Games by JimD Newsletter – Game Updates, Romantic Content, Stronghold

Welcome to my 76th newsletter! Happy New Year. I wish everyone luck in the new year and hope you had a great holiday season.

This is going to be a strange newsletter. Some developments at the end of last year still confuse me. Everything is fine with ZE: Safe Haven and Deadbury Academy, but StoryLoom is no more. I'll give more details below, but it's a good news/bad news situation.

I will also discuss romantic content in my games and how I want to do things in the future.

Let's get started.

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, Part 4

Part 4 stands at 480,000 words, with over 27,000 words added this month! I'm targeting an additional 3,000-4,000 words by month's end. Since ZE: Stronghold has ended, I have been working more on Safe Haven, and the word count shows it.

This month, I split time between writing chapter 15 and continuing the scavenging mission to Central Colorado University. I have decided to make that mission a permanent part of chapter 14. In the future, it will be a mandatory mission. It has become an enormous scene and deserves to be played in the main plot.

The other day, I ran a poll asking about romantic vs. mature vs. erotic encounters. It generated 125 responses, which is over 20% of my patron followers. That is one of the highest participation counts in a long time. It reflects the interest of readers in romantic content.

71% of those responses wanted a choice provided by the game that asks for the level of romantic content: Teen, Mature, or Erotic. That means that people also want to see more erotic, uncensored content. This is not to say that I will be writing smut, but the writing should be adult and not restricted. My intention with these scenes is to explore an aspect of the relationship between the MC and their partner.

Therefore, I will implement a new choice at the beginning of the game, which asks for Teen-rated or Erotic content. I will have to find appropriate wording and am open to suggestions.

I will likely make this change closer to the end of this year. After talking to many of you, I decided to continue the main story instead of going back to add new features or content to older parts of the game.

StoryLoom Ending

If you have been following my work with StoryLoom, you will know that last year, I wrote stories for their platform. My first game (Your Trial, a drama/thriller) was well received but didn't capture everyone's interest. My second game, Revenge Magic, received even fewer views. However, I wrote Zombie Exodus: Stronghold, a hit for the platform and the #1 game.

Right before Christmas, every contracted author was released. We were told very little about the future of StoryLoom, but our games would not continue into the new year. I was able to finish Zombie Exodus: Stronghold but had to rush the ending, so it concluded in December 2023. I could have easily written another 4-5 chapters, but the game ended in chapter 23,

This past week, we were told that StoryLoom would end sometime in March. It came as a shock to all of us writers. We were also told that our games would be shut down and taken offline. They encouraged us to find ways to save the game. One of the other writers developed a script to take an export of the game and save all of the text.

Shortly after being told this news, I contacted my editor at Hosted Games, and he voiced interest in me converting the game to be released by them. I had not anticipated releasing this game for Hosted Games, but much of the content is already written. Also, many of my visually impaired readers could not use the StoryLoom platform, which would allow them to read Stronghold.

I would also like to add to the game before I release it for Hosted Games. StoryLoom provides a simple system, while Choicescript has many more options. I could expand the choices of backgrounds and skills for Stronghold and make it a much more engaging game.

I'm still unsure if I want to convert the game to release on Hosted Games. What are your thoughts? Would you like to see Zombie Exodus: Stronghold on Hosted Games?

Deadbury Academy

While Deadbury Academy has been a secondary focus this past month, I plan to give this more attention in the future.

If you have yet to try the public demo, give it a go. It offers a more streamlined experience compared to Safe Haven's mechanics. Here's the link: Deadbury Academy Demo

That's all for this month.