The "It's done but..." update
It's done. Finished. Complete. But I have a couple of issues to resolve before I'm happy releasing it which I'll explain in a moment.
First off scores on the doors.
- 40,166 words of dialogue (which qualifies it as an actual novel!)
- 7,473 lines of code
- 1,287 still renders (excluding renders for background fluff)
- 17 animations of @3,471 render frames.
This is a big update, as you may have gathered, and is barely recognisable to the original if you've played the earlier Chapter Two.
What the heck have I been doing this month (the big one)?
Given the game was largely finished in Feb this is a fair question (we all know what happened in March...nothing.). The first level testing revealed a significant flaw in that version. Oh, there was nothing wrong with it as such. It was playable for sure and the content and graphics were fine but I'd made a significant error in terms of gameplay. I was thinking too much like a writer and not a game developer and the free roam element of the game was just too big.
Now you may think "
So what". I certainly did being more focused on world building and content creation rather than gameplay but the major issue was that there far more rooms and places for you to explore than you could actually do in the time allowed (
this is after all a continuation of the first day). I'd thought this was a good thing. That it locked down the location design, allowed players to make their own choices on where to go and would lead to you all having slightly different experiences which ultimately is what I want to achieve. I was wrong.
What actually happened was my playtester made a save before exploring, explored the rooms they could, then reloaded, then explored some more, then reloaded, then...etc etc. Then finally they booted up a save once more and explored the rooms they wanted to for their save to continue. This took them the best part of an afternoon. Clicking on things.
"
So what?" I hear some of you cry again. Well, it killed the pace of the game. Instead of being a story driven game with an interlude in the middle, it turned into a huge point and click adventure and, unlike future chapters where there are people and events in the locations, here it was all rather empty. Worse was, no matter how good the exploring content is, it became boring. A chore.
They felt they -had- to explore all the rooms in order to get the best save or in case they missed something good even though they loathe the clicky stuff as gameplay. My protestations that it was all optional (
it is) and could be skipped
(it can be) fell on deaf ears. So I had to rework this section for this chapter ensuring that the rooms available did meet the time available at least to the extent it remained playable. Given that the location finds could trigger events and dialogue options the stripping out of the code wasn't just a case of deleting a chunk of the game and took me some time. As confirmation that this was the right thing to do, the second batch of testers thought the revised pace was just right and that more content would, indeed, have been overwhelming. There is an awful lot of it as it is. Pointless releasing a game that isn't fun to play...
None of it has gone to waste of course. I now have everything ready to drop in next time which is something.
What the heck have I been doing this month (the other ones)?
This wasn't all. There was some map re-working, including mechanisms to ensure the player knew when the last turn was coming up, adding a skip feature etc. Trisha got a slight tweak to her lip gloss to make her look better, there's been a save and load screen added, animations have been smoothed out further, the power plant information screen got a rework, and a host of other minor bits and bobs that just improved things generally.
Sarah's RPG also got a makeover. Again, not because of anything being wrong with it but...I suddenly thought of a joke. A good one. The best one I've ever come up with. But it needed her game to have the slightest name change and so, for the sake of this gag...I had to redo every single image. Five hundred of them if I include the animations. Was it worth it? I think so. It's funny so....yes?
What the heck have I been doing this month (the final one)?
The final snag at the moment is the opacity slider. It's back and it works! Sort of.
If you start from Chapter One it works perfectly. Whilst playing Chapter Two it works perfectly. If you load a save from Chapter One to play Chapter Two it works...80% of the time.
I've had a crash report where the tester loaded up and instead of a one time screen interruption telling them about the new feature, it just crashed the game. It's the only instance but you won't thank me if you happen to be in the 20% so I have to solve this one.
Testing reports
A small host of little things. Typos etc all of which have been nailed but the important bit is the testers....liked it.
A lot. Their words, not mine.
Graphics are way up there, the writing is witty and funny and interesting and fascinating, clicketies are everywhere with tons of jokes and insights.
I FREAKING LOVED IT!
The change in quality is astounding! Fantastic job!
Putting it all together, the classic VN parts with choices that matter, freeroam with no boring locations and plenty to keep the player occupied with and intrigued or amused by, and a variety of nightly entertainment with the girls...it's beyond great.
So I think they liked it, and I hope you will too. I just need a couple of more days I'm afraid to resolve this bug and then let the testers run through it all one more time in case any of my corrections have screwed anything up. I'll be as quick as I can.
) a save without a single problem.
