John Louis

ITUO Chapter Two Completed! (11/10/25)

The grunt writing for Chapter Two has been completed at 65,000 words!

I am going to spend the next few days editing and reviewing it with a trusted small group before opening it to one week early access here on Patreon. Thank you for your patience so far!

Expect a paid demo release sometime in the upcoming days :)

11/5/25: Progress Report 6

Hello! I apologize for delaying this progress update by so much, but that whole week where I wasn't able to write meant I didn't have much of anything to report. I am now, however, back fully in the swing of things, and I have enough material for another more comprehensive update.

Chapter Two of ITUO is now up to 64,000 words in length. I've done some trimming and editing throughout the week, which meant a few days worth of words have actually been removed, but I think it was to the ben...

Short Story 3: “I Will Never Die” [W4 Halloween Special]

Empty hulks of starships are littered throughout the void of space like roadkill. There are countless ways for something to go wrong in flight, and the nature of the empty vacuum means that a ship, once inoperable, continues endlessly along its orbit.

There are abandoned wrecks that have been in orbit of their stars for hundreds of years, perfectly placed to avoid the influences of nearby planets, left to continue undisturbed in perpetuity. Pirates store their hoards in long...

2025-11-03 02:24:05 +0000 UTC View Post

Short Story Change

Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to announce that the topic of Short Story #3 has been changed by executive decision to be a Whiskey-Four horror(?) special to celebrate the spooky. Unfortunately I just haven't quite managed to finish it before the holiday, but I should have it out by the end of the weekend.

The next short story topic will be the topic selected in the previous poll.

Enjoy the season! :)

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #8

I've been trucking away on a long series of Obren romance variants, which has been interesting to say the least. I don't want major romantic developments (the literal ones, like kissing and the emotional ones, like major confessions) to happen "off-screen" despite a few months having passed. So, I've tried to strike a balance between allowing for the relationship to have continued in the intervening time, while also letting the really emotional stuff to happen right before the reader.

P...

Short Story #3 Topic Poll

Hello everyone! I am creating this poll on public library wifi. I have had predictably little time to work on ITUO at all this week, but I still want to get this poll out so I can have a topic to focus on starting next week.

I've been reading a lot of Livy and Plutarch recently, and I'm in a bit of a historical mood. All of these topics, though, would be interesting in my opinion.

The poll will close Monday night, and I'll try to have it done by the following Sunday.

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #7

It has been an absolute pain in the posterior trying to balance the pacing between the three critical variants. I love to use POV cuts and strategically placed time skips to maintain the drama and tension throughout a chapter and to keep the reader informed of the entire situation.

This has, however, led to a small issue: whose POV to I cut to--and when? And what if that character is dead in this variant?

I've set up various POV swap sections, where I write exactly where a POV cha...

10/17/25: Progress Report 5

I have news of both kinds for this report.

Firstly, the bad: I will be on a road tour with a choir I am a part of (long story, don't ask) and will have very little time to write in the next week. It should be a great time, but there will be about five or six days where I will likely make no progress. It means I'll probably push back writing another short story until after I get back, and I'll probably release the poll turning my trip.

The good: I have finished all three c...

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #6

With the "grunt writing" complete, I have shifted now toward writing the primary three variations of regent, monarch, and loyalist. Moving between their three tones and mental development has been difficult, but I'm doing my best to maintain consistency.

Here is the usurper variant of the conversation with Darin. As you might notice, it has a much more melancholic tone than the hopeful and loving vibe of the loyalist version.

"Answer my question," he orders. "What woul...

2025-10-07 19:38:26 +0000 UTC View Post

10/3/25: Progress Report 4

The progress continues!

Life has gotten a whole lot busier recently, so writing has been difficult. I've effectively cut out all writing other than ITUO, so I've made hardly any progress on other projects. I have, however, pushed the word count of Chapter Two up to 45,000 words.

I am relatively certain that the chapter won't actually feel that long, though. There is a lot of variation. Every deep conversation effectively needs three variations for Book One endings, then any variat...

Short Story 2: “A Place to Call Our Own” [W4]

[Ulysses/Ulyssa and Male Whiskey]

I so desperately wanted to leave Sahara.

It was almost feverish. Whenever I sat and looked up, and I had Whiskey at my side, I’d imagine the stars and I’d imagine us getting the hell off of this damnable world. It was terrible. It made me feel almost sick to my stomach.

Though, of course, the boy with me wasn’t “Whiskey-Four” yet. He wouldn't be for about two more decades. He was just a kid, then, a kid...

2025-09-27 22:18:38 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter Two Writing Progress Update

The "grunt writing" of Chapter Two has finished. I have reached the end of the loyalist route! Next comes the long and painful task of going back through and adding all of the variation to previous scenes. The usurper route in particular is going to be brutal.

As for the Short Story, it should be out either tonight or tomorrow.

Thank you for your patience! :)

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #5

Life has gotten a lot more busy recently, and while the Short Story poll has just concluded, I've been largely focused on the grunt writing of ITUO. It will be published soon, likely on Friday. But for now, I instead have another sneak peek of the labyrinthian chapter that number two is shaping up to be.

This chapter features the first return back to good ol' ITFO-style combat. Oh how I've missed it. There is your first encounter with Rade's foreign mercenaries, and the danger in fighti...

