Chapter 28, Draft 4 – COMPLETE.

What is this? The timing’s wrong!

First forced down, then shunted long!

Fleeting quarry; erstwhile lore,

Time remaining: three ticks more.

Mostly clean-up in this chapter. One new thing, though: a villain has a realization that wasn’t in previous drafts. It’s a scientific fact that is known in our world, but may not be in the world of Abandonment Party. That’s all I’ll say for now.

I also have a decision to make: whether or not to let a specific character die. At first, I thought letting the death happen was a no-brainer. But then I came up with a creative way to save the character. Not some cheap cop-out, you see; a fun way that uses the rules I’ve already set up throughout the entire book.

But is it the correct choice!? This person’s death could be impactful, and force the protagonists to learn and grow!

And I know at least one person that didn’t think there was enough killing in the first book. David ‘Bloodthirst’ Fries usually finds me at church every month. A year or so back, when he got done reading the first book, his first comment to me was: ‘You really don’t like killing your characters do you?’

Fast forward to last Sunday. I told him that I was thinking of whether or not to kill this mystery character in book two. (I didn’t tell him spoilers or details.) He then asked: ‘How many characters died in the first book? And that guy that had his mind replaced doesn’t count.’

I assume he means Parlay? That counts as a death! He even had lines and lines of dramatic dialog before he went! 😭

Besides Parlay, I only remembered Captain Ecks dying when he tried to steal his necklaces. And then no one else came to mind. Hm, maybe I should bump up the kill count after all. I’ll think about it. I still have a few chapters to go before any chance to revealed that the mystery character isn’t dead.

Now let’s talk about games. This month it’s the Elden Ring DLC. (Downloadable Content.)

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree –

Okay! Here’s my experience with the base game:

When Elden Ring came out I had no idea what it was. I just saw YouTube streamers playing the game and thought it looked fun. Then I did some research and found out that the game was made by FromSoft, the same guys that made Dark Souls.

I remembered that I had played that game! It was a gift from my brother back when I first got a PS3. I had only played Dark Souls one time, though. I beat the tutorial and never touched it again. (These games are known for being punishing, but I probably just had other things to do. Important writing things. 😅) I figured that since Elden Ring looked pretty tough, I’d better re-visit Dark Souls first. I figured that if I could get through that original game, then I would be ready to tackle FromSoft’s latest adventure.

And I did. I beat it all. And man, did I have these games wrong. I thought it was just about super-hard bosses. And ‘YOU DIED LOL.‘ But the level design! The enemy placement! The variety of environments, foes, weapons, EVERYTHING! So much thought and love is put into it all!

It’s tough, sure, but you’ll want to push forward just to see what sort of ridiculous nonsense these FromSoft guys bring out next. Stone-faced imps that pogo-jump with their spears. Giant hands that pop out of the floor and crawl around like spiders. Spiked chariots that zoom around dungeons on roller coaster rails.

And the DLC is more of that. Check it out.

I could go on all night about this game but I’m at the end of Abandonment Party 2 now, and I’d like to keep working on it. See you next time! 😁