Tag: cornwall

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The Princes of the West draft finished… for now.

Yesterday I reached a milestone of Steam Highwayman IV: Princes of the West: I told myself that I had ‘completed’ my draft.

What does that mean?  First question from interested parties (eg my wife).  “Is the book finished?”

No, it isn’t finished.  It won’t be finished until it has been edited, improved, illustrated and printed.  We’re a little way off all that.  But I would say that I am not at the beginning of the end.

Why did I call a stop to drafting?  I actually have around 100 passages still reserved to write, but I recognise that at the current rate, I would keep expanding the book.  That’s a problem for a few reasons – one being, that eventually this volume will need to be printed, and I think we could be looking at a whopping 1800 passages, or around 300 pages, already.  I also could tell that at my current rate of writing, I would exhaust myself badly.  And the next stage of the writing process is a one I badly need to get some perspective: sharing the draft with early readers for their opinions and ideas. After that, there’ll be a good deal of corrections and edits to write, and when I do those I’ll also finish and finalise the last loose ends.

So I’ve begun to reach out to people who have been committed readers of Steam Highwayman and stepping back from the coal face.  I need to do some other work to get the project to succeed, so it’s time for a change of mode.  I think that there’ll be a few months of long conversations, tweaking around the edges, and then a big editing sometime in the late summer or autumn – maybe at the same time as a trip down to Cornwall myself.

Ben has been working on the cover and I hope to have some things to share very soon.  The big thing I’m waiting on is a colour draft of the front cover – with that, you’ll start to see a regular posting that points towards my next Kickstarter campaign.  I have a plan something like this:

April-June – Preparation for Kickstarter, production of marketing materials, drawing of the map.

[April/May – birth of fourth child…]

July – Kickstarter campaign to publish Steam Highwayman: Princes of the West.  It’s going to be great.

Presuming the Kickstarter succeeds in raising enough funds…

August – January – Ben creates the illustrations, I edit the book, proofreading and further playtesting, layout and preparation for printing, creation of extra reward materials…

February 2026 –  Steam Highwayman: Princes of the West sent to backers and available online.

How does that sound?

So what is Princes of the West like?  Well, early readers are already favourable about improved, modern mechanics, atmospheric adventures in the West Country, and a continuation to the epic tale of the Steam Highwayman (that’s you, then…).  It covers a large area – probably about as large as the first two books together – but uses efficient networking to save on repeated passages and cram in as much content as you can.  You’ll be able to go mining, tame Dartmoor ponies, find hidden gold, assist wreckers, join smugglers, blow things up (a lot of that), take a musical tour of the pubs of Devon, use all your velosteam customisations, negotiate with multiple factions and leaders, help lonely people fall in love, rescue cows from the mud, eat Cornish pasties, smuggle clotted cream, drink a lot of beer in many pubs and lonely inns, find places to stay, get a black eye, sleep under hedges, bribe guards, take airship rides, impersonate an orchestral conductor, defend the poor and marginalised, ally with a visionary (mad?) King, join a fishing crew, play croquet (again), meet old friends, play cards, fix the stock market, use steam computational engines to decode messages and secretive notebooks, use your special skill of haute cuisine (you know, the one you gained in Highways and Holloways when you had to distinguish between different heritage vegetables while in an airborne kitchen) and rob the rich, give to the poor and steam off into the night.  It is great.

Current draft is about 1630 passages long.  I think I’ll probably cut around 100 and I might add in another 200 or so – I expect it’ll round out around 1800 passages.  I’m toying with the idea of producing a lengthier book with more quests as stretch goals…  Four extensions, say, of 50 passages each?  It’s an idea.

And the break from working on the draft is good for me.  I’ve already experienced a massive difference in my focus and no longer have an over-full head.  There are several things I’ve been putting off reading – and writing – over the last months that I can now get back to.

So watch this space!  I’ll be on here pretty frequently until July, I think, although there may be a hiatus while child #4 appears.  And then we should all get to enjoy the pleasure of a lively crowdfunding campaign together.  I know I can count on you all to join in.

Until then, may your boilers stay ever at pressure!  YOU are the Steam Highwayman!

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Ambush Sequences and the Noted Passage Mechanic

Adopting the noted passage mechanic allows me to weave sequences of story together independent of their location.  I first invented this method while writing the ambush sequences of Highways & Holloways and my recent work writing the ambushes in Princes of the West illustrates how they work.

