Dating Breakthrough! An Interactive Guide to Create the Relationship You Want

Sue Johnson is a bestselling author, a clinical psychologist, Distinguished Research Professor, dynamic speaker, and a recognized innovator who has changed the field of couples therapy. Johnson elucidates the science of love, convincingly demonstrating the underlying emotional logic of relationships. It will enrich the lives of all who read it. There is a new book out by Gemma Hartley called Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women and the Way Forward.

This labor is defined by Ms. When you really get down to it, this labor turns out to be mostly about housework and who does it, although it does include administrative tasks like remembering family birthdays and scheduling events. Hartley also stresses that this division of labor is bad for both sexes. But, for me, this book is still missing a vital element. I have listened to literally hundreds of women in couple therapy and in relationship education groups weep about feeling unappreciated and taken for granted in ways that fit into this concept of emotional labor.

However, the real source of desperation and rage is nearly always more specific. Yes, women get mad because their men do not join them in the tasks of running a household, but they get even more desperate, afraid, and frantic when their men do not help them take any care of the emotional bond that makes them a couple. Most often, they then express their pain, often cloaked in frustration. Really, you know how busy I have been. Do you always have to be so negative?

The stage is then set for the dance of distress that I call the Protest Polka. This dialogue takes over relationships and predicts future divorce. The whole relationship becomes stuck in a dreary pattern of angry demands, followed by defensiveness and distance. Both partners are flooded with the pain of rejection and isolation but neither feels safe enough to reach out or try to reconnect. For Edith, Ted, and their family, this is a tragedy in the making.

The new science of bonding is clear. Secure connection with a loved one — usually a partner in most adult lives — fulfills our most basic need: This sense of belonging calms our nervous system, gives us emotional balance, strengthens our sense of our own value and protects us from being overwhelmed by our own vulnerability. We've come a long way from the early days of Choices with The Freshman: Book 1, and it's exciting to reach the culmination of your college years with The Senior.

Now let's talk to The Senior team! What's going down in The Senior? The Senior is all about going out and finding inspiration. With the future coming up so quickly, will you live in the moment, look to the past, or plan ahead? There are quite a few milestones and big moments in The Senior. Want to drop a few hints about that? And of course, there are some big decisions ahead of you, like choosing a career and deciding what you want from your romantic relationships. Who will we be seeing in The Senior? Any familiar faces or new friends? A few might even be of the fluffy, cuddly variety For one, you can look forward to some new insights about a certain lovably cantankerous writer!

Senior year is no joke. Who out of the cast would you pick to be your study buddy for your final year of college? A book in one hand, and giving that pup a belly rub with the other? No human measures up. I would look forward to studying every day if I got to snuggle with him. A I love her. I have a playlist dedicated to and inspired by Kaitlyn, and it rocks. And C I do my best studying when I can help someone else with the material, so a less extreme version of cramming-with-Kaitlyn would be great for both of us and fun at the same time!

Plus, he's totally famous from trying to crash America's Most Eligible! I would pick Zack, hands down. Got any wisdom for students starting their senior year of college? Senior year can get really busy, and that forces you to prioritize the things and people that you really want to invest your time in. Don't let the stress take away your ability to enjoy the moment. Take breaks, breathe deep, have fun. Enjoy your last few months before you have to leave college! Focus on that finish line! I had a lot of other things trying to distract me, and it would've been easy to fall behind or even quit.

Whatever hurdles pop up in your path will be in your past soon enough. Rolls a wisdom check I found an RPG group my senior year and they became some of my closest friends, and helped my creativity and writing. But in all seriousness, my advice is to find something fun and exciting to help combat that serious case of Senioritis.

If you open yourself up to new activities, you open yourself up to new friends, new passions, and maybe even new crushes! Maybe your senior year is your victory lap. Along the way, you might just get the chance to study at the most prestigious magical university around Now that Book 3 has wrapped up, let's take a look back on the series with the writing team:. It's been a pretty intense race to the finish line for The Royal Romance: How are you feeling? Are you doing okay? I think we've mostly made it out alive.

As the saying goes, you can sleep when you're dead The Royal Romance has always had a really tight schedule, but Book 3 pushed us to our limits! There were a lot of late nights, a lot of weekends spent writing. We really wanted to get this right or as right as possible in the time we had! Our motto for the last 8 weeks has been "Fall across the finish line," because we knew we just had to wrap up chapter 22 and then we could collapse. But in our trials and tribulations, we found enlightenment. Now, we spend our days upon a mountain in divine bliss, drinking tea, sampling pastries, and petting corgis.

