if-seal

[if-seal]

Dear Twining Friend,

My Harlowe knowledge is as rusty as an old anchor on a shipwreck, but this is indeed possible!

If your variable is $playername and the link to which you want to go next is nextpassage, you can do:

(link: "I'm $playername")[(goto: "nextpassage")]

Best of luck with your Twine project, my friend!

[if-seal]

Dear Twining Friend,

My Harlowe knowledge is as rusty as an old anchor on a shipwreck, but this is indeed possible!

If your variable is $playername and the link to which you want to go next is nextpassage, you can do:

(link: "I'm $playername")[(goto: "nextpassage")]

Best of luck with your Twine project, my friend!

[if-seal]

I used ai for my code and now I don't know what to do. When I started using it I thought it's okay as long it is mostly original but now I'm apparently a diabolical piece of shit who hates the environment. My game is really specific code wise and im really ambitious, so I was constantly stressed trying find help on how to do this and this. I just realized how bad using ai for anything was like two weeks ago. Idk if I should go on with my game and make a blog or just throw it all away. Like I'm 95 percent done. I'm scared if I continue what reaction I'll get, and idek if I deserve to be in the community. Should I just redo the whole thing? At the same time, using the ai wasn't a walk in the park either considering my goals. I'm so confused and stressed, and I have no motivation to continue whatsoever, even though I low-key need the patreon profits. This was supposed to be a project to slowly get my feet off the ground, making money doing what I love, but now my dream was just crushed. The conversation around ai is so confusing, like one second its not bad and the next you're lazy and a horrible person. Idek how to move forward or how to handle a future situation where I'm stuck with complicated code. This was a lot but I just needed to get that off my chest. Ik im not 100 percent innocent, I've just been holding that in for a minute.

Dear Stressed Friend,

In the kindest of ways, you made a mistake: you tried to shortcut without a solid foundation and are realising the limitations of doing so.

You do not mention which IF language you are using, but if you were planning to release a game with Hosted Games, you cannot publish there with genAI material.

LLMs are often wrong and you won't know how to fix the errors they create - it will also be hard to spot if there are errors at all if you don't understand the code you're using. This is one of many reasons why the professional narrative designers and game writers I know do not give LLMs the time of day (to put it mildly).

Whatever coding language your project is, there are plenty of people who are keen to help you understand how the code works. Asking questions and putting effort in to learn will enable you to develop your skills, work independently, and understand what you're doing in order to do your creative work.

With time and work you will reach a point where the creativity of code and writing can work together wonderfully and you'll have the potential to do this with more confidence.

You sound very anxious and having a lot of thoughts at once, and so I would recommend not starting a blog at this time. Certainly not a Patreon. Instead take some time to evaluate where you're at and work on your coding skills.

It may not be easy at first but we all start somewhere. I wish you well.

[if-seal]

When would it be appropriate to open a tumblr blog for my game? My story is in development, and I'm confised as to which point I can start my social media. I assume knowing your characters is pretty important since the if community sends a lot of character questions. And afterward, when would I open a patreon? To follow up, how would I go about setting up a patreon as well; should I just start with early access or all at once at a certain point? This is a deep question, my bad lol. :)

Dear Blogging Friend,

Well, what I would say is that any time is an appropriate time to start a blog if you are enjoying the idea of keeping people updated with your progress on your project!

I will point you to an answer from a little while ago about starting blogs which may be of interest.

Before you begin sharing things about your project, it is worth knowing what your story is about and where you think it will head, and some things about the characters, so that if you're asked questions about those things you can share them; even if you're not asked about them, you can make posts on the subject.

About Patreon: I am not an expert on best practice for this at all, and financial success in such things comes with vast amounts of luck, so please take this with a pinch of as much sea-salt as you'd like.

