Author’s Ideas Blog

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Steam Highwayman IV progress

Does that sound as if it is written from personal experience? Ha! Sleepless nights and runny noses are a bigger part of my life as a father than ever before.

Three years ago, when snow lay on the ground and my daughter went outside with the cry ‘Dig, dig!’, my last Kickstarter for Steam Highwayman III was still in progress. It feels like far too long since I rode that particular pony… But then two years or so developing a Viking-themed adventure will do that for you.

Steam Highwayman IV: The Princes of the West has just reached 40,000 words in draft. That’s about 4/15 complete – call it a bit more than 25% written. That’s taken me 30 writing days, spread over a complete project length of 122 days, although I began planning looong ago. Even back when there was snow on the ground and my daughter spoke in mere monosyllables.

What are the standouts for SH4? Well – the interplay of several key characters, their rivalries and power-play is one. I committed to that with the plural ‘Princes’ back when I drafted the titles of my six book series in 2016… But Cornwall is proving excellent fun to write. I’m also seriously considering adding submarines.

The map for SH4 is wonderful. I’ll draw up a giant one, like I published for SH1, 2 and 3, and probably some smaller, regional ones too.

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Hero of the Poor

~ 675 ~

“Bring me a pot of beer,” you reply, and seat yourself beside a couple of grumpy fishermen, who have clearly drunk themselves into uncaring insensibility.

When it comes, the beer is thin, sour and clearly watered-down.  “What is this?” you ask angrily.

“It’s our Silver Cat Pale,” replies the innkeeper.

“More like silver cat’s p-”

“It’s the best we can do, cully,” he interrupts.  “I ain’t ‘ad fresh malt in weeks.  An’ if the maltster ‘ad come through, which ‘e ain’t, on account of Scobley, I wouldn’t’ve ‘ad no coin fer it anyhow.”

Just them, the door slams open and a group of ruffians file in.  One marches up to the innkeeper and grasps him firmly,  knocking your beer onto the floor in the process.

“Nice ter see you,” says the ruffian – a heavily-set man sporting several gold ear-rings.  “Ready fer the next ‘instalment’?”

Watch and see what happens… 1087

“Leave this man alone.” 1106

“Hey!  You spilt my beer!” 1116

I watched The Mark of Zorro – the 1998 one – for the first time (!) last night. I always loved the Tyrone Power version, but the Banderas/Hopkins one strikes me as just as good. Music by James Horner, too. Swashbuckling, flamboyant and fun – just how Steam Highwayman is meant to feel – some of the time, at least.

Let’s see how much more fun I can have when I remember that I want your adventure through the wild west of Cornwall to feel like a Zorro movie.

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The Atlas of Harkuna

Over the last couple of weeks I have mapped the original and best open-world gamebooks, Fabled Lands. These choice-maps are now compiled in the Atlas of Harkuna, here on my website. You might be interested to see how they compare to my maps for Steam Highwayman I and II, available here.

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Chasing my lost ruthlessness (and nimbleness, gallantry and engineering): Steam Highwayman playthrough

In October I began a new playthrough across the three completed Steam Highwayman volumes, but got caught by my old enemy, the Coal Board before really getting very far, and was forced into a year of servitude with serious attribute penalties.

Well, to keep myself in the mode, I’ve been continuing to dip into that playthrough in the last few days while feeling a bit under the weather. Steam HIghwayman was always meant to be as fun to fail as to win, so I picked myself up, shook off the coal dust and made a plan: I would find the in-game ways to regain my attributes and boost them even further!

Freed onto the dirty streets of Camden, I rode down to the Pineapple at Lambeth, where I remember explosives fetch a good price. The Coal Board were more interested in punishing me than confiscating my stuff, you see, and after a year in storage my explosives were still valuable goods in someone’s eyes. They might end up reaching Flat Billy, the crimelord, but I shan’t worry about that for now. Someone told me about the street gang who mudlark on the north bank, so I rode through Southwark, grabbing a cold pork pie on the way, popping over to Spitalfields to buy a new pistol and sabre, and then dropping in on the boys corner of the muddy foreshore. After a little repetitive mudlarking (amazing how many Constables’ whistles the silt can cover) I met the Waterside Boys themselves and, with my abysmally low GALLANTRY, mud-smeared clothes and, crucially, fresh Southwark pork pie, I won their hearts and their allegiance.

Another trip to the outskirts saw me stop the Coal Board once more, grab some loot and a handy codeword, report to the Telegraph Guild at Bloomsbury and claim a fairly paltry reward, considering their hatred for the other faction. I was bleeding in a couple of places after fighting off some stokers in the ambush, so I headed to Hampstead and took at room at the Holly Bush – very much out of the way.

While trying to heal my wounds there, my low INGENUITY really became a problem, so I gave thought to my long-term prospects. If I am to succeed as a highwayman, I will be getting wounded, and if wounded, I will need a reliable way to heal myself. There are a very few ways to heal wounds without resulting in scars, which inevitably lead to retirement and the dreaded epilogue, but self-help is more effective with training… So I set off on a new mission. First, I would buy medical supplies in the reeking metropolis, before heading west into the first two books… I got a cheap bottle of whisky down in the docklands too.

