Clash of Cheaters (Wildebyte Diary)

Welcome to my writing diary for the book Clash of Cheaters, the 8th book of the Wildebyte Arcades. In this article, I keep track of my progress, my thoughts, any problems I faced, and how I solved them. Hopefully it’s interesting or instructive to read!

As usual, SPOILERS! for everything in this book. (And even some of the stories before it. Plus some ideas/plots that ended up not even making it in the book.)

What’s the idea?

Alright, I made a mistake again. I shuffled around my upcoming ideas for Wildebyte books to make sure I don’t do two stories about similar games close to each other.

But then book 7 turned out differently than I originally planned. Its content ended up closer to the general theme of book 8 than I anticipated.

What to do?

By now, this new order had already been mostly set in stone, with overarching threads mapped out to progress nicely. Thus I decided to apply the other trick: pretend this was the plan all along ;)

I decided to experiment with a sort of “twin stories”. Even though these stories are standalone and can be read as such, I wanted to see if I could make book 7 and book 8 two halves of the same coin. The ending and lessons from book 7 directly make this book possible and kickstart the narrative.

So, what is the idea?

• We are parodying games like Clash of Clans and all its offshoots and variants. (A lesser known one, for example, is King of Thieves which has some cool ideas of its own that I want to include.)
• As usual, Wildebyte and Sweettooth land inside the game completely out of their element. They experience a raid by an opponent tribe and try to figure out what’s going on.
• Over the course of the story, they …
  • Build their own “base” to be bigger and stronger.
  • Try to get information about the other tribes, because one of them is just wiping the floor with them, and they suspect the other has Wildebyte’s Lost Memory.
  • Until it ends in some big climax battle between the bases they have built by now.
• Because of the previous book, Wildebyte has grown cautious about this “battle between tribes” and “warlike competition”. They’re trying to get them all to calm down. Why can’t they just live in their nice base and not wage war?
• This brings us to the “lesson” of this book: the rule of cool. I found this important enough to use for such an early story. Because aaaall other rules/advice/principles about any skill are less important than simply creating something you think is cool (or fun/interesting).
  • For example, you can write a nice novel following all the formulas and rules, and it won’t matter if it’s not interesting to read.
  • Or you can create a game that looks great and follows all the well-established genre rules—while completely forgetting to actually, you know, make it fun.
• And so, Wildebyte tries to “fix” this game (as they did in each book before now), until they realize the game actually didn’t need fixing and it was just cool as it was. They go with the flow and it all ends in a creative action sequence between tribes using everything we’ve established before.

This is a fine setup, but obviously very vague and not that practical. Let’s see if we can expand it into concrete storylines or ideas.

A better outline

Chunks and Goals

I generally “divide” Wildebyte books into 4 “chunks”. Each chunk is mostly focused on one thing, helping me to keep the story streamlined and manageable. At the same time, each chunk has its own little “climax” to nicely lead into the next one.

What chunks would this story have?

• Chapters 1–6: learn about game rules, start building base from scratch.
  • Goal: Wildebyte searches their Lost Memory and what is “wrong” with the game, Sweettooth tries to get those sweet golden coins in the game.
  • Ending: their tribe is completely killed off during a raid. (Due to some rule in the game that makes this possible in extreme circumstances.) They narrowly escape to a different one.
• Chapters 7–12: learn about tribes, continue building base, do one complex raid to get WB’s Lost Memory. For the first time, WB and ST actually make a plan and work together.
  • Goal: WB tries to infiltrate the most powerful tribe, while preaching for more peaceful and “good” game mechanics based on their previous lessons. Sweettooth helps WB by hacking and slashing everything.
  • Ending: WB gets their Lost Memory. They also discover that powerful tribe has been cheating.
• Chapters 13–18: the realization of cheating makes WB even more stiff and righteous. They refuse to cooperate with cheating and are too “well-behaved”.
  • Goal: WB now tries to get out of that powerful tribe, to warn the others and band together to defeat their common enemy. They send Sweettooth to investigate the mysterious figures and how to combat the cheating.
  • Ending: Sweettooth ends up discovering the source … and cheating himself. WB then realizes almost everyone in this game has been cheating one way or another, to the knowledge of the developer (Ingar/Guild) even.
• Chapters 19–24: a huge raid (multiple raids?) going on between all Tribes. This should not be possible, but, well, they’re all cheating and it happens. Wildebyte now lets go of all constraints and fully uses their powers to make this work.
  • Goal: stay alive and defeat the other tribes, duh. Though Sweettooth, as much as he enjoys the fighting, tries to get Wildebyte to give him more power. (After the previous book made him realize that he can break free and become as powerful as Wildebyte, but only by having WB subconsciously give him parts of themselves.)
  • Ending: Wildebyte realizes at the last moment that those mysterious figures were their parents looking for them, then fails to find them before they leave. The thing that allowed the cheating in-game is patched. Their tribe actually loses, but Wildebyte realizes they had fun and it’s all fine, so they move to the next game.