I think it's best to focus on working on your project first and foremost. If players enjoy your public project and want to see more of it, they may be interested in supporting you financially. I would not recommend starting straightaway with a subscriber model

If you are sharing additional material for subscribers, make sure to balance your time and energy as it is easy for it to take over, and potentially pull focus from your project itself

It's worth creating a backlog of things that you're planning to share so that you're not scrambling to make them each month

If you find yourself not feeling it or unable to fulfil promised tier rewards, do not hesitate to pause billing: that is better than suffering in silence or leaving people hanging

From what I have observed, early access to your WIP is the main draw for subscribers in general; as above, you will want to share some of your work first, though, otherwise no one will know whether they enjoy your work enough to subscribe

I do not recommend keeping a WIP paywalled right up until release because unless you are fortunate enough to have an extremely large and highly active subscriber following, you will miss out on a wider breadth of feedback which can impact the quality of the completed game

Do not fall into comparing your subscriber count or finances with other creators: that way leads misery

Finally, if you're working in ChoiceScript, you need to make ChoiceScript material available to the public within a month unless you have made a formal alternative arrangement with Choice of Games

I hope that is useful, Blogging Friend! Best of luck with your story!

[if-seal]

A call for follow-ups!

Dear friends, if you have had a question answered on the blog, I would absolutely adore hearing how you're doing now! If I get enough follow-up updates to do so, I will post them daily through a week or similar.

If not, never fear - I will post this again once I have answered more questions!

(I have a lovely response from the Customising Romance Friend in my inbox, which is what made me wonder whether anyone else has followups!)

[if-seal]

Hello IF Seal !! (*throws a fish at you*)

I’m really needing some encouragement and advice on creating my first ever IF project!! I am neurodivergent so I write when i can and sometimes I just can’t figure out how to start my project.. I’ve honestly tried and failed to start many times so if you have any tips for how to keep working on a project and ideas then that would be great!!

Also side note: I honestly tried twine and it had a error that I’m not sure how to fix so I’ll probably be trying Choicescript next

If you also have tips for simple character customization for the PC also that would be awesome!

Thanks again IF seal!!

❤️

Good afternoon Starting Friend,

Thank you for the fish, it is my favourite thing other than assisting with interactive fiction queries!

I wonder how much planning you have done with your ideas that started and stopped. Do you begin with the seed of an idea and race onward but then lose steam? Do you end up doing only planning and once you start it feels as though you've already written the project? It may be that there is a way of doing it that's a happy medium.

I also wonder whether you might enjoy making some short-story-length pieces of IF before jumping into a very ambitious project. Doing that, or writing some short scenes that you might use for a project, or exploring a character you've made and feel excited about, may be a good way of dipping your toes into the water of making this kind of work - rather than diving straight in.

My human roommate @hpowellsmith made many short pieces of interactive fiction, and started two or three long ones, before making Blood Money, the first long game they finished. It's useful to try something small and manageable to get used to the coding side of things.

I would recommend having a look at existing pieces of interactive fiction for character customisation! There is a template here for pronouns and gender, but I think seeing how it can be done in different ways in-game may be useful to you. You can have a look at ChoiceScript released games' code by following the instructions here or on cogdemos games will have a "code" button that you can click to view their files if the author has enabled it.

Good luck, Starting Friend! Remember that starting a project and not finishing it is a natural part of starting out and you will learn from it regardless, but also that completing something small will teach you a lot more than doing a lot of starts and stops. I do hope that your writing goes well!

[if-seal]

Hello IF Seal !! (*throws a fish at you*)

I’m really needing some encouragement and advice on creating my first ever IF project!! I am neurodivergent so I write when i can and sometimes I just can’t figure out how to start my project.. I’ve honestly tried and failed to start many times so if you have any tips for how to keep working on a project and ideas then that would be great!!

Also side note: I honestly tried twine and it had a error that I’m not sure how to fix so I’ll probably be trying Choicescript next

If you also have tips for simple character customization for the PC also that would be awesome!

Thanks again IF seal!!

❤️

Good afternoon Starting Friend,

Thank you for the fish, it is my favourite thing other than assisting with interactive fiction queries!

I wonder how much planning you have done with your ideas that started and stopped. Do you begin with the seed of an idea and race onward but then lose steam? Do you end up doing only planning and once you start it feels as though you've already written the project? It may be that there is a way of doing it that's a happy medium.

I also wonder whether you might enjoy making some short-story-length pieces of IF before jumping into a very ambitious project. Doing that, or writing some short scenes that you might use for a project, or exploring a character you've made and feel excited about, may be a good way of dipping your toes into the water of making this kind of work - rather than diving straight in.