The Royal Romance started out as a lighthearted fairy tale romance. Did you know all along that it would end up here -- a story with political intrigue, enemies-turned-allies, and one very adorable corgi? TRR always had darker elements lurking in the background, even from the first book, but the deeper you go into court life, the more dangerous things are.

Players will probably be happy that they didn't let me kill off as many characters as I wanted to. I wanted Bastien to die at the start of Book 3. I wanted Madeleine to die when she got poisoned. Whenever I'm involved, the body count tends to go up Like Kara said, we did always have some darker themes written in between the lines, so it was less a matter of 'will the story end up being about political intrigue and your enemies? Those connections were front and center in Book 3. When was that planned? Were there any plot details that readers may have missed?

Well, what happened was, back when we were creating Book 1, we wanted an evil redhead to be your antagonist, and Kara said, "Oh, what if we used Zenobia, but the twist is she's a Nevrakis descendant? I think most have been caught, except I don't think anyone has mentioned how the little girl in Lythikos is named after Val.

My favorite references are actually some of the smallest ones. I live for every brief, snarky line Olivia throws in about her ancestors - with that Nevrakis history, there's an endless well to draw from. There are so many! But I'd have to say my favorite moment was in Book 1 where you follow Drake out into the snow and he explains why he dislikes the court and how he let his sister down. We'd purposefully written Drake up to that point as being slightly antagonistic, but this was the kind of the moment where I could see the main character falling for Drake.

Though, having said that, I definitely teared up reading both the proposals and the marriage vows.

Meet Shira Teichman of Breakthrough Dating

Hats off to the art team! Hmmm… I really can't say that I have a favorite moment. There are way too many! I might have to pick the reveal of our corgi in a tuxedo, because it felt like the culmination of my own behind-the-scenes quest to add adorableness to everything. I'd say probably the most satisfying scenes for me to write were the proposals and Anton's ultimate defeat. As enjoyable as it is to see the culmination of your positive relationships with the people you've grown to know and love, it's also very satisfying to finally see everyone work together to defeat the enemy that has taken so much from them.

I think I have to go with the wedding vows your love interest recites. We really wanted the wedding to show just how far you and your love interest have come together, and that moment in the cathedral captured so much of what we love about each of these characters. She knows almost as much about the court and kingdom as Liam, and she has the kind of generosity and empathy I'd want my Royal Council to live by. I'd pick the little girl from Lythikos who won her spot as one of their fiercest warriors by doing 'a tactical analysis of the greatest battles in Nevrakis history.

It was New Year's Eve when Kara and I were hanging out and talking about how fun it would be to write a story about a girl trying to win the heart of a prince. It was a long path to get here filled with a lot of brainstorms and a lot of late nights riddled with feelings of self-doubt, but I wouldn't have changed a second of it. Thank you for reading our story. It was a privilege to write it for you. First, I'm sorry to anyone that we've let down.

TRR was an ambitious series that tried to do a lot of things with an already challenging schedule, and we didn't always pull off what we wanted with the flawless execution we envisioned. Second, I've been working on The Royal Romance for the last year and a half. We've released 3 books. Writing for Choices -- the weekly deadlines, the pressure, the multiple plotlines to keep straight -- it's intense, but it's also the most amazing writing I've ever done. I fell in love with these characters like they're my real friends -- at midnight, I'd be messaging Jennifer and Jeffrey with ideas.

Everyday I feel grateful and excited for the stories I get to tell and the team that I get to tell them with, and that's completely and entirely because of all of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making The Royal Romance possible! Thank you for bearing with us through the fixes. The Royal Romance was the first project I worked on at Pixelberry, and you have all made it such an incredible experience. The community of fans is truly astonishing and inspiring to me.

You are writers, you are artists, you are culture critics, and so much more. Thank you for using your talents to celebrate these characters who are so dear to us. Most of all, thank you for making this past year working on The Royal Romance an amazing, unforgettable experience. The Royal Romance was also my first project here, so it'll always have a special place in my heart.

Dr. Sue Johnson | Creating Connections

Knowing that this series means as much to our readers as it does to us makes all the late nights, in-depth brainstorms, and hat jokes worth it. Although our plot includes intrigue, drama, and romance, the heart of this story is about an unbreakable group of friends. It's wonderful to see people finding that same kind of friendship through the stories we get to tell, and I hope you'll carry your memories of these characters with you for a long time.

