Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2024-11-22

It's the Friday Rambles.

Real Life Stuff:

I had a lot of Real Life Stuff to take care of this week, which meant I could only go to the Office once, on Monday. But, that doesn't mean I wasn't productive. I actually got a lot of work done at my home game dev rig. At the cost of me not exercising like I normally do, but I'm still recovering from a minor cold, so whatever.

Merch Stuff:

I finally sold all the Clear File Folders, with a few I'm keeping for myself for possible future things. I also ordered new restocks of existing stickers that were sold out, although I really should get around to making new stickers at some point. Probably after I'm done with this game.

Game Dev Stuff:

That's right, this was my main focus for the week, and I'm happy to say I've made lots of good progress.

A big part of that progress was actually me cutting out a big chunk of Planned Game, which added too little for the amount of work it was requiring. Basically it was an entire alternate route that added a huge amount of extra complexity and extra artwork to the main story for almost no reason, for a secret ending that didn't matter.

So I kept the essence of the secret ending, and moved it somewhere else with the same general story, but more standalone, so it wasn't weaving through the main story adding a ton of continuity issues that I needed to logic around. It felt really good deleting a bunch of conditional statements, and I salvaged good dialogue where I could.

I also added an extra scene (cool and secret) to beef up an unfinished section. And moved around some game objectives, and added all the connections from each story segment to the next, drew remaining placeholder graphics, and ... big milestone: played through the entire game from start to finish without having to use debug commands. I think all the major story flags and logic is done, and I just need to finish some side routes and add flavor and add an epilogue. I don't think there will be any more major reorganization or objective updates, and it's now just a case of me finishing remaining planned dialogue. (wow why do I feel like I've said this before...)

But really! I played through it, finally, and it's definitely beefy and satisfying! I think! Might even be way longer than Chapter 1!

No interesting screenshots, though, because all the new locations are using placeholder backgrounds and are secret anyway.

The game is both more complex and more linear than the previous chapter. You'll know what I'm talking about when you play it. There are lots of optional things, still, and plenty of bad endings you can make bad choices to get, but unlike Chapter 1, if you get to the end you'll see the main ending. Except if you really Screwed This Up, of course.

(Only 10% of players Screwed This Up, and even less will Screwed This Up Again)

So! My stated goal of finishing the script for translation by "End of November" still seems doable, although I completely forgot about the Thanksgiving holiday season till just now, and I'll be busy with family stuff, so maybe I'll be over that deadline by a few days. Oops. This game will never be done.

Anyway, I'm nearing the end, and I can't wait to show you what I've been toiling over all this time, and I'm hopeful you'll enjoy it (if you liked the first chapter, of course). Then I can finally work on the Switch release, and hopefully finish in time for whenever the Switch Successor is. And of course, work on Game 2, which is sorely needed soon if I want to continue calling myself a "professional game developer" instead of like, "sad office worker with broken dreams" or whatever.

The End

Cool! Thank you for your support, as always. Next week, I'm planning to say that "I'm at least 99% done with the script, and will be shipping off the script for translation in the coming days". There's still hope! And if you're in the States, have a good Thanksgiving... and Black Friday >:). Okay, see you next week!