#it's like modding a game for the first time

[pancakesthewormwithcandy]

Hey ya'll this is why Rainworld is both really good and really challenging. It has 72 PAGES OF MOVEMENT CONTROLLS HALF OF WHICH ARENT EVEN HUMANLY POSSIBLE WITHOUT MACROS AND ARE SO ODDLY SPECIFIC ITS SHOCKING ANYONE FIGURED IT OUT AT ALL. and it teaches you two moves in the start, drops you in an eco-system with a bunch of smart Ai that you have to learn yourself through trial and error. It's not a game about you. It's en ecosystem and you are at the bottom of the food chain and have to rely on your knowledge to get through it. You often die instantly in one hit, it's brutal but very fun especially if you look at it under the guise of an eco system simulator where you have to hit your head against the wall a few times until you learn how to get past certain things. Like it felt like being a child exploring the world again idk i loved it so much.

Easily one of the best if not my all time favorite game I've ever played. The first time experience was honestly insane to me and it has some interesting themes if you are willing to dive into the lore and explore enough.

DO NOT LOOK UP ANYTHING. DONT SPOIL ANYTHING. the jot of the game is learning it for yourself trust me. ( granted one time i got so stuck i was going to quit and looked up spoiler free help so like only do it if its like " I'm gonna quit if i don't look it up" ) But like don't look up anything if you can help it its sooo much more fun.

also if you've already finished the game there's DLC and mods and they are all peak. One mod lets you meow. it is perfect.

speaking of i think i know what im gonna do tonight LOL

just have to make sure

[if-whats-new]

~ SMALL TALK… ISSUE 1 (2025) ~

> WITH HARRIS POWELL-SMITH @hpowellsmith

BY BRIAR AND PETER

Joining us is an award-winning narrative designer and writer: Harris Powell-Smith! Author of the Crème de la Crème series, “Blood Money” and many more!

⟶ Hello, Harris! Welcome to Small Talk. We are absolutely thrilled to have you here with us! Before we officially begin, would you mind sharing with us a bit about yourself?

Hi! I'm a narrative designer and game writer who's worked on a few indie and mobile games including the multiplayer King of the Castle and the mobile Love Island tie-in game. Currently I'm freelancing and mostly creating choose-your-path text games with Choice of Games, which I've now been doing for eight years.

I'm most known for my dark academia Crème de la Crème series, and most recently released Honor Bound, the fourth standalone game in the series!

⟶ Now, onto the questions! Can you tell us how you started your IF writing journey?)

My very first experience with interactive writing was as a teenager, making NPC mods for Baldur's Gate 2 with my then-girlfriend, now-wife. Along with being a lot of fun, doing that gave me an understanding of branching dialogue, conditional text, and scripting, as well as how to playtest effectively, take feedback, and tailoring dialogue to fit within an existing game.

Then life happened and I didn't do much of that kind of writing until ten years ago, when I learned about Twine and started making games using it. That led me to publishing IF with the now-defunct sub-Q Magazine which was a great initiative that paid well for interactive fiction. From there I revisited Choice of Games which I'd played a bit previously, started publishing with them, and then began doing other work in the games industry.

⟶ Looking back, is there anything you wish you knew before starting IF writing?

Scope creep is a massive thing, and it's important to try to mitigate it where possible when planning and while writing. But... although I'm great at working within restrictions that other people put on me, I have a tendency to spread past most restrictions I put on myself, like a large cat overflowing over the edges of a small box. My CoG game Noblesse Oblige, the one in which I kept the closest eye on word count, ended up 40,000 words longer than I originally intended. Honor Bound, which I intended to be shorter than my previous game Royal Affairs, is over 100,000 words longer. So I haven't really internalised that advice for myself!

⟶ You started your journey into IF games with Twine. Was there a particular reason for that. Was it largely due to the loss of sub-Q Magazine? And what led you to try out CScript after?

Heh, it's more that with my Choice of Games titles, I have more freedom than I have with other projects so I have more leeway to go bigger with it!

I learned about various IF communities around the time that my friend Maz Hamilton made their Twine game Detritus in 2013. I felt inspired by playing lots of Twine games, decided to learn myself and made my first game, Aquarium! I liked that I didn't have to be a programmer to understand and use it, and that I could play around with lots of reactivity to the player's actions.

Alongside that, I rediscovered Choice of Games and got very into their catalogue. I learned ChoiceScript - again, I appreciated that it was beginner-friendly with potential for more complexity if I wanted it - and started three or so games which didn't go anywhere. But when sub-Q Magazine contacted me to ask about reprinting one of my Twine games it was very exciting to hear that people would pay me for my writing!