My human roommate @hpowellsmith made many short pieces of interactive fiction, and started two or three long ones, before making Blood Money, the first long game they finished. It's useful to try something small and manageable to get used to the coding side of things.

I would recommend having a look at existing pieces of interactive fiction for character customisation! There is a template here for pronouns and gender, but I think seeing how it can be done in different ways in-game may be useful to you. You can have a look at ChoiceScript released games' code by following the instructions here or on cogdemos games will have a "code" button that you can click to view their files if the author has enabled it.

Good luck, Starting Friend! Remember that starting a project and not finishing it is a natural part of starting out and you will learn from it regardless, but also that completing something small will teach you a lot more than doing a lot of starts and stops. I do hope that your writing goes well!

[if-seal]

Dear Soft-Serving Friend,

I was sorting through my previous posts and found that this ask and answer may be of interest to you: I hope your writing is going well!

Hey if-seal i am working on an IF which has a semi-set MC but since i am a beginner i have no idea how a semi set MC should act like and how much agency does the reader has do you have any tips?

Dear Soft-Serving Friend,

This is a great question, but I think perhaps a different angle might serve you better: what elements do you want to be set for your MC? Are they aspects of the MC's past that happened to them, something major that they did, relationships they've had? Or are they aspects of the MC's present life: things you want them to do onscreen or elements of their personality?

I think figuring that out will be more fruitful than thinking about what a semi-set MC is or isn't (I am personally thinking a lot about ice cream) or what they should or shouldn't be.

It is nice to be told "this is how much agency the player should have" but there are lots of ways of handling it and what works excellently with one kind of story may not work so well with another!

I will say that if you are writing an MC with choices about their name, gender, and such, there will be more of an expectation of having self-expressive choices to do with the MC's personality. Not always, but often. If it is a game with personality traits along with that, it will be jarring if an MC with High Cool-Under-Pressure is written as suddenly shivering in the face of a storm.

There are ways of handling this - perhaps the MC has a set element of a dreadful storm experience in their backstory and this is the one time that even a High Cool-Under-Pressure badass gets scared. But players may be confused and perhaps disgruntled if their badass is suddenly very afraid with no explanation and might even think there is a bug in the game.

It can also be jarring if the game is telling the MC how they are feeling.

But perhaps if your MC is designed as more of a specific character, rather than an author-player collaboration, that can work delightfully.

I am tagging this with the "if seal: protagonists" tag and if Tumblr behaves itself you should be able to see other friends' questions on this subject! Agency is something that is on many writers' minds and so hopefully what I have said to others may be helpful to you as well.

Best of wishes with your writing, friend!

[if-seal]

Hey if-seal i am working on an IF which has a semi-set MC but since i am a beginner i have no idea how a semi set MC should act like and how much agency does the reader has do you have any tips?

Dear Soft-Serving Friend,

This is a great question, but I think perhaps a different angle might serve you better: what elements do you want to be set for your MC? Are they aspects of the MC's past that happened to them, something major that they did, relationships they've had? Or are they aspects of the MC's present life: things you want them to do onscreen or elements of their personality?

I think figuring that out will be more fruitful than thinking about what a semi-set MC is or isn't (I am personally thinking a lot about ice cream) or what they should or shouldn't be.

It is nice to be told "this is how much agency the player should have" but there are lots of ways of handling it and what works excellently with one kind of story may not work so well with another!

I will say that if you are writing an MC with choices about their name, gender, and such, there will be more of an expectation of having self-expressive choices to do with the MC's personality. Not always, but often. If it is a game with personality traits along with that, it will be jarring if an MC with High Cool-Under-Pressure is written as suddenly shivering in the face of a storm.

There are ways of handling this - perhaps the MC has a set element of a dreadful storm experience in their backstory and this is the one time that even a High Cool-Under-Pressure badass gets scared. But players may be confused and perhaps disgruntled if their badass is suddenly very afraid with no explanation and might even think there is a bug in the game.

It can also be jarring if the game is telling the MC how they are feeling.

But perhaps if your MC is designed as more of a specific character, rather than an author-player collaboration, that can work delightfully.

