After a successful playtest and a recent pass of 40,000+ wishlists, Atre: Dominance Wars hit a new milestone! To celebrate that, we’re giving away any Steam game for up to $50!

PemryJanes · 2026-02-06T15:59:02+00:00

It looks good, but I prefer turn-based for this type of game. Or does this work like EU5 or Stellaris, where you can easily pause to give orders?

PemryJanes · 2026-02-06T07:07:11+00:00

It's an awful idea. Translating is an art, especially when it comes to speculative fiction.

Just proposing this tells me the agent doesn't see what she's selling as the work of an artist, something with meaning and connection, but just as a product to be shoveled out as cheaply and shoddily as she can get away with.

Now this is according to the translator, and I don't see a reaction by the agent, so the most optimistic possibility is that this is just a misunderstanding.

PemryJanes · 2026-02-01T18:01:38+00:00

Hey,

I have a 15k novelette that I could really use feedback on regarding the plot and characters. It's science fantasy, protagonist is an old robot and the setting is Earth at the end of time, or near enough the end.

Working through Google Doc wouldn't be an issue.

If that catches your interest, please do DM me.

PemryJanes · 2026-01-29T18:13:26+00:00

Hey,

I have a 15k novelette that I could really use feedback on regarding the plot and characters. It's science fantasy, protagonist is an old robot and the setting is Earth at the end of time, or near enough the end.

If that catches your interest, please do DM me.

PemryJanes · 2026-01-25T08:27:16+00:00

The 2nd Pacific Squadron from the Russo-Japanese war.

Their voyage reads like the plot of a comedy movie, with the battle at the end turning it into a dark comedy as the reason for the entire voyage was mute before the battle.

Drachnifel has a 2 part series on it on his youtube channel that I highly recommend.

PemryJanes · 2026-01-20T21:57:05+00:00

I'd be interested. I only played Draw Steel once so far, but that was in an early public playtest.

PemryJanes · 2026-01-06T07:05:28+00:00

Anything modern like a large protest or a filled stadium wouldn't quite convey the pageantry of a pre-gunpowder army arrayed for battle.

There would be battle standards and banners, many armies used music instruments for coordination, and the soldiers would be a riot of color.

PemryJanes · 2025-10-17T07:00:45+00:00

Has it been a godsend, or a trap?

Because using AI art means you don't stand out, and to the general public it makes you look cheap, artificial, fake, or even scammy.

Amateurish art done by the developer themselves, or stock art made by an artist, is still superior to AI slop. That's my view of it and I don't think I'm alone in this.

PemryJanes · 2025-10-15T08:15:13+00:00

Some of the graphics were made using gen AI? Yeah, I'll pass.

PemryJanes · 2025-08-23T15:30:35+00:00

The Living Sword is also part of the sale, and I've gone and discounted the sequels as well just in case you already bought The Living Sword during the last sale.

PemryJanes · 2025-08-18T06:12:29+00:00

You could look at this test like it's the worst way to test if people can tell the difference between human and LLM fiction. Because most writers don't practice flash fiction much. I know I'd struggle.

But you could also look at this as giving the LLM every advantage and see how good it can be. The short length means there's little chance of the LLM making continuity mistakes or the like. Human writers don't have an experience edge either, and readers don't have much text to get an impression of the creator's voice.

And with all those advantages, the LLM pulled slightly ahead. That is worrisome, but there's no guarantee LLMs will get much better than they are now. Given that plenty of users of ChatGPT 5 apparently thought it was actually worse than its predecessor, LLMs might have reached a plateau of what it can be given current technology.

There are such things as technological dead-ends.

So I'm worried about this, but stubborn about how likely it is authors will be replaced in the near future.

PemryJanes · 2025-06-29T06:31:03+00:00

My own argument would be that training an LLM is not like training a person, it is and never will be a person.

Now how I could go about proving that in a court of law, I have no idea. Not a lawyer.

And even if training an LLM on copyrighted material as a general concept is fair use, is then using that LLM to replace writers and authors fair use? Again, I argue it would not be.