After publishing more IF with sub-Q, I applied to write for Choice of Games and went from there. That said, though, I carried on making games with other engines like Twine, Raconteur (which I don't know if many others have done!), Texture, and ink, plus various in-house studio's engines. So although I'm mostly working with ChoiceScript right now (which I love!), there's always been a lot of overlap. There are advantages to different tools for different kinds of projects!

⟶ You’ve written quite a few academia inspired IF games. Is this a genre you’re a big fan of? Is there a genre you’re looking forward to trying next?

Yes, I've enjoyed a lot of books in academic settings, including in boarding schools, ever since I was little! In adult life, I especially enjoyed Laurinda by Alice Pung, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. And when I'm writing, I enjoy putting player characters in situations where they have rules guiding them (whether that's school, social etiquette, a workplace, family obligations, a reality TV show, etc...) and they can work within those rules or push against them. I also like exploring the gaps and tensions between work/school and the outside world. Plus schools are a hothouse of intense emotions and boarding schools have everyone living in each other's pockets - making them great places for drama to ensue!

⟶ Honour Bound just came out recently, congratulations! Even if it’s not your first project, it must be quite exciting. Any post-release thoughts you would like to share with us?

Thank you so much! Releasing a title never gets old, so I've been very excited (and nervous) around this time. For people who don't know Honor Bound, in it you play as a disgraced, injured military officer who's been reassigned to guard a teenage prodigy at a wilderness boarding school for the children of the rich and famous. You can recover or trash your health, career, and reputation, and befriend, romance, or backstab your colleagues, and thwart or enact shady schemes.

I love Honor Bound and I'm really proud of it! It was really fun to write from the perspective of an adult in the Crème de la Crème setting and explore another part of the world. The small town and school in which Honor Bound is set feel like real places to me that I'd love to visit, and I really fell in love with the characters - the PC as well as the NPCs. The PC can develop such different personalities and go down different paths and I'm delighted to be hearing about people's adventures.

I learned a huge amount from writing Honor Bound and developed a lot of skills doing it. I'm a little sad to leave it behind, but excited for what I'm doing next!

⟶ Besides Honour Bound and your other amazing creations in the Crème de la Crème universe, there are also shorts available on your Itch.io page. Did you always plan on making several games or did that idea come later?

Haha, I wasn't really planning anything when I first started writing IF! I was just experimenting and writing things that I enjoyed making and that I thought I'd enjoy playing, and learning different things that IF tools could do along the way.

I certainly didn't think I'd be doing this as a job ten years on! (I do very much recommend starting with shorter pieces when learning new tools/languages - it's much easier to get something finished that way, and I learn something with every project I complete.)

⟶ What’s your process of deciding how many choices the readers get? That’s something many have a tad bit trouble finalizing.

It depends a lot on the kind of game and scene it is. I like using the choices available to show something about the PC's state of mind and priorities, as well as inviting the player to choose what actions they want to take. It helps with setting different tones a lot! think a lot about what the effects of the choice are, whether it splits into major or minor branches, has mechanical effects, or is self-expressive for the PC, etc.

In my Choice of Games games, and with some of the other games I've worked on, there have been style requirements to always have at least three choices. With CoG work I usually write more like four or five because I like the variety. I tend to lean towards 3-5 even if I'm just writing something for myself, depending on the kind of scene and set of options... but there are always exceptions. Having two choices or even one can be effective too!

⟶ How do you deal with the complexity of branching narratives? Are there moments when you feel frustrated?

I plan it out in quite a lot of detail in advance - if I try to code and write at the same time, I get bogged down. I can still change things up and make discoveries as I do each type of work, but it helps me not go down as many rabbit-holes as I would if I didn't plan...

That said, frustration can definitely happen when I've planned something more complicated than I intended and I feel tied to it, or when I go down a path a little too long before realising I need to change something. Both those things can be mitigated with experience, planning, and clear intentions, but it tends to happen at some stage no matter how many games I make - it's in the nature of it!

⟶ How do you get inspired? It’s different for everyone, but we are curious about your inspiration process—after all, a good story comes into being from the first spark, correct?