First, there are eight major locations where you can ambush passing steamers: five in Devon and three in Cornwall.  These are not the only places where you can stop a carriage and rob the occupants, but they are the major, repeatable locations that generate large numbers of victims, which makes sense thematically, since they are all somewhere on the Haulage Guild highways – the major road network connecting the larger towns of the region.

Once committed to making an ambush in one of these eight ambush locations, the player records a noted passage specific to that ambush location – one of eight passages that function as the end of the ambush sequence.  With this information reserved at the side, the ambush sequence can then continue independent of the location, meaning that generic passages can be used to tell a story that can take place multiple times or in different places.  

It works like this.  After noting that passage, the player rolls to see what sort of vehicle is encountered – or, with the right equipment, the player lies in wait and chooses what type of vehicle to ambush.  The distribution of various Guild road trains and private carriages varies across the eight major locations, partly dependent on the location of the several Guild bases.  The Haulage Guild are universally common, but the Telegraph Guild use the highways closest to their towers, while the Coal Board are more common closer to the large mines and the Atmospheric union are only really encountered near their airfield at Harrowbeer, north of Plymouth (in our timeline, the location of a RAF base during the second World War).

Say that a player encounters a private steam carriage – the highwayman’s preference, surely.  Rich passengers travelling for pleasure are certain to have good loot aboard, and rarely fancy a fight.  The player is then sent to one of four passages (two for Devon, two for Cornwall) that each offer subtly different methods for an ambush, depending somewhat on the actual landscape surrounding that part of the highway.  Within these passages, there is also a condition checker that can take the player off on a specific ambush sequence should they be attempting to rob someone in a rainstorm.

There are more common methods (usually relying on RUTHLESSNESS or MOTORING) and unique ones (typically depending on the possessions a player has), which should mean that a player who returns to a spot could specialise in a particular type method, if their skillset supported it.  Each of these methods typically includes a skillcheck and modifies the diceroll if useful equipment is possessed or relevant conditions are met.

If you fail one of these skillchecks, you might be spat out in a generic failure passage – for example, a passage that tells you about your failure to terrify the driver of the carriage, which can include a random roll chart with slightly-annoying or much-worse outcomes.  A passage like this, which might be met many times in a playthrough, needs to be both simple (not strongly-flavoured) and variable (hence the chart).  It then sends the player into their noted passage – more on this momentarily – or might even give them the opportunity to prepare another ambush.  This might be riskier a second time if the player has suffered damage or a wound as a result of their choices.

But say that a player succeeds in their chosen method and terrifies, or rides alongside, or impersonates a Constable and waves the carriage to a halt.  Then the sequence will send the player to a passage dependent on their broad location, in Cornwall or Devon, as the travellers on either side are slightly different.  Cornwall is known to be a wilder place and more of the travellers there will defend themselves.  The rewards, however, are higher.  This passage selects a passenger for the player to encounter, and in their passage they might immediately surrender their goods or put up a fight.

Once a robbery has taken place, the player can be sent to their noted passage, just as if they had failed their skillcheck and decided not to attempt another ambush.  This passage (dependent on the whether Constables or other enemies are nearby) will decide whether or not the player must proceed onto the fleeing map, and escape a pursuit.  Perhaps not, and instead they have a choice to make about where they will rest that night – in a the house of a nearby ally, in a warm pub parlour or under a dripping hedge.

I wrote large parts of the ambush sequence early in the project – over a year ago – but for some reason, parts were uninviting.  One downside of using these systems is that they can feel repetitive when written under pressure: when I have the time to come up with ideas, these can be some of my favourite passages, with the strongest flavour of all.  After all, this is the core activity for a Steam Highwayman, isn’t it?

But I have just been finishing up the final choices and links in this sequence.  The ambushes for the guilds have been finished for a while.  An ambitious plan to include a range of independent steamers has been eliminated as unnecessary, and I have been correcting and splicing together the ambush sequences for the private steam carriages.  The passengers were completed some months ago.

This is another benefit of the ‘subroutine’ style of planning: I don’t have to write things in a linear sequence.  I do, however, have to read through to ensure that it all makes sense! Is it all too much? Well, that depends on a few things: the feeling of choice, the flow of the text and the rhythm of decisions. My playtesters are going to have to tell me their thoughts soon… Applications welcome.

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This Intriguing Cornish Cove Inspires Underwater Steampunk Adventure…

How was that for a clickbait title? Did I do it right? Ridiculous headlines are everywhere now – A Peaceful Town Just 1hr 30mins from London Where Every House is Grade II Listed. Are these generated for us? Do the ones you get suggested look anything like that? Similar grammatical structure and differing content?

