Dev Diary #43

What day is today? I have no idea.

It's been a very strange week for me. 

First of all, I've been dealing with some personal paperwork and there are still some things to do but I won't bore you with personal stuff.

Secondly, I've lost track of time since Tuesday. Why? Good question... I have no idea.

I was quietly working on... I'm not sure? I was clearing my beta to-do list and suddenly I got the idea to start a new game to check a bit all the renders from the intro to see how bad they were in terms of clipping and by the gods... It's not that bad, the problem is the dialogues! Little by little thanks to the proofs and to the research I'm doing from time to time I'm improving my English grammar, this means that when I revise old dialogues I have to make a lot of changes: move commas, put commas where there weren't before, some dots at the end of the sentence that is missing... The problem is that I've found things that would make the fussiest reader cry. I don't understand what the fuck happened in 5.0 but as for old dialogues (until you meet Tali) they are a real disaster: lower case when they should be upper case and vice versa, a lot of weird words together when they should be separated, more sentences than I thought they were missing a dot at the end, I've found words separated by dots (wtf?) and a long etc... 

It's been a nightmare to go through all that and I still don't understand what has happened to it... At least I'm already at the starting point of 6.0. I have also tried to make better use of the usual transitions and above all to remove a lot of unnecessary shouting (screen shaking). I still have to revise all the dialogues of the girls when you talk to them and the secondary girls (and why not, the rest of the levels from Alina/Myra onwards since everything else is revised). This has broken all my plans to redo things... Obviously, I can do it all before the public release but that will include taking time away from 7.0. I'll have to see how I do it because I haven't been able to redo the part when you meet Yuna nor have I been able to redo the renders inside the management room with the new map. Oh yeah, I haven't been able to redo the presentations I had planned either.

What I have been able to do is redo Anna's presentation. It's similar to the old one but less... cringe. The others are fine except for Maria who also gives me a lot of cringe vibes (not a bad idea I had but not the best when I was planning the presentations). At that time I was experimenting with cameras and eventually, I realized that it was better to use the Renpy style (transitions). I don't rule out spending time again on these things (cameras) in the future.

All explained, and since I mention transitions... I have to say that I have tried almost 150 new transitions and in the end, I have kept just a few (I am grateful that I found it by chance in the Renpy community and that the person who made it shared it for free use.).

For now, the most notable for everyone will be the one I already showed which is to use fast travel.

I've also added a frequently recurring one which is the close/open eye transition.

This transition is added throughout the story and tasks and I will use it every time you close or open your eyes.

To make a little more sense (so to speak) of Vanessa, at the beginning of the story when she tries to corrupt us there is a transition (in this case your mark preventing you from being corrupted), and when we meet her for the first time.

I've also decided to put it here, it looks cool.

I was thinking of adding it when she snaps her fingers and changes the scene but... I have to test because I like the screen shaking + instant change.

Oh yeah, while I was playing it occurred to me that I'm going to do a quick review of the transitions again and see if I can find one for Mara's power that she uses it a few times and will use it more times in the future so it would be nice to have a transition for that. I was thinking of Anna but she has her own transition so to speak (butterflies). I also don't want to think too far ahead with this new transitions thing or it will be a bit crazy in the end with so many different transitions... Although I have to admit that I would like to find one that fits well with the end of a scene like when a level or a quest ends. I'll give that a second thought during the 7.0 beta. What I will try to add is Mara's if I find a cool one.

Finally, I still think that the intro and the first quests (until Anna moves with you) are a bit of a shower of dialogues and there is little dynamism or freedom. Unfortunately at the moment, I can't do much about it because it's still an introduction to Gold Valley and it's just a lore part to make it all make sense. I'll wait patiently until I introduce the changes I want to make in the jobs to see if I can take advantage of that and make some changes in the intro too. In general, it's not bad, maybe at the beginning as I've always said Maria is a bit intense with her explanations... But well, it's not so dramatic as to rewrite all that as I've thought more than once. I still think that something is missing in those first hours of the game to make it lighter/dynamic. This doesn't really affect you guys because you've already gone through all that but still, I always have to think about new players and what can make them interested in playing or not (the intro is boring as hell depending on your expectations when you start playing). It's complicated because it has to follow some steps in order for you to know the story and get immersed in it but at the same time not be boring or tedious. I want to be optimistic that I will find a good balance in the not too near future when I have more experience in writing.

That said, over the weekend I'm going to be working on finishing revising as much of the dialogue as possible and I'm going to redo Maria's introduction. As I said, I thought it was funny at first because of her attitude when you first meet her but I think it's a bit on the borderline of cringe (an example of these things that you don't notice if you don't play a new game from time to time is when you say Vanessa's name and Maria purifies you, in the last version I changed it to the sound of lust's skill, which is more in keeping with Maria).

I hope I can do it all on Saturday because I'd like to take Sunday off to rest mentally and get ready to work on the next version + whatever I have pending.

As a reminder, 7.0 will be about Tali and Maria. I have both Maria's levels planned (4-5) but Tali's I haven't thought of anything concrete yet because I haven't decided which of all the ideas might be the best. Oh yes, for those who don't know or don't remember... SPOILER: Maria's level 5 will be to have sex with her as that was decided by the Kings/Champions a while ago as Maria works similar to Yuna.

I try to follow a little bit the order according to when you met the girl with the exception of Maria but the order of the girls is not always planned 100%. At some point, I have to break that dynamic because at some point I would like to introduce more interaction with the rescued and inhabitants but I have mixed feelings about this and I have to think about it.

Anyway, I'd better say goodbye here before I go on telling my nonsense!

PS: I just remembered that I've found a lot of very silly bugs that as always I will never understand how I could have missed... None of them is game-breaking but the most "critical" one is not upgrading Anna's task (lvl7) correctly if you don't have Alina at level 3. It's just the description, you can still show up in the evening at the entrance and the task is still there but huh, come on...

See you Monday!