DevLog Update

Hey all,

So first off, I know I jumped back to the typical DevLog format here rather than doing the fancy PDF version. This is only for the sake of time this week because I'm actually getting things done and I really don't wanna slow down and spend a lot of time on extra formatting just for these notes. 

Been awhile since I caught you up so there's a lot to cover here again so let's dive into another exciting episode of Aaryn's Wall of Text.

Writing Status

Ugh... ok, so I just gotta say... as an amateur AF writer, putting together the ending on things like this is TOUGH -- at least it is for me. In the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing. In the middle, it felt an identity form for the story and then I feel like my style improved around chapter 6 when the game really started to take off. That being said, those middle parts are easy to write because I can just droll on and on without any real accountability. It's easy to set up plot lines or introduce people or whatever--but those things have to matter to the story. So as things begin to wind down and move towards the end, it's increasingly important to go back and tidy up some things. This means, rereading and constantly combating doubt with what you're doing. 

The ending is intimidating to write and it feels like Thanos is coming as I move closer towards it. I will say that things are coming together and scene 4 is mostly written at this point and it's pretty damn long with a LOT of dialogue. Scene 5 is going to end up merging with 4 I think to help save some time and 6 will sorta do it's own thing. I'm writing it based more on feelings than anything else. 

Right now there's around 2,000 lines of code in the update and that's not counting some pretty substantially long areas of dialogue that still need the images coded in so it'll quickly lengthen more than that. So when all is said and done, it'll probably be a fairly long update again.

CGs

Ok, so image-wise things are going ok but for the amount of time that it's been since the last update, I'm not feeling super great about how much time has passed. 2020 has been a shitstorm so far with many real life demands that I wasn't ready for. Additionally, early after the last update, I needed to go back and re-read things again and try to find the direction moving forward--that took time. Then we had all the real world crises happen and my workload for my normal job blew up exponentially. So overall, I'm really disappointed with how long things are taking. However, that is more than being made up for in the quality of these pics. The new update is leagues above what we saw even in the last update. I'm still not professional but it's progress overall, so I'll take it. 

As of right now, there's 279 images done for the update and that's through scene 4 (there's around 6 scenes planned but I may mesh one of them together to make things a bit easier without negatively affecting the story here). I'm still behind on coding for Scene 4 because it's such a long scene but there's a lot or room for reusing the same pics over and over because of the heavy dialogue. That usually means less CGs. However, (I put this however in bold because I'm an idiot) the newer approach to the game is attempting to make it more cinematic. So you get more camera angles and more sequences of images to fill in some of the gaps. I know some people bitch about this because it slows things down but I'm enjoying the process immensely and I think it adds to the realism of the characters in the long run. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, You may have multiple poses of a character accomplishing a task while their conversing or we may have more action shots like we did in the last update when Braden catches the frisbee like a fucking ninja. I like shots like that and they're fun to do (I also think it's good practice for animating in the future so consider it part of the learning process to improve things later). 

I have several other images already finished that need to render but some of these have to be done manually because I keep having some issues with Braden's hair getting puffy or shaved on the sides with the batch setup. As soon as the current pics are rendered and coded in, that should allow me to look at the remaining holes of pics for Scene 4. Right now, I feel pretty good about it but I wont know until I get these other pics done and coded in.

Quotes

So v0.18 is going to feature something that I'd originally been working on for a long time--like a year or more and never really told anyone about (including the dev team). Originally, my plan had been to start each Chapter of the game with a black screen and some type of literary quote to somewhat hint at something within that chapter. Also, because this game is so personal to me, many of the quotes I had selected had been personally helpful to me in some fashion or just really punctuated some profound literary skill that I aspired to reach.

So basically, I'd began selecting and searching for these over the course of writing the game since its inception. A few months ago, I finally showed my list to Blayke who promptly shit on it because of copyright issues (among the many reasons why I love him). Because I'm completely ignorant to copyright issues, Blayke tends to be my guy when it comes to shit like this. I figured as long as I quoted who the damn quote came from, I was good from a legal standpoint. Apparently, that's not true. 

So yeah... I wasted a ton of time creating this stupid list of quotes that's useless and illegal now without a ton of cash to purchase rights.

Enter Plan B. So Blayke shot back a counterpoint and made me feel about 10 feet tall (that's over 3 meters for your metric people :p ). Blayke stated that he felt the Str8!? writing is actually good enough itself to actually quote. Which got me thinking and I ended up liking the idea. So starting with v0.18, each of the chapters will fade in with a quote from the writing of that chapter somewhere. There's essentially no context to the quote until you get to that point in the story and form it together. So far, I like the idea and it's FREE because we're actually quoting ourselves. If I get some time before long, I may be able to try and have one of the guy put a GIF together of what it will look like as an added preview. But it's just another step that I'm sorta excited about that will gives things more polish in the long run.

The Ending

So many of you have asked about the length of the game and have expressed concern about the ending. Overall, I take that as a compliment. I like that people are invested in the upcoming ending as it approaches and I hope that we're able to do it justice. I'm terrified of the ending but simultaneously feel good about it as well. As it draws closer, I will keep you more up-to-date with how many updates are left. You will know for sure and there will be no surprises on what is the last update to end the game. 

However, as of now, I'm going to say that overall, I'm estimating that we have around four to five updates left before the scene fades to black for the final time. However, in that process, the writing is going to become a lot more complex as I try and weave together everything that's been setup so far. That slows things down. If i was more experienced, it would probably go quicker but I'm not. The beginning and the middle are easy to write because we can always fill in other shit later or correct things. Tying things up, as a neophyte writer, is a little harder but I'm trying to work on that as best I can with the guys I have at my side.

As of now, I don't have an ETA on the update. I know that's frustrating for people and it's frustrating for me, too. There's still more to write but the game is moving forward as best it can with the workload I have and all the nonsense going on in the world. 

I do plan on posting another teaser pretty quick here to give you more to look at and I'll try and do some more behind-the-scenes write-ups for more content while you wait. 

Thank you for the continued support; especially in this crazy times. You continue to humble me.

I'm gonna get back to coding again because I'm still wide-awake for tonight.

<3