus the words not specifically in a choice group, amounts to around 5.5k words in total!

The main feature will of course be Zera, and the second main focus will be Amina. Aurelian is just there if players don't want to really learn more about the other two or interact with them.

After the above section, the actual exploration finally begins!

As said before, you can choose two out of four branches.

In total, RIGHT NOW, the entire exploration set is 10,090 words.

Which means, with the pre-exploration + actual exploration branches, are a total of almost 16k words!

I'm sorry for breaking my promise of two 10k updates in one week; HOWEVER, this new update (after I add in the epilogue for Chapter 1 which finally adds some excitement into the story revolving our friend Zera) will reach close to 18k-19k words. I really really wanted to release as soon as possible, especially considering that I already reached 10k words minimum for release... but I really want to have a complete experience ready for you guys. Especially with the broken saves problem.

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Which btw, brings me to my next point:

In Chapter 2, I'll be doing 20k scene files-

(The txt files/tabs below)

-to make saves possible.

I have been told multiple times from multiple people that the saves revert you back to the last untouched chapter file. If this is true, I can make scene files last only up to 20k words to not have you guys start all over from the very beginning. And when the public release happens, i can merge those files together.

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Anyways, back to the Exploration branches. Let us take a glimpse of North:

 We meet Michael the Baker again! Only, he isn't working as a baker anymore!

You get different scenes depending on whether or not you met him earlier in the story with Duchess Cassandra/Bridgewatch, and I also wanted to highlight that your gender sometimes come up here and there. For instead, it comes up in the Stoic option only as it deals with either bowing or curtsying. Expect more instances of that elsewhere in the future. I really want to have players talk about experiencing different scenes even when theyre in the same chapter, with characters acting/behaving differently with male or female Champions!

Back on topic, the two scenes are about 600 words each.

Continuing on, the scene includes commentary from the other characters as they witness/eavesdrop a pair of men talking about construction problems.

 The scene moves on to introduce another character, Lady Galiel (who you might remember was present in the meeting with Queen Khari and Queen Adelina) she comes in complaining and talking shit to the master builder.

 I want to keep the content inside the options hidden, since I think they're hilarious and should be experienced lol

Just know that some of these choices will have Amina or Zera jumping in, even Aurelian!

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Lastly, once again, I want to apologize for moving the release date again. I'm hoping the near double promised size makes up for it! I'm putting in the work, and I'm loving what I'm writing. I wish I could do even more and add in even more lil call backs here and there but I know when to put a lil and when a lil is too much of a distraction.

I hope this Progress Report was fun to read, and informative of what I'm doing thus far!

And thank you so much for your support guys!!!