Imo The Most Important Thing A Writer (or Any Artist) Can Be Is Earnest. You Can Have No Technical Skill

Hello! Yes, the time has come: the Infamous demo is out! First I want to say that the response has been so unreal and the fact that people are so excited for this makes me both happy and nervous haha but I’m glad people have become invested in the characters that I love dearly!

The demo includes:

✮ PROLOGUE ✮

Audition for BOTB and attend the after-party hosted by Misfit Alley…and try not to get in trouble in the process.

Meet some new (and familiar faces) and spend the night three different ways.

Maybe have that long awaited conversation with your ex friend/partner that wants nothing to do with you :)

The prologue can be a bit NSFW-ish, if you so choose, so be wary of that!

✮ CHAPTER ONE ✮

Find your new drummer to replace Jazzy.

Kick off the tour!

⚠️ NOTE ⚠️ As there is quite a bit of variation and coding, it’s very hard for me as a one woman show to find every single error (trust me, I tried.) so for that I will be kindly outsourcing you guys as my makeshift alpha testers, if that’s alright (ha!).

If there are any errors, typos, or any passages that feel like they are out of context due to the game not reading the coding, please please let me know so I can fix it! Ideally I’d like the demo to be 100% polished before the next update!

Also, stat pages like Characters and Band Codex will be created next update so ignore that haha!

Band and character playlists will be up soon and I will share an update on that!

Also I would like to credit @magiciansvoyage for the pronoun template adapted from @hpowellsmith ! It is amazing and I’m very thankful for your generosity!

here it finally is!

DEMO (92K WORDS)

Motivation for "Harvard students" or all students basically

1. If you fall asleep now, you will dream. If you study now, you will live your dream.

2. When you think it’s too late, the truth is, it’s still early.

3. The pain of studying is only temporary. But the pain of not knowing—ignorance—is forever.

4. Studying is not about time. It’s about effort.

5. Life is not all about studying. But if you can’t even conquer this little part of life, then what else can you possibly do?

6. Enjoy the inexorable pain.

7. It’s those who are earlier than the others, those who put in more effort, who can enjoy the feelings of success.

8. Not everyone can truely succeed in everything. But success only comes with self-management and determination.

9. Time is flying.

10. The saliva that flow now will become the tears of tomorrow.

11. Dogs are learning, ambassadors are playing.

12. If you don’t walk today, you’ll have to run tomorrow.

13. People who invest in the future are realists.

14. The level of education is in direct correlation with your salary.

15. When today is over, it will never come back.

TSR Demo, Public Release!

TSR Prologue - now released through moody.ink! (Just click on the word to access the demo!)

Warning: The content is not suitable for minors or those uncomfortable with the contents listed.

Anniversary celebration and chapters 1 & 2 update  

Happy one-year game anniversary! ✨😱🥳

I know it’s not the 9th in most places in the world, but it is in some! And I’m impatient 😆✨ anyway—one year! Isn’t that amazing? Time flies when you’re having fun 😅 Thank you all for giving me such a warm welcome to all this 💖 without your support and kindness, this would have remained a small little writing exercise 😳 

As thanks for sticking by me and the game, I wanted to give all of you something. But as the new chapter 3 and 4 update isn’t done yet, I had to do the next best thing! I’ve updated chapters 1 and 2 with a little over 6 thousand new words, which feature content such as:

Extended Lestrade sandwich scene

Ask Watson about Lestrade 

New price if you win the heads or tails game 😉

Steal Lestrade’s flask?

Multiple new choices and edits to make it easier to play a soft bickering Lestrade relationship 💖 (if you still want to be yelled at, make sure you make them mad before gloating rudely or obliviously) 

And more! 

I hope you like it and have a great weekend! ❤️ 

Book Three Sneak Peek Snippet #1...

I ease myself up, grunting as pain ricochets down my spine. “Why…why did you come back for me?”

Farah/Felix leans closer, brushing her/his thumb across my dirt-marred cheek, and holds my eye. “Because you’re always my priority, babe. You always will be.”

PLAY CHAPTER ONE HERE

Meet all of the ROs, investigate a crime scene, chase a murderer!

__________

I wanted to post the chapter, since it's been a while -- minor things may change as I'm still applying the feedback from my amazing beta testers.

also, here's explained how to turn off the music/noises, since I have not found a way to make that an option in twine

LARKIN PLAYLISTS

PREACHER ABRAMS // WYATT ABRAMS // ROSE HOLLOWAY // JACOB NASH // CYRUS SOKOLOV // CELINA SOKOLOVA // DOMINIC SOKOLOV // HOLLIS // ACE ZHANG

Friend: Wanna hang out tomorrow?

