Current Project Update

Hmm, another long gap between posts. A little unexpected, but there's an explanation for this: between setting up Forgejo and making the occasional update to Blogging Tools, I haven't been doing any project work. Well, at least nothing involving code. What I have been doing is trying my hand at interactive fiction, using Evergreen by Big River Games.

Well, okay, it's not completely without code: there is a bit of JavaScript involved for powering the "interactive" logic part. But a bulk of the effort is in writing the narrative, albeit a narrative that's probably closer to a video game rather than a work of pure fiction.

Why? The main reason is to try something new. I had the occasional fancy to try my hand at fiction, like a short story or something. I have an idea for a novel — I mean, who doesn't? — but the idea of writing it as a novel seems daunting at the moment (I've written it as short story for NanoWriteMo. It's sitting online as an unedited draft somewhere. I should probably make a backup of it, actually). But the idea of writing something as interactive fiction seemed intriguing. I was never into text parser adventures, but I did enjoy the choose-your-own-adventure books growing up.

So what's the story about, I hear you saying? Well, believe it or not, it's about gardening. Yes, something I have zero experience in. And perhaps that's what made it an interesting subject to explore.

I've been working on this for about a month now. I'm well past the everything-is-new-and-exciting phase, and I think I just made it through the oh-no-why-the-heck-am-I-even-doing-this pit of despair. I can see the finish line in terms of the narrative and the logic, and all that remains there should just be a matter of cleaning up, editing, and play testing. The biggest thing left to do is illustrations. I have zero artistic skills myself so I'm not quite sure what I'll do here.

If you're curious about it, here's a sample. It's about the first third of the story. It's a little rough, and requires editing and proof-reading, and illustrations. But let me know what you think.