Writing Updates

The summer seems to be flying by, and I'm trying to write as much as possible. It seems like every time I take a step forward with either of my main stories, I want to keep adding to them. I understand that I fall victim to feature creep, adding new features to the game that delay its completion. But in the cases of Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven and Zombie Exodus: Stronghold, there are so many existing features that it takes a lot of time to make sure I'm covering them all.

For example, the original story for Stronghold was 250,000 words. I'm already at 320,000 words, and only two-thirds of this story is finished. Choicescript allows more complex stories than the platform where I previously published the game. This new version has more features but also more story. It's a much stronger game, but I underestimated the time for development.

It's becoming the same for Safe Haven. There are so many things that I want to add to enrich the story. Many of you keep messaging me with ideas that would genuinely make great additions. Since the free update is, well, free, I have to be reasonable about what I can add. Right now, the most important things are: the Teenager Storyline, the Soldier Storyline, the Hacker Storyline, and continuing the main story with Chapter 18. If you think about it, that's already hundreds of thousands of words.

Regardless of the scope of these projects, I'm really enjoying writing them and talking with you all about them.

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven

I'm still working on the Teenager Storyline, phase 2, and it's a more complex scene than I originally thought. You would think that after 12 years of writing these types of stories, I wouldn't be surprised by how complex these scenes can get. My goal is to make a huge dent this month, and then move on to another of the main storylines.

Zombie Exodus: Stronghold

I'm working on chapter 13 this month and should be finished before the end of the month. I really enjoy writing shorter chapters because they give me a sense of accomplishment. Some of the chapters for Safe Haven are over 200,000 words. For comparison, there are whole published games with a shorter word count. The average chapter in Stronghold is around 28,000 words. By the time the game is finished, it should have over 20 chapters.

For those of you who have not read the original version, it definitely gives me the opportunity for a secret. But my goal after publishing it is to return to Deadbury Academy.