I saw a meme the other day that contrasted Google, the search engine of the noughties, which presented the contents of the internet, with the modern Google experience, that offers you some sponsored content, some where-to-purchase options, a ‘personalised’ suggestion and then finally what can actually be found out here on the internet. And it has contributed to a feeling I have that the internet is like this generation’s Tower of Babel… An almighty achievement of humanity striving to be like gods, communicating effortlessly together to do business and build to great heights.

But you know how that story ended. And I wonder if we’re on the cusp of something catastrophic, when all that we have begun to take for granted – functional supply lines, and a network of energy and information and commerce – gets tangled up by the complexity of the very system we have collectively created. The internet is chaotic and all the systems of distribution and communication that depend on it are efforts to impose order where there is no real underlying order. Like waves on a vast ocean – patterns that exist when you look for them, but overlaid on a mass of movement in a thousand directions.

But that wasn’t what the title of this post led you to think about, was it? That was merely my slightly gloomy musings on late-stage capitalism expressed. Because I also have to admit that the internet makes my career as a writer possible. Clearly, I can write and publish on a website and you can read this – and remote print-on-demand and storefront services get my books manifested from digital to physical and in your hands. But also in the actual writing stage. It looks a bit like this.

Here’s Roward’s Quay, just north of Chapel Point, south of St Austell on the south Cornish Coast. Months and months ago, when I was building a coastal map that would allow the diversification of the Steam Highwayman’s portfolio to include smuggling, I came across this tiny inlet with an intriguing name on the 1892-1914 OS 25inch series published by the National Library of Scotland. If you’re a regular reader, you know how much I love these. So I thought, yes, why not? Most of my interaction are small towns and fishing ports, but I’m going to need some interesting coves and cliffs for putting illegal cargo ashore. Roward’s Quay is in!

Fast forward to today, when I’ve been writing in East Ham Library and set myself the theoretical target of completing Barnstaple – the town in north Devon I’ve been populating with quests, sub-locations and so on. But something drew me to fill in a gap as I scrolled through my draft – this happens a lot – and I decided I’d visit Roward’s Quay.

The power of the internet is that not only can I access vintage maps, but modern ones – including satellite imagery like this drawn from Google. There are houses on Roward’s Point now – but you can see that little rectangular cove there still, isolated and perfect for a small boat putting contraband ashore. I wonder if anyone has posted any photographs?

Here’s Chapel Point from the South-West path, just north of Roward’s Quay. Hmm. Enchance 203 to 608.

Aha. Deckard, eat your heart out. Mr Darren Walden posted this image of seals hauled out on the shingle in February this year – 2024. Quite a fresh picture by Google Photos’ standard. And not only can I see the cove and better imagine exactly what it might be like to come ashore at the dark of the moon, but also I’ve got a brand new piece of information: seals like to haul out here! I think these might be Grey seals – but I am far from an expert. They look like nice content. Perhaps their barking could give you away to the Constables? Perhaps you could hunt them for their skins… Or is that simply a leftover piece of Saga I feel compelled to include.

Hang on. I’ve actually got two sea maps to write for Princes of the West. One on the surface and one… underwater. I’m unsure if this is going to make it into the final edit and I might actually hold it back as a stretch goal for the Kickstarter. But steampunk = submarines and has ever since Monsieur Verne… I recently gave Nemo’s Fury a read and was certainly prompted to try my own version of a submarine – or ‘nethundical’ adventure.

So what will you do at Roward’s Quay underwater… Imagining that the sea is clear enough to see through. I’d better include two new items (oh no! Not more items!): a diving suit and a harpoon. Excellent.

Perhaps this is classic feature creep, but I’ve also learned over the process of writing Steam Highwayman that I have to indulge my imagination at times: these can be some of the most fun-to-write and most original sections in my gamebooks. Readers like the random stuff – I had feedback a while ago about someone enjoying becoming a sky-high sous-chef in Highways & Holloways. And I need to write it, not simply the mechanical stuff that is more about balanced gameplay, to ensure I still enjoy myself doing this.

So I’m thinking that the undersea section of Princes of the West might total around 200 passages and they have some neat mechanics just for them. That makes about 25 pages or 20,000 words, which . A gamebook of 1522 passages or 276 pages (like The Reeking Metropolis) costs £6.46 to print at present. 1722 passages or just under 300 pages increases the print cost by 5.9% to £6.84 – but not shipping or handling fees. Seems like a classic case of increasing the core product’s value to all backers – something that good crowdfunding campaigns need to focus on, rather than adding on extras that only work to sap energy from the main outcome.