I am tagging this with the "if seal: protagonists" tag and if Tumblr behaves itself you should be able to see other friends' questions on this subject! Agency is something that is on many writers' minds and so hopefully what I have said to others may be helpful to you as well.

Best of wishes with your writing, friend!

[if-seal]

Hello Wise Seal,

I'm currently victim of the following conundrum: my first IF ideas were too ambitious, so I set them aside for the moment.

I came up with another idea (or, to better explain, the idea crept up on me) which would be much more manageable for me. I already have the characters, the general plot, hell even the title!

Now, onto the main two problems:

- I'm not sure I can write (comedy especially, since english isn't even my native language).

- I know I have limited time and resources. I have work to attend, projects to follow, a family to look after. I'd have to learn how to code (I have some basics, sure, still...) and I'm keenly aware of my limits.

I wouldn't want to open a blog and potentially lure some people only for my project to fail.

I just discovered that I can make secondary blogs password protected, but I'd have to create another email specifically for my ifs so that would mean having to create two blogs.

I don't know, I think I'd like a blog to rant about the learning process and everything, but at the same time I'd like for it to go unnoticed as long as possible, until I grow more confident in my abilities and I can prove it with at least the prologue and one whole chapter.

Thank you for your patience, o Wise Seal, may your day be full of fishes.

Dear Ambitious Friend,

I am so excited for you to explore your new game idea! It sounds like you have a lot of enthusiasm for it too which is marvellous: the starting moment where a story is beginning to germinate is such a lot of fun. I entirely understand feeling a little uncertain though.

Here are some thoughts and encouragement below:

I think it's sensible to be cautious about starting a blog and making your game "official" if you do not know whether you will continue the game beyond the ideas you have.

Equally writing can feel lonely if you are doing it without speaking to anyone about it.

So I wonder whether a compromise might work for you: try coding and writing a scene or two at first, no blog. It could be a scene from your project idea or something completely different. If it is from your project, it doesn't have to be the first one the player encounters.

This is how you can learn the basics: in a low-stakes way, without pressure from the outside.

Then once you feel more confident, it may be more beneficial to start a blog.

Or you could also begin your blog sooner, framing it as "I'm learning to code and will be starting a project in the future, I'll share more about it later".

Because what I have observed is that a lot of first-time writers begin a blog about their first project, and get overwhelmed or realise the project isn't actually what they want to do (regardless of how many followers have got excited about the game idea). They may end up only writing a little bit of their idea, or never sharing any at all and quietly fading out, or starting many new projects that don't go far, because they haven't made a solid foundation for themselves.

(Most first projects don't get completed and that's OK. It's all practice. But it may feel less stressful to move through some of that practice done quietly rather than in public.)

Finally, about whether you can write: your question is eloquently written, and you may say "but it's not the same" which is true... But you will only grow in confidence by trying and practising. It won't be perfect to start with, but no draft is. You will start writing and some of it will flow easily and some of it will be hard. Some will feel wonderful when you look back on it and some will need a lot of detangling.

But I think you can do it.

I believe in you.

[if-seal]

(Personality anon again, re asking this to remove the name of a game title I mentioned)

For the personality system in my IF, I was thinking have a lock in point for it for flavor text and I had an idea for the MC to be able to do something 'out of character' and have NPCs respond to it. This doesn't really seem to be a popular approach though (as in I rarely see this style used), I think because it gives players more control of their MCs? Since personality based flavor text might not be what a specific MC would do/think/say

This isn't really asking for advice, but I'd just like to know your thoughts on this and maybe any pros or cons for each style

Dear Personality System Designing Friend,

O, you do not need to worry about removing the name of a game - I originally specified that on my pinned post but have changed it just now to request that questioners do not mention games negatively. Your mention was not negative, but I confess I deleted the original message when clearing out the inbox a little while ago and do not now recall which title it was...

I am a sleepy seal today. Onwards!

It's useful to figure out how you'd like to measure your personality stats. You might have a spectrum, like "Rebellious/Obedient", "Hot-Headed/Cool-Headed", and so on. You might have numerical or descriptive scores in, for example, "Quiet", "Ruthless", "Bold", etc.

