Devlog #28: What a strange week it's been.
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13 hours ago
Hey everyone, old and new! It's been a week since release, and now that the update's settled, what do you guys think?
All things considered I'm personally very satisfied with how things are going, and for what the future holds in regards of the story.
Before I start yapping, let me give you a progress report. I got back into development on Thursday after my 3-ish day break and the ball's been rolling since. So far, I'm still on the first day of the new update, but it's a big one. It's got Jeremy, Gemma and Marissa omniscient events. I'm finished with writing and rendering Marissa's part, and I'm halfway through Gemma's. We're looking at ~100 renders finished with maybe 50 more to go for the first day to end. I started working on the first day of the update because it picks up right after the last one ends and wraps up those days' self-contained events. Afterwards, I'm probably going to start planning and writing each character's anchor events and go from there.
The first two sections are going to be about Mystery mode and Bonnie's role in the story moving forward, so you can read these sections without worrying about V4 spoilers if you haven't gotten around to playing it yet. The last section (Marissa) will contain V4 spoilers.
Let's get it started!
Mystery Mode
To put it plainly, it needs more attention from my part. Last update's story writing and rendering + animating for omniscient mode ate up almost the entirety of my dev time, leaving little room to expand mystery mode. I don't want this to be a trend moving forward, especially given how large the portion of the playerbase that exclusively plays mystery mode is. I tried bridging the gap a little with the video calls, making it so they benefit both mystery and omniscient mode, and while I believe it's a step in the right direction, there's more that can be done to make mystery mode more immersive and engaging. I don't have anything solid to give you yet, but you can rest assured I'm brainstorming ways to liven up mystery mode for the coming updates. And given that omniscient mode is just an enhanced version of it, improving it will be a net positive for all players.
I still want whatever improvements I make to be plot-relevant and realistic, but again, I'm still not sure what that will look like just yet. I'm open to any feedback! You guys are the players, so you might have ideas as to what you want to see that haven't crossed my mind, so feel free to drop your suggestions!
In short, I don't want to gut or cut down omniscient mode content to bring it more in line with mystery mode, instead I want to improve mystery mode to bring it up to speed.
Bonnie
She's been a thorn in my story-writing side for a while. I won't lie, everytime I figure out what I want her to be or what role she's supposed to play, I always turn around and scrap it looking for something better. And I think that's exactly what my mistake was. Trying to shoehorn a role for her to play instead of just letting her character breathe and seeing where she goes from there.
I set a rule for myself when I started this story, that every scene or event needs to have a purpose. I don't want to create events that players or myself will look back on and say "What was the point of that scene?". The issue with that rule is that I've conflated 'purpose' with plot advancement. If a scene doesn't move the story forward, there's no point to it (hence why I cut her scene from V4). The thing is, that logic doesn't apply to Bonnie, at least not yet.
So, moving forward, I'm going to start adding normal-ish scenes between her and Jeremy; simple, grounded scenes that allow her to exist as a person first, then I'll go from there.
I think she has the potential to become a very interesting character in the story, I just haven't figured out a way to tap into yet. Hopefully my new approach will fix that problem.
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Marissa (SPOILER WARNING FOR OMNISCIENT MODE AND V4 IN GENERAL)
I'm going to keep this section short. I feel like I've yapped and explained enough of Marissa's story that most of what I have to say is going to be redundant, so I'll just add a few important notes I haven't touched on before.
- Justin is still the main NTR antagonist. That's never changed. His role is going to grow and keep growing from V5 onwards, you can be sure of that.
- Flora's role in the story won't fade away. My biggest pet-peeve is a character fading into irrelevancy after they've fulfilled their role and that won't happen with Flora.
- There will be more Flora x Marissa scenes. HOWEVER, THEY WON'T COME AT THE COST OF ANY MARISSA X JUSTIN SCENES.
It's not an either-or. Just because one character is working their magic on Marissa, doesn't mean others simply can't. Moving forward, you can look at Marissa's corruption as multilateral. It'll be Justin on one side, and Flora on the other, in a way working together to keep breaking down her walls. With time, Flora's role with slow down, with Justin taking the main stage. As was always the plan.
As always, just give it time. With V5's release, all doubts about Justin's role or him being relegated will be quelled.
That's all I have to say for now! Thanks for tuning in, and for every new supporter! It means a lot to me. Have a wonderful week!
