Oooh, in terms of mitigating the countdown, this new game has a little of what I'm talking about: http://www.polygon.com/2015/12/8/9873326/star-billions-is-an-ios-game-that-doesnt-always-want-you-around

As in, the game goes away for a bit, then alerts the player with a notification when there's new information in the game.

I've got a photoshop license now, but Pixlr will do you in a pinch so long as you're just cleaning up some lines and doing color adjustments. It works in browser, so you can translate your files and not lose any settings: https://pixlr.com/editor/

I like this suggestion, since a lot of the fail conditions in my game just cause the user to wait for an extended period of time (to make them think that the victim is in danger.)

I tried it a couple times in my first episode, and I'm not quite sure how well it reads. The puzzles end up "solving themselves" (the wrong answer usually leads to a long pause as punishment, then pipes back to the correct answer.)

Oh, I meant specifically for per-line advances without pauses, at least as an option. I have a lot of dialogue that looks like this:

---

YOU

• Maybe there’s a hint around the floor boards.
• Check around the box where you found the key.

MORGAN

• I don’t know what I’ll find.
• the flashlight drains my batteries pretty bad too.

YOU

• Hmm, try to feel around maybe?
• if the wood’s soft, they might’ve carved something <<1 minute pause>>
• you still there?

---

And while it makes sense for Morgan's lines to scroll, your lines scrolling by doesn't make as much sense for my dialogue.

1. a comments field for people writing directly in the Sequel tool so they can make references/take notes.

2. in terms of timing, could there be an option for "tap to advance"? Since I've got a lot of Player dialogue that isn't choice-based, I was thinking it would be nice to have the player tap to input her next "line", rather than just letting it scroll past.

@Michael Yeah, I started putting Self in place after you guided me through it. I can start doing Player, but I've got a LOT of Self tags in there.

Actually, will it be really disruptive if I add a character called Player? Maybe I should hold off. :/

I come from a tragic history of Japanese visual novels, so I've got a lot of lines of dialogue between user inputs. I hope it's not too few, considering what everyone else is doing! :O

@Michael, That would be helpful for me, since I've got a lot of back and forth (which means a lot of scrolling as I go through!)

Oh man, I'm happy to see some of the Twine/IFComp crew here! I'm Jo/Joey Fu and I'm a Twine person. I'm also writing a lengthy visual novel for my company Date Nighto, coming late 2016! I'm used to doing a bunch of text stuff, so working with visuals is making me wring my hands a little.

I'm writing "Imprisoned", a Silent-Hill-y escape-the-room game with some puzzles and a cool BFF named Morgan.