Other important pieces

I also like to structure stories around (tough) dilemmas, especially in the first chapter. As such, this became the plan for the start of the story:

• Wildebyte has to choose which Tribe to enter into. They have three options and each has a clear advantage and disadvantage.
• There are mysterious figures going around the base explicitly asking for Wildebyte. When they reach WB, they must decide whether they trust this person or lie to them.

Those mysterious figures searching WB are a recurring theme. WB constantly has to disguise themselves and try to stay out of their hands. By the end of the book, however, as all evidence has piled up, they finally realize: those figures were their parents. And WB just missed the opportunity to reconcile. Because, at the end, those figures are forced out of the game before WB can stop it.

The computer part this game teaches is simply how such games work. How they tell time and finish an action after X hours. How such a base is saved in memory. All of this information should lead to the reader understanding how the cheat works in the second half, instead of just saying “They cheated! And we won’t explain how, just believe us!”

The main Tribes in this game are leftovers from the Clans (or just general groups) of the last game. That’s how the stories connect. It’s basically a trick to continue telling what happened to them after the previous events, while being inside a game (and not seeing any part of the real world). Additionally, the events of the previous book taught them all to not mix real life and game life too much, which makes them a bit nicer in-game and makes them leave the game alone regularly to go live life.

There is an element of pay-to-win here, which mixes with the cheating discussion. If the developers literally add ways to buy your way past 100 hours of grinding, what is one little cheat? But it’s not fully explored yet—that’s for a later story.

Finally, to underscore the general lesson, this game is outlandish. The tribes are extremely weird, and different, and have nonsense powers and abilities. This is on purpose, shown in the very first scene with how weird that raid is. By the end of the story, Wildebyte is confused by how extremely nonsensical the game has become—yet notices they are having so much fun. Which solidifies this “rule of cool” above all else.

There’s an important distinction here between “cheating that just makes the game worse (for everyone else)” and “not following the rules nicely, but it’s fine and fun”. I’ll need to be careful to show that and make it clear, lest parents think I encourage their kids to cheat in online games.

And, as usual, there’s a slight continuation of the overarching thread with Ingar and MixWare scientists trying to help Wildebyte get out. Or not. Who knows. And a check-in with the Memory Police and other parts of Ludra. And what’s the President/Player up to? Something closely related to the previous book, which wasn’t a great one for them.

(Also, the tribes are inspired by different Ancient Civilizations. That’s the general visual style or theme for this game, though combined with a bit more magic and candyland-like stuff. Don’t want to stray too close to Clash of Clans’ exact style/theme.)

Let’s write that: Chapters 1–6

I wrote chapter 1 a while ago, then had to leave it alone for a few weeks to finish other projects.

This has become a recurring pattern.

• I try to be productive and say “I have a few hours tonight, let’s just write the first chapter already!”
• But I don’t actually have the time to follow it up the next day(s)
• Which means the book isn’t actually written until I’m done with other deadlines/commitments

I think it’s fine, however, because it has some good consequences. Almost every first chapter I’ve written has revealed itself to be bad and in need of a major rewrite immediately after writing it. That’s what happens once you try to execute ideas: all the flaws and oversights stick out and you have to come to terms with that.

For example, these are some major changes I decided to make.

• I almost “defaulted” to the same visual style and theme as Clash of Clans or medieval-base-building type games. But it’s just not interesting or unique enough to have the same types of buildings and environments in this game as … everywhere else. And so the game turned into a desert game, with everything made of sand.
• I wanted to add those timers for everything. But, well, repeating “another timer started, they waited 10 seconds” a million times in a book is extremely boring. And so, in the mean time, I discovered a fun way to make these “waiting periods” useful.
  • Namely, by using them to display an “instruction video” for one particular unit or building in the game.
  • These are narrated in a funny or mythical style, instead of just a dry explanation.
  • It fills the timer space; it also helps explain this incredibly complex game in small bits over time.
• Initially, Taceheart was just “stronger” than others, but that was it. Upon rereading chapter 1, this instantly felt too weak and vague. I wanted something specific that they did which was very strong and “should not be possible”.
  • This became the fact that they permanently destroy one building (and leave only a flower behind in its place). Whereas a base is just supposed to rebuild entirely.