I get inspired by all kinds of things! Sometimes from games, books, film, or TV that I've enjoyed - or didn't enjoy as much as I hoped, or that I'd like to explore myself from a different angle. Sometimes from art, technology, nature, current and historical events, scientific facts and developments, or something that happened in a TTRPG session. Often, something will sit in my mind for a long time before I use it for something. For my first CoG game, Blood Money, I liked the idea of magic powered by blood because I wanted it to be harmful to the person using it; various pieces of folklore and myth include ghosts being attracted to blood, so putting that together helped me think of the magic mechanics. For Crème de la Crème, I liked the idea of writing a mostly non-violent game, as Blood Money was very violent, that still had high stakes; I'd also been wanting to write a school story for some time as I enjoyed that kind of setting. I love the process of developing a PC, mechanics, and goals from an initial set of nebulous thoughts.

The big thing, I think, is that I try to be open to a wide variety of ideas and inspiration, and not to limit myself. Taking inspiration purely from one area - whether that's the type of media being read or played, or the genre, or tone - means missing out on a lot of richness and texture. So I always recommend that people who want to start writing IF explore a lot of different kinds of writing and games. (Really that's good advice no matter how long you've been writing!)

⟶ What about writer’s block? Many people suffer from it. How do you deal with your creative block?

The vast majority of the times I have trouble writing, it's because of outside factors - life stuff, stress, health, etc. So in those circumstances, my being blocked means I need to pay attention to those factors to avoid burnout. Trying to power through causes problems, so rest and protecting my health are what I try to do then.

The rest of the time is usually due to me trying to push through a scene that doesn't feel strong enough, or doesn't feel true to the characters involved, or doesn't quite work for some other reason. The "block" is a signal that I need to change something. When that happens, talking to someone is my first port of call. Sometimes just talking it out (like "rubber ducking") is enough for me to recognise what that change needs to be; sometimes it involves a more in-depth discussion. Either way, it always helps untangle things and put me back on the right track.

⟶ How do you create characters that a player can connect with? And characters that feel real?

I like creating characters with specificity. They might start with a general feel or inspiration - in Honor Bound, for example, I knew I wanted the parent of the PC's teenage charge to be a single parent who was a romanceable character. But it's important to me to quickly drill into the details of what makes them feel authentic and specific. Great characters are more than what players want them to do, or being a vehicle for a trope, or attractiveness.

The characters I love best are the ones who feel like they have their own minds, while being responsive to the player's actions. When writing IF, there's a great opportunity to invite players to engage directly with characters, and that responsiveness is what makes them feel real.

⟶ For you, has there ever been a moment when you felt a deep connection to a character(s) you wrote?

I feel that a lot! Pretty much whenever I'm writing. For some particular moments, though... the PC eavesdropping on a conversation between Hartmann or Delacroix with their parents in Crème de la Crème; Pascha climbing on rocks at the beach in Noblesse Oblige; Hyacinthe talking about success and failure in Royal Affairs; Savarel talking about burnout in Honor Bound.

I feel a particular connection with the Honor Bound PC - partly because they're the most recent PC that I wrote, and partly because there's a lot of self-expression that the player can do and explore. I really enjoyed giving players the chance to personalise their PC's life and to write responsively to it.

⟶ Do you have a character that you think is slightly difficult to write as compared to the others?

Characters whom the PC already knows well can be challenging because of the knowledge/familiarity gap between the PC and the player. A lot of the family members in Blood Money were like this; the PC's family and their guard Asher in Royal Affairs; the PC's old friend Denario and the PC's mentor, Alva, in Honor Bound.

Asher in Royal Affairs was especially difficult because at least the PC hasn't seen Denario for a number of years! But with Asher, they've been in close proximity for many years before the start of the game and it would have been easy for interactions to lean too hard on assumed past feelings or experiences. So it was a juggling act making interactions feel fresh with them while keeping a sense of familiarity and giving options for the PC not to want to hang out with them!

⟶ Is there a character whose backstory was the most fun to write? Why?

I enjoy writing characters who don't want to talk about their backstories, so the process of finding out more about them can be an emotional experience in itself. Honor Bound is very fresh in my mind and I'm feeling very affectionate towards the characters in it at the moment so I'd say Korzha the aloof teacher, Fiore the anxious scientist, and Savarel the thoughtful workaholic priest... For various reasons, they aren't immediately forthcoming about things in their life and history, and it was fun writing the points at which the PC can discover that and get to know them better.

⟶ Would you choose a happy ending or sad one? Why?

The joy of writing games is that I don't have to choose a single ending. Sometimes the endings have similar tones - some of my Twine games have bleak endings, like Heretic Dreams or Thanksgiving. But sometimes they can vary a lot more and I love exploring that! I do enjoy making sure that a less successful, or sad, ending has a lot of emotion in it, to make it feel worth playing.

