Category Archives: Interactive Fiction

July Update

It’s been an interesting past two weeks over here, in between the heat wave (I managed to get heat exhaustion last weekend), spraining my wrist, and a bunch of other stuff all happening at once. I’ve been pretty occupied.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not still writing. I’ve gotten in about 30k words already this month, and I’m probably going to write 30k more before the month’s out.

I might also have some interesting news to share about another (already announced) project pretty soon too.

In the meantime, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding all up, so take a look at those.


June Update

Quick update this month, I’m 300 000 words in, and I don’t really have the time to stop.

As usual, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding all up.

Now I’m off to do more writing.


May Update

Another busy month. I’m still working on the project that I can’t talk about, although that might be changing soon. I’ve been talking with the publisher about getting some stuff in order which could lead to an official announcement. I don’t think I can mention any more than that though.

Meanwhile, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are now all up.


April Update

I’ve spent another month working on the project which I’m not allowed to identify – at least explicitly. Needless to say, it’s taking up almost all of my working time, and it’s proving to be pretty big – both in the sense of what it might end up being and in the sense that it’s probably going to clock in at a pretty hefty word count.

That being said, I suspect there are a few things I can say about it that might give you some hints as to what it’s about without violating my NDA:

1: It’s interactive fiction (which might seem self-evident, given what I normally do for a living)

2: It’s different in a lot of ways from anything I’ve written before.

3: It’s licensed work – which explains the NDA.

Obviously that’s not a lot to go on, but it should give you some idea of what I’m working on – at least until I’m able to reveal it for real.

Meantime, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are al now up, thanks to my supporters on Patreon (as always), so give those a look while you’re here.


March Update

Another month, which means more work on the project I can’t talk about yet. I’ve finished the first Act (out of five) now, which means I should be on track to finish up sometime around the beginning of next year, barring unexpected delays, personal crises, or scope creep.

After that, Wars of Infinity is probably on the docket, though I obviously can’t guarantee how long that will take.

This month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are now up, thanks to my supporters on Patreon (as always), so give those a look while you’re here.


February Update

Still working on that project I can’t talk about. Now that outlining’s done, I’ve started working on it in earnest, with the prologue just finished this morning.

It should be a less expansive project than Lords of Infinity was, although that’s not really saying much. It does at least mean that it’ll probably only a year or two before I finish up with it and start on Wars of Infinity – although it’ll still be a while before I can reveal what it actually is.

As usual, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are now up, thanks to my supporters on Patreon (as always), so give those a look while you’re here.


January Update

New year, still working on the new project I can’t talk about.

I’m well over 100 000 words with it now, although the Phase 2 skeleton isn’t quite finished. However, almost all of the mechanical skeleton for the main story is about done, which means I only have the last branch of the last chapter and the epilogues (there will be multiple endings, and they will be quite different, based on your choices throughout the story) left to do before I can take a step back, make some revisions, and then start filling in all that placeholder text.

Hopefully, somewhere around that point, I’ll be allowed to break NDA.

As usual, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are now up, chosen and funded by my Patreon (as always), so don’t forget to give those a look.


December Update

Another busy month this time around. I’ve been finishing up the phase two skeleton for the project I still can’t talk about. I’m almost done now, and I suspect I’ll be finished that part sometime at the end of this month or the beginning of the next one. Note that while I’ve been calling it a skeleton, it’s really more like a pared down version of the final product which will have full mechanical function and probably more than 100 000 words of text and code.

So it’s quite an undertaking even by itself.

In the meantime this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are now up, chosen and funded by my Patreon (as always), so give those a look too.


On Sale: The Entire Dragoon Saga

Just a heads up. The Dragoon Saga, (which is to say, Sabres of Infinity, Guns of Infinity, and Lords of Infinity) are all anywhere from 34% to 40% off as part of Steam’s Autumn Sale.

In addition, you can get all three parts of the series for a 46% discount.

If you’ve ever wanted to go through my blackpowder fantasy series and never had the chance because of the price point, now’s a good a time as any to fall in with the Royal Dragoon Regiment, and experience what has almost certainly been the biggest ongoing project of my entire writing career.


November Update

So, another month’s come and gone, and I’m still working on that project I can’t talk about yet. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to announce it for quite some time – I suspect that’s because the license-holder and the publisher would like to have a lot of marketing material ready to go before doing a formal announcement.

That being said, I can still talk about the new process I’m using to write this one. I’ve finished the basic “play-by-play” skeleton of the game, which means I know more or less how every chapter is going to be organised and laid out. I’ve since moved on to building the “mechanical” outline, something which you could probably consider akin to the sinew of the game. Long story short, it means I’m currently filling in all of the scripting which actually links all the text together. The end result should be a game which is playable, but with placeholder text instead of the actual final prose.

I’m doing this mostly as an acknowledgement of the fact that I’m a better writer than I am a game designer – something which has become a lot clearer with the dev process of Lords of Infinity in the rear-view mirror. This way, I can have a mechanically complete game which will still be easy to test and rebalance, since I won’t have to also shift around all of the descriptive text at the same time. When I start on the actual final prose, I’ll have a firm idea of how the game works, where each storyline goes, and how everything is put together mechanically. The placeholder text isn’t polished or nuanced, but it does describe the basic emotional beats of each page too, so I won’t find myself stumped on how to proceed, as I often have before.

Note that this is not a simple task. There’s some really mechanically ambitious stuff here, and it’s entirely possible that this “skeleton” alone will be in excess of 100k words – but I know that everything I write now will contribute in some way to the finished game.

As usual, this month’s Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms and Creator’s Guide to Writing and Worldbuilding are now up, chosen and funded by my Patreon – which not only allows me to write these supplementary articles, but also helps pay my rent and bills so I can spend more time on polish and balance which I couldn’t financially justify otherwise.