So, after getting used to how the coding works with the side stories, Crimson Tide is going slowly and steady.
Instead of taking the simple approach of writing just a short story with not a lot of interactivity, I'll be pushing the current side story engine to it's limits and see how much of an "adventure" feeling I can get out of it. I know that by editting the nscript.dat would get me a lot more options, but for now I'll just stick to the side story engine, as limited as it is.