Development Update #9 - May 15, 2017

Hey guys, Dev Update time!

I've got a few things I want to talk about today.

There's been overall positive feedback towards the minigame (exploration, point-and-click) of EP2.
I told you it was an experiment, and if you liked it then I can do more with it. The navigation bar is made that way for a reason. I want to implement something bigger (trying not to spoil anything before the time comes to reveal) it's just difficult to get everything right, for everthing to fit the flow of the game. It's probaby bit  confusing to you right now, let me explain.

From a game design standpoint, in a good minigame (or any game for that matter) the player is presented with a challenge, and upon completing the challenge the player gets rewarded. However, the challenge has to be a real challenge, some difficulty is required for the player to feel they worked hard for the reward. It also has to be interesting and captivating, without being repetitve, or else you will end up with a bored player or a grind.

I'm not aiming for a grindy experience as I already told some of you. So I thought in EP3 the party would be a good place to add a minigame similar to the one in EP2, but with more options. However, I realized that in that storyline I have to force the player into a certain decision to be able to advance the story. It's just how it has to be. With this, I would take away meaningful choice in the minigame, and we would end up with something that isn't really a game, just something you have to go through.
I rather not pack a minigame in just so I can say it has a minigame, when it doesn't add to the game in a meaningful way.
There will be choices there too regardless, some quite important regarding the endings.
So I decided the minigame's advanced version will in EP4 instead.

Just wanted to get this out of the way, so you won't be surprised.

Now about progress.

So some insight into my workflow:
Most people and most teams make a visual novel by writing the full story and dialogue first, then adding the art assets. It's a rather easy thing to do with traditional Visual Novels, where you have sprites for the characters displayed on static backgrounds. But Dreams of Desire is not traditional in a way that I don't work with sprites as I'm sure you've noticed. This format is more pleasing to the players, but more time consuming and harder to do as well. I don't mind though.
So to to get to my workflow: I write the script first, meaning all the scenes that the Episode will contain (The general plot with endings and main storyline is already planned out) and what are the key things each scene has to touch upon. Then I proceed to make the images, and only then I do the actual dialogue writing. Maybe it's just as good the other way around, but this is how I prefer it.

So I asked the same thing from the co-writer, this way I can give more detailed directions on what is needed to be written into each scene. I'm done with the bigger part of the images, (batch 1 of 2), sending them over to him tomorrow along with the instructions, so he can work on them. He's actually a fast guy, about 10x times faster than me when it comes to writing!

Last week was pretty chaotic because of personal life, but it's all settled now, my hands are healed too, so I'm 100% back on track!

Well, I think I took enough of your time with this wall of text, I'll post something yummy on Wednesday ;)

And as always, thank you guys for the great support!

-Sin