I know we all will! Finally, what's next for The Royal Romance team? And of course, what's next for The Royal Romance series? I'm turning my attention to a different project for the time being. As for the future of TRR, while we haven't definitively planned anything after Book 3, we do feel there's more story to tell, so it might not quite be curtains for these characters We've promised that you'll see these characters again, and you will!

Now that Book 3 is wrapped up, Jennifer, Olivia, and I will be brainstorming and working hard to figure out what form that will take. Whatever comes next, we want to make sure we have an exciting, fun, and new story to tell. But unfortunately, it could be months or even a year or more before we'll be able to release something, so please hang in there, and play all the other amazing stories coming out in Choices in the meantime!

If you love and miss TRR, the best thing you can do is keep supporting Choices the way you have been: Leaving 5 star reviews, sharing the game with your friends As Kara mentioned, I'll be working with her and Jennifer on whatever the future of these characters may be. We can't share any details yet, but just know that we'll do our very best to make it a worthy new chapter in the Choices universe! In the meantime, I'll also be writing for America's Most Eligible, which serves up a very different kind of drama than what we've seen in Cordonia.

I'll continue to work in the realm of courtly romance and intrigue as a writer for Desire and Decorum! I'm going to miss Riley, Liam, Hana, Drake, Maxwell, Bertrand, Olivia, and the rest of the TRR crew, and I can't wait to see what they get up to in the next chapter of their story, whatever that may be.

That's all for The Royal Romance for now! When we've got concrete news about the future of this series, we'll let you know. But for now, we hope you'll stay tuned for what's coming this fall: Perfect Match returns tomorrow with more romance and adventure than ever before! Book 2 takes the story of Perfect Match to the next level as you face down danger, travel the world, and explore what love means to you.

But first, let's talk to the writing team! Make sure you're all caught up on Book Book 1 ended on a major cliffhanger. What's the story with Perfect Match: Will all our questions be answered? The stakes are definitely higher in Book 2! You'll peek behind the veil of Eros and learn what they have in store We hope to provide another globetrotting adventure, in which you'll also get to deepen your friendships and relationships. Life on the run can take its toll, and it'll be important for you and your companions to carve out moments of normalcy and connection.

This sequel definitely builds on Book 1. What are you personally most excited about in this book? I'm so excited for you to learn more about our more mysterious characters, such as Alana and Cecile. The origin and early days of Eros are also very intriguing! We've got some sequences and flashbacks that are rather dreamlike, and I can't wait for players to encounter these moments.

We'll be delving deeper into Rowan and Cecile's backstories, and a few familiar faces will come to your rescue. Plus, someone else will be playing a bigger role Some will be friends, and some will be foes. Book 1 delved into the theme of identity and what it means to be, well, you.

Will Book 2 explore these themes more? I think someone's identity is made of different facets: We'll touch base with all of these aspects for Damien, Sloane, Hayden… even Nadia! We delve more into each character's past and where they come from in this book -- how important it is to connect with your own personal history, and how much that informs who you are in the future.

Even with Hayden, we get to learn more about the history of the Matches and how they came to be the way they are, and what parts of that history Hayden wants to keep as part of themselves. What was the brainstorming process like for Book 2? How did you decide what direction to go with this book? The brainstorming process for Perfect Match is pretty unique because our writing team is spread all over the globe! Australia, Indonesia, Kansas, and California We like to joke that we have writers working from the future. Because of the geographical distance, having the time to regroup and brainstorm all together as a team is really special.

We may even use our writer's experience and expertise to visit Indonesia later on in the book! In terms of direction, we knew that we wanted to lean into the adventure and mystery of Perfect Match, while still keeping the themes of romance and identity at the heart of the book. Which is a little ironic, given how the Matches feel about art Diplomat, which I thought was the most appealing out of all the Matches before taking the quiz.

I got Executive, but I also know how the quiz works, so it's hard to take it objectively! Maybe I cheated to get the result I wanted There you have it! Who's your Perfect Match? What books are you looking forward to playing this fall? As promised, more Choices books are here! The first two chapters of Across the Void launched today in Choices, marking the beginning of our first space opera book! You'll explore the galaxy, save the day, and maybe even find love in this interstellar adventure. For more on Across the Void from the writing team, keep reading:. Take me to your leader In Across the Void, you get to play as the main character, as well as your siblings Eos and Pax.

