Did you hear that?! That’s the sound of the Viral Magic System being finished… terrified screaming and then silence. Here’s how I know.
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Adding Details to the Viral Magic System
Today we will dig into the gross details of the Portal Strain where an individual can use puddles of their infected blood as mini wormholes.
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How to Combine Magic and Story Structure
Welcome to Part 11 of Building a Viral Magic System Damn, Daniel. Back at it again with the Viral Magic! The last couple of times we worked the viral magic system, we did everything in our power to break it before working just as hard to fix it. Do you know what that means? We have finally completed our first iteration of Stage 3: Definition for this system! It may
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How I Fixed the Broken Viral Magic System
Welcome to Part 10 of Building a Viral Magic System Aaaand we’re back. Don’t ask “back from where”; it doesn’t matter. Plausible deniability is the only real edge we have left, so you’re better off not knowing. When we last looked at the viral magic system, we spent a whole lot of time figuring out how to break it. We’ve worked hard to get here, putting blood, tears, and brain-sweat
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How I Broke My Viral Magic System
Welcome to Part 9 of Building a Viral Magic System Guess what? We’re finally nearing the end of our work in Stage 3: Definition. It’s taken a lot of work getting here. If you’re just joining me, you can check the series intro for more information and links to the rest of the posts. As for stage 3, we’ve explored the magic system variables, identified system boundary conditions, and tried
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The Lack of Equations Killed My Progress on the Viral Magic
They serve as guidelines for exploring the vast and murky middle-ground between boundaries. More than that, they help me connect with the magic variables and conditions in new ways so I can better understand how things work.
At least… that’s normally how things go.
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How I Built Powerful Viral Magic Boundary Conditions
Welcome to Part 7 of Building a Viral Magic System Today is going to be fun! Why? Because today we’re talking about one of my favorite parts of the magic building process. Today we’re building the viral magic boundary conditions! It might not sound fun or glamorous, but I love this part. Everything so far was about exploring options. Now… now we discover the shape of our system. Even a
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How I Selected the Viral Magic System Variables
I usually start Stage 3 by considering the magic system variables. The thing is, we’re not going to walk through all of my answers. As tempting as it is for me to dump all of my brilliant ideas on you — Hey! My mom says they’re brilliant, so there! — that won’t help much with your system. So instead of sharing my indisputably genius ideas, I’ll focus on how I went about addressing and answering the variables.
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Why My Viral Magic Must be a Soft-Rational System
I’ve got lots of ideas and I have the bones of a story. What I need to know is which type of magic system I need to build… and I suppose you already know the answer because of the post title… Maybe I could have planned that better.
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How I Generated More Ideas for Our Viral Magic
Today, we will look at how I took the knowledge gained from my research and developed more ideas for the viral magic system. That’s right, more brainstorming!
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