Games by JimD Newsletter – Game Updates, Character Skills

Welcome to my 83rd newsletter! I am writing this newsletter from a hotel room. I’m not on vacation, but we are renovating the house and must be out while the contractor works. Working from a hotel room has been difficult, but I have done quite a bit of writing. As some of you know, due to my disability, I use speech-to-text software to dictate most of the game. The noises inside a hotel limit how well the software picks up my words. It’s frustrating because I find myself correcting half the words I speak. Despite this challenge, I was able to write over 20,000 words to Safe Haven, Part 4 this month. Work did slow down on my other games, but I made moderate progress.

We are set to go home tomorrow, and it will be amazing to have my regular setup again and some peace and quiet.

In this newsletter, I will discuss game updates and describe a new feature I am adding, which will significantly enhance the characters in the game.

Let’s get started.

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, Part 4

Part 4 is 625,000 words, with over 22,000 words added this month! This month, I am primarily working on chapter 15, where the main character visits the River Dogs. I have done some polls to see the groups you are all most interested in seeing in the game, and the River Dogs are near the bottom of the list. I’m hoping that after chapter 15, that will change. They have many interesting characters and will offer a great deal of support to the main group if you ally with them or will become a great source of supplies, futures, and a more aggressive approach.

I also worked on a script to update all main characters in the game to have skills like the MC. So, characters like Rachel, Jamie, Brody, and Madison have individual skills for Driving, Empathy, Ranged Weapons, etc. This will allow me to track their skills more closely, especially regarding training, group defense, and other common checks during the game. I have not completed this part of the update, but it’s getting close.

After I finish implementing the character skills, I will go back and implement them throughout the game. However, I will focus on using these new skills for Part 4 and then making it retroactive.

I plan to finish chapter 15 next month. I will then start to program the tasks that can be done between chapters, such as hobbies, assigning tasks, character conversations, crafting, improving the junkyard, and many other tasks.

I hope to finish the game by January and then do some testing for February. I can then turn in the files Hosted Games and get into their publishing queue.

Zombie Exodus: Stronghold

Stronghold is up to 116,000 words so far. That means I have added 8,000 words this month. If you are interested in testing each new chapter, please check out the link below:

https://cogdemos.ink/play/jimd/zombie-exodus-stronghold-public-beta/mygame/ 

As mentioned above, I didn’t have much time this month to put into Stronghold. I am close to finishing chapter 5 and recently received a commission for artwork for Siena. I hope to have the new chapter posted by the end of this month for everyone to review. This chapter gives you an opportunity for downtime, including a chance to speak to each main companion (Aldor, Alex, Harmony, Julian, and Siena).

Deadbury Academy

Deadbury Academy was steadily moving along as I continue to rewrite the game. Based on earlier feedback, I needed to rewrite some of the story and make it more realistic. I hope to get the demo back up soon, but it’s hard to know when. I thought it would be last month, but life happened. The good news is that I have added a lot of new content, so I look forward to seeing what you all think of the new demo once it is released.

That’s all for this month.