Another update on my unsolicited unofficial remaster/patch:
Yeah, the spagetti was untangled, alright. Script/code wise. There are no technical issues to struggle with at least. Story elements though, that is a lot harder to stitch together than I anticipated. The problem is the game doesn't respect a set timeline, at all. Which is one of main issues contributing to an incohesive broken story. Events happen, or don't, at different times, willy nilly "whenever it fits the narrative". Quotation marks, because even that doesn't really work as intended, as ya'll know.
I chose to fix it by A: basing the story on a hard timeline, and B: streamlining.
Hard timeline, meaning the outside events
(stuff that happens on the screen, as well as behind the scenes) happen on certain point in time, no matter where MC is at the time, and we don't randomly drop stuff just because
(e.g. abandon and ignore the whole Jimmy situation, just because Jennifer decides to come clean about Paul and gets kicked out for it).
As an example: In base game when Jennifer calls Mark after the fight, he tells her of promotion he got. If she doesn't, the next day they talk, he apparently still hasn't got it. NOW Mark doesn't randomly get or not get the promotion retroactively depending on whether Jennifer decided to call him after the fight. Another example: Mark showing up to talk with Jennifer on certain day
only when Jennifer would decide to have some fun with Paul in the lobby. If she would just go home instead, Mark magically would decide
not to show up. Now he shows up regardless. And depending on where MC is at the time they may or may not miss each other, with Mark then naturally coming back the next morning if they did.
Basically trying not to ignore certain facts and events, just because it's inconvenient. There are plenty of such cases, where scenes happening or not happening was chaotic in nature. They do or they don't, because reasons. Grounding it all in a hard timeline was exhausting. I spent quite a lot of time just dragging boxes
(representing scenes) around on a canvas, trying to make sense of it all, thinking how certain events can be mended, bridged, and so on, without completely changing the flow or blowing it up out of proportion
(I mean, I would rather just work on my own game at that point). I'm this close now, there's just a few narrative loose ends to figure out and the tree is ready.
By streamlining I mean removing unnecessary player choice where necessary. Those choices were another, even bigger culprit to the mess, without adding much value. I think the player should be responsible to pick the right choices to progress the story the right way, but it shouldn't be on player to pick the right choices in order NOT to break the story
So some choices are streamlined. How this plays out: In some scenes, let's say a scene "X"... where previously there would always be A or B choices, now based on
previous events and choices, when scene "X" happens you may or may not have A
and B choices, OR it will automatically be A or B. I'm trying my best for it to make sense narratively though, not be random and forced. The choices are still there, just not as fragmented. How else would I explain this? Where there previously would be 2 paths, with each then branching out again into 2
(but really only 1 actually working narratively), now they won’t. Endings as well are mostly based on previous choices, rather than presenting a choice that would feel jarring in the context. Some scenes had to go, because they just didn't fit the narrative/timeline, no matter how hard I tried. It was a whack-a-mole, you fit one, another falls off.
All in all there are currently 13 endings and 36 paths to them (that's
AFTER streamlining some choices). So you can imagine the struggle to make it all make sense. But I try to make the paths and destinations they lead to be as sensible as games content allows for. Endings are a bit different though compared to the base game. Some are changed a bit, some are cut, one new (or maybe 2, we’ll see). But all are molding up to have more additional narration based on choices made. So an ending might have a bit more it based on how we got there. I wasn’t planning on that at all, but it kind of went there, because it kind of bothered me to just drop some things.
Keep in mind that I embraced what somebody here said: “Make it your own”. You might not like some changes. Also, this is a porn game in the end, it’s not that deep. I’m no writer, just a software dev.
P.S. Maybe I should create a separate thread for this, to not mix this patch talk with official game…