What do you think? Risky? Perhaps I’ll write a few underwater passages, plan a network and leave most blank. Then backers can also suggest content, if they really want to get deeply involved. I can think of at least one who would – Mr Sennet? Or is this a distraction?

Current progress is around 700 passages completed, by the way.

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Decapod distractions

No, I’ve not been obsessed with lobsters for a whole month. But it is a full four weeks since I have been able to put any time into Steam Highwayman IV: Princes of the West, currently in draft. Since Delemand the Bull, I’ve been busy with my other work, ministering at church, raising my family and taking some holiday.

But today I’m back with a vengeance. A rest is good: by the end of March I was getting dry and rather frustrated with the difficulties of structuring a project as large as Steam Highwayman IV. A view weeks without directly thinking about it has allowed some things to rise to the surface – and one of those is lobster-potting.

Steam Highwayman was never meant to be simply a combat-based robbery simulator: the name was the best fit for an adventure within a realist Steampunk world. Originally I planned parallel tracks, a la Fabled Lands, for your main character: you could be a gambler, a rat-catcher, a chimney-sweep, a detective etc… In the end, each of these has become a minor quest within the Steam Highwayman world – and to be honest, I doubt Steam Ratcatcher would have grabbed as committed an audience or proven to be as sustainable a project.

But Cornwall isn’t Cornwall without the coast, and the coast isn’t the coast without fishing. Or lobsters. Taking Steam Highwayman to sea, not just along a river, like in the first three books, will prove to be a big piece of work. Fabled Lands and Legendary Kingdoms have both done it, with varied success – some of which I mean to mimic. But unless the Steam Highwayman can skipper a craft out beyond (or below…?) the Imperial blockade and bring back contraband, I’ll miss the greatest opportunity of a Cornish gamebook: smuggling. And the flipside of smuggling is fishing.

So lobster-potting – which is a little more about patience, rather more static, and certainly as luck-based – is my starting place. And to be honest, isn’t there something very steampunk about lobsters? I just read The Swordfish and the Star here in the library, which was really a sort of third-person collected memoir of Cornish life, and a great deal of it was about the hard lives of western Cornish fishermen.

It’s also been a bit of time to take stock. My self-built website shop, the Highwayman’s Hamper, has begun to make profit, and I’ve been sending off the remaining copies of the Gormley-Watt Touring Guide. I’ve invested some of those takings (each sale makes me double what an Amazon or bookshop sale makes me) into a trader’s spot at the upcoming Fighting Fantasy Fest 5 in Ealing, hosted by Jon Green. At this rate, I might not have too many remaining Touring Guides to sell, but I have a lot of loose maps, and it’s always great to be present in person at this event: it is really the only convention for gamebooks anywhere. Two years ago, I was bringing samples of Saga… Back at Fighting Fantasy Fest 2, my first, I was dropping flyers for the Kickstarter for Steam Highwayman: Smog & Ambuscade and giving free samples to influencers…! I’m very grateful to Jon for all he’s done to keep the flame burning in the recent decades, as he bridged the gap between the first golden age of gamebooks and the current renaissance, as well as running the convention.

In fact, if you fancy supporting him and the subject takes your fancy, he is currently kickstarting the most recent in his series of Ace Gamebooks: Shakespeare Vs Cthulu: What Dreams May Come.

But I’ve got to get back to lobsters before I can get onto Kickstarter again. I love running a crowd-funding project – I’ve discovered that they’re a part of this career of being an independent author that I actually really enjoy – and I’d love to get SH4 up there before the end of the year… So I’d better finish with the lobster-potting, the smuggling, the ambushes, the main quest, the inter-book links, the beer descriptions, the illustration briefs, the cover illustration brief, the marketing preparations, the playtesting, the issuing to playtesters, the editing and correcting…

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A Sort of Magic in Tintagel

Dolphin clocks,
Magic rocks,
Buy them all in Tintagel.
Oe’r your hearth, a
Bust of Arthur
You can buy it here as well.
Cornish ice cream,
What a nice dream,
Can you feel the aura here?
Local bread,
Leave well fed
There’s even magic in the beer.
Someone, sometime cast a spell,
To empty brain and purse as well,
Beware th’enchantment, the gift-shop bell
Should you visit Tintagel.

I haven’t been to Tintagel since 2014, but I enjoyed it when I did.  Visited previously c. 2006 and I think that was when the first couplet of this silly little leonine verse got into my head.  Now I have used it and posted it in the wild – on googlemaps.  There’s not enough feral poetry out there, is there?