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The last thread was starting to get too fat again, so here's a new one.

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/becoming-legend

October 6 Progress Report: 130/266

So far, the framework for Chapter I is pretty much complete in terms of setting up pages and scripting. All that's left is the actual writing and illustrations. I'm also looking for anyone willing to play-test what's finished so far and check for continuity and grammar/spelling mistakes.

Clicking on Rahil and Sharea brings you to the save game page. Is that suppose to happen?

Bypassing the village brings you to a page with two unclickable links. There's also some other page with no links, and a few other with unclickable ones. I'm going to assume that those just aren't done yet. 

Whoops, the Rahil and Sharea links shouldn't be clickable, but the Bypassing the village page links should be visible but unclickable since those lead to the next stage of the game and are locked until I've made sure I've fixed the broken parts

Have you done your four pages for today? 

Just started working on them! Although, progress on 'Becoming Legend' might slow down since I'm working on my game for madglee's contest as well.

Looks like it's coming along beautifully at the moment. Keep up the work, I can't wait for the final draft to come out ^^

I can also help with play testing, though I know you've got others helping you with that, not sure what I'll find that they've missed but I'll keep an eye out.

Thank you! Encouragement like this keeps me writing :D

All help is more than welcome - I'm always glad to have some one else keeping an eye out for screw-ups!

Have you done your four pages for today?

And have you worked on your post apocalyptic story today? The deadline's been extended but it's still a lot of work.

I'm not entering.

Not you, but Quills. :P

Yep, working on it.

Thanks for dropping in to poke me into writing some more, Taco and TeV :D

Nice profile pic.

*Comes out of alleyway* If you're looking for play-testers, *Tries to act suave* I'm just a PM away. *Backs up into alleyway*

The link is in the original post :p Unless you want something more specific to do.

Brad, I know that. Or are you to stupid to realize that? (Sorry, just having a pissed off moment [I was sleeping during the season premiere of The Walking Dead] and my dog won't get off my pillow)

Have you done your pages?

I haven't seen him online in some time. Besides, we've got The Halcyon Days to look forward to first.

Real life has been kicking my ass lately, haha. I did get some of Halcyon Days done, but I've written about two pages worth of Becoming Legend over the entire weekend.

Thanks for prodding me along though xD Reading over all of your reminders is pretty great for motivating myself to stop lazing around and actually get something done!
 

October 14 Progress Report:

Becoming Legend - 145/266

The Halcyon Days - 16/???

I'm tempted to put Becoming Legend on hiatus until I finish Halcyon, but...I don't think I can stay away from my own project for that long, haha. So I'll be working on them both in parallel, writing whichever one I have more inspiration for. That being said, I'll probably work on Halcyon more often if only because there's a deadline, and the less time you have, the more you tend to get done!

You're insane man XD

Nope, just sleep deprived. Now excuse me, I need to go drink more coffee. My caffeine to blood ratio is getting low again. XD

Consider yourself lucky, I need to do a religious based all-nighter tonight. Lots and lots of reading, but no writing... Ugh XD

I hope you finish both games haha.

All-nighter? Yikes, good luck with that, haha. I'm glad I can get away with quick 15 minute devotionals, haha.

Are you entering the contest too?

Yeah, 11pm all the way through sunrise. We get free 7/11 coffee though, because capitalism.

That's the plan! I just hope I can finish Undead Persona for it, since I'm not sure how far I want to strong it along before the ending (which is the only thing I have planned out.) We'll see how things go haha.

I figured that's what Undead Persona was for. :)

I'm gonna admit, I'm a total sucker for supernatural thriller/revenge stories, so I'm really looking forward to playing yours.

You should be! It's really good so far, ha ha. Kinda bummed I can't read your progress yet, though. The cover is fantastic. XD

I hope so...

Quiller's art never ceases to amaze me haha.

The reason is the rest of the story is locked...is because I can't figure out how to make the links work with the cover, haha.

Stupid HTML and CSS glitches.

XD 

Yeah, you and Kiel are getting super fancy with your links, ha ha. It's pretty cool. 

We kinda egg each other on, haha. This is why you should never put two obsessive perfectionists in the same room.

Have you seen Kiel's first page? It's crazy cool, ha ha. The gender signs actually change when you Howe over them into the words. XD 

The contest looks like it'll be epic, ha ha.

Yeah - and that one link that's a picture of a door was freaking brilliant.

Madglee's awesome for throwing this contest together.

Yeah, yours, Kiel's, Rom's, and Tan's games are probably looking at ending up as major games even if they don't win first or second 

What's the title of Rom's? He has so many on his profile I can't tell which one it is.

Death's other kingdom

Only a bit more than a page done, but it looks intriguing.

>///> Not sure why it never occurred to me, but I didn't actually expect anyone to start poking around inside my game this soon. xD Somewhat embarrassed now. I appreciate the compliments, though, you two ... and I'm a bit relieved, I've been arguing with myself about whether or not those links looked cool or just kind of goofy.

@Aman

@the_quiller

 Mwhahahahah.

The links are really cool, but a bit clunky on a laptop. (Like, the links move around when you scroll on them). Definitely an awesome aspect, but you may want to tweak it a bit. 

Yeah, I found that with the gender links too. I thought it was a great idea but it seems to have a spaz when I hover over it unless the cursor is on a very specific spot.

@Kiel_Farren 

I agree with TeV. You can fix that by giving the words Male/Female a white background the same size as the pictures though - I have a picture editor that can do that for you if you want.

 

Of course we were gonna sneak a look - did you really expect us to be able to resist? XD

The links are awesome looking. I think centering them will make it look even better, but that's just an opinion you can feel free to ignore ^^

Are you... trying to help your enemy make a better storygame? Why? D:

I would accuse you of secretly trying to make it worse / make Kiel waste his time but this is the_quiller we're talking about, and you don't seem like that ype.

I don't think this contest is really something that leads to Commander level rivalries. XD

I jest, of course. :P

Can you imagine that? Banners and teams and trashtalk all based on these storygames?

"Kneel, mortal drones."

.... and I was going to think of some more but I couldn't. XD

xD ... Damn, this is why I wanted to make it to Tier 1. The banners, the artwork, the catch-phrases...!

Most epic forum game I have ever played, hands down xD.

This is your chance! We can start unofficial teams for the storygame contest. 7 teams, but... who are they all, anyway? I know a lot of people have expressed interest in entering but I don't know which people have said they're entering. Quiller, Kiel, Tan, Romulus, Tara, who else? I know playa, Malk, Chris and IAP mentioned wanting to enter. Then we've also got Fleshnblood as an unofficial entrant.

Sorry Quiller, for having this discussion on your thread.

@Sethaniel Perhaps this discussion should be moved to a new thread?

Haha, no problem. This thread is a writing motivation thread, after all, and having teams would be one hell of a motivation to write XD

xD After how much you've spouted about honor and sportsmanship in the past weeks, I'm surprised you're asking.

However, Quiller has already told me why. If I can make a better game, it's a better experience all around for the people who play it, and considering both of you seem to--for some reason--really enjoy my horror series (or at least its first installment) I guess it benefits Quiller about as much as it benefits me. xD

Um... honour and sportsmanship? I think you're mistaking me for someone else. I don't remember ever claiming to abide by those. In Commander, I was the one who would ALWAYS lock people's posts for errors and ALWAYS take advantage of when my opponents didn't lock my posts. And that was regardless of whether or not my opponents showed me mercy.

But yeah, good point about having better storygames around.

Could've sworn you said stuff like that about a certain team, but I -am- running on roughly four, four and a half hours of sleep here and I just worked a 9 hour shift and then decided to stay up another ... ... 3 hours so far, so trusting my memory? Not the best of ideas.

Also, thank you. :)

90% of Team Aman statements were pure propaganda. The other 10% were lies. (and 100% of them were awesome)

LOL I hadn't actually thought of that until you mentioned it, haha.

Then again, I'm way more excited about the chance to play all of the great games made for contest than whatever minuscule chance I have of actually placing in it :)

Minuscule? Oh, Quills, you funny. :P

I'm about to say something that will probably get me burned at the stake as a heretic, so, do remember me fondly as I was... but I'd argue your work is on par with Endmaster's for quality and I personally like Becoming Legend--which IS NOT EVEN FINISHED FOR GOD'S SAKE (xD Seriously, how the bloody hell are you this popular when you haven't even published one story yet?) ... even more than what he's written so far. That includes Eternal and Necromancer.

Yeah, I said it. >_> I now await the horde of fan-boys and their assault.

This puzzles me too XD I think most people were impressed only because Becoming Legend seems to be the first game that used HTML for the links.

Endmaster's amazing because he can write masterpieces after masterpiece across multiple genres in less time than it takes the rest of us to write junk that's nowhere near as good. I have no idea how he does it, but damn am I glad he does.

It's a shame he never made a zombie theme one. We only have 2 zombie theme stories on this site. We need more! 

There are a lot more than two zombie games.

Ah, my mistake. I mean two, long, good ones. 

I think Timetodie is working on a really long and detailed one currently.

Now that's what I'm talking about. We need more of those! ;P

BZ's Dead Man Walking and Killa's Survive the Zombies are pretty hard to top

Yeah, that's the two I was mentioning. 

Nmel, where have you been? xD Zombies have been done to death.