With those improvements, the structure of these first six chapters fell into place much more easily.

• Pick an essential unit/building to give backstory.
• Progress the storyline about Taceheart threat and how the game works.
• Until their current tribe is wiped out entirely (which also “should not be possible”)

I am writing this diary only days after writing those chapters, and I can’t even remember the specifics of what was inside. I had to look it up.

I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad sign. It can happen when you’re really in the flow and events just flow effortlessly, or it can happen when nothing actually interesting happens in your story :p

We will find the truth during the revisions.

Initially, I intended Cyclops and Mermaid to only appear more sporadically, later in the story. But they were just too fun to leave out, so they became prominent characters in this part.

I also didn’t necessarily plan to give Sweettooth his own POV chapters again. But in the end, it solved too many issues with the story not to do it. (For example, if Sweettooth doesn’t get his own mission nor own chapters, then what’s the purpose behind his presence? Why did I bring these two together, only to have Wildebyte do everything and the pirate to just hang around aimlessly?)

Chapters 7–13

This chunk grew one chapter longer than planned. Why?

• Because the one containing Wildebyte’s Lost Memory turned out much longer. (Before starting that chapter, I had no idea what it would be. Then I woke up, got an idea, and wrote a 2,000 word chapter with just his Memory … while that chapter was supposed to do other things too :p)
• Because I wanted to showcase more parts of the game and needed more raids or challenges to happen (before getting into the Taceheart tribe).

It might even grow another chapter, as all of these are longer than the average Wildebyte chapter is supposed to be.

Besides that, I struggled a bit here. I expect this by now—the middle of a book is always the hardest and the point where you ask yourself why you ever started writing—so I know that I need to just write whatever comes to me each day, and eventually we’ll get to the other side.

And yes, this process worked once more.

In their current state, the chapters aren’t amazing. But they progress the story, progress some character relationships, and most of all progress the major theme.

I am really proud of that Chapter 13 and the way I did the Lost Memory. It’s a neat way to tie everything together, both what came before in the story and what will come after. So it’s a perfect midpoint. (It’s also the only chapter that does NOT have timers and backstory, to signal that shift and to allow more words for the memory itself.)

Most of all, by writing them I was able to let the rest of the book fall into place. I had to answer some mysteries myself, find more details about exactly how the cheat worked, etcetera. This means that once chapter 13 was done, there was at least a vague plan in place all the way until the end.

An idea that is now a major part of the entire story, for example, only revealed itself to me around Chapter 10 or so. That idea was:

• The Lost Memory is broken.
• Those fragments are scattered across the game.
• And they are the “gems” that allow powerful, unique actions in the game. (Initially, the game had no concept of gems. Ingar only introduced that, in a buggy state, after seeing how much people were willing to “pay” for that.)
• And they are also the flowers left behind on destroyed buildings, as the gem is “used” to make that cheat happen.

Once I got this idea, it was much easier to plan out the rest. I needed a chapter to explain “gems” (and my version of it in this story), I needed a moment where Wildebyte touches a flower and sees something of themselves that confuses them (to foreshadow this), I needed a reason for Wildebyte to keep playing this game after already getting their memory.

Now we had an explanation for everything. And once the revision is done, and this idea is also present in chapters 1–10, it should be a strong element in the story.

(And yes, this means I had no idea how to resolve most of the threads and how to end the story in the first place. That’s what it means to be an improviser and to figure things out as you go.)

The break halfway

As usual, I took a week-long break here. I write Wildebyte books in two weeks, with a break between the two to ensure I don’t burn out and can get some fresh inspiration.

I am mostly worried about the following things at this point.

• Will I be able to fit in most aspects of a Clash-of-Clans-like game? (Or will I have to leave out lots of important/awesome elements?)
  • I already know I’ll have to skip many elements. That’s also not the goal of the book, of course, to just list all possible buildings or units in such a game.
  • But I want to pick the best and most important ones, and make sure those come across. So that even a reader who does not know this type of game or has no intention to ever play it, can understand why others would find it really fun.
• How can I make the story satisfying to read, and different, as opposed to just making readers want to play the actual game instead?
• How can I give Wildebyte a believable arc from “being too brave/well-behaved/restrained” to “letting go and just having fun”, without making them seem boring and annoying for the first 20 chapters? (And while communicating to the reader that this is what Sweettooth wants, not necessarily what’s “good”.)

