December Newsflash #1

Hope you're having a good day, everyone! Right now I would love to be in the southern hemisphere because the UK is dreadfully cold and grey.

It's been a bit of a hard one this fortnight thanks to getting sick and a number of other tricky things, but I've been mostly working on Honor Bound Chapter 7 and made great progress yesterday in particular. As well as working on Chapter 7, I did some polish and updates for earlier chapters, of which the biggest one was adding more chances for the PC to feel more psychological effects of their background and current stressors.

So far, Chapter 7 involves dealing with some very perilous situations, so you can see why I had "include more chances to respond to the PC's stress levels" on my mind!

Honor Bound current wordcount: 272,421

Honor Bound fortnight's wordcount: 13,621

Honor Bound current average playthrough length: 68,824

Behind the scenes:

I have been playing Lies Under Ice since it launched yesterday, and am enjoying it a great deal! I like how much my MC is embedded in the world - and the worldbuilding and exploration is superb. I'm almost at the end right now, and things have hotted up... I started with lots of good intentions and now my colony on Europa has a terrible reputation! (Partly because I was stubborn and stood by my problematic boyfriend when I really shouldn't have. I am colourblind, I do not see the red flags, etc.) The game takes place over many years and it really feels like a moving, growing community of people with loads of variation in the ways you can build your base. I really like how you'll have a small scene with someone giving you information about a problem early on, or similar, and then they'll show up again later with a bigger role. It makes it really feel like a big ensemble. I'd love to see it as a TV show!

Sneak peek:

This is from a particularly uncomfortable moment in Chapter 7 (sorry about the lack of indents, Patreon really doesn't like them):

Your boots skid on the mud and as you right yourself,

*if hb_injury = 1

you struggle for breath. Pain crackles through your chest.

*elseif hb_injury = 2

breathtaking pain stabs through your head.

*else

excruciating pain shoots down your thigh.

Your vision spots. For a moment it looks like the rain. Things speckle with gray.

*if hb_pressure <= hb_pressure_hi

Someone grabs your arm. You explain what's going on, and it's perhaps not as clear as it could be, but you're guided to shelter. When you sit, someone pushes a cup of water into your hands, but you can't hold it.

*page_break Nothing

You wake in bed beneath layers of sheets. It's hard to tell whether they're really that heavy or whether you're just weakened. The ceiling above is the color of mustard, with spinach-green leaves frescoed in patterns that make no sense.

Your head feels light and floating. There's a delicious, heady, lack of discomfort, but your limbs feel weak and @{(hb_pc_build < 3) ungainly|spindly}.

"Hello?" you call. Then, before anything much else, you slip under once more.

I hope you are having a better time than the Honor Bound PC!