Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #111
Added 2020-01-19 17:53:16 +0000 UTCHello, hello, hello!
I hope everyone is doing well! I'm back again with a new dev log! The days seem to be getting chillier as we step into 2020 and I've been having to crank up the heating as a result, but gosh do I hope for more mild weather eventually! Feels like it's been an eternity since it was warm outside! Brrrrrrrr~
But rambling about the weather like an old person aside (I'm not THAT old just yet) I suppose it's about time I update you all on the progress of things and offer some musings into the development of Chapter Two thus far!
The main thing I've been focusing on is the writing so far--and it's been going at a steady pace. I have my good days where the words seem to flow effortlessly and the scenes practically write themselves, and then the bad days where sometimes getting a scene done is like hammering my head against a break wall until the words bleed out--but overall I try to ensure that at least something is done day to day, so the script steadily increases in size. And gosh is it a big script so far! I've said it before I'm sure, but this is truly one of the lengthiest things I've ever written, and I still have to keep fleshing it out! The word count for Chapter Two is currently larger than a good number of my past projects I've completed in the past put together, and it really does blow my mind just how far we've come from the Chapter's earliest concept in a word document file.
I'm not typically one to boast, but gosh am I proud of everything I've written so far! Thank you to everyone for giving me the chance to create something this crazy big and I really do hope you'll enjoy it and that it lives up to your expectations!
A large amount of said word-count is distributed pretty evenly between a number of the side quests and h-scenes so far, I'd say--though I'm hoping that the main story will offer enough meat on its bones, too and be just as fun a read! Writing such a non-linear story has come with its set of challenges, and sometimes it can be a real headscratcher for me to script out when I'm trying to link everything together, and chunks of text are all out of order within the script. It makes me miss the days of how linear Chapter One was, just for how easy that one was to link everything together, haha.
Though this does bring me to the central focus of the dev log, where I want to talk about how Chapter Two is structured--and some of my hopes/fears for what people might think when experiencing it.
I'm sure I've mentioned it once, or twice, or every other dev log I've written (or maybe not at all!)--but I think the best way to view Chapter Two is that it's a larger collection of small stories that can be experienced in a number of orders.
I phrase it this way, because while there's an overarching story that will happen at set moments in time, I fear people might end up just ignoring the side content and end up hampering their experience completely by simply rushing through the main story present in the game and want to encourage people to explore all of the options at their disposal, to find that the side stuff is just as fleshed out as the main story itself in some regards!
Though these side stories don't exist in a vacuum--far from it! You'll often find that characters you meet in the side stories or items you obtain, etc. will end up interacting with other side stories (and the main story as explained in a recent dev log) in fun and surprising ways.
So please promise me that when you play, you end up exploring all of the options at your disposal, or I'll dispatch Ren to your house! That isn't an idle threat--I'll really do it!
Moving on, the more I flesh out the main story and get closer to wrapping up a lot of the key events, there's a lingering fear that eats away at me that the main scenario might just be TOO tightly contained. In that you go to very specific places several times over the course of the skirmish that Matt joins. And while a lot of epic things certainly happen--the locale doesn't change all that much. Since largely, Matt is constrained to Rhan for the duration of Chapter Two and it's been an experimental narrative to try and figure out in that regard. So he'll march out, do stuff, come back to Rhan, maybe march out again, etc. And shifting things around might be out of the question now since the backgrounds for a lot of CGs are tied to these same locations.
How do you guys feel about this? Are you happy with a lack of variety in the locales featured in main story, so long as there's still plenty of fun, dramatic moments? (Because boy there is a lot of them!) It's not to say that there's a lot of repeated content in the main story or anything--since there's still tons of unique story CG. It's been taking all of my willpower not to share them all and ruin the surprises! It's more just the backgrounds, and the places--where most of the skirmishes will end up taking place.
This is also another reason I talk about the side stories, since they offer so much variety in terms of locale and monster girls--and encourage you to take Matt sightseeing with optional quests as much as you can to see a lot of the world!
Anyways--that's what I'm most anxious about right now. I think I got so caught up in fleshing out all of the side-stuff that I didn't stop to think if I was being too restrictive with locations in the main story part. And didn't really stop to critically think about it until I reached writing the main story beyond its outline.