In short-form IF it can work to just pick one personality, for example choosing a single trait from a pool such as "Naive", "Sarcastic", "Impetuous", etc. I am not sure if that is the kind of thing you're envisioning when you say you're considering locking in the traits, or whether you're thinking of having several different traits that can be confirmed over the course of the game.

My advice for long-form IF is that it works better to have at least a few so that the MC's personality can be more detailed.

For instance, with multiple personality traits a player can play as someone who is high Ruthless, high Bold, and low Quiet (a loud, brash, ruthless person!) or low Ruthless, high Bold, and high Quiet (a soft-spoken, compassionate person who's keen to rush into action!), and many more combinations.

The same idea applies if you using personality spectrums. Having a few different traits means there is more room for an MC to express their personality in different ways, and for other characters to respond to it positively, negatively, with surprise, or any number of other ways. Just as with creating a single personality trait to choose from a pool, it also gives room for those moments where the MC is acting "out of character" or aligns with the expectations the player has set for their behaviour.

It is wise not to gate off options based on the personality the player has established - players like to have the choice to behave in ways that depart from how they have previously. It is also delightful when another character is shocked when a previously wallflower-ish MC suddenly shouts at someone in public, so I believe your thoughts about acting out of character are solid.

As for how traits get assigned, it's reasonable to have the player lock a trait early on with a choice such as:

I usually respond to public speaking with... -Delight [Set Outgoing to Very High] -Anticipation [Set Outgoing to High] -A shrug [Set Outgoing to Mid] -Nervousness [Set Outgoing to Low] -Horror [Set Outgoing to Very Low]

Equally, you could track how Outgoing the MC is being over time and write flavour text or NPC responses to reflect that. This can sometimes feel less clear/visible to the player, so there may be a point down the line in which a character says "but you're usually so shy" and the player goes "eh? But I've been outgoing the last few choices, why isn't the game responding to that?". That issue can be mitigated by tracking particularly important Outgoing moments and thorough playtesting (and if using ChoiceScript, RandomTesting to check the spread of stats that players will be regularly hitting).

Broadly, I feel the former can feel a little more game-y with more distance between the player and MC, where the latter may close that distance. But both can be handled in perfectly effective ways, and it's really up to what feels intuitive to you.

There is no point in getting tangled up in one personality system or another if you find it hard to envisage what the MC is actually doing and saying. The numbers and personality descriptors are the machines driving the story under the hood, but what's important is how those personality traits affect the MC, their journey, and how they interact with the world around them.

Best of luck with your writing!

[if-seal]

Dear IF Seal,

I am writing an if for the first time and yet to release a demo. I have an idea on character customization that I haven't really seen in the many ifs I've played. I'm looking forward to writing it but also nervous on how it would be received, which is why I'm asking for your opinion. A bit of background, my if only has five deities as love interests (none of them are gendered, gender-locked, or gender flippable, but there are some gendered secondary character deities). Because of their supernatural nature, the love interests can choose how their human form manifests. Question: What do you think, as a player, about customizing the (human) looks of a love interest?

This one love interest is cheerful, energetic, always up for a new experience! But they have no real desires of their own, even though they are the deity of ambition. They don't care for a human form so I'm thinking their default could be mist or if needed, some animal form that can grab like an octopus (yes, this is also for the wanton ones who do-not-care-about-looks and who do-love-these-kinds-of-looks). If the MC chooses not to help them customize, but in the future they get into a serious romantic relationship, the LI would observe the preferences of the MC and make a human form based on that so that they could "properly" kiss. (If it matters, the LIs are really young for deities, so no age gaps with the human player, lol.)

I've been toying around with this idea and sometimes I think it's great and other times I feel like it's a terrible one. Flipping a coin is no help. I feel like I would be exposing some sort of hidden desire of my own in asking my if player friends so I'm too shy to mention it to them yet (⸝⸝⸝╸﹏╺⸝⸝⸝). If for some miracle, someone figured out the game's name, no need to mention it or me, but feel free to share your reactions on this, bc that is what I'm asking about.

No worries if you don't reply soon, take your time!

Thank you ❤︎

Dear Customising Romance Friend,

Thank you for your patience! I hadn't reached your first message by the time your second one came in, so I am delighted to hear that you feel more confident in allowing flexibility in the romantic interests you are writing. I do hope that you have been having fun writing your new project and best of luck with it!

