Vampire Queen of Evenmere – Week 1

So as I mentioned earlier, this month I am taking part in NaNoWriMo/Gamebook Jam, but instead of writing a regular novel it’s a gamebook. It is using essentially the same system I made and used for Assault on the Frozen Fortress, so if you can use the same classes from that to play this.

The main things to report are:

It’s about vampires! Also it’s got a kind of a Cumbrian flavour to it which I think I often try to add to projects but it’s yet to make its way into anything I’ve finished. Also there are gonna be LGBTQ+ themes and stuff.

There are already 90 passages, yeah a few still need to be filled in, but that is almost a quarter of a fighting fantasy right there. Considering I’m only about halfway through the first planned act though, I think this will probably be a bigger gamebook than the classics – maybe approaching the scale of some of the modern ones (none of which I’ve gotten around to trying yet lol)

I’m currently behind in terms of wordcount (To be on target I’d need 11.6k words, rn it’s at 9k words), but that isn’t uncommon – I’ve finished NaNoWriMo 3 times before and I always fall behind and catch up as my energy fluctuates. This time I do have the added challenge of things that slow my momentum like branching paths and having to write updates for WritingFantasy, which I’m using again.

Anyway, the first hub area (Evenmere Town) and dungeon (Holy Guild Crypts) are pretty much complete, and I’ve made a start on the Forest of the Fell area, you can get a few passages into that now. You can’t get all the way to the castle yet, but that is going to make up the bulk of the first half of gameplay… when I get around to writing it.

Oh also there is nothing to battle rn, I’m not too fussed about designing battle encounters rn because it is a lot of work for very little wordcount benefit lol.

> You can play the current version here <

Anyway that’s where I’m at. I’d also like to say rn that I’m really sorry I haven’t done any patron videos/streams lately. The truth is it’s because of a combination of low energy, high anxiety, and family and pet stuff happening IRL that all require attention and are super draining. Most of that is behind me now, but what energy I regain I’m spending on writing. Something I wouldn’t be able to do at all without your support, so I’m saying it here since I can’t in video/stream: THANK YOU SO MUCH <3

I hope things are going well for you <3