I suppose I'm hoping the combined experience of the main story and the side stuff will still offer quite a bit of variety for players!
Also, with February on the horizon, I hope you're looking forward to another lovey-dovey piece of Valentines Art! Any particular character you might like to see appearing next month? Here was last year's for reference! You gotta love that slimey gal~
There's still this month's bonus art to look forward to as well! I won't spoil it--but it features a character who hasn't appeared in a bonus art piece yet! Please look forward to it~
As always, feel free to post any questions, fears or concerns you may have in the comments below and I'll answer them promptly! I like to think of the comments section as an open forum, and I'll always try to answer when I can!
Until next time~
Comments
I think that last part is slightly backwards: Matt is the stage to be done one after the other...though it probably sounds more poetic in Rhenish. :)
Anthony Docimo
2020-02-02 03:53:39 +0000 UTCThat's certainly true--most VNs tend to thrive on a small number of locations that you become intimately familiar with alongside the limited cast! And it's with those limitations where a lot of creativity tends to thrive too, as you say And yeah, I completely get your concerns with the inter-connectivity of the side stuff. I suppose I should clarify by saying that not all of the side stuff is going to be interwoven, and some will just stand on its own as fun little mini stories. It's often a case when I'm writing the main scenarios that I realise, oh he might pass by the church when going this way, maybe he'd bump into June right before going on on a big mission, and so on! Just so the world feels a little more alive at times, rather than purely being a stage for Matt to do one event after the other
Frostworks
2020-01-27 13:29:02 +0000 UTCLocations don't need to change that much to create a strong adventure that progresses in a satisfying manor. I think the ultimate masterpiece in limited scope of content contrasted with unlimited scope of narrative is Steins;Gate, which has an intentionally limited setting with a small number of total locations that the entire plot takes place in, and a small cast of characters with literally no extraneous characters to move the plot, yet it has an intense and exciting story that has boundless scope. I think progressing the things you come back to, like the characters or the locations themselves will create a greater sense of adventure and progress. Like, we don't really need to personally visit the location of a large battle for it to play out in an intense way. You can have more faith in the reader to accept things that are happening elsewhere and focus more on making the larger events of the story feel like they impact the state of things. Actually, I'd sooner say that having so many small branches into side content only makes it harder to create a sense of satisfying progression in the story, since in order to make the side content feel like it matters to the story and affects it's progression, you need to put in so much extra additional work to make each potential choice from the player feel important moving forwards. That's usually the nature of optional content or choice-based narratives, you need to put in WAY more work to make everything gel right as opposed to making everything part of a set linear story where you can control the order of events and have everything clearly matter and feel like satisfying progress.
James J Canon
2020-01-27 06:55:18 +0000 UTCYou'll be set for side content then, haha, for sure! There's so much of it, you won't be able to see it all in a single playthrough. Prioritising your girls of choice will be a big decision to make!
Frostworks
2020-01-24 15:10:33 +0000 UTCIt's difficult to comment on without experiencing it first hand, but I can't imagine having a problem with seeing the same backgrounds a lot, since the story is centered around the city. And if there's a good amount of variety in the side content then I think you're golden. Speaking of side content, I'm excited to explore it all. Always been a bit of a completionist.
Rock
2020-01-24 14:20:59 +0000 UTCThank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts--it's much appreciated! I suppose in this case--my worries stems not from reusing the same BGs to illustrate multiple places, but the characters literally returning to the same places in the story. I just hope it doesn't feel lacking for readers and I'm able to keep up the tension even with the back and forths! Because room for the player to breathe and explore to do side quests in between these major story points was really important I think, or you're left with hardly any 'free' days at all to advance those points. Dx It's a struggle to balance, haha
Frostworks
2020-01-21 17:55:44 +0000 UTCYou shouldn't worry too much about the general reusage of backgrounds. One of the VN mediums greatest weaknesses is the need for proper backgrounds whenever a new location is added to the story. And art doesn't come cheap. Putting limits on the narrative to accommodate this and reusing assets for "random" locations is essentially a must. I mean, there's a good reason why SOL focused or related stories are so plentyful in the medium. Allowing high reusage rates because the characters literally keeps going to the same places (esp. School) without breaking suspension of disbelief. But while doing a "Grand Adventure" will incur greater art costs, we still see a lot of isekai VN's around. But those do tend to reuse slightly altered art assets a lot of the time.