These three siblings are all part of an alien race called the Cyber, the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy, whose genetically designed bodies have been fused with biotechnology. Players will get to captain their own luxury transport ship, defend the galaxy as a keeper of the peace, and act as a spy in the civil war. The people want to know: Can we date an alien? And is it true that everyone's an alien? Across the Void is a human-free universe! You can date aliens from all over our galaxy, from royalty with flowers growing through their hair to admirals with stars on their skin.

Across the Void is like nothing we've done before in Choices. What was the worldbuilding for this book like? And what are you excited for readers to encounter? There are over a dozen different alien races readers will encounter in Across the Void! Each has a different look, style, and comprehensive history of their planet and society. The amazing art team working on Across the Void designed every alien, planet, and spaceship with breathtaking detail.

They really made everything in our galaxy come to life! There's a lot going on in Across the Void in the best possible way! Can you talk a little bit about that? What were some of the challenges and highlights of writing Across the Void? Along with playing your main character and their siblings who each have their own set of love interests! As the story continues, players will gain allegiance points for either side when making key decisions.

We had a lot of different themes to hit—the war, the sense of discovery, and moments of lighthearted fun. For example, it was difficult to pin down a somber song to fit the range of all our somber scenes. I got to really exercise my creative muscles to stay true to all the unique rules in this galaxy. Science fiction is my absolute favorite genre! Dick really knew how to create evocative dystopian futures where every facet of society was fully realized and placed a different pressure on the protagonist. I grew up watching the movie Bladerunner regularly a family fave which was based on one of his stories, so he's an inspiration for sure!

I grew up watching plenty of sci-fi, but never really connected with it until I played through the trilogy. To everyone reading along, hope you've embarked on your space adventure! Also, in case you missed it, Perfect Match: Book 2 launches this September! We've come a long way since Choices launched 2 years ago, and we hope you'll stay tuned for what we have planned next!

Step back in time to Regency-era England for our newest Choices book! This book is filled with romance, drama, and witty retorts -- everything you love from your favorite Jane Austen book, and then some. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a new Choices book must be in want of an introduction!

I cannot wait for readers to be whisked away to this brilliant world, and hope they fall in love with the time period, just as I have. We have absolutely gorgeous new artwork for the various estates you visit in the course of the story, along with all the different period dresses! We wanted to make sure that all of our players would feel that they had a way to connect with this story. Can you talk a little bit about what that will entail? No major spoilers, please! Well, in true Choices fashion, you'll have several love interests to pursue, but be warned that the course of love never did run smooth Bennett was trying to marry off her five daughters!

Being the daughter of a powerful family means it's all about the London Season. Will you choose to marry someone above your station or give everything up to follow your heart? This book is our first foray into historical fiction and certainly not our last! What were some of the challenges of writing in this time period?

No joke, but I currently have six Regency books on my desk. A group of us at the office even went Regency dancing to get into the spirit! Given the nature of the dances and the ratio of men to women present at a particular gathering, same-sex dancing wasn't unheard of. I have to give a shout-out to all the amazing Regency romance writers who maintain so many blogs and websites specifically dedicated to research on the Regency period!

They made it so easy for newcomers to learn things like: It really made working in this period a pleasure. We tried to strike a good balance between historical jargon and language that would be more friendly to our modern-era readers. Matching this voice was a bit of a challenge for me Darcy and Elizabeth are such strong characters with great arcs and a wonderful love story.

I love the sass and the sparks that fly between the two of them. And when Darcy declares his love for Elizabeth? I squee every single time. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. I particularly enjoy Mary Balough and Julia Quinn. I'm a sucker for both the book and the Keira Knightley movie.

And of course, stay tuned for what's next! We've also got more romance and sci-fi on the way as well. Get ready to make your debut in high society this Monday! America's Most Eligible premieres tomorrow! It's got drama, romance, and everything you'd ever want from a reality TV show.

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For more on our newest Choices book, keep reading for our writer interview:. Give us the scoop! What's America's Most Eligible about? On a scale of , how much drama will there be? America's Most Eligible is your chance to compete in a reality TV show! You'll get to pick your allies and enemies, friends and flames. Will you rise above the competition? On a drama scale of , AME is an You're competing to prove you're The Most Eligible Date in America, so you're trying to make everyone fall for you Have you seen our cast?!

