Resident Post: WRITING TIME!
Yep, we're onto the writing stage and I'm pretty stoked about it xD
The CGs are like 98% finished, there are definitely some CGs that need expression tweaks and a few that need added entirely but for now I've been getting stuck into RPGM. I have almost fully completed
all of the Aoife content, that includes the pre event, the main event (ONE route) and the post event. I haven't tested it with music just yet but I know it's gonna need a lot of going over to make it "good."
It's probably the
densest reading section in the entire game but to me
it actually feels too short when I run it back. It's like a mini novel, you will be absolutely pummeled with information regarding Aoife, Tony, Theo, Oonagh and Bill Deloitte in this patch but it has to happen at some point. It's full of legal details, histories of Renshire and other much
more interesting things that I shant spoil but it's all important in one way or another. I spent many hours back and forth with ChatGPT many moons ago discussing the legalities of everything involved just to make sure that I wasn't making shit up and now the fruits of old labor are finally put to paper
A lil Lisa portrait >)
I was trying to think of the rest of the game and it's "reveals" or however you wanna say it and I don't think there's anything that's quite as wordy as this but I hope it's more interesting than tedious to say the least. I feel somewhat odd about it as it is, likely because it's a lot of talk about events that happened long before the timeline of the game. I personally don't think this is a great means of storytelling, simply unloading a large amount of information on the player/reader that they don't really have much reference to but I'm not sure there was another way to deliver Aoife's story. I could've drip fed details of her past over time but in the end it's an RPG and playing the role of Lisa; she was always gonna go through everything with Aoife at some point.
I know for a fact that I'm gonna get
inundated with complaints about it on F95 and I'm kinda looking forward to reading those tbh >)
So..
the opening sequence now has a skip function.. It's works-
ish(?)~~~ >(
If you press cancel/escape/x/right click even once; it will work. If you press it twice..
your game will crash xD
I spent an evening trying to work in a skip function for the opening
and also for the Recollection Room events but while the intro works, I couldn't get the same function working in larger events, at least
consistently. I tried a plugin that I purchased after giving up myself that offers the ability to skip scenes but sadly it only worked on around 70% of the scenes, this wouldn't be terrible except in the instances that it doesn't work, the game crashes. The skip function itself is quite intermittent in that sometimes the plugin just didn't seem to register the inputs at all. I played around with it for 4-5 hours but in the end, it's been removed. I just couldn't figure out why some worked and others didn't which is a real shame. Having a buggy system like that implemented would inevitably just lead to more frustration. I had intended on later applying this function to
MOST events in the game, so you could swiftly skip through content you're not interested in but I'm gonna leave it for this patch at least. I will revisit it later but I have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time ^_^
This is part of the Troy "desk" minis. There are only 3 of these so far, it'll be expanded in the post patch !
In less exciting news.. I've remade all of Aoife's faces to correctly display her improved facial features. Aoife's model really stood out when I was working on the TB event because her face was almost clipping in certain places, mostly around her nose so I amended her slightly, added a specular map and touched up a few other bits n pieces to better fit breasts and genitals. I have definitely got a better grip on expressions in Daz since Aoife's first faces were made so I consider all of these to be a vast improvement even without the upgrade to her model and skin material. This might seem like a minor thing but I think faces do a lot of heavy lifting as a means of bolstering the accompanying dialogues.
The old version looks more plastic with doll-esque features. The new nose and materials really fix the issues I was having when posing Aoife's expressions. Old CGs will be updated accordingly in time too x
In other "PaleGrass is a moron" news: There may be a minor issue with how I structured the JP events that lead to Troy. In Gina's Game there was a counter based on how "aroused" Lisa was that would determine which routes were available with Troy in the elevator (seven minutes in heaven scene), the issue is that some players may have opted out of Gina's Game dares but also want to continue down Troy's route. I don't have a solid fix for this as of yet but I'm gonna add a little check in the upcoming Troy event that will ask players that didn't engage with Troy at all if they want to opt into Troy's content.
The fix for this in future will be a tiny addition to the Elevator event in Jayce's Party that'll flick that switch based on player choice. Maybe one more choice added where Lisa isn't aroused but still finds Troy "appealing" in a weird sorta way that she doesn't fully understand.
Anyway that's more for me and less for you guys, the only thing you may notice in the upcoming patch is that if Troy isn't your cuppa tea, you will still be prompted with the ability to jump onto his route. If that's the case,
just say no xD
This scene is all over the place and it's a long scene. I don't think the next MS events will be nearly this length lol
One last small thing.. Over the years I've seen a lot of comments about finding parts of the game too complicated or not knowing how to progress or that people were getting stuck but 9 times outta 10 the actual areas of the game that they were getting stuck were never actually mentioned, usually these were users venting their frustrations so little pertinent information was shared. It wasn't exactly a common complaint but it's one that could be fixed very easily in most cases so I'm just throwing out a line to everyone: Is there any point in the game where you felt it was a bit unclear?
Obviously things like: "I don't want to do X content but it's required for Y" isn't gonna result in changes because if X content is required, it's for a reason ^_^ But anything like the Journal for example, is there a route that could use more detail? I will of course review all of this myself before the final version of the game but in the meantime, it's a tremendous effort to go through
everything, especially when I'm still driving this crazy train trying to finish it before I croak lol!
I thought I'd throw it out there anyway, for everyone here and on the forums
I had a wee idea that I might action if it doesn't take too long in the post patch; adding little images in the corner that will pop up and tell you when the journal has been updated and which entry was changed. This is a pretty minor thing but some events in the game trigger multiple updated journal entries and little things like this might make scrolling through the journal afterward a bit less of a nuisance. I don't think it'd take me very long to make them, just creating a template like the instagram photos and populating it with the appropriate text, the annoying thing is going through all of the events in the game and actually adding the images xD
Weird update post, right? It's a good thing there's a few images to spice it up! Truth is, I've already told you guys just about all I have to share before the patch so I'm just rambling my scattered thoughts now that my fingers are in typing form >)
The patch will be released at the end of the month as per usual )
Okay that's all I got! Wishing you guys an amazing Friday and a jolly weekend ^_^!
Sending my love to all xo <3!!!!
//pG
Last minute Christmas shopping..
