I’ve just uploaded a new version of Chivalry is Not Dead, because a little while ago, a friend of mine managed to find a couple of bugs that none of my beta testers were able to come across.

To be honest, I think this says far more about the nature of the game itself than it does about the people who tested it. It appears that due to the high number of possible options, there are some actions in the game that only one in about twenty or thirty people will actually get around to trying. I think it’s pretty cool, and at the same time, slightly disappointing. There are, after all, a handful of situations I put in that I thought made for really interesting ethical questions which I’m surprised no one has mentioned yet, but it’s also occurred to me that it’s possible for said situations to have been skipped over entirely, simply by virtue of most people not taking the required actions to reach them.

I think I’m starting to understand why a lot of game developers don’t find it worthwhile to include more interactivity in their narratives. Slowly but surely, I’m learning that if you’ve got a message you really want to convey, you’ve got to make sure that your players will see it or some other version thereof, no matter what paths they take. Of course, if you make something hidden deep within the surface, it’ll be an even greater reward for the rare people who do find it. Oh, the tradeoffs…

Completely unrelatedly, I’ve got a new poem up at Scum and Miscellany, called “You Go About Your Business”. I’ll let you figure out for yourselves what it’s all about.