As of now, I am almost done the immense 65 000 word interlude which bridges the gaps between Act 4 and the two versions of Act 5.
Why is this interlude so damn big compared to all the other ones which have come before it? Two reasons.
The first is that I needed a method for sorting players into the two versions of Act 5 in a way which meant neither could be framed as a reward (because, I mean, let’s face it, your choices are either prolonged Cossack-and-Bashkir Torture, or prolonged Caçadore-and-Baker-Rifle Torture, neither of those are rewards), and in a way which would create a reasonable in-story reason to send the player one way or the other.
The second is the simple fact that this interlude covers a lot of time, basically the entire stretch from the end of the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1807 to the beginning of the War of the Sixth Coalition in 1812. Even with a lot of compression and consolidation, that’s a lot of stuff to cover, especially when the player character is now likely senior enough and politically relevant enough to be involved in some of those things personally.
Even then, there’s a lot I have to sort of gloss over. The big ones are, of course, the first half of the Peninsular War, and the War of the Fifth Coalition. It was a hard decision to “cut” both of these from the main narrative, but it was a decision I made fairly early on (note that the title image I uploaded at the beginning of active development only starts listing battles in Spain in 1811, and omits the major engagements of the War of the Fifth Coalition). I’d like to fill these in eventually with post-release expansions of some kind, but I’m focusing on getting this done before I start seriously thinking about things like that.
If you’d like to help me out by funding additional art and music – and get access to the development Discord and the playtest builds, take a look at the Patreon page for Shadow of the Eagles here.
In the meantime, my first Patreon’s still going. This month’s Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding, might be of particular interest. It’s a detailed “mid-mortem” about the first eleven months of Shadow of the Eagles‘ active development, and the lessons I’ve learned in that time. It’s a little “out of date” in the sense that I wrote it nearly two weeks (and therefore, about 60 000 words) ago, but it might give you some insight on how things have been going – and how I plan to go on moving forward.
This month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, is, of course, now also up, so take a look if you’d like.
