SailingShellsGames

January's alpha demo is live! ☀️🌙

You can play it here :)

Changes/additions (no major spoilers):

• Added a new scene to chapter one. It gives us more exposure to the city and the community close to MC's locaton.

• Added three premade characters to the import. The combined poll results from Patreon and Ko-fi chose the chaos vs order theme! You'll be able to get to gam...

  2025-01-30 14:50:16 +0000 UTC View Post

Extended Writing Update

This week saw me mostly tearing my hair out in both annoyance and, in a way, pride? I guess? 😂 I completely cut the prologue. I'm going to rewrite it eventually, but the plot point it introduces doesn't work this early. Welcome to my writing process, in which I regularly realize I've tried to pack too much plot into one chapter! This part was a lot less visible in book one's writing because I spent about six months writing and rewriting the first three chapters before I released the demo.<...

Me, opening up the day by staring at the scene I wrote last week

I'm just trying to figure out how what I planned to be a brief, 2-choice scene became five choices with the last one branching into three paths, each of which has its own inner choice.

Extended Writing Update

Chapter one officially has a new scene, and I love it. It lets MC connect with some folks in the community they grew up in, provides some insight on their daily life since the events of book one, and shows us progress in how MC interacts with the magic! I really like stuff like this, where we get to play in ways that show MC has a life that's really embedded in the city. They've got relationships in Den Zarel, but also with the people they grew up around. We're always going to spend more time...

TFW I figure out how to solve a plot problem after literally 3 years 🎉

(I finally got Wren to talk about their backstory, for anyone wondering 😂 I stg they're more tight-lipped than Rin sometimes)

Monthly Extra: Spring Cleaning (male Keo)

"I have got to stop buying blankets at every market I go to," I complain, holding up a small woven cloth in the most garish shade of red I've ever seen. "I mean look at this."

I toss it over my shoulder and hear a soft impact as Keo catches it in one hand. "It isn't so bad," he hums, looking it over in his grasp as I turn to argue.

"Then you decorate with it," I challenge. "Want i...

Monthly Extra: Spring Cleaning (female Keo)

"I have got to stop buying blankets at every market I go to," I complain, holding up a small woven cloth in the most garish shade of red I've ever seen. "I mean look at this."

I toss it over my shoulder and hear a soft impact as Keo catches it in one hand. "It isn't so bad," she hums, looking it over in her grasp as I turn to argue.

"Then you decorate with it," I challenge. "Want ...

Monthly Extra: Spring Cleaning (nonbinary Keo)

"I have got to stop buying blankets at every market I go to," I complain, holding up a small woven cloth in the most garish shade of red I've ever seen. "I mean look at this."

I toss it over my shoulder and hear a soft impact as Keo catches it in one hand. "It isn't so bad," they hum, looking it over in their grasp as I turn to argue.

"Then you decorate with it," I challenge. "Wan...

Poll: Starter characters for the demo 🌱

I'll be working on starter characters soon, for players who don't want to answer a ton of questions to play the demo.

I'm deciding between having themes for these characters' decisions in book one vs just picking random options. Which would you prefer?

Extended Writing Update

This week saw me chugging along as usual, and it's continuing to go well! I'm enjoying fleshing out the council a bit - adding in more physical descriptions and adding in a few more choices around MC's experience of both the people there and the institution as a whole. It's kind of a challenge to capture all of that in just a few choices - there's so many ways to view it. In my head, the council is generally a pretty good governing body. But I have to be realistic here about the fact that MC'...

Chapter 2 sneak peek 👀

Text reads:

if drainer_helper = "Tiane"  

I'm not surprised to hear it's Tiane who's been helpful on that front. She's always been willing to bend the rules a little, if it helps get us home alive - just like when she used her rank to get us into Nakon's office.

else  

Extended Writing Update

This week I took a bit of a breather since I didn't do that during the holidays - I still wrote, but at a much more enjoyable pace. I took some time to engage a bit more with the world around me and draw some inspiration from the winter snow and the magic of this season. Everything I came up with is more relevant to the middle of the game, but it'll pay off when that time comes around! As for my current chapter stuff, I've been filling in some areas and doing the much-needed work on fleshing ...

January's content release schedule :)

Here's what to expect this month ~

• The usual Sunday Extended Writing Updates. (Citizen tier and up)

• January 10th: Sneak peek of chapter 2. (Citizen tier and up)

• January 15th: Monthly Extra - Keo RO Bonus story. (Wilds tier and up)

• January 30th: Alpha Update (80% filling out chapter 1 and 20% adding a few pages of chapter 2, because I'm trying to av...

  2025-01-01 14:55:29 +0000 UTC View Post

Monthly Extra: New Year Rin Bonus Story (nonbinary Rin)

A little alternate-universe story where MC and Rin attend a new year's eve party in our world.

---

It's a loud, busy night in the tavern. The band is playing, people are dancing, and the place is so packed I'm starting to wonder if we should just call it a night and ring in the new year somewhere with more breathing room. It's a nice venue, and the decorations are gorgeous - it's just so crowded.

I bet Rin's just loving it, I think as I look v...

Monthly Extra: New Year Rin Bonus Story (female Rin)

A little alternate-universe story where MC and Rin attend a new year's eve party in our world.

---

It's a loud, busy night in the tavern. The band is playing, people are dancing, and the place is so packed I'm starting to wonder if we should just call it a night and ring in the new year somewhere with more breathing room. It's a nice venue, and the decorations are gorgeous - it's just so crowded.

I bet Rin's just loving it, I think as I look v...

Monthly Extra: New Year Rin Bonus Story (male Rin)

A little alternate-universe story where MC and Rin attend a new year's eve party in our world.

---

It's a loud, busy night in the tavern. The band is playing, people are dancing, and the place is so packed I'm starting to wonder if we should just call it a night and ring in the new year somewhere with more breathing room. It's a nice venue, and the decorations are gorgeous - it's just so crowded.

I bet Rin's just loving it, I think as I look v...

RO Bonus story: Little Changes (male Keo)

It was Flame season when I met Keo. Den Zarel's newest batch of recruits had been selected, and we were all standing in the training grounds awkwardly introducing ourselves. I remember being surprised - he told me he'd come from a neighborhood a few miles away from my own, and yet I'd never seen him.

"I moved," he explained when I asked. "I came here not long ago."

That explained it. I d...

RO Bonus story: Little Changes (female Keo)

It was Flame season when I met Keo. Den Zarel's newest batch of recruits had been selected, and we were all standing in the training grounds awkwardly introducing ourselves. I remember being surprised - she told me she'd come from a neighborhood a few miles away from my own, and yet I'd never seen her.

"I moved," she explained when I asked. "I came here not long ago."

That explained it. ...

RO Bonus story: Little Changes (nonbinary Keo)

It was Flame season when I met Keo. Den Zarel's newest batch of recruits had been selected, and we were all standing in the training grounds awkwardly introducing ourselves. I remember being surprised - they told me they'd come from a neighborhood a few miles away from my own, and yet I'd never seen them.

"I moved," they explained when I asked. "I came here not long ago."

That explained ...