Me: I actually performed an Activity yesterday. Please wait the three day recovery period to submit another inquiry

Welcome to The Rosebush

Welcome! We’re very happy to announce the preliminary launch of The Rosebush, a new online magazine for interactive fiction theory and criticism. The purpose of this preliminary launch is to let the interactive fiction community know that we exist, and to invite submissions. We hope to begin publishing early this summer, perhaps in June.

Learn more below, or you can also read this post on our website.

What is The Rosebush?

The Rosebush will be a free online magazine dedicated to publishing longer form articles about interactive fiction. The interactive fiction community already has well-established channels for reviews of individual games, and several people have well-read blogs, but we’ve been lacking a good platform for in-depth analyses, theory articles, discussions of craft, interviews, historical pieces, and so on. The Rosebush aims to be this platform. It will publish substantial articles that increase our understanding of interactive fiction, from individual works to design patterns, community structures and historical trends. The intended audience consists of both players and authors of IF.

What is the scope of the magazine?

Interactive fiction is a term with many uses. The focus of The Rosebush lies on digital works in which a player interacts with a pre-written story where text is the main medium. In particular, The Rosebush will publish about both parser-based and choice-based interactive fiction. While tabletop role playing games, computer role playing games, visual novels, and choose-your-own-adventure books are also interactive fictions in a sense of that term, they are not our primary topic.

Most of the organisers of The Rosebush come from the communities around the Interactive Fiction Competition, the Spring Thing, the IFDB, and so on; but we explicitly also intend to publish about the works of adjacent communities, such as the ChoiceScript community and the retro text adventure community.

What is the magazine looking for?

Articles! See the submissions page for the detailed call for articles. It is possible to either submit a pitch, which we will check to see whether the topic is suitable for The Rosebush, or an article. Links to submission forms can also be found on the submissions page.

What does The Rosebush offer authors?

Most importantly, a place for disseminating your articles. The Rosebush will maintain its website and ensure that all articles are also stored on the IF Archive, the best guarantee for perpetual availability in the current world of interactive fiction. In addition, the editorial team will work with you on your article, which can range from simple spelling/grammar editing to more substantial ideas and feedback on improving your piece.

The Rosebush is an entirely volunteer effort. There are no plans to offer a monetary compensation to authors of articles.

Who are we?

The editorial team currently consists of:

Aster Fialla (se/er)

Benjamin Slade (he/they)

Daniel Stelzer (they/them)

Drew Cook (he/him)

Josh Grams (he/him)

Kiana Lee (she/her)

Lisa Fox (she/her)

Mike Preston (he/him)

Mike Russo (he/him)

Victor Gijsbers (he/him)

Zee (they/them)

We all know MC isn't the most unbiased narrator, so what was really going on in Golden Scorpion's mind when they saw their former commander almost kill Overseer from behind bars? How'd they feel when they couldn't get MC to let go right away?

Ooh, okay. So I love this scene a lot and I need to set up the variations + reasoning for those before getting to the core of the question!

There are two versions of the prison scene-- one with hardened!Trystan and one with softened!Trystan. In the first version, Trystan is the one antagonizing MC, and as such, if you choose to lunge out and attack someone, you end up attacking Trystan themself. Otherwise, if you're playing with a softened!Trystan, The Overseer is the one antagonizing MC and, as a result, is the one who is grabbed.

Another fun fact is that in the hardened version, Trystan is just as strong as MC is and has chance of completely overpowering them. If they're physically stronger, they'll nearly break MC's arm again. Otherwise, if they lose, they goad MC into hurting them more... mostly b/c they're not scared. They're angry and unhinged-- laughing and smiling as MC threatens to break their neck in half.

In the softened version, however, Trystan has no chance of overpowering MC. It doesn't have to do with the physical part of it-- both Trystan's are just as strong as the other-- but the mental part. Trystan is scared of MC in that scene. They're watching someone they looked up to snap a second time-- though this one is undeniably on purpose and intentional.

You look at Trystan. They look at you. There's no emotions to be found other than a child-like confusion in their eyes. The longer you look at them, the more they begin to look like a child. A kid.

To Trystan, it's upsetting to see The Commander like this-- to see how far they've fallen. It's not pity but genuine distress, and the ever growing gut-feeling that they're the MC's enemy now.

And... well, they've seen what happens to The Commander's enemies.