Hi Gary!
This is a really exciting idea
Your gut is right. It's 21 words.
And any text entered by the player doesn't count against the word count, that's correct!
Viewing post in !READ THIS! Rules, Interpretations, & FAQ
I have a variation on this question. I like to give my players a choice of pronouns. They/she/he at a minimum. Would this mean that every time throughout the story I used a pronoun for the player character I'd have to count it as three words? If so, would that apply to conjugation too (she is, they are; he sits, they sit)?
Hey, sorry I got back to you a bit late! I didn't get a notification as I think you replied to someone else's message (or maybe it got buried in all of the notifications of people joining the jam, either way I apologise!). Thankfully the jam hasn't started yet :)
Yeah, I'm afraid that your question would be the correct way to interpret the rule.
I believe choices of pronouns are cool, so hopefully the below advice is useful. There are ways you'd be able to minimise how much it'd affect you game. Not extensive and just a collection of thoughts, so apply as you see fit:
- Refer to the MC as much as possible with their name, using the pronouns only when it's important to the narrative.
- Refer to the MC in 1st or 2nd person?
- For regular verbs in the present you can always set up a variable that adds an "s" at the end of a verb if the pronouns chosen are "he" or "she". This wouldn't work for the verb "to be", but you can always avoid using it as much as possible!
- Use verb tenses where there's not a difference when using any of the pronouns: He/She/They sat VS He/She sits and They Sit
Hope that helps!