For playing... I have a lot of fondness for endings that allow me to have ambivalent or bittersweet situations. When I played Love Undying: A Kiss Before Dawn and Stars Arisen, or indeed the non-IF game Pathologic 2 this year, I didn't have "perfect" endings but they were very satisfying and reflected where my character was at. So things don't always have to go my PC's way to end on a note that feels good.

⟶ Just recently you officially announced a new project. Could you tell us more about it? What can we be excited about?

Ooh, I will keep most of it under wraps for the moment! But for now I will say... it's a second-world fantasy game, there's a great deal of peril, a lot of creepy magic, and a selection of intense and complicated characters who I can't wait to write!

⟶ How would the person you were when you started this journey react to how far you've gotten?

Oh gosh! Honestly, ten years ago I couldn't have imagined that I'd still be putting my work out there at all, still less that people would pay for it or that it could possibly be my job. Life was so different then as well in any number of ways! I think they'd be shocked and intrigued, and wonder how it happened. Which is how I feel sometimes myself, haha!

⟶ Do you have any advice for people who want to get into IF writing?

Experiment with short or simple writing first, and try different styles to figure out what you do and don't like, and don't expect to write something perfect on the first try. Play lots of different kinds of games. Have a solid sense of what your intention is, while also taking feedback into consideration. And most of all, enjoy yourself!

ONCE AGAIN BIG THANKS TO HARRIS POWELL-SMITH FOR SITTING WITH US!

IT WAS LOVELY TO HAVE YOU!

[dawnbirdwhistle]

Dr. Ratio illustration (Honkai Star Rail)

The quote is actually song lyrics from One by Sleeping At Last ^^

As Ratio wishes to be recognized by Nous, I felt it was fitting. And the other line may be a reference for someone else 👀 perhaps...

[limonnitsa]

MUDBLOOD

[vynnyal]

OK, fair warning to the few people I actually managed to convince to try the game??

Rain world does NOT play like hollow knight, and you'll get your butt kicked if you approach it like that.

It's really hard. Like, really hard. Instead of the game literally giving you abilities in the form of power-ups and damage buffs, the only abilities you gain is from what you learn and your own ingenuity. You're a rat from beginning to end. If you just beef your way through it, it's gonna suck and you're gonna be confused and frustrated all the time. But if you pay attention, take it slow, and learn how the ai works and how everything interacts with each other, you can consistently get through and dominate situations you thought were impossible to do so when you first began. Now get out there, kill some lizards, and bully some old computers!

[hailsatanacab]

Happy Ghouls and Gangs DPxDC Bang event posting week!! Here's what I've been working on for the @dpxdcbigbang 🥰

Summary:

It’s a normal day for Alfred Pennyworth. He spends it taking care of the manor and watching over its inhabitants, just as he does every other day. It’s an exhausting, never-ending task, that he wouldn’t change for the world. But that night, he is confronted by a stranger in his rooms with a copy of every single soul-binding contract he’s signed for the protection of his family. The new Ghost King wants to update his terms and conditions.

Alfred POV, Ghost King Danny, with some Post-Vivisection goodness and only a little (a lot) of blood and gore and medical fun, but that's for later. Not for the squeamish, please check the tags!!

Snippet under the cut!

It’s a normal day for Alfred Pennyworth.

He wakes up early enough to be ready to greet Master Duke with breakfast when he shambles into the kitchen, he cleans, he greets the rest of the manor’s residents when they finally make it downstairs, he cleans, he goes down to the cave to rouse Master Tim from another sleepless night, he cleans.

It’s a quiet day, or as much as one can be when the place he calls home is filled with vigilantes.

He drops off Masters Damian, Tim, and Duke at school and uses the rest of the trip to pick up some groceries for dinner. Coq au vin tonight, he thinks, it’ll be perfect for the changing of the seasons. A mushroom and lentil substitute for Master Damian will do lovely.

The rest of the day is spent preparing the meal and doing a spot of gardening before it’s time for the school run again. He can’t help but smile fondly as he listens to them needle and tease each other, only stepping in when it starts to become too pointed.

Yes, it’s a normal day for Alfred Pennyworth. It’s at night when it all changes.

There’s a ghost waiting for him in his room. 

A soft glow emanates from the creature’s vaguely transparent body and a crisp frost creeps slowly across the floor, sparkling in the darkness like diamonds.

