Progress Report 2021.12.27

Hi friends,

Happy holidays!

I hope you all have had a relaxing, stress-free time. I took several days off around Christmas to rest and spend time with family and friends (over Zoom and phone calls, as the current Covid situation isn’t that great in my area). I haven’t taken any proper time off from game development for a while aside from a few sick days here and there. It’s been nice to actually press pause on Wayfarer and relax for a bit. We even have a little bit of snow! (I love snow in the winter, though my area almost never gets it).

Game Updates

While I did take a stab at finishing Chapter 2’s party sequence before Christmas, I was feeling pretty worn out and ended up taking some time off instead. This sequence has been extremely complex to craft. I didn’t want to push myself too hard and write something I was unhappy with just for the sake of meeting an arbitrary, decided-at-the-last minute deadline. I am currently working on the final location (of four) and then there is a small bottleneck to bring the player character to the next area. When all of that is drafted, I need to go back and edit in some minor continuity details and choices, and then the whole thing can be sent to my proofreader for editing.

Once the editing is done, I can then code the sequence and update the alpha build. The next update will add over 100k words of cumulative content to Chapter 2. I’m not sure what the average will be yet (likely around 30k-40k for a single run, but that’s an estimation that may be off until I run it myself). Some things to look forward to:

• Have a heavy, approval-changing conversation with Aeran that reflects on your interactions with Sabien Quirinus
• Another chance to snoop on Aeran's things and find the letters [if you didn’t find them in Chapter 1; this is a conditional event locked to a specific approval rating or a specific dialogue choice]
• Redo your hair length options [so if your character’s beard grew out in the time between chapters, you’ll have a chance to reset it to whatever you want; same thing with hair length]
• Get ready for the party [be careful—what you decide to wear and what items you choose to bring with you will effect how other guests treat you]
• Explore up to four locations at the party, each with their own characters, foreshadowing, rumours, gossip, and interactions
• Meet new major characters, including Melchior Larkspur (a romanceable companion), Phaedra Amestris (romanceable non-companion), Allegra Arantir (an Archsage), Sophia Anaxas (the archon of Velantis and Zenaida’s mother), Sandro Anaxas (Zenaida’s father)
• Swipe an important item from a noble [if you’re nimble-fingered enough]
• Get drunk (or don’t…) [this will have major consequences for the end of the chapter, so mind what you drink]

My partner has read all of the current WIP content and he’s given me a few comments. The most important one, I think, is that even though this sounds like a lot of content (maybe too much content), it doesn’t feel that way. He flew through the material in a few hours and that was reading everything (which you won’t be able to do on a single playthrough). He also noted that in this section—moreso than any other—the player character will really start to feel like your player character. There are numerous moments of flavour text that reflect your previous choices (certain actions in Rona, your origin choice, your ancestry choice, your approval level with Aeran, how you treated Rasmira, what order you did the party locations in). While the party will always lead back to the same place, there are plenty of options that will change what information you gain and how you encounter certain characters, which will affect how your character engages with the storyline further down the line.

I am back to writing full time tomorrow, so I hope I can finish up the last location in a few days, write the bottleneck, and then get the edits done by January 1st. While the new material is being proofread and edited, I’ll be working on a few QoL updates.

• Consistent capitalization of fantasy words/titles (Wayfarer will likely remain capitalized--I keep going back and forth about it--but Melusine and Aeda won't be capitalized anymore so they match human, elf and dwarf)
• A new title for Chapter 2 (Chapter 3 will be called The Tower). I may put some of the options in a poll!
• An autoname function for saves. This will be turned on by default and fill the named save slot with your PC’s name, the chapter you’re playing, and your current location. For example: Ilia - Chapter 1 – Marshwall. This will allow browser saves if you’re playing on the itch.io app. If you want to name your own saves, you can toggle it off and you’ll be prompted to name your save instead.
• A fix for a bug that prevents your settings from being saved from playthrough to playthrough.
• Minor colour changes to the light mode appearance*
• A live update fix for image assets so they load the correctly coloured asset when you switch between dark and light modes*
• A redesign for skills/abilities that remove the progress bars and replace them with a different design*
• A redesign for companion and faction profiles*

*I may not finish these for the next update since I’m still debating different designs.

I am also considering changing “Chapters” to “Episodes”. After a few conversations with my partner and others, I feel that “chapter” doesn’t quite capture the full scope of Wayfarer’s chapters. Structurally, they are much closer to individual episodes of an episodically-released narrative video game (think Life is Strange or Tell Me Wy). While many video games do divide their story into chapters (Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Last of Us, for example), because Wayfarer is text-based and delivered through prose, “chapter” makes me think of chapters like a book.

I get messages every so often from well-meaning folks asking why it’s taking so long for the game to update and I think part of it comes from a misunderstanding of what “chapter” actually covers, especially in the interactive fiction/gamebook sphere. Changing it to episode gives a different impression. I’m still debating this change, but I am strongly considering it.

Once the Chapter 2 party sequence is added to the alpha, I’ll start work on the last two scenes. I will likely write both of them before updating the alpha again. Since they are relatively short and straightforward, I hope that I can finish all of it by the end of January. If I can keep to that schedule, we’ll be looking at a complete Chapter 2 on the alpha build during the first week of February.

Chapter 3 is a scene that was originally supposed to happen in Chapter 2. I moved it into its own chapter since it is a very linear, contained event that deserves its own space. I do not want this chapter to be very long since the PC and Aeran will have a very specific, very clear mission and I don't want it to span much more than 30k of cumulative content.

This will make feel extremely short and linear in comparison to the other chapters, but Chapter 3’s importance cannot be emphasized enough. I hope I can complete Chapter 3 by the end of February and add it to the alpha build the first week of March. With the completion of Chapter 3, I can update the public build with Chapter 2.

Patreon Updates

I am currently running a poll about WIP snippets. I’ve changed how I share WIP snippets multiple times, so I wanted to get your opinion on what you prefer for how I share in-progress material. This poll is open until January 4thand is open to all patrons.

Finally, for Wayfarer+ tier patrons, Wayfarer's first guide/walkthrough is available! This is only Part 1 of Chapter 1's guide, so there will be more to follow. It takes me a very long time to put these together so the next one won't be coming any time soon, but the guides include a lot of content. There is a breakdown of every choice, approval changes, specific outcomes for certain choices, and additional development notes about how and why certain sequences came to be.  

Other Updates

I released three character previews on my development blog over Christmas. One of these previews contain some content that was previously shared as a WIP snippet, but otherwise they are unique. I will not be sharing any other Chapter 2 content publicly until the chapter is released to the public build.

Finally, there’s a full series of six secondary character portraits on my development blog! These were gifted by a friend and created by artist griever-receiver on tumblr. You can check them out at the link above.

As we move into January, I’m excited to start another year of development. I have a 2022 roadmap for Wayfarer's development and a plan for a (very) additional background project I’ll announce on my one-year Patreon anniversary. 

Thank you all so much for your support! 💕