... :P It's also one of the rare times when the first game someone makes looks and feels like a fully developed epic. It's rare.

Says the guy who came up with GoLaD fresh out of the gate xD

xD ... Beginner's luck? >_> A happy accident? <_< Obsessive Compulsive Perfectionism?

I vote option three XD especially since I suffer from the same condition

Undead Persona was something I've been thinking about for a year and a half now! Just now I've gotten enough inspiration to write consistently on it, so I'm hoping the juice doesn't run out.

Thanks! What's Halcyon about?

What I've read so far is bloody fantastic. This is gonna be a long two months of waiting, haha.

I'll just copy paste what I sent the judges for Halcyon:

'We knew the end was coming. We've had years to prepare - self-sustaining shelters are built, space missions are launched, hundreds of missiles are aimed. But even if all of our plans fail, there's one final hope that the human species will live on.

That's you. The bravest, the strongest, the smartest - you are the Halcyon Project, a light flung into the future, the very last chance of victory against overwhelming odds. We don't know when you'll wake. Maybe a hundred years later, maybe a thousand years later, maybe never. But when you do open your eyes, no matter how different the world may seem, remember that you are the last - if your light goes out, then humanity has truly, finally come to an end.'

Sounds awesome. Looking forward to the end of December, when a lot of good stories are gonna be pumped out in quick succession XD

Maybe you should put it into Sci-Fi adventure. May fit in there better.

Huh, you're right. Why did I put it into 'Everything Else'? *confused at self*

I'm basically going to be refreshing the New Storygames category constantly once the end of the year rolls around, haha.

Whoo! Approximately 15 pages in a week on Legendary? Nice! *Hands an entire pot of coffee* You keep doing work! I'll be cheering you on from a distance. *Yawns* As soon as I get some sleep..

COFFEE. MINE. NOW. XD

Also, I know I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but thanks again for the proofreading! Now go catch some sleep before you pass out on your keyboard!

You're the one telling him to catch some sleep before falling over his keyboard? 

...yes?

I'm a total hypocrite, haha >_>

XD

Hey wait, why did you put me in the acknowledgments? I've done practically nothing. All I've done is pepper you with complements because I couldn't find anything to criticize, and remind you about your story.

That's actually doing a lot, and exactly why you're in the acknowledgments XD

Which is probably why you are being acknowledged. You've been pretty constant with reminding Quiller to write.

..... Except these last few weeks since school started. 

Few being a key word here :p

Yep, what Madbrad said. Especially over the summer - when I'm feeling especially lazy, suddenly, a notification pops up and it's Taco asking if I've finished my four pages yet. Then I have to get off my lazy ass and get some actual writing done, haha.

Well, over the summer I actually had a computer of my own to use and be able to constantly remind you. Now I use my moms and I can't get on much to remind you. Hopefully that'll change in a few months. 

So Quiller, if you need a proofreader/playtester towards the end, when this game is very near publishing, let me know. I'd rather just play through the finished (or nearly finished) product in one go rather than play it bit by bit as you write it, that's all.

Thanks, I'll definitely be talk g you up on that offer! You rock, TeV. 

For the record, I'm willing to help with proof-reading, too, and would welcome any further critique or assistance if you're up for doing the same.

And yeah, I guess since I'm entering the contest and helping Tan, it'd be fair if I helped anyone who needs with proofreading and such. I can't script for shit though, ha ha. 

Nay, shit is a cruel master. One cannot script for shit; his demands are unreasonable!

Thanks! So much support, I'm touched, haha. I'll definitely let you guys know when there's  enough of it written to proofread, and likewise, I'd be more thank happy to return the favor

October 17 Progress Report:

Becoming Legend - 146/266

Halcyon Days - 20/???

I'm not quite sure how dark I want to let Halcyon get if I let the storyline play out organically. What do you guys think - was Rousseau ultimately right or wrong?

If you mean Jean Jacques Rousseau, then in a way, I think I would have to lean towards "no." Although human's moral compasses are not necessarily evil, I will admit that Hobbes prevails in the end. Ultimately, human nature must be brutal in order to fulfill our desires. It is not possible to be completely "good."

Though I admit, I have yet to read your story. My opinion may be partially unwarranted in the context of your story. 

 

That's the way I'm leaning too - thanks for the input; I really just needed someone to bounce the idea off. It's more for an overarching direction of the plot, rather than any specific context, so a vague idea is all I needed.

No problem; The story becomes more immersive that way (which is something I value highly in stories)! 

I know it this isn't helpful for answering your question, but ... damn. xD I saw your game just a little while ago and it looks really cool. I'm kind of jealous.

(I can't help but think that if we teamed up, we could make a really epic game. I also think that it would probably never get published. xD)

Thanks Kiel! On that note, yours is freaking epic too - I've think I've already played through every page available, and the fact that you're writing so many pages so quickly is glorious.

(...it'd be like...an endless storygame, because there's no way we'll ever get it finished with all the perfectionist adding and tweaking involved. But think of how epic the WIP would look, haha!)

Becoming Life and Death

a Horrer by the_Quiel_Farren

Hmmm. I never notice how similar their usernames are. 

So...I didn't get any writing done today. I told myself I wouldn't, but I still gave in to temptation and started illustrating Halcyon Days. So, I basically wasted a couple of hours of my rather limited free time coming up with graphics, and then obsessively trying to get them to look just so... That about sums it up. *cowers in shame*

Don't worry, Tan and I got nothing done for the past 3 days! :D XD

Holiday > storygame xD

What kind of holiday was it? Did you get to eat anything special? <---(asking because I'm broke and living off instant noodles, so even hearing about food is better than nothing)

XD

Too much food. Probably the most interesting food was this Amba Chicken, which was really good. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amba_(condiment)

Aaaauuugh. If even a Wikipedia article can make it sound delicious...;___;

XD
It's not even accurate. Amba's from India originally, I believe. 

I just googled a recipe for Amba chicken.

And...I regret it.

*angry tableflip* FUCK INSTANT NOODLES I WANT TO EAT THIS.

Yeah, it's the holiday where we dance a lot, live in a wooden hut, and eat. At least 6 3-course meal over the span of 3 days.

...you guys have the best holidays ever. D:

We literally have atleast one a week.

Holy shit @Halcyon days.

Holy farking shit. XD

... I know, right? >_>' I really wanted that trophy, too.

So damn envious right now. xD

Well, the illustrations are great, but it really depends on the writing...
Bah, who am I kidding, Quiller no doubt has that down too. I'll aim for 2nd place or something. XD

Lol, the judging is based only on the writing. The graphics are only for self-satisfaction. I'm pretty sure they not part of the consideration for the contest.

Talking of that, I hope they put the criteria for that up soon. It would be nice to know what we're being judged on before writing too much of our storygames. They have given us some indication, I suppose, but still.

Madglee mentioned a rubric. I'm pretty sure that as long as you have proper grammar and spelling, and develop a plot at a reasonable pace, you'll be fine.

--edit--

Lol, autocorrect keeps replacing 'madglee' with 'master'

I know, but it would just be nice to know specifically what they're going to be looking for, because that's the only chance I have against so many other good writers, many of them much more experienced than me. XD

This contest is a double edged sword in that if you win, you'll get lots of glory and traffic to your story due to being featured. But if you don't end up in the top 3, with the number of entrants, your story could be lost and forgotten in all those other storygames published at the same time.

Halcyon Days is looking freaking great. And that's not the only promising game. I need to get into gear.

They're all incredible games. Tan's already got me hooked and I'd go crazy if I didn't know I only have two months to wait to play the finished project. And Kiel needs to finish that journal already so I can read about what's going on in TOW, because curiosity is killing me!

I'm actually really looking forward to playing all the games that come out. Who knows, the contest might get more people to play the games instead of less! It's a promise of high quality games from some of the best writers on the site, so I'm definitely going to be playing  them more thoroughly than the random new story games.

But your game is so pretty...! xD That takes effort, I'm sure it counts for something.

Daw, thanks. Maybe the prettiness will put the judges in a better mood and make them more lenient towards my inevitable mountain of typos, haha 

I'd say that graphics would probably be part of the rating. Like, Kiel and yours have an advantage of being very presentable (as well as being well-written). It's extra, but it's a worthy bonus to the experience of reading.

*Pauses* Waaaait a minute. Wait. "Hana," "Gray," and "Alex"? Ehh?

xD Like, Layne Gray and Hannah Alexandria Holmes? ... Is that really just a total coincidence?

 

Nope. totally not a coincidence, but damn, I'm surprised you caught it so fast, haha!

The moment I decided on having three characters, I figured this would be my way of making a shout out to my favorite game on the site.

 

Well, I might've asked sooner, but I was busy admiring your handiwork on character illustrations. After staring at Gray for a while, it occurred to me that it was ... interesting to see another raven-haired youth sharing that name, particularly in a group of three. Then I looked at the other two and was all ... "That sounds famili--psh. Naaaah. Silly Kiel. Your ego's getting too big, now go back and fix your game."

xD ... But it kept bugging me, so I had to ask. I am, admittedly, very pleased. You may be glad to know that, because of D.C.'s events, your character is getting a mention in T.O.W. as well.

Oh hell yes! That cameo is like a gift that keeps on giving - I'm so glad I won one from your contest, haha.

