DevLog Update

Hey all,

So it's been forever since I posted one of these but I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats waiting on another edition of the manic ramblings of an over-caffeinated game dev during the Apocalypse. 

First off, I planned to post this a few days ago but we ended up having a quick poll on the Discord to see what people wanted us to post first between the DevLog, the new Max selfie, or the next portion of the novel version that Blayke has been working on. Turns out that the selfie won and apparently people wanted to see more of our angsty little hothead (more hints on that later). So let's dive in because there's a lot to cover here...

Outline

So the progress on the outline is really mixed so far. One thing that you don't think about (or at least I didn't think about) is how many good ideas that you actually forget. I learned my lesson about a year into this (yeah... it took that friggen' long) and began to write ideas down. It's ridiculous how many great ideas I've had for things and swore I wouldn't forget only to wake up the next day and not remember it. So about a year in, I started writing stuff down. The problem there is that I didn't have a system in place and I sorta just jotted ideas down here and there--which turned into multiple documents and no order whatsoever. You really can't control when you get a good idea about something. I'm pleased to say I mostly have those  ideas all in one central location now that can be shared with the other devs. I'm continuing to work on this as we go but it's definitely a work in progress and  another one of those amateur obstacles. 

This is also why you're not seeing the long-term outline progress going up significantly. While the ending is one of the things that never changed about the story, like most of you, it's gonna be a bittersweet moment when we get there. Making the outline sorta forces us to take more steps towards the inevitable and that's intimidating to me. There's a ton of stories that are decent but then flop at the end. To me, a bad ending ruins the entire story--especially something like Straight!? because it's soooo fucking long. So expect that progress stat to stay on there for awhile as we slowly chip away at it. I'd like to slowly work on that aspect but not necessarily force myself to complete it before this update (this was a change from my original plan).

Writing for v0.18

So the writing is going. I had a hard time starting this one out. The last chapter ends on such a downer. The problem is that we can't just teleport away from that moment. That shit is not over so this chapter needs to pick that back up again. From a writing standpoint, that meant that I had to drop myself back into that headspace again to empathetically write the intro. Like... it's a sad scene so I have to actually make myself sad-- but not just any kind of sad will do. There's a weird balance and I have to be in-tune with the characters at the same time. We saw the same thing at the end of v0.17 in that closing scene and I think it turned out good. But it was a bitch to get into that headspace. That was the last scene I wrote for that update because it was so difficult for me to emotionally manage the writing balance. It seriously took me awhile this time, too, but I'm happy to say that the intro scene draft is done as well as the next scene. So basically two scenes have the drafts done and I'm starting the third scene now. 

I will also officially confirm that chapter 9 is appropriately entitled: "Ash." 

Similar to the previous section on the long-term outline, I'll also say that we're still building the outline for this update because I wasn't entirely sure where I wanted to end this one. The last update was an easy selection for the ending--plus it ended the chapter; this one is a bit more difficult. So stay tuned for more on that. Basically, depending on how things go, that may make the update longer or shorter--so we'll see. But rather than sit around and be stumped by the outline, I ended up dropping back into my old school writing mode and just writing the chapter from the beginning and seeing where it takes us.  Right now, we have about 6 total scenes of varying length planned for this update but that could easily change. So 6 scenes tentatively planned with 2 done right now.

CGs

So for anyone who's seen some of the recent teaser images posted in the $5 tier, you'll hopefully have noticed the quality increase. We're still shooting in 4K from here on out. I alluded to some fears I had coming into this update that the beach and pool shots were going to be the apex of game quality. I'll still go on record as saying the night swim pool scene is always going to be my favorite in the game and I love the stylized take on the underwater scenes. But, when it comes to image quality, a majority of that quality comes from lighting and accurate shadows. The game is rendered using Daz3d and uses NVidia IRAY, which gets it's realistic look through the use of light that realistically reacts to solid objects. Images are more crisp when the lighting is right. In general, this is accomplished easier during the outside shots--the beach being the best example that we've seen so far. Basically, I just create the sun and everything else sorta falls into place. That being said, v0.18 is mostly indoors and interior lighting is much more difficult to accomplish. Basically, you have to setup shots using the science of photography: 3 point lighting and shit like that. Welp, I dont know crap about photography-- my IRL friends can attest to that based on every snap I've ever sent them. I was concerned that we would see a very vivid v0.17 with the exterior beach shots and then return to interior shots in v0.18 and they would look inferior. I was terrified of giving the illusion that the game was going backwards.

