Writing Updates
I'm starting to feel better after the first week of being back home from the hospital. Thank you to everyone who messaged me when I was sick. Losing a full week while hospitalized pushed back several of my deadlines, but I'm trying to catch up. Right now, my main focus is Stronghold, but after I meet my writing goal for this month, I will turn back to Safe Haven.
Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven
Right now, I'm focusing on age-related content and the Teenager Storyline. A few bugs have been reported on the Teenager Storyline, and I should be able to squash them this weekend. With a game this size, testing is very difficult, and I really appreciate anyone reporting issues.
I should be able to finish phase 2 of the Teenager Storyline this month. Phase 2 will provide even more answers for your teenager MC, and you should be able to learn your parents' location. As soon as I'm done with phase two of this storyline, I will move on to other parts of the free update. The main candidates will be the Soldier Storyline, the Hacker Storyline, and the trip with Monica and Anders to a police station.
I'm also continuing to fix bugs in the published version of the game, but my hospitalization pushed back last month's patch.
Zombie Exodus: Stronghold
I'm currently wrapping up chapter 11 and should finish it today. The group is on its way to Zone 3 in hopes of getting answers from Lysander Cross. The next chapter involves a race to outpace Mendoza and his commandos, who are still chasing the MC and the group.
The chapters are getting shorter and tighter now. When I originally wrote this story, my publisher suggested that shorter chapters lead to higher engagement. I don't know if I agree with that statement, but I'm trying it out with Stronghold. I still have about 50,000 words of content from the original version of the story to convert to ChoiceScript. I'm still hoping to finish by the end of this year.
Patreon poll
I will be running a new poll in the next few days. With the tools that Patreon provides, it's difficult to see the content that you are engaging with. Answering this poll will help me to provide the type of content that you enjoy.
Comments (4)
"Shorter chapters lead to higher engagement." Sure. But longer chapters can lead to richer worldbuilding, more meaningful choices, extended gameplay, deeper character development, and a natural story progression that doesn’t feel rushed... all of which ultimately build better games and storylines. People want to spend their time experiencing meaningful, high-quality content that they actually like, not useless, short, and crappy chapters that narrow every aspect of the game to the point where no one wants to play it anymore. Besides, shorter chapters naturally offer less replayability. And that damages long-term engagement too.
I would need you to provide some specifics on where a short chapter narrowed the game. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would need specifics to make changes. I would argue that shorter chapters offer more replayability. The game saves every chapter, so you can easily go back and try different paths.
I literally created an account just to suggest connecting an MC with a movie star role to stronghold storylines, only to find out that it's no longer possible... Still, I wish the best for my favorite game.
Stronghold never had a movie-star character. Are you talking about Safe Haven?