My biggest doubt, as usual, is whether I’m getting everything I can out of this game/story. This game has so many different elements, units, possibilities … picking one lane and writing the story that way feels like shutting down ten other lanes that might have been more awesome or cool. Or not. I don’t know!

That’s also why I use those timers as backstories. That’s also why the story places Wildebyte + Sweettooth apart, in a different place each chunk, so I can show off as much as possible of the game (possible units, possible raid strategies, etcetera). But there’s a limit to that, and in the end the story will have to be X and can’t be anything else it might have been.

I have to remove those doubts from my head and just try something, try the best thing I have right now. That’s the only way to get a finished story, instead of just “oh maybe X would have been a better approach”. I satisfy myself, partially, with the knowledge that there will be similar games in the future that might also use the other cool ideas I had.

I write down my thoughts and doubts, and then just let that simmer in the back of my mind for the next week.

Until I return to finish the book with, hopefully, some better solutions and a clear path forward.

Chapters 14–20

As expected, I had a few better solutions or approaches to some of my mysteries, but this part was still hard to get through.

For example, I figured out the details of how the cheat(s) work and how to make that believable and easy to explain. At the same time, this still required some dialogue/paragraphs that are a bit … dry and technical? And you obviously never want that in a story. But it was hard enough to write down these thoughts for the first time, so I left it for the revisions to see if I can make the explanation better and more interesting on its own.

Every single chapter here also became too long. The target length is at most 1,500 words per chapter. Instead, all of these were more like 2,000 words. I might be tempted to call that a good sign—lots of stuff happening, good progress—but I also know it might be a sign of overcomplicating things and not writing prose that is as concise/sharp as it should be.

The entire story centers around the idea that this game is far too complex and has lots of nonsensical parts, but that this is fine and still popular/enjoyable because of the “rule of cool”. That makes it hard, however, to keep the story streamlined and focused. So many units and buildings are introduced, so many small bits of what such a game could offer are displayed, that it even becomes a bit muddy in my own brain.

I’ll probably have to do heavy revisions here to cut out some of this, potentially rewriting the order and structure in which the “cheats” are revealed. As stated, I was flying blind before, but now I know exactly how the cheats were accomplished and which computer-y parts need to be explained to reach that conclusion. Which shows me that the current order of the plot is not optimal.

I often have these general plans in my story outline that I think will work great, but I end up being in the wrong position to execute them. For example, Sweettooth who disobeys Wildebyte and starts cheating himself. I wanted to make this a longer arc of lying, distrust, and Wildebyte eventually figuring this out and being mad.

But … it just didn’t fit? I only had a few chapters to do this, and at this point there’d been so much talk of cheating (by Taceheart), that this addition didn’t actually feel like it added anything. It just repeated something similar to what came before.

So that part shrank in size and importance, only keeping some highlight bits and what was needed to reach the climax.

Is this the right call? I never know! Perhaps it leads to much better stories to stick to my outline more strictly, forcing myself to end up in a better position to execute those grand early ideas.

But it is what it is. It took two days to write this chunk, mostly because I kept telling myself “just keep taking the next step towards solving the mystery and getting Wildebyte back to Layla’s base, and it will aaaall be fine”.

Revisions will, hopefully, actually make this fine.

Chapters 21–end

Yes, this story needs some simplification and streamlining during the revisions :p At this point, I am making up random stuff as I go along, drawing out a large raid as the climax, but not all of it needs to be there or makes sense.

But it’s fine for a first draft and to get the story to a somewhat finished state.

I also didn’t make this final fight as long or drawn-out as I originally planned, because it also just didn’t fit. Or, well, it wasn’t interesting. It’s not interesting to read about fighting and action constantly for 3+ chapters. Even worse when the game has so many units, buildings and mechanics that we had no time to really get you invested in any specific ones.

So there is no real tension here or real uncertainty about the outcome. The entire idea of the climax is simply to have cool and fun action gameplay take place, to showcase the lesson of the story and use everything you’ve learned so far.

Well, as it turns out, inventing outlandish scenarios or unit powers stays fun for about 2 chapters, but then it’s done.

