Third set of AMA answers

The great questions keep coming in. By the way, if you want to ask Mortze questions, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer them as well.

Q: Is there any kind of content/mechanics you really wanted to add but theres too many technical/time limitations ?

A: I wanted to do Puzzle Date for a long time and had to really push Renpy to make it work. That was a technical/coding challenge, but most of the things I want to do aren't easily solved by code. (If they were, I'd solve them.) I'd really like to give players agency and meaningful choices, but doing that almost by definition breaks the ability to tell a good story.

Q: Are you happy with Renpy engine ? Have you considered trying different engine?

A: I'm somewhat ambivalent to Renpy. I originally wrote my games in HTML/JavaScript using an engine that I developed (Adventure Creator). There are things that Renpy does much better than my engine did, but there are other things that my engine did much better than Renpy. In the end, though, people stopped playing my games specifically because they weren't written in Renpy. So I had to switch. I wrote a tool to help speed up my workflow in Renpy, and that made me about as productive in Renpy as I was with my own engine. Actually, probably moreso.

Q: Which game you've produced are you the proudest about?

A: That would have to be either Chasing Beth or Toro 7.

Q: Are there any recent VNs from other authors which caught your attention ?

A: Two that I'm keeping my eye on are "I Was a Teenage Vampire" by Fatalmasterpiece and "Engineers of Shadow-Moon Station" by Ghost Island Games.

The story in IWaTV is its weakest point, but there's so much excellence in the rest of it that I'm pretty enthralled. Unique and compelling graphics, great music, good writing, and a million clever references to 80's culture. I'm trying to do a cross promotion with Fatalmasterpiece, but it's going slowly.

And, while the graphics are the weak point of EoSMS, they're fine for a new developer who's doing everything himself. Its strong point is a lot of choices and paths through the game, allowing you to fine tune your relationship with the LI, including a wholesome monogamous path that I'm really enjoying. I'm concerned that it's going to balloon up and collapse under the weight of all of those choices, but I like what he's done so far.

Q: Have you had fans or colleagues ask for your opinion on their writing before?

A: Yes. I've worked with a number of people on their writing. I'm "paying it forward" since I got a lot of help when I was starting out. Also, in my past, I was involved in a few different writers groups, where we shared our work with each other and everyone gave feedback. These days, I'm fortunate enough to get feedback from players.

Q: Do you think writing practice of your own or reading from others’ has been more beneficial to your work?

A: (I'm assuming you mean having others read your stuff.) Both are beneficial, especially early on. It can be hard to judge the quality of your own writing when you start out. Writers groups are good for that. But, once you're reasonably proficient in the mechanics and grammar of the writing, I'd say that practice is key. Everyone is bad at a task when they start out. Practice is the only surefire way to get better.

Q: I couldn’t help but notice that there are some small sections of your stories which show technical knowledge of subjects, i.e. Miranda’s coding job. Do you think that giving tangible details like this helps readers engage with your stories or do you add them for the realism?

A: Yeah. In a previous question, I talked about only giving relevant details. But, in my mind, most things you can learn about a character are relevant. At the end of the day, I remember characters in stories far more than I remember settings and even, to a degree, plots. If the characters are memorable, it's a win in my book. I guess that such things add to the realism, but I wouldn't let realism get in the way of a good story. So, realism isn't really the goal.

Q: Are you planning to make another game with Christine (Coming to Grips with Christine)? It will be great to see another story with her. Any story.

A: A challenge there is that there are 3 paths through CtGwC and none are canon, so it's hard to write another story with her. If your Christine is the one Adrian stayed with, you'll be annoyed if in the future story he went with her sister. And vice versa. I won't say "never" but I don't have any plans at the moment.

Q: Is there any of your characters you wish you could be more like and why?

A: Oh god, probably every major character in my games has something I aspire to (as well as something I'm happy to avoid). I'd like to have Miranda's perseverance. I'd like to be able to sing with even a tiny fraction of Jess's skill. I'd love to be able to put bad things behind me and move on positively the way Chloe does. I'd love to be a badass like Won and Beth. I'd love to have Gwen's youthful exuberance. Etc.

Tlaero