Random cool trivia - I used the same hair and skin color palette for Gray as I am for Layne (which I haven't forgotten and am still working on, I promise!)

Well, it's mainly because you gave me a character I could really use. ^^' I really never expected a cameo to become canon, but due to the role he inspired, even without D.C.'s existence and regardless of player choices, he's part of the main back story now. xD

(Take your time. D.C. is going to be a while and it's worth the wait.)

I see you managed to make that blasted dot go away. I'm curious, how did you manage it?

 Tears. An entire bucket full of frustrated tears, sacrificed to the HTML gods xD

(Actually, I just stopped using the built in 'Add Links' in the editor and coded for hyperlinks from scratch in the body text instead. It gets a little gnarly because the story viewer has some special ways of linking pages, but I can walk you through it if you're interested! :D)

Lol...

(I'm always interested in learning new stuff, whether it's Alexp's script, HTML, medical info ... yeah ... I can't say I need to know, but I want to. xD What? o.o Information hoarder? Why would you say that? >_> Who told?!)
 

Hm, come to think of it, do you think an article about using HTML in story games would be useful? I'm sure we're not the only obsessive perfectionists on the site who want to add these kinds of bells and whistles to our games. I think Zikara wrote a similar article a while back, though, so maybe we could just append stuff to it?

PM'd you the steps to get rid of the pesky bullet point, btw.

W-what happened to the Halcyon days? Only the first page shows and there's no links to other pages. Is the rest of the game broken?

Press the kewl logo

Oh. >_> Thank you. 

Yeah, it took me a while to figure that out as well. XD

Perhaps there should be a note on the description or something. Just an idea. 

Also, quill, the Halcyon Days looks really neat and the prologs are well done. Keep up the good work!  

Thanks for pointing that out! I had no idea people were having trouble finding the link. Maybe I should make it glow when your mouse hovers over it or something, hrm...

On that note, I'll do my best. I'm still not happy with the prologs - every time I reread them, they sound more and more maudlin, haha.

*mumbles cursed words pertaining to quiller's Halcyon Days...*

*mumbles counter-cursed words pertaining to Ford's...*

Damn, I just realized I still have no idea what your storygame is called. xD Keeping it under wraps so you can surprise us with it, huh?

Perhaps. Maybe it's already done and all I have to do is make it aesthetically pleasing which I can't do because unfortunately I'm not the product of an impossible threesome between Van Goph, Claude Monet, and Salvador Dali.

You don't have to be - you're an html wizard. I still don't know how you got your profile words to fade. I'm sure you could do something that'd make all our jaws drop.

Oh poor you. We both know damn well you could easily see how I made that text disappear :P

Maybe, but the best I'd be able to manage is to copy your code. I definitely wouldn't be able to come up with it on my own!

"I'm sure you can become as strong as an elephant or even stronger!" said the elephant to the ant.

I'm...kinda lost about what the metaphor is supposed to mean, but if we're talking about strength to weight ratios, the ant's way stronger.

In ratios yes, but against each other - the elephant will step on the ant and think nothing of it.

No, they're perfect. It's realistic and probably has happened hundreds of times and will make the rest of the story that much more impactful and stand out more from all the rest in a good way and possibly increase your rating on it.

You say the nicest things, Taco. :D

I swear this game wasn't quite so depressing when I started writing it. It was supposed to be a fast-paced action/thriller, honest!

That's because I have nothing to critique. XD 

But this will make it so you can relate with the characters easier also. That's always a good thing in writing and it gets more reactions, better reviews, and higher ratings because it's more interesting. 

Like I said, you say the nicest things. Now I have to go find someone to puncture my ego before I get a swelled head. XD

Erm... You're supposed to write a storygame, not a sparkly glowing glittery picture book of an homage to your favourite author.

(am I doing it right? >:D)

Perfect. XD

Shhh, TeV. Just enjoy the sparkly picture book. xD

Hey Quills. Do you know how to add HTML to $PAGETEXT?

Erm, depends? I'm not completely sure what you're asking.

Any HTML, really. For example, I want to add italics to a $PAGETEXT. How would that be done? I know the codes for italics is <i> italics </i>, but how would I include that in $PAGETEXT? Well, actually, I need to center a variable in $PAGETEXT. 

Actually, I think the code for italics is <em> italics </em>. So if you wanted all of your $PAGETEXT to be in italixs, you could always do:

$PAGETEXT := "<em>" + $PAGETEXT + "</em>"

I don't know why you would do that instead of just making the text italics in the editor though.

I'm trying to display a variable on all pages, but I want the variable to be center, and on top of the page, but I can't get the variable to be center in the global page script since when posting variables in it, you have to make it like this:

$PAGETEXT := "<center> This sentence is centered. </center>"

Everything has to be within the quotes. If you want to add a variable to that, you would need to use:

$PAGETEXT := %VARIABLE

But if you include that in the quotation, it would just show up as %VARIABLE. 

I think this is the code you want:

$PAGETEXT := "<p align='center'>%%VARIABLE%%</p>" + $PAGETEXT

It shows up centered, as this:

%%VARIABLE%%, but not the actually variable itself. 

What about this?

$PAGETEXT := "<p align='center'>" + %%VARIABLE%% + "</p>" + $PAGETEXT

If that doesn't work, then I honestly have no idea. You could always just paste it into every page, at the top?

I have over 300 pages. xD

Holy shit, you're a genius, Quills! It worked! Viola! Thank you! Been trying to do that for a long time now. 

Although, for future references, it's %VARIABLE when you're using it in page script, and %%VARIABLE%% when you put it on the actual page. 

Gotcha, thanks for the heads up. Glad to hear it worked!

Oh, and the reason I wanted to do this was because I wanted the time to show up on every page, and I wanted it reflect whether it is P.M or A.M on every page. Now it's working perfectly. Thanks. 

Sweet, that's for the Naruto game, right? It'd definitely be a useful feature there.

Any chance of an update to move the story past Training Ground 7?

Haha. I'm hitting a hard wall there. But, perhaps, when I get my essays and whatnots out of the way, I may have some time to work on it. 

*poke poke poke* -swoosh- There, Is that better? XD

Also, have you done your four pages for today?

Not yet, but I did figure out how to make the links even prettier xD

I-Is that even possible. 0.0

Must... Look... At... Pretty! O.O

...well, nothing that dramatic. Just figured out how to make the little '|No links. You may go back or reset to start over.' text at the bottom of my pages go away.

Q-quiller, I-I think that might have messed with other things too.

Weird, it seems like it's working on both IE and Firefox for me. Safari too.

Uh, quiller? Nothing's showing up........ No links, no pictures, nothing. It'll open the page, and the 'go back' 'reset' (etc) buttons are there, but there's nothing else.

Oh, crap, did I break it? D:

I'd cry if you did break it.

So would I, haha. Which browser are you using?

I'm on Chrome and it's all working fine for me. There aren't supposed to be any links for Alex or Gray, right? Because after character select only Hana has a link. Also, Hana is the only one on character select that doesn't light up when you mouse over her.

Yeah, there actually shouldn't be any links anywhere after the character select screen, but I haven't gotten around to taking them out yet. I'll be replacing all the links with better looking code, since I hate those bullet points with a passion. xD

Huh, just checked the code for Hana's character select, and it seems right. The light up effect is working in Firefox and IE. Could you refresh the page and try again?

How did you make the No Links go away? xD

Lots of frustrated tweaking of html codes and alexp's script.

Honestly, it's not worth the trouble unless you're an obsessive perfectionist. XD

I may have a simpler way for you. Just for future references. 

Do you see that stop sign to the right of every links in the editor?

First, make a random link on the page that you don't have any links on. 

Next, click on the stop sign next to the link.

Then, click on variable restrictions. 

Then, select any variables, and then select TYPE, and select the equal sign.

Finally, make it a random large number like: 45353454, or something, and then click saved and close windows. 

Viola! A blank page. 

Still the same for me. I'm on a linux on Chrome and Hana's picture isn't lighting up, although the other two are.

@31TeV

I rewrote that page's code from scratch since I couldn't find the typo that was making it happen. Does it light up now, and if not, does refreshing the 'Character Select' page fix it?

It's alright now, but I swear it didn't work until I clicked and dragged the picture. It was sorta weird that it didn't work before that.

The internet is a strange and mysterious thing. XD

There was probably some lag time with the website parser and it dropped the last half of the code when it loaded the page.

Firefox, safari, google chrome

None of the three are working for me.  

It shows no pictures, no words, nothing! Just the 'go back' 'restart' (etc) buttons on the top.

So is it just completely blank white space?

Where the pictures are supposed to be, yes. But it's set up like a regular storygame. Also, none of the pictures are coming up on Becoming legend either.

Restart your PC.

Oh crap. I think it might be your internet then, Taco. I haven't made any changes to Becoming Legend's coding or script.

B-but that means I can't click on the pretty pictures to look at what you've done to your fabulous stories!

The only time I ever get time on a computer anymore is at school in snuck in minutes, and once or twice a week at home for only an hour at a time.

That really sucks. I wish I could fix it for you, but I don't know what went wrong. ;(

 

Well, it's only the pictures that aren't showing (I forgot you didn't have any regular links or words on Halcyon Days, and the word/links on becoming legend show up perfectly fine). And since your pictures are the links and all that's on the page on the Halcyon Days.........