“Mr. Pennyworth?” it says, the voice bouncing off the walls so that it sounds like hundreds of beings instead of one.

Fear squeezes at his heart and the air in the room turns dark and heavy, so that Alfred struggles to breathe. His mouth is dry, his head is swimming, and he’s not entirely sure if he’s going to survive the night.

[oojamaflip-whatchamacallit]

#capo voice: i was your first supporter. (literally was his first twitch follow)#capo treats all the other mods like garbage and speks has to tell him to do it more privately next time

Capo is Inspekta's roommate and editor as well /hj He's been awake since four am editing highlights and had to wake up at seven am for the morning stream and is very dizzy and grouchy.

Godpoke has a soundboard, and can record and play back sounds (having five free buttons to store them on) and has so many silly memes on it, often being shockingly quick witted for someone who only uses soundboards (I think King would also have had a soundboard as well as her voice, and used it pretty regularly, which is what inspired Godpoke)

Also all the gods playing team games together like Amongus. They aren't a friend group persay but are generally aware of each other and have collabed a few times, King was new to the group and very social with everyone and Inspekta has Normal Feelings About It (also undiagnosed cluster B Hector anyone? has a lot of guilt about being 'irrational' which makes the spiral worse)

Also everyone needs to play WolfQuest together bc funney wolf game

twitch streamer Inspekta is so funny, modern day au vibes from it frfr. Inspekta just being super popular and well liked and it leading to him making it his career and then he spirals a bit (a lot) and has to step away from being online at all. (Maybe falls down some nasty paths before then? Perhaps pushing those who work for him too much, overworking both himself and them? There are options)

YEAHHHH.. it's a silly premise but I See It. the bizzys are his mods. godpoke is an up-and-coming silent streamer (uses their tts called megapon sometimes,) who usually just games but has recently taken an interest in the disappearance of another famous streamer King, who blew up on her twitter before blocking and ghosting all of her old friends. ..needless to say she was hacked and godpoke's gotta find out who by 🔥🔥🔥

[haorev]

I was watching Bdubs’ storage room moving day stream yesterday and one of my favorite interactions with other hermits was him revealing to Doc that you can’t do anything with calcite. Like the amount of disbelief in Doc’s voice was amazing.

I also liked Etho’s suggestion that you should be able to make stairs and slabs (and vertical slabs! And essentially mini blocks!) of any full block in the base game, especially since that one April Fool’s update had it with the cheese block (where you clicked on it to cycle through the options) so we know that it is technically feasible.

[swordmaid]

chanting wyves wyves wyves wyves

[ouroboros-hideout]

Happy Birthday, Hound Dog

OTP: Like Napalm 04/???

inspired by a sketch @blackrevell did some while ago of Aon sitting at a campfire at a lake. I thought it might be nice if she didn't need to go there alone.

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

"Did I ever tell you about my Omega casino run in with the Blue Suns, Eclipse, and the Blood Pack Vorcha mafia? Five thousand credits and a bottle of whiskey?"

Ft. Staff Cmdr. Kaidan Alenko, Operations Chief Ashley Williams, Zaeed Massani, & Seven. Dominik Shepard. Phoebus. MIRA'S MORE CANON ME1.5 "Are you Phoebus?" AKA: Pt. 1 of some of what happens between ME1 and ME2 with the Vorcha mafia storyline. :) Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (2021)

[robo-dino-puppy]

under a night sky, in a field of flowers

[prettycoolducks]

just finished playing portal revolution. I like evil science lady and her rabid vacuum cleaner

[coldbycrossfade]

honestly the worst part about dragon age origins is how long they make you wait to get zevran it's like fucking torture

[suranastair]

Selph Surana 🪽

🔹 Age || 22/23 🔹 Lineage || Elf 🔹 Origin || Circle Mage 🔹 Pronouns || She/Her 🔹 Identity || Bisexual (male-leaning) 🔹 Class || Mage 🔹 Specialization(s) || Blood Mage, Arcane Warrior, Battle Mage 🔹 Romance || Alistair 🔹 Besties || Zevran, Leliana, & Anders 🔹 Frenemies || Wynne & Velanna

*The last pic was a commission from @whoisnotmyname and I'm forever grateful I got to work with them to bring my favorite oc and ship to life 💖

[ursinhodebaunilha]

when i started playing stardew valley it took me a while to get into it, bc i have a hard time learning new things. then i got rlyy into it. and then it was fishing... i refused to do it, i couldn't get the hang of it. then fishing became my favorite activity in the game!!!