I do have a couple of additional thoughts about customisation to add, if I may share!

I believe your idea about shapeshifting gods sounds like it could be plenty of fun, especially for those folks who enjoy monster--ah, kissing. I prefer to eat octopi rather than kiss them but I know others will feel differently about such things.

I was interested in what you said about feeling shy about potentially revealing a hidden desire - perhaps it does to some degree, but we always reveal aspects of ourselves in some ways when we write. The romantic side of things may feel more revealing than other aspects of writing, but it would be wrong to assume that for example an author is Secretly Into every romantic trope they write, or would want anything like that in real life, or that they necessarily prefer one character over another based on what's in the game.

So I am sending you hope that you grow in confidence in sharing ideas with your IF playing pals.

Jumping off your query about customising looks, there is a fairly established practice of including gender-selectable characters in IF, with varying levels of variation between them; looks-selectable is less common. I think if you are dealing with shapeshifting creatures or gods, it seems fairly organic to handle in-game. The creature says "would you enjoy me having four arms right now so I can give you an even bigger hug" and the PC can say "yes, delightful" or "no, two arms is enough".

If everyone involved is human, and you're choosing "I want Aaron to have red hair" or "I'd prefer Aaron to have black hair" this feels like it makes less sense to me... perhaps because we are usually dealing with words rather than the mobile games where you can pick which sprite you find most attractive? Perhaps it's simply that I'm more used to the entirety of gender-selection rather than going for a more granular appearance-selection.

Something else I would add - again this isn't something you're doing, but I've seen it around the place so I believe it's worth considering: if you have one shapeshifting creature who's genderfluid among the rest of the cast being cis men or women (human or otherwise), please do consider including a nonbinary or genderfluid romantic interest who is not a shapeshifter as well. Shapeshifters engaging with gender is delightful, but it can be rather tiring when there are no non-shapeshifters also doing it.

Thank you for your questions! I ended up using them to go off on a few meandering tangents, but sometimes a swim in the sea goes that way.

Best wishes for your writing!

[if-seal]

Hi IF Seal!!! I don’t need any advice, just want to thank you for helping us out :] have a fish!!

O! Thank you so very much, my friend!

If I can ever be of assistance, just throw me a question!

[if-seal]

And some more support for you, dear asker!

Hey IF-seal, so i have had an idea for writing an IF where the MC is genderlocked female and her love interests are female too. I am very concerned and anxious that if I put out this project people won't be interested as there isn't much agency when it comes to the gender of the MC and the LIs but I have been so passionate about writing a wlw story with a choices format and I really want to pursue it, I don't have a big reason for making the MC gender locked other than the fact that I have always wanted to write female characters that are different than usual like see them in contexts in which usually males are seen in and making female LIs is because that's the only romance i feel comfortable writing. Should i go for it or dump it?

Dear WLW-writing Friend,

I am taking your hands in my flippers and entreating you:

Please write your F/F story.

I do not wish to be contrary but I will gently contradict you when you say you do not have a big reason for your MC to be gender-locked. In fact you have at least three which you have said to me already!

writing female love interests is where you are comfortable

you would like to write female characters in contexts in which male characters are typically seen

you are passionate about writing a WLW story

And if you only felt the final bullet point, that would be enough.

There are other ways in which players can be given agency in these types of games than the gender of the PC or romanceable characters. (In fact, there are plenty of decisions to be made about the types of agency you want to give players too - which is perhaps for another longer post.)

It is true that there are people who will not want to play as a female character - I will not dispute that - but there are also plenty who will. And there will be people who will be immensely excited about the fact that you are specifically writing a WLW game. They are your audience for this story!

Best of luck with your writing, friend.

[if-seal]

hands and flippers together! <3

Hey IF-seal, so i have had an idea for writing an IF where the MC is genderlocked female and her love interests are female too. I am very concerned and anxious that if I put out this project people won't be interested as there isn't much agency when it comes to the gender of the MC and the LIs but I have been so passionate about writing a wlw story with a choices format and I really want to pursue it, I don't have a big reason for making the MC gender locked other than the fact that I have always wanted to write female characters that are different than usual like see them in contexts in which usually males are seen in and making female LIs is because that's the only romance i feel comfortable writing. Should i go for it or dump it?