So once on the road to Smog and Ambuscade, I resolutely ignored any temptation to ambush anyone else and rode straight to the Red Lantern in Maidenhead, where I stocked up on one of the rarest, and most game-changing, of medical items. Pink pills (NIM + 2) [_] [_] [_] A boost to your NIMBLENESS just as you are drawing your sword can be very, very helpful in surviving a duel – particularly when you are still carrying the scars of a year’s servitude.

Then it was up to Lane End, where the good Dr Smollett can be found. He was one of the earliest characters I wrote, one I really enjoy re-reading, and one I would love to explore a bit more. I met him, let him rant at me (I really haven’t hurt or robbed anyone he would have patched up… I think!) and then returned to Marlow where, surprise surprise, he turned up in the parlour of the Ship on a dirty night wanting a ride…

So off we went to Bullocks Farm, where I assisted in the delivery of a fine baby boy. Which, incidentally and not at all the entire reason for the escapade, gained me a level of Medical Training (greatly increasing the efficacy of self-treatment – at least in SH3 onwards…).

I returned to Lane End with that bottle of whisky and we sealed our friendship over a drink, the good Doctor and I. Now on to book 2 to gain that other boost…

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Merripit Barn and Dartmoor: Writing from an old map

I build my Steam Highwayman open-world gamebooks from the map upwards. Since discovering the National Library of Scotland’s georeferenced historical maps, I’ve used the OS six-inch 1888-1913 as inspiration and reference, and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been poring over Dartmoor.

It’s a place of legend and myth, prehistory and geology, industrial archaeology and military remains. There’s simply too much of interest to include everything in Steam Highwayman IV: The Princes of the West.

So I’ve begun by creating the navigational network underneath the events. This means planning and writing around eight key locations that are linked together to represent the vast expanse of Dartmoor itself. However, things become more complicated following that.

I don’t mean for the reader to simply be able to steam up onto the hill and tear about: Dartmoor is too treacherous for that. Neither do I want a constant series of MOTORING checks – particularly as the skills of riding a heavy velosteam over the moor, navigating across the various watersheds and steaming over the uneven ground are unlike the classic road-focussed skills I normally represent with that attribute. So instead I’m using secret links and tickboxes: on the first arrival at some of these locations, details are given about them. Returning to that passage, the book will presume that the reader knows what is going on and where they are… if you remember! After exploring for long enough, you may even be able to gain a knowledge of Dartmoor good enough to unlock secret routes across it, opening up much greater options for fast travel and getaway.

But I’m still leaving space for events and quests to happen here. Perhaps a certain glow-muzzled dog might track you in the mist, or one of the several stone circles prove to hold more than moonlit grass within it. But these can come later. For now, the navigation has to work and then onto this backing the extra events can be embroidered. I’m toying with the idea of using visible options unlocked by a variety of common-to-rare possessions.

One knot of passages is formed by the base you can build at Merripit Barn. Hideouts are going to be ever more important in SH4, and having one tucked away in the west may be just what you need. Some of the options here are generic, sending the reader off into what Brian Hazzard called a ‘subroutine’ loop when he interviewed me about this some time ago (warning: contains unpopular opinions about the repetitive nature of Fantasy gamebooks!). And these are crucial to preventing bloat within the gamebook while allowing the game part to really flourish – essentially the idea that you should be able to do the same thing at different locations. At Merripit Barn you can rest, treat your wounds, mend your velosteam, train your pet raven and all the other things a self-respecting road pirate does on their day off.

And Merripit Barn is just the right place at the right time: I needed a location that was on the edge of a location on the edge of Dartmoor, isolated but only a turn or two from one of my busier routes. Some time poring over the NLS’s maps and I found what I needed.

I’m hoping that before publishing SH4 I’ll have a good chance to revisit Cornwall and West Devon – and if I do, I’ll go and see what is actually going on at Merripit Barn.

If you haven’t seen the video revealing the draft SH4 planning map, here it is again… this time, with music courtesy of  @ramonsole5729  and Cubus Games.

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Humiliation and pride in SAGA

In Saga there is a lot to balance: stand up too tall, and your overlord may take umbrage at your pride. Vikings were exiled from their homelands over real – or perceived – insults.

Yet your own folk want to see a leader full of DRENG and decision: your DOMR score tracks your standing with the folk of your own settlement.

Making these choices is about more than impulsiveness. Save that for the battlefield!

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SAGA 650

The messenger smiles.  “And to you he gives this sign of his bond.”  He takes a fine ᚼ carnelian ring ᚼ, the prize of some ancient upriver raid, and fits it upon your hand.  “Know that he has a care that your folk prosper.  Olaf will call upon his jarls to take spear and fight, soon enough.  So strengthen yourself and your folk.  Prepare weapons and ships: he means to cross the sea and fight the Bretland Kings, proving his might and his claim there also.” You host the traveller for three days.  In that time, you must slaughter for him a cow or two pigs or lose 5 DOMR.  Turn to 330.

