Proof of Life #123: progress report #11. Prologue is hard.

Heya guys and gals, it's N_Taii again coming to you with his usual Monday PoL post. I'll probably keep this one short, because I'm itching to go back to development. Then again, every time I say it's going to be a short one, it ends up being far longer than expected. Also, I'm dropping the usual model of story, visuals, gameplay, etc...for my progress reports, as I feel it's no longer relevant.

Anyway, I am now focused on developing the story. Mostly. The prologue is probably the scariest part, because I never know if the pace is right. Is is fast enough that it doesn't get boring, but in-depth enough that each character and their relationship with each other get properly developed? Is every character well introduced? Is their personality appealing enough?

Talking about personalities, I'm trying my best to create flawed characters for HC3. "Isn't that counter-productive?", you might ask, and I'll answer that yes, it might be so at first, but flawed characters are so much more interesting because they've got room to grow. Grow as characters, but room to grow on us as well. The princess acts spoiled, the sister doesn't want to get involved with anyone, and the childhood friend is distrustful of others. They might appear annoying at time, but they'll feel alive, and we'll get to see their personality change in contact with the MC as their friendship grows. The more "real" they feel, the harder the NTR hits, but that's part of this game's charm, right? I've also been watching a lot of YT videos on script writing as well. They're mostly about films and series, but they've been a great help on avoiding certain mistakes when it comes to writing a story.

Apart from the story, I've also dedicated a lot of time to handing new commissions left and right. As I write the story, I notice new stuff I need from the artists, so finding reference pictures, explaining everything in details, and drawing prototypes, it's not a quick process and takes away from pure game development. But the game does look better and more personalized as a result.

I've also tried to diversify the music used in HC3 by buying diverse RPG music packs here and there to increase the variety I can choose from. I can sometimes spend 20 minutes simply looking for a track that would fit a scene or a map : )

I think I'll stop here from now, I don't want to get into more unnecessary ramblings : )

Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful week!

N_Taii