Welp, that's not the case by any stretch right now. I've posted a few teasers recently to show the progress of the lighting and I'm really pleased with it. To anyone who isn't able to see those shots, you can also check out some teasers on my Twitter account. The recent Max selfie that was posted publicly on 4/8 showcases some of those lighting changes, too. To be honest, the Max selfie set originated in a light study I was working on and sorta just went from there. For those in the higher Patreon tiers, you'll see any more light changes in the $5 and $10 pics from that set. 

I want to cover one other aspect to CGs that's been in slow development with every update. It's no secret that each update has had more pictures than the last and this is partially because I feel like it helps character development. One thing that the CGs option has that sprites don't is that they're easier to customize. I can get shots with multiple camera angles or take a few hours to drop one more pic into the set that shows more body language. We saw this increasingly more prominent in the beach update as the characters interacted with each other. For example, Braden could have just caught the frisbee but I wanted an athletic spin to his catch to give it more flair. And sometimes this stuff is just fun to do! I know some people have a problem with this. They would rather have the game play more like a storybook with minimal pictures because updates  are faster to create. One reader on f95zone awhile back criticized the game because he found the multiple shots distracting and felt that it pulled the reader out of the story immersion as they had to keep shifting their eyes back and forth from bottom text to top images, looking for the changes. You could basically compare this to watching a movie with subtitles. There's another game that's a slow burn that gets a lot of criticism for multiple shots as well. However, this is going to be the new norm for Straight!? I think the subtle movements of the characters or facial expressions add realism to the story and I think it supports the lengthy dialogue we're used to by this stage of the game. I'm really trying to create a subgenre of the VN and call it a "cinematic novel" rather than just a visual novel. I think there's room here to redefine the genre and create something of our own. As a result, this takes longer to do updates now than it used to but ultimately it's going to save me time in the long run for the revamp... in fact, we should be seeing more shots like that in the revamp during the earlier parts of the story. 

Another problem I ran into that began with the last update is that some scenes, when shot in 4K are just monsters to render. The ending of v0.17 with the rain and fog was a bitch to render, each pic taking around 15 hours to render. So that slow me down on CGs at the beginning. As a result, I've made a few adjustments to the rendering process and things have been sped up to around 2-4 hours per pic now-so significant increase there. 

Right now, the first two scenes of v0.18 are complete with CGs. Total CG count completed right now is 73 new pics and the quality is definitely better than anything we've seen before (including the beach pics). We're also gonna try and slide some of those pics into some new shots that resemble a montage to help show the passing of time plus we have to do some more image animation (because it's still raining). Again, this game is still in a rough draft and, as the story permits, it's nice to explore new techniques and help polish those before we go back and try and put it all together on the full game revamp.

What to Expect from v0.18

Sooo....what to expect from this one...

v0.17 was always pitched as a "rollercoaster" update and had a litany of emotions spread throughout it. Good news is that this one is more stable and hopefully won't fuck you up as much. We all need some closure and this update should give some sense of balance to things while still moving things into a new direction with more questions. That being said, we won't see as much action as we did in v0.17, but that's ok. If you were playing this game straight through, you wouldn't want more action at this point. We need some time to heal with the characters. So this update is going to be pretty heavy character and dialogue driven. You may expect to get some background on supporting characters that have a bit more screentime than they normally do--one in particular has been a lot of fun to write so far. But expect it to start right where the last one left off so expect conflict and mixed emotions as the cast is thrown into the unknown, some of which may be out of their control. 

Conclusion

 Well, that about wraps stuff up for now. I know this is a longer DevLog than normal but hopefully it gives some context to what’s going on and reassures you that the project is still in full swing. I’ve really wanted to find more time to work on this with a lot of the lockdowns around the world but sadly, my own job has just gotten more intense despite still working from home. It’s going, though, and there’s some motivation back so stay tuned.