Dev Log (v0.14 Concept Thoughts)

Hey all,

So it's time for one of those rambling messages that really gives you some perspective on why this game is sooooo fucking long. But, I'm going to jump right into things this time. New Year: New Me, right?

Outline

Some of you have noticed the brief explanation on the Overview page last week that stated I was making some changes to my outline. Normally, I do a standard outline that spans about 4-5 updates during my break every few months. It sorta reads like a flowchart of events that I want to hit. If you're really interested, there's one posted on the Tumblr if you can still get to it since Tumblr crashed and is being stupid. Otherwise, I'll be posting them again in the near future.

Anyway, I did this the last time as well but am working on a more detailed outline to prep for some potential major changes coming and to increase my organizational skills. As the story becomes more complex, I am learning that planning becomes more paramount. The support continues to motivate me to increase my standards with each update to release the best product that I can despite this still being in the alpha stages. Additionally, remaining flexible and increasing my self-awareness in areas for improvement remains something that's really important to me, too. Thus, I continue to listen to feedback and objectively grow which is moving story prep into this direction. The new outlines are much more detailed and are taking significantly longer to create. However, the good news is that I'm creating these as I go rather than stopping to take a larger break and redo things. I'm also hopeful that the increased details in the outline will allow for more efficient writing of each update. So basically, it's more work upfront to increase the efficiency later on. We'll see...I'm continuing to work out the kinks in a very flexible system. But right now, the outline for v14 is fully done and the outline for v15 is mostly done, too--so honestly, we're ahead of the game from where I normally am.

v0.14

Ok, so onto what most of you care about, the next installment. I've already determined that providing a DevLog for v0.14 is going to freaking suck! Basically, this is going to be one of the most ambitious updates we've had yet. In addition to trying to continue to grow in my knowledge of lighting techniques, v0.14 is going to take us outside our usual areas of exploration. Generically, I'm going to say there's new locations...like 5 of them! The past few updates give clues on some of them, from that you could probably draw some other conclusions. This means a lot of new visual elements to create for this update similar to what I had to deal with during the park/bar update. I'm optimistic that with the new computer, I won't have the delays I did with the bar/park update. However, adding 5 new locations in one update is pretty fucking big so we'll see how it goes. All of those new locations will need lighting and this will probably take longer than normal because I'm less familiar with the locations. That being said, new computer is faster so we'll see. Lot of variables to predict right now but I'll keep you guys in the loop. If you get curious, you can always post and I'll answer whatever questions you got on the fly. 

Additionally, (choosing words carefully here) there are other character changes that will require more CGs than normal and prevent me from getting to use a ton of the old CGs like I normally do. However, good news about this is that most lighting should match in the game from this update on for awhile because almost everything will be new. Buuut, that slows things down, too.

I will say that I feel good. Like...really good, right now despite being a poopdick before I launched v0.13. I'm making changes to my work system that should continue to improve the quality of the game. I feel like this progress and personal growth will benefit the game as a whole and I'm hopeful this year will blow 2018, out the water with where this game is headed. 

Yeah, I'm a little excited for this one for some reason.

PS: Remember I said all this happy shit now when I'm freaking out like 3 weeks from now saying it's the worst update ever, again :p

Happy New Year, folks. Thanks again for sticking with me through 2018. The player base is definitely the heartbeat of this game. 

-Aaryn