...maybe I should put in low-graphics option for anyone who runs into the same problem.

I have no idea what is possible with scripting, but does this sound do-able? Having an option on the first page that makes the story either have really prettied-up links disguised as pictures, or have it as regular links with pictures above them that may or may not show up.

Yeah, it's possible. I'll have to rescript the pages, but I can set it up so that the high graphics version gives the pictures as links, while the low graphics version just gives text links like normal.

It'll be kind of like how Becoming Legend lets you toggle illustrations on and off, only with the links instead.

Okay. Here, let me try the Halcyon Days one last time to make sure that it wasn't just a momentary blitz with the school server.

Edit: I tried it again, but when the page popped up, same as before, adn the computer froze for about a minute and now everything's laggy.

lol, maybe it's just your internet. 

Chapter 2: Deserters is just a save game link. Is this intentional?

Yep. Chapter 2 doesn't exist yet, so it just sends you to the save game link, sorry >_<

I'm glad you played through enough of the game to even find it though! Here, have a cookie (::)

No problem. That was a great epilouge though, bravo.

I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Haha, now I'm all motivated to write Becoming Legend again, instead of focusing on Halcyon like I should XD

The character select screen for Halcyon is looking amazing.

Now go work on Halcyon.

But...but wouldn't it be cool if I could apply all the new tricks I figured out while coding Halcyon to improve Becoming Legend?

Just teasing you. I hoped that by praising Halcyon Days you might be motivated to go work on that instead. :P

Sure, whatever you think would be best.

Thanks, TeV. Have I mentioned today that you're awesome?

I'm also dying of curiosity to see the storygame you're working on, but I guess I can wait patiently until the contest deadline if you want to keep it all under wraps.

...and I'll wait years to play Overlord and Galaxy Tale if I have to XD

I wouldn't have high expectations for my post-apocalyptic one. I'm too slow and there's a deadline.

Regardless, there'll be a ton of really good quality content at the end of this year, including Halcyon. Can't wait. :)

If you finish becoming legend in time, you can turn it in for the contest. I think the dead rising counts as "apocalyptic".

But it's gotta be post-apocalyptic. Society needs to have collapsed, although I'm not sure, maybe that does happen later on in Becoming Legend.

Spoiler: In one of the paths, it does. You cause it.

Even if it does count though, there's uh...yeah, it's impossible to finish it in time. xD. Becoming Legend is going to be over 800 pages in length, compared to Halcyon, which will barely be over 200, I think.

I have way too many ideas, and 3 of them are post apocalyptic. I only chose one yesterday. It's going to take a lot of effort to finish it on time.

You can do it, beta! I haven't played all your storygames yet, but for the ones I have played, you seem to be improve a lot between every game. Your ideas are all interesting too.

So, in a nutshell, YOU CAN DO IT. BELIEVE.

It's been so long since I made a story game, but thank you. I WILL DO IT, STARTING NOW. 

Have you done your four page for today?

Quiller?

Yes!

I, uh, wrote...one...and a half? >_> There's still an hour left of today though!

 

On which story? 

Come on quill! You can do it! I believe in you! 

On Halcyon, haha. I'll do my best!

Did you ever get the game to work again, or is it still broken?

It's working on my home computer, and on the school computer, though the school one doesn't have the perttied up links. The home one works just fine though, and the characters-as-links showed up and were clickable. Looks great. :D

Though, when I just played Halcyon Days a moment ago, I noticed a few things that I wasn't sure were supposed to happen. I don't know weather you just haven't gotten around to fixing them, or if you blocked off certain areas on purpose, or if you had any knowledge of this.

On Hana, there was no continue link. On Gray, the continue link just went to the exact same page that it was on. On Alex, there were mostly prettied up links, but there were also a few regular links in addition.

Great, I'm glad to hear that :)

Just, uh, ignore all the glitches the Hana and Gray paths right now, because I haven't gotten around to them yet. I'll get started on them over the weekend. XD Thanks for the heads up on Alex though - I must have missed a few regular links while I was swapping them out.

I'm glad I could help. :) 

I really hope you can finish the Halcyon Days in time for the contest.

At the current speed it's going, assuming you get to write all four pages a day all on Halcyon Days, you'll roughly be able to write 250 pages before the deadline (this is a just an estimate). Not including the days you're probably going to use all on scripting or working on Becoming Legend instead. If you spend, oh, 10 days on all scripting, without a page on the other story, it'll be about 210 pages you'll get done on Halcyon. (again, this is just an estimate, not an exact number)

Why this could be a possible problem? Well, you remember how Becoming Legend was supposed to be around 200 pages in the beginning right? (if I remember correctly)

I'm just a bit worried. That's all.

Yeah, that's probably...a valid worry. ^_^;; Halcyon is already showing signs of getting longer than the projected 200 pages. I'll try to reign myself in though. Worst case scenario, I'll trim some of the alternate endings I have planned to finish on time.

Hmmm...... Maybe you could move up your goal of four pages a day to five. It'll save a bit of time, a few days possibly to work on other endings. And then set one day a week for scripting only. That could work, right? 

I'm just trying brainstorm ideas for how you can still have the endings you want and get the story done on time. Key word: trying. It took me the whole eight minutes to think of this. >_>

Thanks, I appreciate it. I think I'll try to get as many pages done per day as I can, and if I start running out of time near the end of the year, I'll just stop sleeping and write like a maniac to finish it. XD

The miracles of coffee. XD 

October 24 Progress Report:

Becoming Legend - 146/266
Halcyon Days - 21/???

I really have to stop making graphics and start writing, but there's just one last element I want to add in - a user interface. Instead of having it be coded into the items like Becoming Legend, I want to make an actual UI bar across the top of the page.

Or would that be too distracting to actually playing the game?

All I can say is that you're really good at making storygames look purdy so your own judgment is probably best.

Hmmm. I would have to see it to judge. 

Turns out...it's way, WAY more effort than I thought. I just uploaded about...eighty different graphics to make the health and mana bars work, haha...

*dies*

Good news - the rough framework is done now, so you guys should be able to see the User Interface now!

Let me know what you think, and what kind of changes would improve it.

If it wasn't for the contest, I would have said that the user interface looks really really good. :D But because of the contest, I have to say that it's full of non-existent glitches in the hope that you'll get rid of the UI.

Also, you're insane. In a really good way, but still crazy.

Haha, thanks! I've got writer's block right now, so I figured I might as well just go nuts with the HTML graphics.

Check out this article by Zikara. It's where I'm getting most of the codes and scripts, since you can repurpose most of them to do whatever you want.

...I don't see the health bar?

Can you see the picture in the top right wih the player character's face? That's the health (red) and stamina (blue) indicator.

You really are putting a lot of effort into the aesthetics of this game; it's incredible. It's also good because you're encouraging Kiel to pretty up his game too, and vice versa. You two really are something.

Set off alone

 

 

 

 

 

Pragmatism increases

 

It’s your duty as Aegis to risk your own life for the sake of protecting people from wraiths. You glance at each of your teammates in turn. You’ve known all of them for years, trained together, fought together, and nearly died together more times than you can count. The most talented generation of Aegis the world has ever seen – every person standing here can live up to that claim.

 

After a moment, you say, “We’ll cover more ground on our own. Fan out and meet back up at the Pentost fort.”

 

You feel Kol’s hand clap you on the shoulder as he says, “I’m off then. Last one there’s on kitchen duty for a month!” You catch a brief flash of his grin before he vanishes in a blur of speed to the east, the fading glow of an acceleration spell leaving a trail of white light.

 

Yuon laughs softly and says, “I wonder if he realizes he just volunteered himself for it?” He throws you a mock salute before following suit, disappearing to the west.

 

You feel a brush of soft fingers as Marissa slips her hand into yours and gives your hand a light squeeze. Her hazel-gold eyes still full of worry, she says softly, “Just, be careful, alright? You always over do it.” You give her a small nod. For a moment, it seems like she wants to add something, but in the end, she lets go of your hand without saying anything else. Turning towards the northeast, she lights up with her own spell and sets off at a run, moving faster and faster until the darkness of the forest swallows her up.

 

You stare in the direction she disappeared in until Rahil slaps you on the back. With a twinkle of challenge in his bright blue eyes, he grins and says, “I bet I’ll score more wraiths than you and still get there faster. You’d better shape up if you want to stay number one!”

 

You suppress a laugh at the thought and Rahil’s grin only widens as he fires up his own acceleration spell and shoots off to the northwest like an arrow. Left alone, you turn your eyes in the only direction remaining – north. Your mana stirs like fire under your skin and the acceleration spell is almost second nature; within seconds, the towering Aegis fortress has already disappeared behind you and the forest blurs past in streaks of brown and green as you weave through the dense trees without any hesitation.

 

Barely a few minutes later, you find your first wraith. It’s so weak you nearly miss it. It’s trapped in the corpse of a rotting crow that flies overhead. You pick up a stray rock and decapitate it with a well-aimed throw without even slowing down. It’s a bit odd that you encountered one this soon, but it’s not any real cause for concern.

 

Except, you stumble across another one almost immediately. This time, it’s a hawk, also flying due south. You toss another rock, and moments later, it drops out of the sky.

 

Three miles later, you’ve encountered six more wraiths in various decaying animal corpses, in rapidly increasing strength.