Dear WLW-writing Friend,

I am taking your hands in my flippers and entreating you:

Please write your F/F story.

I do not wish to be contrary but I will gently contradict you when you say you do not have a big reason for your MC to be gender-locked. In fact you have at least three which you have said to me already!

writing female love interests is where you are comfortable

you would like to write female characters in contexts in which male characters are typically seen

you are passionate about writing a WLW story

And if you only felt the final bullet point, that would be enough.

There are other ways in which players can be given agency in these types of games than the gender of the PC or romanceable characters. (In fact, there are plenty of decisions to be made about the types of agency you want to give players too - which is perhaps for another longer post.)

It is true that there are people who will not want to play as a female character - I will not dispute that - but there are also plenty who will. And there will be people who will be immensely excited about the fact that you are specifically writing a WLW game. They are your audience for this story!

Best of luck with your writing, friend.

[if-seal]

Thank you for the addition @passerine-hills-if!

Writing what YOU feel really passionate about is so important, and your joy in what you write will shine out for readers to see as well as sustaining you on projects that can take a long time to come to fruition.

Hey IF-seal, so i have had an idea for writing an IF where the MC is genderlocked female and her love interests are female too. I am very concerned and anxious that if I put out this project people won't be interested as there isn't much agency when it comes to the gender of the MC and the LIs but I have been so passionate about writing a wlw story with a choices format and I really want to pursue it, I don't have a big reason for making the MC gender locked other than the fact that I have always wanted to write female characters that are different than usual like see them in contexts in which usually males are seen in and making female LIs is because that's the only romance i feel comfortable writing. Should i go for it or dump it?

Dear WLW-writing Friend,

I am taking your hands in my flippers and entreating you:

Please write your F/F story.

I do not wish to be contrary but I will gently contradict you when you say you do not have a big reason for your MC to be gender-locked. In fact you have at least three which you have said to me already!

writing female love interests is where you are comfortable

you would like to write female characters in contexts in which male characters are typically seen

you are passionate about writing a WLW story

And if you only felt the final bullet point, that would be enough.

There are other ways in which players can be given agency in these types of games than the gender of the PC or romanceable characters. (In fact, there are plenty of decisions to be made about the types of agency you want to give players too - which is perhaps for another longer post.)

It is true that there are people who will not want to play as a female character - I will not dispute that - but there are also plenty who will. And there will be people who will be immensely excited about the fact that you are specifically writing a WLW game. They are your audience for this story!

Best of luck with your writing, friend.

[if-seal]

Dear WLW-writing Friend, here are some lovely responses from people who are excited about you writing an F/F romance game!

Hey IF-seal, so i have had an idea for writing an IF where the MC is genderlocked female and her love interests are female too. I am very concerned and anxious that if I put out this project people won't be interested as there isn't much agency when it comes to the gender of the MC and the LIs but I have been so passionate about writing a wlw story with a choices format and I really want to pursue it, I don't have a big reason for making the MC gender locked other than the fact that I have always wanted to write female characters that are different than usual like see them in contexts in which usually males are seen in and making female LIs is because that's the only romance i feel comfortable writing. Should i go for it or dump it?

Dear WLW-writing Friend,

I am taking your hands in my flippers and entreating you:

Please write your F/F story.

I do not wish to be contrary but I will gently contradict you when you say you do not have a big reason for your MC to be gender-locked. In fact you have at least three which you have said to me already!

writing female love interests is where you are comfortable

you would like to write female characters in contexts in which male characters are typically seen

you are passionate about writing a WLW story

And if you only felt the final bullet point, that would be enough.

There are other ways in which players can be given agency in these types of games than the gender of the PC or romanceable characters. (In fact, there are plenty of decisions to be made about the types of agency you want to give players too - which is perhaps for another longer post.)

It is true that there are people who will not want to play as a female character - I will not dispute that - but there are also plenty who will. And there will be people who will be immensely excited about the fact that you are specifically writing a WLW game. They are your audience for this story!

Best of luck with your writing, friend.