Saturday Update!

Hello again! It's weird not having any art to show you guys, but I do have a lot of text to type LMAO because it's been a really busy and intense week!

Actually I'm gonna split it up by days because legit, I am up to too many tasks. I apologize in advance for this update being CHAOTIC lmao 

Monday: Importing GORE by Graveyardguy into the game, and creating visual elements for it in the credits section. I admit I took way too long on this because A) Getting anything to look good on screens is actually painfully hard in Renpy and B) I wasted a couple hours trying to get the logo to only pulse when that song was playing... long story short I had to ditch the idea because I couldn't get Python to read variables in the correct order. It pulses all the time regardless and I will have to live with that x'D

Here's how it looks now. I also changed the font of the menu page, just because. 

I spent the rest of Monday researching Audio library websites and narrowing down my choices.

Tuesday: Further research into audio libraries, reading page after page of license agreements and terms of service @_@ Finally pulled the trigger on 'zapsplat.com' a large Australian based library with tons of sound effects, but not many songs. May need another library for songs later, we'll see. Paid for the monthly fee to get 'gold' membership and access to all sounds. 

Then I programmed an extra sound channel into my game, because Renpy only comes with 3 default channels- Music, Sound, and Voice. I'll already be using Music and Sound, but I wanted a channel for ambient noise, like wind through leaves, humming lights, etc, that would be separate from the Music channel [ I couldn't just use the unused Voice channel, as that channel doesn't automatically loop sounds ]. I also created an extra toggle in the preferences section so players can adjust the ambient noise separately as well.

Shockingly, all of that was easier than trying to get the GORE logo to pulse only when GORE was playing ¬_¬ go figure.

Wednesday: Finally starting to put sound into the game! I put in the custom main menu music my friend already made and started with some basic stuff at the very beginning of the game. I have probably listened to over 1000 sounds today, looking for the perfect drones, hums, clinks, and songs.

I ran into a road block realizing that the lights-humming sound I wanted for Celia's path wasn't looping smoothly. A quick google taught me that Renpy won't loop .mp3s without a hiccup, I have to translate them to .ogg files [ honestly for the best, .oggs are half the size of .mp3s ]. I can do that quickly with VLC player, no prob. Except my VLC player was ancient and crashed every time I opened it so I needed to do an upgrade x'D But then I realized my file itself doesn't loop, so I had to download Audacity, take a quick crash course in how to use it, then rip the front off the sound, and crossfade it into the end- and HALLELUJAH a looping file! Lots of learning but hopefully things will keep smoothing out as I work 🤞For now, I have the Auction sequence complete, and the opening to Celia's path [ lights humming, and a sound effect placed ]. 

Thursday: Instantly jumping in with more sound shopping! Signed up for a second sound library "Envato.com" which was a little pricey compared to the other one but it has PILES AND PILES of good music- just what I needed. I spent a good portion of the morning hunting for the perfect 'You Died' screen music because it comes up so often and I care about it a lot tbh. I did end up finding one and programming it in! [ and in my opinion, it IS perfect ] I also found theme music for Celia :D

 Unfortunately, I also noticed a couple problems and had to take time to fix them. Some events weren't activating 'event mode' in my programming, letting players take certain actions they shouldn't be able to in the middle of a 'cutscene'- like searching or sleeping. Thought I caught them all during Alpha testing but apparently I did not! Fixed now! There was also a visual error with my completion bar in the menus... I tried fixing it in a good way >_> but I couldn't do it with Renpy's limitations so uh... it got a patch job. It looks fine now but let's just say the method is a little embarrassing x'D

Then I went back to work and starting playing Celia's route, stopping to make minor text edits and to find/insert new sound effects. It's been slow going so far and I only have a couple endings done, but I'm hoping I can start picking up the pace as I'm able to reuse more sound effects instead of having to do research each time.

Friday: As I expected, I actually got the ball rolling for real today and started chugging through Celia's path at a pretty good clip, inserting sound effects mostly, since I simply play Celia's theme when she's around. I worked a full day, then I found that I had to stop because I was trying to find music again for a special ending and listening to the first 3 seconds of like 600+ songs honestly fried my brain LMAO It seems as though 'picking the perfect song' is much harder for me than just playing, pausing, insert sound effect, repeat.

I also found that I'm inserting a lot more sound effects than I expected x'D I went in thinking 'I'm not gonna add a sound for every little thing' but... it's fun. And it's not taking up too much of my time now that I have a system. In just Friday, I got through about half of Celia's endings and most of the 'middle events'. I honestly think I can finish her path in one or two more good days' work, if I can just find the right couple of songs.

Here's my game completion bar. It actually pretty accurately represents my audio work completion since I'm playing the game and inserting audio at the same time [ after wiping all my previous completion ]. It's not quite as far as what I think I can actually accomplish in a week- but to be fair I spent most of this previous week getting other things done [ reading license agreements, signing up for websites, learning how to use audacity, fixing my audio work setup etc etc ]

And I'd say that's about it! It's been a totally wild week for me. I keep getting headaches and shoulder pain from this kind of work LMAO but it's all right. I've got the weekend to recoup- then it's right back into the frying pan.

I'm really happy with how the work is progressing. I'll be honest, I went in with the attitude that I just don't care about the sound very much, and maybe I'll just slap some shit in. But now that I'm really working on it and hearing the results- and seeing my game completely illustrated, my attitude has totally changed. I'm really trying my best and I'm actually kinda proud of how things are shaping up!

Although I have to admit sometimes I get annoyed by the uh... art style shifting and jumping around x'D I KNEW it was going to happen when the art took so long but still. I'm really hoping I'm just being picky and that players don't actually find it too jarring...

And speaking of art style, if I can get this sound design done fast enough and have a couple days free, I really want to re-draw the auction scene 😬I know I can't just redraw everything that annoys me or I'll be caught in an endless loop- but the background for the auction scene [ and the sprite for the Auctioneer ] were done in 2017 😰way before I even got serious about working on this game. And it shows........ 

ANYWAY This update is LONG ENOUGH! Sorry! x'D

Thank you guys so, so much for your incredible support! As always, it is an absolute pleasure to work for you! <3

Stay safe and have a great weekend! ^o^