 

You’re not too concerned yet. The wraiths are still so weak that you’ve barely wasted any mana at all. However, there shouldn’t be this many wraiths so far south so quickly. If they're already this far south of Pentost, then they must have crossed the border long before Aegis 03's distress signal.

 

You reach the village of Gnost in less than an hour. You’ve passed by several villages already, and spotted nothing amiss – the squads forming the defensive net will reinforce the towns' defenses soon enough. As you pass by Gnost, however, the scent of blood in the air is so thick you can almost taste it. To make matters worse, you feel the familiar prickle of a wraith's malevolent presence on the back of your neck.

 

Your heart sinks as you search for any living human presences and find none. The village itself is almost completely silent - you strain your ears, but you don't hear any survivors crying for help. It’s too late to save anyone, but you fear that if you leave the wraiths alone, you fear that they’ll attack the next village before the defense squads arrive. On the other hand, your suspicion has been all but confirmed: the wraiths are not acting mindlessly. There must be a powerful fallen mage commanding them, and you’re going to need all the strength you can spare to fight that battle. Can you really afford to waste your mana here?

 

• Enter the village
• Bypass the village
• (Knowledge) Using Mana

			My Inventory
	Character Stats Inventory Knowledge Game Options Table of Contents

Sorry, I should have been clearer - the status bar is in Halcyon, not Becoming Legend, though I am going to make a huge graphics update for Becoming Legend after Halcyon is done so that I can use all the new tricks I learned!

I'm not seeing it. 

He's talking about Halcyon Days! There is a deadline for that, you know, and he doesn't have time to be working on Becoming Legend all the time.

HOLY SHIT. The images light up in colors when you hover over it. This is insane. 

Lol, it's just the mouseover html tag nested into the image tag nested into the hyperlink tag.

This is amazing. xD

How did you do the background?

This should help: http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/advanced-editor-forum/message/14236

. What Madbrad said. XD

Where did you get all these HTML tags from? Hmmm, since normally in normal browsers you're suppose to be able to use quotes for the background code, but since you can't in page script, you needed a different looking background codes without the quotes. 

I picked up bits and pieces of html over the years surfing the Internet? The things you can do are actually pretty limited though, because you can't modify the header of the page in the storyviewer, and you need that to run some of the more advanced JS and CSS scripts.

You can get around the $PAGETEXT problem by switching out the double quotes for single quotes!

If we saved the pictures to chooseyourstory.com where do we see the links for them? 

If you click on the picture and open it up in a new window (this works in IE but not Firefox for some reason), just copy the URL in the browser's address bar

Also. I put this in the global page script but the background isn't showing up for some reason.

$PAGETEXT := "<html><style>body
{background: url('http://www.things4myspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/preview_myspace_cool_background_17.jpg') ;}</style></html>"
+ $PAGETEXT

The code looks right. There's probably something else either with the image or the script on the page that is stopping it from showing up.

I could take a look for you, though I'm on my phone right now.

Sure. Thanks. I just added you as a co-author. 

Cool, which page has the background?

Um. I put it in the global page link, so it should've shown up on every page. But I just have the first test page. 

I think I fixed it - the advanced editor properties just had to be changed to allow advanced scripting

That happens when you co-author someone. Their scripts and everything else is set to basic even if yours is set to advance. Why did you add it to the global link script too? Oh, wait nevermind. Dam. I think I added it to the global link script, and you change it to the global page one. 

Lol, I've done that too. But it's working and that's what counts, right?

Yeah, thanks. xD

Cool, removing myself as coauthor then ;)

Pretty much, though not working on Becoming Legend makes me kinda sad, haha.

I also never realized just how freaking wordy my pages are until I saw Nmel's post, haha...

Holy damn, Halcyon Days looks epic.

Thanks! I'm wasting a ton of time prettying it up instead actually, you know, writing XD

So I'm happy it seems to be worth it.

xD ... You don't even need a contest, this thing is going to be featured, period.

If so, it'll only be to give people an idea of what kind of graphics alexp's awesome scripting system can support. I'm just using lots of graphics to make up for bland writing - that's my game plan in a nutshell, haha.

On that note, yours looks pretty damn fantastic too. Did you write any more of it? I'm still really curious about the 'Personal History Accounts' part of the journal!

Your writing isn't bland. :P

Thanks. ^^' It's ... definitely not on the same level as yours, but I appreciate that. I'm really irritated that I have to keep replacing the backgrounds. *sigh* I have written more of it, yeah, but no, the journal is not complete yet. I'm holding off on the personal accounts because I want to be able to really focus when I write them. A thousand years of change is a lot and I'd be really dissatisfied if I couldn't get the gravity of it across.

1) Have you written anything today?

2) You mentioned writers block yesterday? Do you need help with ideas or is it having too many?

3) I think I found an error in halcyon days. It's on 'Run while you can', second paragraph, last sentence.

'shattered stone from the tombstone on my left fly past my fave I dodge the bullet'

I only copied part of the sentence.

1) Yep, on my third page.

2) It's more of not knowing how to put the scenes into words, and then connect them to each other.

3) Thanks a bunch. It should have been 'face' not 'face', and I'm missing an 'as' after it. Fixed now though!

1) Yay! ^-^

2) Explode the moment! :D

3) 'It should have been 'face' not 'face','? XD

......darn those 'v' and 'c' keys!

XD

Yep, those keys are just determined to annoy people today. 

I am almost jelly of your burrito-kitty, Quills.

TacocaT is my awesomesauce editor, you can't have her. XD

*pout* I can't haz? Not even to borrow? Aw...

Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty. Now please stop arguing over me. XD

Okay, as long as I'm still pretty. xD

XD Sure...... *smiles innocently*

.

Don't worry, Kiel. I think you're prettier. :P 

Mainly because you don''t wear an ass on your head. 

RESPECT THE HAT. >:(

It's ok, Quiller. I like your hat.

Jace sucks.

The blue mage, not your character, just so you know. That might have felt unnecessary/out of the blue (lol, geddit?) but I just saw all those people being mean about Quiller's hat and felt that there needed to be some balance.

You're both gorgeous, though, just sayin'.

Hmm.... I'd beg to differ Plainswalkers are very useful.

You're probably right, TacoolcaT74, although I wouldn't know. 74TeV doesn't really know much about MTG.

I thought you were cool this whole time until I saw this post and actually looked at the username. XD

Well played, TeV. Well played.

Haha. Indeed. xD

>_> I was defending Quillers hat, why do I get insulted?

Also, TeV, you're insane. xD If you knew more about the lore, you'd know Jace Berelen is likely the most powerful (human) mage in the entire MTG universe (there are a lot of them for the record) and if you ever played against a custom Jace-centric deck, you'd know he's one tough bastard. I'm a good player and I've been in a lot of games of varying opponent counts, but someone I normally beat used a Jace deck against one of my decks (admittedly not my favorite, but w/e,) and wiped the floor with me, twice. >_> I like using him, I hate fighting him.

I would venture to say he's the planeswalker I liked fighting against the least, (his "Mind-sculptor" incarnation is so OP it got banned a couple years back) but then again, Liliana (the solid "black mana" planeswalker woman) is quite a devious little undead-loving femme fatal. (Fun fact: Liliana and Jace were lovers.)

*Beleren

But yeah, as I said, I don't really know much about MTG because I've never played it.

I did, however, know about Liliana and Jace's love story. I just got curious about MTG because of your quiz and looked up the basic rules and learned a little bit of planeswalker lore.

EDIT: As for your point about Jace being one of the most powerful human mages, what's your point? Power doesn't equal cool, necessarily. It can even make a character bland and uninteresting at times.

EDIT EDIT: But I do think Jace is a pretty cool sounding character after hearing the story behind him. I was just trying to make things better by making sure you were insulted as well as Quiller. :P

xD Cut me some slack on typos, I just woke up a little while ago.

Sure, from an objective story perspective, having God-like power can make for a boring character ... but having a badass in your deck and a one-in-sixty chance of putting him on the field and turning the tables in a difficult game is not--especially when you're fighting someone who you know has the power, if the proper cards are drawn, to steal him away.

That said, you're right, power relativity is important and how you use it is also important. Jace is a very powerful human, but in a world that is routinely overrun by gods, titans, spirits, dragons, and Eldritch Abominations, all that reassures you of is that he should be able to hold his own. Also, it's the nature of his main ability (I'll just call it "mind-sculpting") that I like. 

Ok, let's really make this fair: Your face sucks! (Your avatar face xD Not even sure who it is, but, umm ... yeah! Sucks. >.> Because! I mean, it's not even a whole face, tch.)

Why you gotta make fun of my profile picture? >.< You very hurt my feelings, Kiel. 

... Dammit. I will not give into the guilt! xD I refuse...! Nooo...!

(On a serious note: Who is that, really? The picture looks familiar, but I can't place it.)

The picture is of somebody who you used to know long ago, before your memory was erased... Jace.

Gasp! I mind-sculpted myself? Oh, the irony...! (Never mind the fact that Jace apparently does that on the regular.)

*Pulls up in car* Your hat SUCKS! *Drives off*

*Pulls up in a truck* Your face sucks! *Drives off*

*Pulls up in a Ferrari* You suck! *Drives off*

Have you written anything today?

Nope, just about to start, since I can probably cram in an hour of writing over my lunch break.