Olaf was King of Norway around 1000AD, which is (very loosely) when SAGA takes place – although I’m allowing the reader to participate in events from about 780-1200.

My current headteacher is also called Olaf, but I am not about to fight in his invasion of Britain.

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50,000 words of SAGA I

My main draft is now 50,240 words, to be more precise. That’s 444 complete passages – and 405 is the most recent. It seems common practice among many gamebook authors to fill up their passages from 1 to 400 (or 800… or 1512 etc) and then re-order. I prefer to fix the numbers early on, as the number of links in an open-world gamebook can make re-numbering a real challenge. There are passages with more than twenty entry points, for example.

I’ve spent a few sessions planning the winter events at the four (yes, four!) settlement sites. There’s Brevik, the main settlement in which you begin as Jarl, and then three more locations you can scout, claim and settle. I mean to include the same mechanic in each other volumes, each of which has a planned starting settlement and three locations to start a new Viking story.

Anyway, early on in the sequence of settling, your folk will want to have the land shared out fairly. Fail this test (which is currently dependent on your DRENGSKAPR, with modifiers) and you will be sorry – particularly if Jorun is in your crew! She makes a great ally in battle, but she does not like wasting her time with arguments about farmland.

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Always a silver lining…

Yes, I’m still writing. This is a piece of SAGA I that I really like. I must have written it around five or six months ago, but re-reading my work to get back into the flow of things, this stood out for me as containing the flavour, and the mechanics, that I’m happy with.

The cloud is the death of your thegn Thord: the silver lining is getting his 1d8 axe.

There are around 50,000 words of SAGA I currently – as well as several spreadsheets of notes that feed into volumes II, III and IV. I missed last year’s deadline but the Spidermind gang have graciously allowed me more time to get this right.

What helps sustain a project like this? Good ear-music: Alan Stivell’s Ys, Zimmer’s Gladiator, other things that I can find that balance melody and atmosphere.

And I just read Pratchett’s biography A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins. Now that was pretty galvanising! I held off for a bit (it was published last summer), but had some birthday book tokens and treated myself to a long walk, a burger and a bookshop visit after school one light last week. I enjoyed a lot of the family history – his upbringing – and a bit more information about his work as a journalist and press officer – but was really pleased to glean a little bit about his writing practice. Not that I mean to imitate him in that – but I have had an idea about some critical work examining his use of story structure for a long time. If I can get SAGA I done by the summer, you might get to see some extended essay posts – with infographics? – in the autumn as I explore how his Discworld stories are structured.

Sound dry? Well, I hope it won’t be. Among the best example of in-depth critique and analysis I enjoy for the writing alone – although the subject matter is pretty good too – is David Addey’s Typeset in the Future [book, blog]. Which I’m also waiting for in print, as another birthday voucher result, partly to enjoy re-reading and partly to help me think about how I want to present this stuff.

But in the meantime, 5:30-7:00am, and evenings when I can, it’s more Viking bloodshed and folk-leading. The seas are waiting for you and your wave-goat (knarr)!

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Thanks Skuldelev!

What’s going on here? A mock-up of the ‘shipsheet’ that will be part of a reader/player’s record-keeping for SAGA. The background image is a lightly-modified version of the plans of Skuldelev I, which, as every Viking enthusiast knows, is the wreck of the large, ocean-going knarr found at Skuldelev in Denmark. Historical accuracy is pretty key for my project, so why not go straight from archaeology to gameplay?

What sort of features will be included in your shipsheet? Well, the number of your crew is vital: all are assumed to be able to participate in a raid, even if you are sailing a trading knarr, like shown here. Some of these may be wounded in battle or accident, so that’s got to be recorded, although maybe not by name. Total food is a bit of duplicate – as a single vaett of food contains 40 matr, and 1 matr costs 1 penningr and should be enough to sustain a single crew-member for a month – and a vaett occupies a single ‘room’ or cargo space in the vessel. A voyage might last 3-6 months, in the current system. Other cargo spaces might be 1 vaett of beer, or iron ore, or amber, or 2 cattle, and so on.

Your two thegns are vital: their drengskapr, vel, vithirdugr and styrkr can replace or reinforce yours during skill checks; their hylli represents their loyalty and contentment with your leadership. They can also support you in battle, using unique tactics, and have their own story-goals, plot-lines and quests. Think of them as supporting characters, or key members of your party.

The length of your voyage and the time since your most recent raid will also feed into crew contentment, which should be checked fairly regularly. The longer you are away sailing, of course, the more you risk bad weather when you return home, and the more you risk missing your harvest, putting your winter food stores in danger. Pretty key statistics, then.

This all gives the book a real solo role-playing-game flavour, with so many details to track. Yet so far, I’m convinced I’m balancing this out with the depth and colour of the world and the stories that are being told within it. I’ll have to share some more of that soon, and take your input.