TYSM, and I'm glad you're a part of this journey too, GoodGhost!
"Just another reader" is wildly inaccurate, in my humble opinion. Interactive fiction game are a shared experience. Without readers, what is a game dev doing all of this for?
And does it matter how many readers there are?
In the world of Garden of Bones, I am always the same Narrator, but you are a unique MC, making choices that many other players never make - without you, the main character does not exist. None of the characters do, for that matter. There would be nothing for them to engage with. Only a few lines of code and some carefully crafted possibilities, sitting idle.
They only live - and more to the point, they only live in the exact configuration to which your playthrough has moulded them (the odds of everyone making all the same choices are impossibly low) - from the second you sit down to play until the moment they drift from your mind.
Though you and I aren't sitting on opposite sides of a GM screen, it doesn't mean this shared experience of storytelling is any less valid.
This is a passion project for me, ergo I would truly be happy creating this game for only 1 player. But without that 1 player, all this effort would be entirely meaningless. So whenever the next chapter is published, at whatever hour of the day you decide to continue this journey with us - that is, the twins, myself, and all supporting characters - that 1 important player will be you!
⸜( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )⸝♡
And on a game dev note, thank you for your supportive comments over the past year. They have been very encouraging.
~ Effie