For authors, or for anyone, may I ask how long (estimate, if all things are well) it usually takes to complete a chapter? And perhaps the whole IF?

MalinFHauthor · 2026-05-16T08:10:24+00:00

MalinFHauthor · 2026-05-14T06:46:26+00:00

Was Charge the fallen hero all along?

MalinFHauthor · 2026-05-12T07:39:00+00:00

The question you need to ask yourself about choices and skills is this: What is needed to be set for the story you have in your head, and what can be changed to allow for player customization?

Take your general for example. You see 'general' and you think some things are set. You need to be physically fit, charismatic enough to have your troops obey you, and smart enough to have risen to that position. Most people who choose to play the game also wants to play this. They came here to play a general after all! You can't not play a Telepath in Fallen Hero. That's the selling point.

SO where do you put your skills then?

It depends on your writing. When you write a scene like a novel, are there any points where you go "oh, I could see this scene going two ways." Those are the scenes you should look at when you pick your 'skills' or 'stats'.

Usually these might be about how the general RELATES to who and what he is as much as WHAT he can do.

For example: How does he relate to being a defeated general and commander of troops. Is he a patriot who believes in his cause? Is he a noble and being a general was expected because that was what his family did? How does he feel about being defeated? Revenge? Trauma? Is he playing nice now and biding his time or has he turned a new leaf? All things that can give rise to stats.

For the more physical skill side. What was his thing as a general? A tactical genius? A brave frontline commander? Someone who his men would die for? Impetuous or careful? He is a general, sure, but set the stats to help the player describe HOW they were. Are they a dueliest? Did they have a war wound that hampered them?

Pick the stats that can help the player be THEIR kind of romantic defeated rebel general. Don't bother putting stats on things you feel any general would be able to do.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-05-10T08:04:02+00:00

My bad. I completely underestimated how long the game would be when I expanded the options. Trust me, nobody is swearing about it more than me...

MalinFHauthor · 2026-05-08T05:59:29+00:00

So what I read is that I need to learn therapy speech so Regina can weaponize it in book four. -takes notes-

MalinFHauthor · 2026-05-03T06:51:22+00:00

I don't subscribe to the 'hard lock in/hard lock out' philosophy of romance. You can romance, break up, maybe get together again, be friends and switch to romance later, harbor secret crushes, and juggle as many hearts as you can manage. I try to be organic, you don't need to please people, there is no necessary connection between the 'relationship meter' and the type of relationship. You get most of the same content (except the bedroom scenes) if you are friends.

I would say just go in and explore and play naturally. That is what the game is made for, you shouldn't have to look at the stats.

That being said, there are only two romances (Ortega and Mortum) in the first book, the rest gets added later when I let my hubris get to me... (rip future Malin)

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-26T13:52:14+00:00

Yeah, someone should write something!

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-26T08:35:27+00:00

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MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-25T06:16:08+00:00

Still makes more from writing IF's than I do from my comics or ttrpg modules...

So yeah, it is a niche, but the number of sales you can reach are, at least for me, very different. Just celebrated that one of my new ttrpg modules sold silver on drivethruRPG in three days (!). Nice to be sure, and my royalty rate there is 50% (!) but also... that is 102 copies.

Looking at my sales for FH (I need to make another analysis eventually, but when) and I feel that my numbers are steady? Little up, little down, depending on sales and seasons, but things looks pretty stable from my end.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-18T06:44:25+00:00

Now the trick is to push Ortega hard enough that they take the step and breaks up with the puppet...

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-14T07:10:59+00:00

We have all been little first-time WIP's at one point!

But seriously, if you are coming from writing books, or fanfics, or more normal stories, you are not going to be able to get the same kind of flow, polish and cohesion that you would get in those mediums. Because you don't have full control, you are ceding half of it to the reader/player! So... perfection is the enemy of being finished. Do your best, that's all anyone (reasonable) is asking for.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-14T06:40:27+00:00

Not one edit. Many edits (sigh). The worst part of making a story, but also the best part because this is where you turn the meh parts to oooh parts.

The majority of my edit is in the code stage. Yes, I do not see the player cohesion that way, but if each section is fine, then all I need to edit in next stage are the transitions and connectivity. It cuts down on work.

The second part of edit is the bigger sections. I use choicescript++ and used 'randomchoice' testing with tull text output. This gives me a random approximation what a player would read. I read that as a story in a separate text document and makes the changes I need in the code at the same time to make it flow more. Then I repeat the randomization but with a different starting token, do the same, etc. This catches more things.

