Game development | behind the scenes

I'm using the weekend to share a little about the story development process and explain why it sometimes seems to take longer than expected for each release to be ready.

The text is long but I've taken the opportunity to tell you more about my day-to-day life and the challenges I face in developing it, for those who are interested

Most of the games we play in this multiple-choice style follow a more linear format... in which events take place and progress with each release... and choices alter the future path

We see this a lot in movies and series

But our game here has a difference.

We don't have a main timeline. 

There isn't an older story and a newer one... they all happen at the same time and the order in which they happen is up to the player.

Of course, those who have been playing since the game's first release may imagine that the stories have a set order, but that's only because they were still being developed. But those who start playing now can start the game with Josh's story, for example... which was the last to be developed... but for the player it's the first.

Ok, but what does that have to do with development?

When it comes to planning the stories... Everything.

Let's take Daniel's story, for example.

Anyone who's played Connor's story has seen the scene where our main character meets Daniel... Maggie tells him about him and he's interested in finding out more.

So for those who are in this timeline it's natural that in Daniel's story they've already seen each other. They know his name and that he has a girlfriend. And the scene I've developed will show that

But when I launch this new release... new players can start the game with Daniel's story.

In this "timeline", Hunter hasn't met Daniel yet!

 They've never seen each other because the player hasn't played Connor's story yet

So when I develop their meeting scene in this timeline, I have to write the scene as if it were the first time they had met!

And here comes another level of complexity...

If, then, in this timeline, the player already knows Daniel because they started with his story... when they play Connor's story, the scene where he sees Daniel and his girlfriend no longer makes sense. Since in this timeline, at this point in the story Daniel may well already be Hunter's slave, for example.

In other words... it's not enough that I have to make several scenes simulating the choices made in Daniel's new story, I still have to "go back in time" and rewrite Connor's story... in order to maintain coherence in all the scenarios and timelines.

And not just making the scenes and dialogues, I still have to do all the editing in the game code to check the conditionals and see if that scene has already happened or not.

That's why I need to balance the stories very well and avoid them becoming too entangled... because otherwise there comes a point when it becomes impossible to deal with all the probabilities.

And that's also why it sometimes takes me longer than you'd like to release a new story.

Most players will probably never notice the nuances that exist in the dialog and choices... which are different to try to reflect all the changes that have been made to the code in order to maintain consistency up to that point.

but it's all worth it... if people enjoy playing it