There'll be plenty of opportunities for some romance or something more casual, if you prefer. Gotta practice those flirting skills somehow! What's something about America's Most Eligible that you're excited for players to encounter? We're taking the relationship system pioneered by Endless Summer and putting a reality TV spin on it! The art team has also been hard at work creating some truly breathtaking backgrounds and super hot characters. The interactions between contestants have been super fun to write. I think players are gonna love seeing who flirts and who feuds. You can also choose to get on other contestants' bad sides, just for the drama of it all.

If you've ever wanted to be a feisty and fabulous villain, now's your chance! America's Most Eligible, like any good reality TV show, has plenty of twists and turns. What was the most challenging part of writing America's Most Eligible? We want the players to feel like they're a part of a real reality TV show, so we've planned plenty of big choices that'll have long-term consequences in the book.

But of course, every twist leads to another turn, which can be challenging to pull off! Bianca is my main girl It's so fun to see players interact with her character in the real world. I'm also a sucker for Mackenzie, I have to admit. I love me a tough girl. I have a lot of love for Mackenzie, Derek and Bianca - they're definitely people I'd hang out with in real life. American Idol will always have a special spot in my heart because I used to watch it with my grandma. New York and Hottie are the greatest icons of our time, tbh.

The Great British Baking Show. I'm obsessed with Terrace House, a Japanese reality show that airs on Netflix. I'm actually shocked by how personally invested I become in each of the casts. Any advice for players about to play the game of love on America's Most Eligible? Play this game the way you wanna play it, not how you think you should.

You'll be surprised by how much your choices affect the story! Check back tomorrow for America's Most Eligible! And keep a lookout for what's next Book 2 and Perfect Match: Book 2 will return in the fall. The finale quest of Pixelberry's very first game, High School Story, will come out later today. If you've played this far, consider us both impressed and endlessly grateful. Over the years, our team has released hundreds of quests and over three thousand poll questions -- getting to Level 36 in the game is no small feat.

Last week, we took a look back at the early days of Pixelberry and High School Story. If you missed it, you can read it here. The game launched in August of A year later, our team launched a game similar in style, but different in setting: When it was time to decide what would come after HSS and HWU, we took what we'd learned from the two games and combined that with our team's prior experience in interactive fiction to make Choices.

Creating Choices felt like coming home. Many on our team got their start in mobile narratives games way back in with Surviving High School, and later with Cause of Death. The team was excited to go back to our roots with Choices. Having stayed with HSS for this long, I feel a sense of pride, the kind a parent would feel watching their child grow up, seeing the many milestones HSS has gone through — the Library, the Fantasy Photo Booth, and much more.

The past 4 years have been special working on HSS. A part of me will always live and breathe this wonderful game. Farewell, High School Story. Even as this chapter of our Pixelberry story ends, the spirit of High School Story lives on in Choices in more ways than you might think. Two of the new writers that joined our team after Choices launched were also High School Story fans: Were there any particular highlights or challenges? HSS Choices does have its differences from the original app, but it was important to me that we kept the same heart that made me fall in love with the app originally.

In the original HSS, it was up to the player who they wanted each character to date. For example, Autumn could be dating Julian, or Wes, or the player, or basically anyone in the whole school! When we started HSS within Choices, we had to make some tough calls about who was canonically dating who at the start of the new school year. The ending of HSS Prime is fairly open-ended. After all, aside from the main storyline, you could be anywhere in other quest lines!

But, in HSS Choices, the seniors did graduate. Where do you imagine they will go from here? I have some ideas about this None of this is canon, but I like to think that in college and beyond, the HSS crew gets together whenever they can. They have a group text going. Autumn texts inspirational quotes every morning, and Kallie sends the Word of the Day. Nishan and Sakura are locked in a never-ending gif war.

Ezra drops links to his music, which Katherine thoughtfully critiques. Koh spams everyone with memes. Mia vents about her classmates, and Wes suggests ways to prank them Well, it all started back in August of Within ten minutes of playing, I was in love. My journey to Pixelberry dates all the way back to high school when I first downloaded Surviving High School.

I was immediately hooked and downloaded Cause of Death when it launched. When those ended, I learned the team was moving onto a new game: I downloaded it on Day 1, and did the same with Hollywood U, always playing every quest as soon as I could. When Choices launched, I happened to be on the job hunt. After playing through the first three books multiple times within a week, I decided to see if Pixelberry was hiring. I applied, and I got the job! HSS Prime was such a personal thing for me when I was a fan.