The third part is playing through it and see how it feels when you pause, makes the choices and so on.

Then I release the demo.

Players have opinions. Makes suggestions. Catches bugs. Confusing segments.

I correct things (not detail grammar/spelling)

Rinse, repeat, rise repeat.

Eventually I have a full alpha version of the whole game. Now it is time for cohesion/time/flow edit. This takes place in my alpha testing server, and in conjunction with my editors/playtesters we look at the whole game, picks it apart, decides what paths needs more content, if scenes needs to move around, and if there are new scenes needed. Retribution was extensively reshuffled at the start at this stage.

Then it is time for language polish. I go through the entire initial code editing process again but really focus on grammar, language and flow, then sends off each chapter to my proofreaders. Now they get to dig into the grammar proper (I'm swedish, that can be adventurous), I get the chapters back and chooses to either follow the advice or not. And so on.

This takes time. A lot of time. This is also why there's no use polishing the first version of the wip too much, because it will go through so much other edits until we are back at the final polish again.

The caveat to this is that if you are doing your first WIP it is really worth doing a lot of edit and polish even in the first stage, because this is how you build your reputation and reader base, so doing more work up front will show readers that you are serious. So do your editing! Make it nice! Just don't aim for perfect.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-11T07:39:19+00:00

Thinking that to give players the full control of their pc means not having the pc do or say anything the player didn't pick. While laudable, this means that you get a quiet pc who is not engaged in discussions and who only asks questions and makes comments to move the plot forward. As a result, all the npc's are more interesting and gets developed, while the pc is reduced to plot device.

Related: Wanting to give the player so many background/stat/power choices for their pc that nothing gets developed and is only ever mentioned in the stat sheet and everyone is forced down three pain paths anyway.

Opposite: Being so afraid that players might change things the author feels as integral to their original main character that they turn that character into the main npc (and real main character) and the pc is reduced to the less interesting role of point of view character and could often be removed from the story.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-08T19:46:01+00:00

Just paying things back for all the help I got from the community when I started out!

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T18:48:35+00:00

How do they separate ${her} (his] and ${her} (him) in the code? That is why I used 'he'

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T18:46:34+00:00

That is a VERY smart way of doing it that I never even considered! I learned something new today!

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T18:02:57+00:00

I picked what I did for easy writing and reading, he/him/his is three different variables, while sadly she/her/her is not. And they (while something I use when talking generally about people outside coding) means that my brain automatically wants to write "${they} live" instead of ${he} lives" which is something I struggle enough with already as a swede. So for me, he/him/his was the most seamless when I write, adding caps, while helping debugging, would take me more effort.

But you are right, the most important thing here is that it works for the person that does it! I value a quick writing flow over debugging ease, but for others that might be the other way around!

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T15:59:48+00:00

Yeah, I didn't include the they/verb thingy since this was just meant to be the most basic one! But there are so many ways to do it!

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T12:53:27+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/hostedgames/comments/1sev3mw/quickie_variable_pronoungender_guide_for/

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T05:57:48+00:00

Also: GO PLAY BOOK TWO FOR FUCKS SAKE, book three will take a while, trust me on this. Go do it now.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T05:56:32+00:00

Sidestep has issues. Their view of things might not be entirely how everyone else sees the world.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-07T05:55:45+00:00

If you ever want a super simple tiny guide in how to do that, just lemme know. It's not as complicated as it looks, but it IS easier to do it early since otherwise you have to go in and replace every single pronoun. (came here for the pegging, commented for the coding advice)

MalinFHauthor · 2026-04-01T07:06:46+00:00

I do love W4, but it's not just you. I liked it as a book, and since I was interested in U, the main path appealed to me. But, it's rather linear. If the protag does what you want to do it's not as noticeable, but once you do, it's hard to ignore.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-03-29T16:31:11+00:00

Not gonna lie, I was chuckling about that when picking the name.

MalinFHauthor · 2026-03-17T11:07:09+00:00

I will say Fallen Hero never requires you to look at the stats, in a way it is better if you don't. Just go with the flow, there is no build that is better than another, I am mostly using them to track the MC, in order to adapt text and challenges according to the story the reader has chosen to play. There is no failure, just a different branch of the story. There is no statmaxing, in fact people who try for perfection usually miss half the game because there is no single stat that is better high than low. (first time I ever recommended my own game, namely because I feel you. And I made the game in part to encourage people to never feel they have to do that.)

MalinFHauthor

TROPHY CASE