Have you finished now?

Have you written anything today?

 

Edit: Also, looky! :D

Go Quiller!  :D You can finish your story in time for the contest. I believe in you!

Does it help any? :)

Haha, yeah, it actually does! Thanks for taking the time to make a rainbow banner. XD

I wanna help get you pumped, too...!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8D39vuHHPc

Hahahaha - I spewed my drink when I saw that. XD

October 30 Progress Report:

I haven't done much writing in the last two days, what with midterms, work, and a slew of other things piling on. That, and 3J newest game, which - wow- Commander flashbacks. Hopefully this one won't swallow my life as completely as his last game did, haha.

Going to get cracking on Halcyon again today, and the goal is to have gotten Hana and Gray's paths out of the prologue by the end of today.

Huh? 3J's newest game?

What aren't you telling us, Quiller?

*hums innocently* What, secrets, me? Nawwww.

Shhhhh

Just curious, and I know this will probably be a ways off, but Quiller, do you have any plans for stories after Halcyon and Becoming Legend.

Damn, there goes any hope for my idea for a forum game ever getting people.

Oh wells... 

What was it?

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/forum-games/message/14295

 

I'm still proceeding with it so far.

I suppose I have enough interest to at least proceed along with making mechanics and stuff.

Lol. Don't worry about it haha.

(Way 2 spill teh beans, Quiller XD)

Has you written anything today?

*Have you. 

I know. I was tempted to go as far as saying

'has u written anythings today?'

But I figured that was going to far.

*Too far. 

*rolls eyes* 

*Roll eyes

-_-

*^V^

Actually, in that context, "rolls" is correct.

Not to mention that -_- is also correct because Taco isn't a Penguinite or an owl.

Or a canary! :D
 

Was there somebody with a canary avatar/persona? Or are we just throwing in all sorts of possible beaked creatures that the emoticon could represent? If it's the latter we could be here for a while.

It was the latter. xD I just like canaries. (And parakeets. And ferrets, but that's less relevant.)

Oh, btw, Quiller, do you know how to change the links's color in either the global link scripts, or global page scripts?

Hey quill, this thread is getting kinda bulky. 'bout the same size of the last one. Also, have you written anything today?

*Poke* Oh quiiiiiillerrrrrrrr. Have you written anything? Or, more specifically, have you updated anything in Halcyon days?

Edit: *poke*

Edit:Edit: *poke*

Edit:Edit:Edit: *poke* *poke*?

Edit:Edit:Edit:Edit: *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke* *poke*

Edit:Edit:Edit:Edit:Edit: *POKE* *POKE* *POKE* *POKE* *POKE* *POKE* *POKE* *POKE*

I'm alive, don't worry! XD I've drawn about five full color art commissions in as many days, so my hand is about to fall off, but other than that , I'm totally fine. I've got one more to finish, and then Kiel's commissions ko before I can happily go back to writing Halcyon!

0.0 For who? 

Shh

Everyone in a an RP over at BHB after I foolishly made an open offer to draw anyone's character if they wanted me to XD

@Kiel , I actually feel kind of guilty for putting it off this long, but I was a bit daunted by the prospect of shading armor, haha...

Shading armor? Hmm... 

 

Or any shiny metal, really. It's hard to color reflective surfaces convincingly, especially when they're in non-geometric shapes like plate mail.

 Like this? 

Wow, did you draw that?

Something similar, except I'll probably give it stronger lighting and more layers of metal. :)

Nope. Unless you count making it entirely with photoshop as drawing it. It only took about 25-ish minutes.

And there is only one layer. I did a light yellow-y green-y background, then put a gray with a slight hint of red on top of it in the rough shape of a breast plate thingy, but not as a new layer. Then it's just a matter of playing with the dodge/burn/smudge tools and hoping for the best. 

Surprised to hear you were daunted, you really are quite talented.

Haha, thanks, but I'm still never actually been taught the correct way to draw stuff XD so it's basically trial and error until I get it to look right, and I haven't practiced drawing plate armor as much as I would like!

I'd be a terrible, terrible liar if I said I wasn't pretty excited to hear that. xD

*POKE* H-hellooooo.    XD

 

Have you written anything in the last couple days?

He hasn't been online in some time. Probably busy.

11/2/2014 1:01 PM

 

^ This was when he was on last, which was only 13 minutes ago.

Edit: 14 minutes ago

Oh, OK.

Probably just too busy drawing pictures for people.

I wonder why he hasn't responded. The first in the trio up there wasn't when he was on, but the last two were. Surely he couldn't have been drawing pictures both of those times. Why log on if you're only going to draw?

Well, sometimes I get so busy writing I forget to look at my messages or I forget they're even there. Also, sometimes I think I have time to answer messages or write, but I get dragged away by a phone call, my spouse, my job, yatta yatta. Don't worry, Taco, I'm sure Quills will be back soon. 

Wait, you have a kid?

Taco ... ... at what point have I ever said I have a child?

 Also, sometimes I think I have time to answer messages or write, but I get dragged away by a phone call, my spouse, my job, yatta yatta.

Spouse doesn't mean kid.... XD

Anyways, Quillier is fine. Don't worry. XD

Taco, hun, you need to go back and re-read your dictionary:

spouse

spous,spouz/

noun

noun: spouse; plural noun: spouses

a husband or wife, considered in relation to their partner.

UNLESS, of course, you intend to say that I somehow married someone I helped bring into this world, in which case ... ewww. Just. Eww.

oops

Other posts I've made in the past might also be confusing to you, though, because I have raised / helped raise children before, but none of them were ever biologically mine, it just felt like they were sometimes. >_>' (Hence why I'm in no big hurry to have any of my own.)

Quiller's converting

What, no, whatever gave you that idea? Ahahahahahaha...>_>

To Judaism?

What else?

I hear Demonic Judaism is on the rise.

Does this mean I get all the magic superpowers too? XD

You wish

Soon, Quiller, soon. Give it time.

Converting... From binary to decimal? PDF to Word? Celsius to Farenheit? Yards to inches? Carats to grams? To Judaism? To Pastafarianism? What are you talking about? o.0 

Edit: Damn, not fast enough. S'what I get for having ADD during posts.

I would tell you, but it'd be full of spoilers.

I initially read that as "full of spiders"

Same here. Did he ninja edit?

Strange, because I didn't ninja this one.

CYS to Bhb

=(

:D It's okay, my heart is big enough for both of them! Even if the RPs over there are alot better

xD I feel slightly wounded, I've been in some great RPs here, they just ... die a lot. >_>

Quiller, I know you'be got BHB fever right now and it's ok if you spend more time over there than here. But know this: if Halcyon Days doesn't get into the top 3 in the contest because of this, I will personally hunt you down and sell your hat to TSR after taking it from you by force (which will involve making you play Commander with me at gunpoint, causing you to draw for me, leaving me plenty of time to steal your hat and walk away with it).

If you give Halcyon your all and you don't get in the top 3, that's fine. Just don't let BHB ruin your CYS career (because I clearly have the right to tell you what to do :P).

LOL, thanks TeV. I 'm also really working off writers block with my recent art binge, but don't worry - Halcyn is my NaNoWriMo project, so that's 50K word minimum!

Okay, forgive me for not knowing, but what in the world is BHB?
 

nah, most people don't know about it. It's an RP site a bunch of us (we have like, 14(?) active members or so) roleplay on. We nabbed Quillier recently. 

Yeah, it was originally where we fled when TSR started posting anuses all over the forums and the admins were scarce. Now it's an alternate site which we use for RPing and miscellaneous discussion.
It's pretty rad.

Ah, I see. I'm not an RPer myself (used to be but don't have the time anymore for it), so no wonder I didn't know. Thanks for the answer.

If you ever find the time, I'll gladly send you a link. :)

Thanks, but I already have the link thanks to Tanstaafl. I'll probably at least for a bit for now but thanks again. :)

Have you written anything on Halcyon days today? I apologize for missing yesterdays reminder.

Yeah, I'm actually writing right now. Going to get started on one of the shorter alternate paths today. My fingers feel like they're dying from how much drawing and typing I've done today, haha.

As always, thanks for the reminder :)

Have you written anything today? 

Also, apparently I've picked up your habit of illustrating sections in the story instead of writing. >_>

Have you written anything today?

Are people still asking you to draw this-and-that-and-this-other-thing? I thought my thread would take care of a few of those for you so you could focus on writing........

Ah ha! The 24 hour mark has finally passed! So,

Have you written anything today? 

If you do not respond, I may have to resort to poking you again....

Ah! I missed the twenty four hour mark. Well, better late then never.

So, have you written anything on Halcyon Days in the last couple days? 

Maybe I should start poking you again. 

*Collects Rabid Babies*

And I missed the twenty-four-hour mark again. 

Well, have you written anything in the last few days, or has real life been gettin' at you?

You have forced me to do the unspeakable! *poke*

*Throws babies*

I'm two hours early! 

Better to be early then to not be able to do it at all, right?

Well, I shall ask once again. Have you written anything in the last couple days on Halcyon Days, or has real life been a pain in the ass?

*poke poke?*

*Throws babies Brad didn't throw yet*

Please don't throw babies around the forums. They're precious and should be care for instead of being toss around like a football.   

*Throws Babies at nmelssx*

You fiend! 