My own little world inside my smartphone. Then, suddenly, I had the chance to expand that world, and share it with others. I loved these characters, and now I was getting to write them myself? I loved creating new stories and adventures, or little nuggets of backstory. My favorite part was adding little cameos and trivia for the keen HSS Prime fan. Or the quote on Ollie the Tiger is from Friendsgiving? Do you have a favorite memory from your time writing on HSS Prime? What about a favorite quest that you wrote? The one memory that stands out was the brainstorm for the quest V is for Victory.

It was a quest I got to write after a fan with Myasthenia Gravis sent us a letter about what High School Story meant to him. The team decided to dedicate a quest to him to raise awareness for Myasthenia Gravis. The day of the brainstorm, I pulled out all this research I did on MG, and everyone gave me this look, like "Whoa.

You did your homework. I could bring joy to people, help them cope through some dark days, and maybe bring awareness to something they've never heard of before. Writing that quest was truly a humbling and amazing experience. Working on the final quest arc has been really exciting, because we've been able to wrap up some character arcs from the very beginning of High School Story.

In these last quests, we got to see Payton embrace her wide-open future and visit her sister in Paris. Wes finally reunited with his brother. And the whole gang starting to understand Hearst students a little better. Derek really grew on me as someone who seems like he might be a bully, but is really shy and just wants to do good. He became the symbol of what Hearst could be, given the chance. I think High School Story shows us that we can have all sorts of families, especially ones made of friends. I love seeing the gang come together and have wild adventures, take care of each other, and even fight and make up.

Once we come to trust other people, we can make it through anything. But I think the biggest one for me is that High School Story is the way the world could be. When I was in high school, I thought my life would be over once I turned eighteen. Turns out, that was when the best parts of my life started. To any high school students reading this: The world is so much bigger and better than you think. Just as I'll always look back on my own high school experience fondly, HSS will hold a big place in my heart.

Thanks to all our players who have given so many energy and love to the game. Together, we've been able to make something really special. I've worked on High School Story longer than I was in actual high school, so in a way, I relived my high school years alongside all of you. I couldn't have asked for a better community to write for. It's always sad to say goodbye I may have cried a little writing the finale quest , but to be honest, it doesn't feel like a true goodbye, because these characters and this story will always be a part of me, and a part of Pixelberry.

Thank you again to everyone who has come on this High School Story journey with us. You mean the world to us, and we'll always be grateful that we got to share High School Story with all of you. For many, summer is a time of beginnings and endings: It's the start of summer vacation, and the end of a school year. If you're a senior, summer means graduation and the start of a whole new chapter of your life.

Here at Pixelberry, we feel the same way. Our original game High School Story is ending, with its final main quest coming out next Monday on June 18th. Don't worry, the game will remain available to download and play!

To say farewell, let's take a look back at the early days of High School Story:. Pixelberry started out as a small tight-knit team, working on High School Story all the way back in Our team has grown a lot since then, but at launch in August of , everything you saw in the game was thanks to a handful of designers, developers, artists, and writers From one of our artists, Bob: So when you walk on the grass, visit a hangout, click a button, or notice a seasonal change on the loading screen, I was a part of it.

And a note from Oliver: The best example would be the guy in glasses - Daniel. Before we launched High School Story, Daniel was a high school intern with our team. When he graduated and went to college, Daniel tapped into his love of music and created the music for Choices. We are so proud of him and so excited to work full time with him! Since the very start, one of the goals of High School Story was to emphasize acceptance.

Along the way, new game features were gradually added in, like The Library, where you could learn SAT vocabulary, and Your Voice, a one-stop shop for poll questions on current events and just about everything else. These features helped us connect with players more than ever before. One QA member, Glenda, reminisced about our poll feature: Of course, there were a few bumps along the road.

Edward, another QA team member and the host of our very first livestream, encountered one such bump: A bug that got past me was immortalized into the game due to the love of our fans and I will never forget that. As the High School Story community grew, so did our love for the creativity and enthusiasm we got to see everyday online. The sprawling community took place across our forums, social media, and even our official Ask Payton Twitter!

