Friday Rambles 2023-02-10 + Game Dev Updates

Another week, another Rambles. Wait what? Is it Friday already?

I'm on time this week! What else is there to say, really? Another week, another pile of game code commits.

I've been thinking I need to read some books or play some games or something, just so I'm not falling into a weird feedback loop where I'm only making things and only looking at the things I made. If this game release does reasonable well and it buys me some time to make another game, then I'll probably prioritize the "work/life balance" a bit more.

The next series of words will be possibly Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines spoiler heavy. 

If you care about spoilers, I'm very flattered! You'll also want to stop reading here.

I made a settings menu.

Pretty exciting stuff. Well, still, it's needed for it to be ready for Actual Other People to play!

I also made more app icons because the phone home screen was looking pretty barren, but now I don't want to do the work of making a bunch of social media posts and emails for "optional world building side lore" which I really wish I had time to write and draw a bunch of, but I'm already behind on my writing as it is, and I really, really need to get the game out soon. 

No, Whiskey! In fact I can't stop talking.

Yesterday, I learned about a game called Incredible Crisis. I had not heard of it before, but it came up in a Tim Rogers review of a different game that I was cutting up and consuming in bite size pieces like some kind of fine steak, and after watching a longplay of the game my soul was like: "This is the kind of game I wanted to make all along" and I was so inspired I immediately built a prototype of a game sequence where Penny has to use a laser cannon installed on the top of the roof of her office's building to defend the city from an invading alien armada. There's a story reason for this, I promise.

(big gif below, please wait warmly if it doesn't load)

Anyway, that's in the game now. Sorry.

There's also an RPG segment.

Yeah, I put this in the game too. I actually put this in a few weeks ago. This was the surprise I kept talking about earlier but I think I have better surprises now. Wait did I already give all the surprises away?

My bad!

Don't worry there are more.

So once again the game tilts more from purely text based visual novel to a hybrid VN+Skye's Airfryer Microgames-like genre-defying whatever-the-hell-it-is. Well it's uhhhh "My Art!"

At a certain point I really need to do a "feature freeze" and just finish what needs to be finished, but I don't know, I'm just not satisfied with this game being just a bunch of words and clicking a bunch of dialogue choices, especially when I'm not some kind of master wordsmith. idk. Despite my whining I actually do really like the weird direction the game is taking. I think the realistic outcome is going to be like a fun and weird but flawed game that'll be good for a quick couple playthroughs, kind of like my zine :). Not that anyone should expect anything different for a first game from anyone, really. Guess what! It turns out I have no idea what I'm doing after all. Wow, good marketing there! Sorry! The game will be perfect and GOTY 2023! Please buy it!

Speaking of buying it, yeah it's still gonna be $5.99 with launch discount down to $4.something. I don't think it's a particularly high price for something like this...

In other news the music is coming along great. And that's it for the music update. It'll all be done before my game is done, that's for sure.

So yeah, I'm still only thinking of game. Oh, I also took my car to get a smog check for my car registration renewal. It passed. Maybe I'll put in a smog checking microgame in the game. No! No! No! Stop it!

Tiger-chan, no! Well... maybe you have a point this time.

See you next week when I've added 3 more microgames instead of writing dialogue. Or... maybe they could simply replace the dialogue >:) After all, they both serve a story purpose in the end. 

Anyway, thanks for your support, as always!