This is devolving into a thread purely for poking Quiller and throwing things that rhyme with 'hey bees'.

Again, I have missed the twenty four hour mark.

Well, have you written anything on Halcyon days, or is real lie being a bitch, or are you being overloaded with requests, or a combination of the three?

*Poke*

You are going to have another big bruise at this rate.

The big bruise got infected. Now Quiller has a high temperature. Crap, I think he's about to...he's about to...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  

Taco, I know it's frustrating that Quiller isn't around and updating us on his storygame, but I think you should just leave this thread alone for now. He'll reply when he wants to. As you say, he must have his reasons.

Only two days out of all that I've poked him this last week are days that he hasn't been online. He's around, but not updating.

I'm sure your reminders are appreciated, burrito-kitty, but Quills is probs busy with RL, so TeV may have a point.

She's been poking him everyday for the last 2 weeks. Lmao. 

*Throws more babies*

Babies start to cry, before all turn their head toward Brad. A creepy silence follows. 

I don't care what other people say about me doing this; I'm gonna do it anyway.

So, have you written anything for Halcyon days in the last couple of days? Real life? An outrageous number of drawing requests?  I was so sure that my thread would take care of a few of those on the last thing...

*Poke poke poke poke. Poke poke*

Pretty soon I'll poke you in pms if you don't respond here.....

Wait, did you unwatch this thread? That would explain why you keep popping in, but never respond here....

LOL. You made him unwatch it.

XD I hope that isn't the case.

No, don't worry, haha. I've been mostly logging in just to copy and paste bits of what I've written into the storygame editor, then going back to my word editor to write again. Haven't been keeping an eye on the forums or checking my notifications, which is why I haven't responded, sorry!

It's okay. No harm done. Just a bit of worry.

Have your drawing requests lessened? 

Just one more to go! That, and I'm not on the site much because I'm doing my NaNoWriMo blitz writing in a word editor instead of on the site's storygame editor. 19500 words so far, though I have to proofread and break it up into pages and paths before I make a huge update to Halcyon, haha.

That's alot of writting...

How's the story going? (Legendary, specifically.) Have you finished your daily/weekly page goal yet?

Have you written anything yet today? I apologize for missing a few days of reminders. If this is getting too annoying, I'll stop if you want me to.

I missed a day!

Have you written anything on Halcyon days?

Let it goooo! Let is goooo! Can't hold back anymore...

XD never listen to that while thinking of farts. It ends of like this;

'A kingdom of isolation [I can guess why]....Don't let them them in don't let them see [this side of me]....

[And then my favorite section;]      Let it go *fart*, Let it go *fart*, can't hold it back anymore...'

XD

You're funny, Taco. xD I remember plenty of fart jokes when I was younger, but alas, I am far too old to tell any now. Though I can still enjoy one, if it were to be told. 

I am? That's a first. I think. 

How old are you anyway? I'm guessing 18-ish. Somewhere in that area, leaning towards a bit younger then that though.

I am old enough to biologically already have either a son or daughter of about 8-10. ;P So, somewhat close to your age. 

I never would have guessed. So does that mean late twenties?

No. I just about at the age to legally drink at most states. 

*I'm OR I am

I could not resist. XD

So 21? Two years younger then quiller&Kiel?

Yes. 

Have you written anything on halcyon days yet? I know you haven't updated in a few weeks, I've checked and I believe I've read every page you have up twice or trice to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Also, you missed another regular link. I don't know whether you haven't gotten to fixing that one yet, or if you didn't know about it. 

 

Update?

Come backkkkk...

Hush now, he is gone, and has been for a few months. Let him rest in peace.

He was here in december...

Quills hasn't been responding to... anything, really. Not for a long time. Best to just... accept it for now.

So, I'm alive.

And reading back over this thread, I'm torn between feeling really touched that you guys kept checking back on this, or feeling really guilty for disappearing for so long.

So in a nutshell, thank you all so much, you all are awesome, awesome people.

I'm working on Becoming Legend again, with Halcyon as a side-project that will probably still be finished earlier.

Good to see you. ^_^

Glad to see you guys too! Man, I didn't realize how much I missed this place until I got back on.

XD

Glad to have you back. May I resume my poking duties?

You may indeed. XD

I think I might have made some threat about doing something to your hat if Halcyon Days didn't make it for the competition, but I didn't finish mine either so I don't think I'm in any position to say anything.

Great to see you up and about again! Looking forward to legendary story game. <---- (See? Punny yes?)

Holy shit.

YES you're back quiller just wanna say this there are probably a lot more people than the ones that write on the site missing you. I am one such person a totally respectful not stalker-like guy. But anyway many many people have been checking out your game and stuff to see if you're back so plz finish Becoming Legend I can't wait to become the lich overlord of humanity MUAHAHAHAHA

Thank you! I'll do my best, and I'm glad someone's looking forward to the Archlord ending, haha.

Welcome back. ;P

Thanks, nmel. Glad to be back!

*sets off welcome back fireworks*

*Poke*

Upadate?

Haha, sure thing!

Becoming Legend: I completely lost track of how many pages I was at, but I've got about 12K words of newly written content to update, so I'll get back to you guys about that after I'm done splitting it into pages and putting it up.

Halcyon: On hiatus for now, but the plot bunnies for it have become so overpopulated that they've colonized most of my brain.

Holy. Fuck.

0.o That's alot of words.

How does it feel to have little bunnies running around up there?

Strangely fluffy. XD

Also, if you'd like any help or feedback, I'm pretty much available since all my projects are currently on hold. xD

Update?

Huge graphics update in the works for Becoming Legend. Basically, I'm doing a crapload of art in order to use what I learned in Halcyon and reworking all of Becoming Legend's scripting to match that.

So, you'll have a new title screen, user menu, character selection screen, backgrounds, et cetera. I'm also adding in a quest tracker so you can see if you missed any side paths along the main storyline :)

XD I seem to have forgotten to take this down off my profile when you missed the contest.

 

Go Quiller!  :D You can finish your story in time for the contest. I believe in you!

Yes, through the power of time travel! ... Wait. >_> Waaaaait a minute. No time travel. I like my trophy. *clings to trophy*

Aw, thanks Taco. You even made it all rainbow-y...

And haha, Kiel, who are you kidding, you would have kept that trophy even if I had an extra month to finish mine and time travelled back XD

The Other World was an awesome game.

Woohoo! The rough framework for the graphic update is done, and all I need to do is copy-paste all the new scripting in.

The number of HTML tags nested inside HTML tags for this in this thing is ludicrous XD

Here's what the game currently looks like: Graphics Demo

Let me know what if anything's broken or should be changed please :)

Dude, it looks awesome. ;P 

In terms of appearance, it blows everything on the site out of the water...

Now all that is needed is an awesome story!

Dunno if it's on purpose, but Aerien's pic shows up three times side by side.

Sadly, yes. I haven't finished the Rahil and Sharea character select pics yet, so Aerien's twins are acting as placeholders for the script right now XD

Fantastic work Quiller! Looking forward to the final product!

HYPE!

Looking sharp there. Keep up the good work!

Let me make love to your game, 'cos that is a SMEXY CREATION!!!!ONEONE!1111

Did you purposefully put an actual link that says 'Aerien' in addition to the triplet picture? Did you also purposefully make it so the mana knowledge page doesn't go back to the story when you click the link?

Gah! I missed four days!

*Poke poke poke poke* 

Update?

Hey I'm fairly new to the site soooo you haven't seen me in many threads (but I'm there you know normal stalker behavior) ;)

But anyway quiller any updates? 

I mean no offense and I'm in no way trying to demand that you make more content for the game (although I admit I would be happier if you DID put more content) is just that DUDE you've got me hooked ;)

I mean seriously the game is badass and (no offense Kiel) but if you had finished in time for the story you woulda probably won (again I mean no offense Kiel) but anyway quilled just a suggestion (if you don't mind me saying) you should finish the story first put out a demo THEN finish the art. Because honestly a good story game gets me more addicted than cocaine. Btw before anybody gets any ideas I am 12 so I am not addicted to cocaine. Whelp im gonna log off now and do my math homework see ya

I sort of...started at the end, and wrote backwards towards the beginning. So I have the battle at the climax of Chapter I written out, but I'm missing chunks in the middle, which is why the links are locked past 'Head straight north'

So there are about 30 pages of more content that haven't been linked in yet, and I'm putting a hold on the rest of the illustrations until I have all of the 'set off together' path written and edited. :)

Also, I need to stop listening to the Skyrim theme when writing battle scenes, because it makes even lame things seem awesome when it's playing in the background XD

;) that's hilarious but if you put out a part in the evil ending that says they all make friends and it's happily ever after I will send zombie assassins XD 

But anyway that sounds cool what you did with starting at the end and writing down from there but for future games I advice that you  start from the beginning and release more and more parts as it goes on. I've been at home for the whole school week (hey I'm not complaining) but I've been bored out of my MIND. There's nothing good to play on the site that I haven't finished twenty other times. So PLEASE don't get me addicted then cut me off completely. IM NOT READY TO GO COLD TURKEY. 

But seriously as I've said twenty other times (I know my friends always say I'm repetitive XD ) you're game is awesome ok gonna log off now seeing a movie with my dad ( GO JAMES BOND) ;)

Ahahaha, sorry about that. Thanks for the praise, and I'll do my best to make sure the ending(s) do not disappoint.