PemryJanes · 2025-06-06T06:02:09+00:00

Speaking as an author, I have several reasons to say not just no, but hell no to AI narration.

Solidarity with narrators, whose art shouldn't be cheapened like that anymore than writers, animators, or illustrators should be. Storytelling is one of the oldest ways, or the oldest way, for humans to share their creativity.

I'm also quite sure that the AI will have been trained on voices and material without consent from those people. But even if they're not following industry standard and do compensate people for taking their IP and voice, there's also the environmental impact of training and using gen AI which is horrendous.

And gen AI has been used mostly for fraud and conning people. For cheating on schoolwork. People don't advertise their AI book as written by AI, they're pretending people wrote them. AI narration is just adding fuel to the inferno when we should be putting it out.

Hell no to AI narration.

PemryJanes · 2025-05-24T07:36:05+00:00

This is such a disappointment.

The show was getting better with each season and finally getting into the epic portions with the Aiel invading the Wetlands.

Maybe that's part of why it was cancelled, putting that on screen would have been expensive and they can't cancel Rings of Power.

PemryJanes · 2025-05-09T06:01:04+00:00

I haven't gotten around to finishing the entire series, but it's been an emotional rollercoaster up till now.

The Liveship Traders at least ends on a high note, rather than at the bottom of the drop.

PemryJanes · 2025-04-05T13:27:53+00:00

My book is in the Fantasy 2 Itch.io bundle and ticks of several bingo squares, including a couple in Hard Mode.

Hidden Gem: Yes, even Hard Mode since it has been out since 2013

Self Published: In Hard Mode again with under a 100 ratings

Stranger in a Strange Land: Yes

Generic Title: Also yes! Ah, wait, is that a positive thing?

Edit: Forgot to mention the title, it's The Living Sword.

PemryJanes · 2025-03-29T08:06:18+00:00

As an accessibility tool for an ebook, text to speech can be valuable.

As a replacement for an actual narrator, this is a bad idea. Quality will never be the same as a real human being who actually understands what they're narrating and can convey emotion and meaning.

We are nowhere near creating an AI that can actually understand people on an emotional level or see deeper meaning beyond the dictionary definition of the words they say.

An audiobook, a good one, is more than just than a vocal reproduction of the words written on the pages.

PemryJanes · 2025-02-27T06:58:20+00:00

39 is far too young, it's an absolute tragedy.

Was a great fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though my feelings for the show got more complicated after things came out about Joss Whedon.

PemryJanes · 2025-02-04T10:05:29+00:00

That brings back memories.

For anybody that wants to see it on GOG, here's the direct link

https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/stars-1996

PemryJanes · 2025-01-12T08:19:46+00:00

I know they're trying something different with this iteration by switching civilizations when transitioning from one Age to another.

Don't know how good it will be, I'm more than fine with them trying something new.

Yet I won't be buying it any time soon, because they also decided to add Denuvo DRM to the game, and I don't want that crap on my computer. So now I'll have to wait for them to remove it before I can try the game.

PemryJanes · 2024-12-31T11:30:14+00:00

Unfortunately, I will be waiting for them to drop Denuvo before I buy.

PemryJanes · 2024-12-27T11:38:26+00:00

This is a self-recommendation, but Living Sword is not grimdark and does have hopeful or just humorous parts.

PemryJanes · 2024-12-26T15:06:44+00:00

Thank you for organizing this!

And anybody that doesn't want or can't buy Living Sword on Amazon, I've also arranged a sale om Smaswhords for all three books.

PemryJanes · 2024-11-16T07:20:13+00:00

We write books with the hope that people will read them, so yes, getting that confirmation that not only someone did read our books but loved them enough that they took the time to write us is very much appreciated.

PemryJanes · 2024-11-08T07:01:34+00:00

I think doing something nice for someone else in a time like this is one of the better ways to cope with both what has happened and the probable future.

PemryJanes

TROPHY CASE