The_Ismand
2020-01-21 03:58:26 +0000 UTCI would love to see a Certain Knight Captain try and do something girly ; )
Mart-Kos
2020-01-20 22:14:33 +0000 UTCHaha, you know, I was LITERALLY going to mention Dragon Age 2 as an example of what I was aiming for, where a lot of stuff centered around the city and surrounding area--since I really liked that. But I backed off at the last second, since I know it might instill fear in people given the reception of that game, lol. Of course, it'll be nowhere near that scale, and the main story beats will be fewer than all of the side quest content--but I suppose it's at least something to compare it to!
Frostworks
2020-01-20 13:26:11 +0000 UTCI see what you're getting at there. Dragon Age 2(The only one I played) had a similar issue, although I personally thought the storyline of saving a single city from various problems to be really cool in its own right.
Richard Hardslab
2020-01-20 13:10:42 +0000 UTCIn the case of the samey backgrounds--it's because they literally do go back to the same areas in the story, haha. Though I will try to keep it varied when I can--like the rain effect BG you saw before, which is a fun way of adding some variety as you say!
Frostworks
2020-01-20 09:12:58 +0000 UTCI'm glad to hear it! I was really nervous with how many humans I had compared to the monster girls at a certain point, but it looks like some of the humans have even outshined the monster gals, haha. They're gonna have to work harder to stand out!
Frostworks
2020-01-20 09:11:58 +0000 UTCLet's just hope that she doesn't wrap herself along WITH the gift. Or--I guess on second thought, a bonus Tari isn't so bad with your chocolates, is it?
Frostworks
2020-01-20 09:11:16 +0000 UTCThe main story being centralised on a certain set of characters in a select few locations is what I was getting at, to clear up any confusion, yeah! I suppose my concern was that it was kind of the antithesis of a grand adventure, where instead he's going out somewhere, coming back to Rhan, going back out to the same place, etc. Opposed to Chapter One that was a journey from one point to another with differing locales--and had more of an adventure feeling. Though it's my hope that the side quests fill out that grand adventure requirement in its stead and still have Matt going to all sorts of places. Thank you for the kind words, and I hope I'll be able to deliver an experience that everyone loves!
Frostworks
2020-01-20 09:10:35 +0000 UTCI can get behind the idea of a sleepy mummy valentine. Also, there's potential for varying up those samey background CGs. Time of day or weather effects come to mind as an "easy" one, as does something as simple as flipping it horizontally. Assets repeating isn't a big deal. Mostly about providing the illusion of differentiation, especially for background stuff.
TsunTzu
2020-01-19 23:26:27 +0000 UTCI second Mr. Blah's suggestion, a Valentine from Tari would be oh so lovely. :-)
Michael Vaccaro
2020-01-19 23:11:37 +0000 UTC"or I'll dispatch Ren to your house!" Challenge accepted! You do that! I'll... hold hands with her :3 Quest Failed is so full of great waifus I have no idea how I'll decide. Looking forward to Chapter 2!
Zavijava
2020-01-19 22:12:19 +0000 UTCMy vote for the next Valentines character is Tari. With her mummy talents in wrapping, surely her gift won't have scratches or gunk on it!
Mr Blah
2020-01-19 20:01:22 +0000 UTCI'll admit I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the main story being contained? I do kind of think that the idea of a game with a main story and side quests is that the main story be rather focused, and the side quests be your way of learning more about a setting and an area, so that all really does kind of work out. But really, if the main story is centralized on a certain set of characters in a select few locations, there's nothing wrong with that(a lot of old plays function the same way). All in all, it's good to hear how proud you are of how far you're getting with the story, and I can't wait to give the game a shot!
Richard Hardslab
2020-01-19 19:58:44 +0000 UTC