9/18/25: Progress Report 3

Life circumstances have gotten a lot more busy recently, but I've still managed to stay firmly on track with the writing. My progress toward interactive short stories stalled as I realized that I can't use Choicescript, as that would be selling a Choicescript product without paying royalties to COG.

I may use Twine instead, as that has a free commercial license, but I also don't know how to use it properly. I'll keep everyone updated.

Chapter Two of ITUO is now at 31k words. It ha...

Short Story #2 Topic Poll

Here is the poll for the second short story topic. I want to give Whiskey-Four a little bit of love, so the poll here will be focused on it and I'll switch back to the world of ITFO and ITUO next time.

Any major post-epilogue content, especially with Ulysses/Ulyssa, will come in the form of an longer interactive version. I've been much too busy to make any major headway on those so far, but I'll keep you all posted.

The poll will close this weekend.

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #4

I'm continuing to write at a very good pace, likely halfway(?) done with the second chapter. It is most probably going to need to be split in two, delaying the reunion with Milon and Lada and the introduction of the F/F RO for one more chapter. I can't say for certain quite yet. I'm still drafting out the structure of the reunion with the Janowitz (Janowitz's? Janowitzi? Janowitzes?), regardless.

To allow for a ruthless-style loyalist route in the same manner as the tyrannical usurper, ...

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #3

I've finished the series of conversations and shifted onto the continued march to Winstead (a town on the way to Castle Tanta/Jutrea). I'm quite pleased with how they all turned out, but there's still a lot of variations of them to be written, but I'll go back and write those later. For now, I want to finish the plot of the chapter.

This is also the start of a potential redemption arc for Vedran. He will try to better himself, should you have kept him alive, but the Marshal can...

9/3/25: Progress Report 2

In the last fifteen days since the first progress report, I have been quite busy. I will continue to be quite busy for the foreseeable future. However, my progress on ITUO has continued at a very steady pace.

In the last fifteen days, I have had thirteen writing days. The first two days after I published the first chapter of ITUO were dedicated to giving myself a break, fixing bugs, and working out Tumblr and this Patreon.

In these thirteen days of writing, I have finished:

Short Story 1: “The First of Many” [ITFO]

[Darin and Female Marshal]

It was so damn dark in the jungle. I’s don’t know how the men who lived there could stand it. I didn’t know why our ancestors tried so desperately to take this patch of overgrown land in the first place. Knew even less why the Erisians were so desperate for it that they’d fight us. And I knew least of all what I–a man from Duncaster–was doing in this godless hellhole.

It was only the first week of the fir...

2025-09-03 01:53:46 +0000 UTC View Post

Short Story #1 Topic Poll

Here is the poll for the first short story topic. I will start to post these more regularly and make them a consistent part of membership benefits.

Disclaimer: there is a chance that stories about ITFO's backstory may end up in the final product. I'm deliberately avoiding stories about Rade and Sir Cadarn, as well as stories about the Marshal and the Janowitz as I am actively planning to include them in the coming chapters.

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #2

The writing for ITUO continues at a nice pace. I'm hard at work with a series of conversations between the Marshal and pretty much every named character I can think of, except Miljenko, the monk, as I want to use him more sparingly. There is a moment of peace in an evening at camp, and you can speak to the characters in any order. It's quite similar to the various conversations right before The Battle of the Atiming River in ITFO.

I want the loyalist/regent version of the Marshal to be ...

Short Side Story Topic Ideas

I have been highly productive in writing the second chapter, moving at nearly double the speed I thought I would. I'm quite happy with progress so far, and now I've begun to think about ways to expand the content available here on Patreon.

I think short side stories from ITFO and W4 would be really compelling both to read and write. I want to get a nice bank of topic ideas that you all would be interested in, and then post a poll with the ideas I find most compelling. I would then write...

New Tumblr Blog

I have just created and opened a Tumblr blog for my Interactive Fiction endeavors, the link to which can be found here.

It'll be a more casual environment than the forum or the Patreon. If you're interested, I'd appreciate a follow :)

Chapter Two; Sneak Peek #1

Chapter Two picks up ten days after where the first leaves off. Its current (working) title is "The Winstead Affair". The ultimate end of the chapter is the reunion between the Janowitz siblings and the Marshal, but should the chapter balloon out of control, I might have to split it into two pieces.

The general structure is as follows:

1. Ten days pass and a general prose-only recap of the mostly pleasant march

2. Return to present; set camp and speak with surviving charact...

I, the Unbroken One Demo Link

The link to the active forum page for the development of I, the Unbroken One can be found here.

The link to the demo itself, hosted on CoGDemos, can be found here.

8/19/25: Progress Report 1

Despite my absolutely terrible inefficiency in 2025, I have finally managed to reach a point with the first chapter of I, the Unbroken One which I am happy with.

It is about ninety thousand words long, following three primary routes based on the ending of the first novel. There is some serious variation based on Elya's strength and whether certain members of the Stiedry household survived the events of Book One.

The usurper route is without a doubt the most variable and, ...

Monthly Ramblings 1: “Writing the Unhinged”

August 19, 2025: “Writing the Unhinged”

One of my inexplicably favorite things to write–and maybe this an indictment against my character–is the internal dialogue of a deeply unwell character. Not in a depressing or realistic fashion, but rather the paranoid thoughts of the villainous or the tyrannical or the obsessed.

There is no better way to unsettle someone than to repeatedly, and without prompting, insist that everything is fine. Insist that you’re ...