The meeting with the longnecks at the end had to be rushed and short, otherwise they’d clearly just tell Wildebyte immediately that they’re his parents. Which means I had to make the fight move to that volcano, with enemy units still pressing at their back. It also means that chapter became quite a bit shorter and I had room for something else during the climax.

All this time, I’d kept a note (in my … general notes file) about “How/when do we introduce the SPELLS and HEROES (and other advanced elements) from Clash of Clans?” There simply was no time or good location in the story, at any point, to add this. It’s already very full, it already shows or incorporates many elements, and I was about to just drop the note entirely.

But then I wrote the second to last chapter with a very short meeting with the longnecks, and realized I needed a bigger BOOM to end on. So, well, I let the volcano erupt in a clever way. Most importantly, I made it so that this eruption invents the mechanics/resources for spells and heroes.

It seemed a more interesting and fitting ending than just “oh the fight is over and our tribe still exists, everyone goes back to normal, and for some small reason the meeting with the longnecks fails to happen.”

Then in the final chapter, we end on Sweettooth because he is the only one who actually “won” in this book. He’s corrupted Wildebyte to the point of letting go of some of their restraint and just “having fun, doing whatever”, which he hopes will slowly allow him to steal his code-changing powers.

As usual, I might have left a bit too many threads to be resolved in the final chapter, making it a bit longer and more a grocery list of things to mention and close off. But I actually don’t mind that in stories (books or films). When it’s clear the main part is over, and you’ve had your big climax, I am fine with quickly moving the story to its end. Lingering for too long, having multiple endings or uncertainty whether you’re actually done with the climax or not, just sours what what could have been a great and well-paced story so far.

Or maybe that’s just my opinion because I keep writing my final chapters this way and can’t find a way to solve it :p

Fortunately, over the years I’ve learned to keep good notes (and track any ideas mentioned or mysteries opened within the story), which is why I can quickly write that final chapter that resolves everything. Once the entire book is written, this final chapter is a bullet point list of exactly what is still left undecided. Most of it will be resolved, some if it will be left undecided on purpose, for future books or just to let the reader figure it out on their own.

The biggest one here was the fact that Wildebyte realized they could talk to Layla through the Tribe Chat. I didn’t want them to just not use it or “forget” to use it. It’s way too useful if they can directly tell Layla they’re inside her phone, or at least try to. So I desperately wanted to end the story on sending that message … then being uncertain what Layla will do with it.

(But when I originally woke up to write the ending, on a Wednesday morning, I had completely forgotten I had opened this story thread in the first place :p It was my notes that reminded me of it at just the right time, in just the right place.)

Conclusion

As always, I am not necessarily happy or satisfied with anything I make. As a creative person, you often think in wasted ideas or missed potential. Because no matter how good the story ends up being, I will have cut 99% of possible ideas or story threads I could’ve chosen, and I will be sad about that.

This is an inherent obstacle to being creative and what leads to writer’s block and self-doubt. No artist will ever get rid of it, because choosing to write one book means you’re not writing all the other things you could have written. So I’ve learned to just pick the best idea I have at that moment and put in a consistent 2–4 chapters each day and see where it leads.

This game is so complex and has so many mechanics, ideas, things to explore, that it feels like I should’ve written 5 books about it. And even that would not be enough. I ended up picking the things that supported the general story (about cheating and rule of cool), the things that support the general Wildebyte storylines and themes, and only subtly referenced anything else.

Maybe I should have left this idea for much later, as I originally planned. It was a good idea: sort the games from simplest to most complex, and write them in that order. So that, as my writing skill and experience with Wildebyte Arcades grows, I can tackle the more complicated games better.

I will still adhere to this planning for the most part. The next handful of stories are definitely about smaller and simpler games, this was an outlier.

But, well, you never know if you never try. I tried to wrangle this complicated game into a satisfying, not-too-long story. I think there are some good bits and some bits that might be overwhelming or underwritten for some readers. I learned from it, the book is finished, and I continue.

The silver lining here, which has always been in the back of my mind since the start, is that there will be several games in the future that share many characteristics with this one. Such as the other game from the developers of Clash of Clans which brought them their initial fame and spawned another whole subgenre (Hay Day). In some ways, I always knew I had a second and third try at these kinds of stories.

So I’ll talk to you then and we’ll see how much I learned from writing this one.

Keep reading and writing,

Tiamo Pastoor