We decorated our walls with fanart, shared funny and inspiring fan messages with each other, and speculated about how players would react to plot twists and new Classmates. And with each passing month, High School Story's story and characters transformed into an entire world of its own. For a closer look at how the story evolved, read on:. Neighborhood duck sightings, holiday parties, cutthroat cookie competitions -- every day was an adventure! When we started writing High School Story, we really had to come up with everything, like how many lines of dialogue should be in each quest, or how we handled incorporating the quest requirements into the story.

It was tricky figuring out new ways to have the requirements make sense "We need more room for the football field! My favorite part was always making the characters. I loved working on the looks for Payton, Mia, and Kara of course , but my favorite was Katherine. My first quest was all about Autumn, and the most challenging part was making sure her voice felt right for the character we wanted her to be.

I remember how fun it was coming up with all the mechanics, with the way stories integrated into gameplay, with the different kinds of requirements that could be fulfilled. Close to HSS launch, we all came into the office on the weekend and tested the partying probabilities. We had to throw like a million parties each to make sure we could get all the different types, and that partying worked how we expected it to. We had a bunch of big sheets of paper hung up on the walls, and everyone would write down their results A few months later, those same walls were covered with fanart.

Leading brainstorms for new Classmate types with the other writers was always fun. How did you feel when you first started writing for High School Story? What did you enjoy the most? What was the most challenging? The thing I enjoyed the most and what I found most challenging go hand-in-hand: I learned so much from them every day, even or especially when I struggled to live up to their awesomeness. It's been incredible to watch the team grow and learn as we've expanded to HWU and Choices, but I still remember my very first Writers' Sync Meeting where we all fit comfortably in one little conference room.

Honestly, I was terrified. I was in awe of all the senior writers, who were pros in the game industry already and also just happened to be BFFs. Plus, the HSS cast all have such unique character voices, and I was afraid I wouldn't get them right. Fortunately, Max took pity on me during training and let me play to my strengths, assigning me a nerdy Nishan-centric HeroCon adventure for my first quest. Since then, I've grown to love writing every member of the HSS cast, but Nishan is still my favorite.

I started out as a poll question writer, then gradually clawed my way into writing quests full time. But HSS had this deep emotional sincerity that grabbed me right by the feels and pulled me in. Everyone on the team not just the writers! Even when we were stressed out and overworked, we talked about Nishan, Koh, and all the rest like they were old friends. When we launched High School Story, we didn't know how quickly people would play through the storyline, but the week we launched, we realized we were going to need a lot more content.

I was going on a trip to Oregon, but we had to get the next quest written, so I remember writing our 14th quest, "The Gamer Girl" where you recruit Sakura, while I was riding in the car. It was surreal to have been working on this game for so long and to suddenly have people playing it -- flying through it, really -- and needing to write the thing that would come next before they ran out of things to play!

We had so much fun writing HSS, even when we were in crunch time. Our poll question brainstorms are definitely a highlight. Or all the times we walked to the nearby shaved ice place to brainstorm. Or staying late in the office until everyone left was delirious and our writing was definitely not shippable.

One of those jokes made it into the Black Friday quest: When I was asked to write it, I thought of it as a tremendous honor, but at the same time, I knew it was going to be really important, so I was keeping that in mind all the time I was writing. I really loved writing The Games We Play storyline, where Sakura deals with sexism and harassment in gaming. It was the first storyline that I wrote that really tackled some serious real-world issues, and it also let me write my favorite trope, which is building a team of friends to kick some butt.

My favorite quest I ever wrote was Snack Attack originally titled "Proof in the Pudding" where all your friends become homework-loving zombies after eating some poisoned pudding. I also enjoyed writing all of the various date quests and the education storyline with Kallie. I loved "The Mild West", because it made zero sense. My favorite storyline would be the Ace quests.

When we started brainstorming, Luke said "I know you don't like drama It was awful, but I learned a lot. I'm pretty darn proud of that moment when spoiler incoming Ace cuts into a rare steak as he's betraying you, and a trickle of blood pools on the plate. You get sucked into an alternate timeline where you never founded your school, and then Autumn threatens you with nunchucks.

The Zunana quests that Kathleen wrote. And Nishan's Fanfiction by Owen. And Snack Attack by Megan. And Keyan's haunted Oregon train ride quest, which was the moment I started secretly shipping Julian and Nishan. There's so many, I can't just pick one! Don't treat life like a competition. Your worth isn't determined by your success, academic or otherwise.

