Progress Report 2021.12.13

Hi friends,

A short update for today. The past two weeks have been incredibly busy (balancing life things with work things, as you do). While I’m not where I want to be with the chapter, I am still getting parts of it done every day, so progress is happening!

To recap from the last few progress reports: I’m currently working on Chapter 2 Scene 2, which is the largest and most complex scene of the chapter. The MC is attending a gala and the exploration mechanic lets the player visit four different locations, each of which have different important characters, foreshadowing, and lore threaded throughout. I am currently working on the most difficult section of this scene, which includes the introduction of three major characters: Allegra Arantir (conditional to the player’s skill checks and choices), Phaedra Amestris (a potential secondary romance, so the player will always encounter her), and Melchior Larkspur (a future companion character; the player will always encounter him here).

I am at the end of this section and hopefully will finish up Mel’s introduction today or tomorrow, then move onto the next location. I’ve had to cut back some content (otherwise I’m going to be writing this chapter forever).

I’m committing to finishing the whole party sequence before updating the alpha build. There are some details that will need to be edited in once I have all the areas written because those options are dependent on the player’s previous actions. It’s easier to do that once I have all the major beats down, but before it gets coded. When the alpha build updates, there will be a ton of content to explore!

If you’re in the Discord, I’ve shared a few WIP snippets of this scene in the Patreon WIP channel.

I have a few re-designs for the Journal in mind, but haven’t started working on them yet. I want to remove the progress bars for skills. I’ve never really liked how they look and they always remind me of the this % vs that % system popular in ChoiceScript games. Wayfarer’s skill progression doesn’t function that way, so I’d like to do something different with it.

In other news, Wayfarer reached 50,000 browser plays today! I’m not sure if I’m going to celebrate, but it feels like a milestone. 🥳

Thank you all so much for your support! 💕