I'll make a content update sometime this week.

Estimated percent done?

Chapter I is about 60% done in terms of pure writing. It shouldn't take me too long to script either, since the basic framework is already in place.

As for the entire thing, I have no idea, since there's still three more chapters and two more characters, although I'll probably publish the thing as soon as Aerien's path is complete and make content updates as I finish them.

Yeah, considering how much you've written in the first chapter alone, I'd say that would be good. ^_^ 

It kinda makes me laugh at my past self that thought 'Oh, Chapter I will be about 120 pages, and the other chapters will be about 80 pages each' XD

The wordcount in my Word document for this thing is already at 55K+ words.

You're absolutely insane. XD  (and as we all know, the only good writers are the insane ones. :P)

Is it the writing that makes them go insane, or is it the insanity that makes them write? XD

Mortals aren't meant to know the answers to these questions. XD 

That's like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg? You write, you gain insanity, which makes you write a little more, which makes you gain a little more insanity, which makes your write a little more, which makes you gain a little more insanity, which makes you write a little more, which makes you gain a little more insanity, which makes you write a little more, which makes you gain a little more insanity, and then you become a madman perfectionist like you and Kiel.

It's the insanity that makes them write. If it were something you can develop just by writing, a lot more of us would be that crazy ... and, if Aman is correct, that talented. No, I'm positive from personal experience that the insanity came first.

I think your own (in)sanity supports Taco's case here, Kiel.

I mean, who on this site can would you consider sane? More importantly, who was able to write a great storygame without becoming a little more insane for it? And that insanity makes them try even more insane things, like turning a 400 page game into an 800 page one just because *coughGOLADcough*

I dunno, I always thought Endmaster was pretty sane.

Ahaha! And I used to complain about writing 3K words worth of articles to my boss daily ^^ You are simply a machine Quiller! Keep it up!

I still complain about writing any length of reports to my boss XD

Writing reports and writing tales of fantasy battles are very different things.

Well anyway. I'm back now since I was pretty bored before I'm just gonna go and try to offer my help

PLEASE LET ME HELP BETA TEST *makes puppy eyes*

More specifically the deserter path in chapter 2. I loves me some good evil paths not many games on the site offer a choice to be evil. You KNOW that imma become the Archdemon (I don't know if that's right I don't remember the name)

So to inspire you to make the evil path hers an evil cat ??. That's scary stuff huh?

WELL HERES THE DEVIL ?? MUAHHAHAHAHA EEEEVILLLLL ;)

LOL, I'd be happy to, although, what makes you think the deserter path is the one that leads to the Archlord ending? Because there's three more chapters for this story, and it's not that straightforward, haha.

Becoming evil isn't a one-step kinda thing. It's supposed to be a slow descent into madness... XD

 

Hmm you're asking me to defend my claims as to why the deserter path leads to evil. YOURE ON

As you helpfully said right now becoming evil in this game is the 'slow descent into madness' when you end up fighting the wraiths after you finally beat that tier 7 Mage you decide to leave and his is how you describe it (I don't remember specifically) 'something snaps within you. Everything that you have been taught is a lie' now combine that with the dream that you had at the start of the game. Of you raining fire down upon an army. You can come to the conclusion that he's been feeling emotionally unstable and he's been feeling a need to destroy. Combine that with seeing Marissa die and you can be sure that he's getting pretty unstable and much more strongly than any other teenager since he's doesn't even have any good memories his whole life has been train,fight,kill. So you can also argue that since he's been with Marissa since his childhood it's like she is his family and Aerian seems like a smart kid so if he barely gets out of there alive he knows that the others have no chance. And yeah I know becoming evil isn't a one step thing but you can argue that knowing the best thing of a family he's got is dead finding out that his whole childhood has been a waste is a pretty good step towards becoming evil and I know that if I was Aerian I would be feeling pretty resentful towards the government that made me like that and I would want revenge

PSYCHOLOGICALLY OWNED XD

 

Reporting for action commander quiller. You there or are you spaced out writing becoming legend ;)

Wow, I'm actually kind of impressed that anyone's been reading this story so carefully. No need to defend the claims to the author though! I'm just glad that you picked up all the foreshadowing.

Whether that foreshadowing is accurate or not, though, well, I'd be a rather bland writer if the story didn't surprise you at least a little, right? You're on the right track though, (spoiler)The Deserter Path does indeed contain a route where you become an Archlord. However, it is not the ONLY path to becoming Archlord, and the two different paths lead to very different events happening after you become one.

That being said, since I haven't finished scripting the actual pages past the end of Chapter I, I can PM you what I do have written for it, if you'd like. It'd be more of a proofreading than beta-testing at this point though.

*gasps* you'd do that YES PLEASE. And btw what you said that you were surprised that anyone had read that carefully I think that I would be hard pressed to find somebody that goes into this forum repeatedly and DOESN'T read that carefully. But even if that's not true and everybody on this forum doesn't read that carefully it's just how I am. Trust me when I'm reading a book there's no WAY I'm gonna pay attention to anybody else. People can be yelling at me and I still won't hear them (it's happened before XD) but anyway I'll try to help as a proofreader I wanna help all I can to make sure this story goes up sooner and be sure I'm gonna rate it 8 out of 8 if the rest of the story is as badass as the first chapter :) well see ya later I need to make my Spanish class review for a test

*Poke poke* Update?

Reporting for duty, Commander Quiller. *salutes* Are you there, or are you spaced out writing becoming legend?

You really want this game out don't ya?

Your dedication is admirable, soldier XD I hereby promote you to Captain!

I actually had to drive down to San Diego this weekend and just drove back home today, so not much writing got done, but I'll make up for it! Right now, I've already added another 12 pages from the stuff I've already written and have another 4000 words to split into pages and script for. I've also begun writing the last part of Chapter I, so I think the entire first chapter might be finished in as soon as about two weeks, as long as real life doesn't throw any curveballs at me, haha

Awesome, keep up the good work. :D

Hello Commander Quiller! Just wanted to point out a problem I'm having I can't seem to acces the story I'm clicking on the link and it's taking me to the story game  thing where I choose which game i wanna play is that intentional or just a problem? Anyway hope that you finish it soon plz. 

It means he has preview disabled.

Yep, what Killa said - The preview is disabled for the moment because I'm testing the achievement, bonus, and epilogue pages, and I put in a bunch of shortcut links for myself to sure they're working. It'd be kinda a major spoiler if you guys saw them :P

That being said, I'll put the game back up either today or tomorrow, and there should be some more shiny new content for you guys to see by then! :D

Wow, great job Quiller! You're releasing content at an inhumane rate! (Compared to what I can do at my snail's pace) Keep it up!

I did have a 3 month hiatus from this site where I had plenty of time to stockpile a lot of writing. It's all unedited, though, so there are going to be silly typos and nonsensical script loopholes XD

I'll wait patiently for both Amoreias and Enclosing Darkness. XD Both summaries sound absolutely epic, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the finished products are like. Plus, your writing style is engrossing and fun to read.

Quick opinion poll - I'm thinking of scripting in 'save files', where you set up to three checkpoints throughout the game and reload from there. You'd still have to save the storygame, of course, but within your saved storygame, you can choose more than one place to resume playing from the options menu inside the game.

Sound useful? Or just confusing?

Seems pointless? 

Unnessesary.

Sweet, I'll get back to writing actual plot then XD

It would be useful if you wanted to explore different paths without breaking your right clicker button.

But write first! Then do the added bonuses.

Hey I'm back im just watching dawn of the planet of the apes 2 wanted to update you guys in something my brother said when he saw where a bunch of the humans who didn't die from the virus lived he said. 'Wow there's a lot of people there. It's like Chinatown but it's not' XD gonna go now guys. Keep pumping out more updates quilled I believe in you :)

 

*Poke poke poke poke. Poke poke... Poke poke pokity. Poke pokity pokity poke. Pokity poke poke. Poke pokity. Pokity. Poke.*

(Morse code in pokes and pokities for 'Hi. Update?')

Update?

*poke poke* Update?

Edit: Sorry, wrong username. >_< I was just viewing the demo to see if you updated without telling us, and I forgot to log back into my other one. Original account having troubles with viewing stories in only sneak preview.

~TacocaT

You said I could return to my poking duties! How am I supposed to return to my poking duties when you're not even here to poke! *rage quits poking job*

QUILLER YOU BETTER NOT HAVE DITCHED US AGAIN!

Is the sneak preview link down as well? Or is that just me?

I can still get into the game.

Quilled if you see this COME BACK THIS SITE NEEDS THIS GAME!

@the_quiller

C'moooon. Get your butt back here, I need your opinion on something.

If you don't come back, so help me, I will tell everybody where you went. :P
 

A) sorry about having all you guys notified from this.

B) guyz, we need to stop bumping this thread. Its absolutely worthless in terms of productivity (bumping, that is), since quiller isnt online. And if he was online, thered be no point in bumping it. What bumping does acomplish is draw EVERYONE's attention to this thread, and make everyone super hopeful he's back. Which gets really annoying when, you know, he isnt here. :P 

So, guyz, plz let this thread rest until quiller hopefully returns. 

quiller, wat happened? u nid 2 come back. noooowwww.