You deserve love and support, no matter how much or how little success you've achieved. That was the underlying message of the Ace quests, and I think everyone could do with a reminder of their inherent worth. Whenever people ask me about the games Pixelberry makes, I describe them as games that come from a better future -- a future where a lot of the hangups people have now simply don't exist anymore. We didn't make a big deal about the same sex-dating option, because same-sex dating shouldn't be a big deal!

Friendship really is magic! Thank you so much for playing! HSS was a game made by real people, and if you follow our blog you know that Pixelberry Studios went through some rough years there. There was a very real chance that the studio would close. Knowing that you were out there, playing, laughing, cheering, feeling We're so happy that we could revisit HSS in Choices, and we hope you join us for more stories in the years ahead. HSS will always have a special place in my heart, and I want to thank all our fans for their support throughout the years.

It's very hard to say goodbye to High School Story. I love these characters like they're my real friends, and I've heard stories from players who feel the same. If I had one hope for High School Story, it would be that -- to make people laugh, to tell them a story, and to give them a place where they can come and have an amazing, funny, quirky, group of friends. The writers here pour our hearts into everything we write. It's incredible to have been a part of something that's resonated with so many people. In many ways that was the story of the Pixelberry team.

At the beginning, we had all been laid off from EA. And with hard work, persistence, and a good helping of fun, we created something that touched the lives of millions, saved actual lives, and continues to live on in our hearts.

We all had a lot of fun taking a trip down memory lane, and we may have gotten a little carried away! As you can see, High School Story shaped so much of what Pixelberry is today, and that's something we'll never forget. This Monday, we've got one more blog post for you about the bridge between High School Story and Choices.

We hope you'll follow along and, if you're at Level 36, tune into the High School Story finale quest. Book 2 is returning with more romance, big budget movies, and plot twists! Where will your path to stardom take you next? Step into the spotlight and find out. Read on for a behind-the-scenes look at Red Carpet Diaries: Hollywood is all about what's new, what's shiny, and the latest drama.

What's new in Book 2? This book is all about going big! You film on glamorous locations for your massive new blockbuster, make the rounds of the Hollywood gossip circuit, and you even have the chance to pick out a glamorous new home! I swear, I want every single thing you get to wear to exist in my IRL closet. That said, just like in Hollywood, all that glitters isn't gold -- readers are going to see the dark side of fame, too.

Will our rising star make any new friends in Book 2? Will we be seeing any familiar faces from Hollywood U? Our heroine will be making some new friends, some in very high places. And of course now that she's the "it" girl, there are people ready to tear her down, like her new costar. What was the brainstorm process like for Book 2? What's the inspiration behind Book 2? We knew right away we wanted to step up the scale and take you to the next level, from an indie film darling to starring in a major summer blockbuster. So a lot of the brainstorming was just coming up with the most fun and exciting aspects of that, like jet-skiing with a bazooka and filming all over the world.

Book 2 is about the thrills -- and risks -- of being on top. That made brainstorming SO much fun. It was a process of 'wait, what would be even more? But we also wanted to show another side of fame. It's not all red carpets and brilliant smiles. Hollywood is a larger than life place, which can lead to larger than life problems. I don't want to spoil anything for people, but this book is like a roller coaster -- thrilling highs, and terrifying drops.

The brainstorm process for RCD is super fun because Andrew and Jilly are always hilarious, so it's great to bounce ideas around together. There has been a lot going on in the Hollywood world recently, and it felt meaningful to touch upon those issues within our Choices universe, as well as see how you as a character can regain agency over your life, narrative, and creative endeavors.

Which Red Carpet Diaries character out of the main cast do you relate to the most? I'm probably most similar to Teja. I really respect her hustling attitude and would like to be more like her! Seth would be a great best friend though since you'd probably laugh all day. If you had to co-star in a movie with one of the RCD characters, who would it be? I would most likely choose to co-star with Victoria, who I think is a very interesting, multifaceted character.

I would probably leave the set completely emotionally exhausted, but I would learn a lot from her. An ocelot cameo would be magical, too. There are some seriously tough issues that we confront, and that I think need to be addressed more openly and more often. The world of RCD is over the top, but the issues our characters face are so universal.

I'm really glad we get to bring more of those to the page this time around. Roll out the red carpet for the launch of Red Carpet Diaries: Book 2, out tomorrow! Our original High School Story game had its first day of school back in August of With the story rebooted in Choices, we've decided to close the book on this chapter of our Pixelberry story this summer. High School Story will release its finale quest two weeks from now, on June 18th, alongside a final update in the following weeks.