John Louis
patreon
9/18/25: Progress Report 3
🕑 Added 2025-09-18 23:48:21 +0000 UTCLife circumstances have gotten a lot more busy recently, but I've still managed to stay firmly on track with the writing. My progress toward interactive short stories stalled as I realized that I can't use Choicescript, as that would be selling a Choicescript product without paying royalties to COG.
I may use Twine instead, as that has a free commercial license, but I also don't know how to use it properly. I'll keep everyone updated.
Chapter Two of ITUO is now at 31k words. It has a freakish amount of variation because of the three primary routes of ITFO, which has me very concerned going forward. But I think it is still manageable.
It features a return to ITFO combat scenes, which has been entertaining to write. I'm trying to strike a balance between fighting and emotional conversations. All Patrons will receive access to the chapter a week early, both as a benefit for your generosity and also to receive some early feedback.
I appreciate your patience! I'm not entirely sure when you should expect the update. I'm going to have to cut the upcoming chapter into two pieces for the sake of not content-starving everyone.
Comments
Sujan Dhakal
For what it's worth, I know the infamous author releases a crap ton of short stories via choicescript on her Patreon and COG hasn't said or done anything about it so I think you'd probably be fine. In general almost every author who does patron short stories does something like that to some extent and it's tolerated
emelsi
My understanding is that the rule is simply that they want you to publicly release stuff after a like a month or two, which I think most people on Patreon do by just scheduling the posts for publishing. I don't know the details of the arrangements people make with CoG about that sort of thing but I've wondered a few times about what if someone took all the bonus Patreon content and, at the time of publication, include the extra content as "DLC" in the same way that there are bonus features with games like AWPW's bonus stories, the additional character backgrounds in the WoD games, or the cheat modes in the CdlC-verse games. Would that sell well? I work with data for a living so I think a lot about which of those different methods for generating additional revenue are more successful - I feel like it's in everyone's interest for them to provide guidance to authors on ways to monetize the work.
