Housesitting v0.8.0
Added 2020-11-06 17:15:11 +0000 UTCIt's here, finally. The fourth day is now complete, which finishes the "prologue" to the game. I found it a hard day to write; there wasn't too much happening, it was mostly preparatory work for new content, and it featured much dialogue, which is not my strong suit. Most of the time spent on this update was dedicated to the conversation with the landlady, which admittedly is still far from perfect, but for now, it's the best thing I could come up with.
It was pretty hard to wrap all the plot points up while not making the conversation too long. I've tried to keep it reasonably interesting but felt it was important, and some time should be spent on it. The last scene of the day I'm pretty happy with didn't take too long to write. I then started reading through the entire day from the start to see if there were any areas where I could make improvements and made them when I found them. I think the day as a whole flows better now, and I focused on the cooking scene as well since some saw it as filler. Hopefully, it's better now that it showcases what's going through the boy's mind.
I also wrote the first diary entry, which summarizes the fifth day that gets skipped, but decided against including it in v0.8.0 because I still need to tinker some more with it; I need to improve the display/graphical aspect, as well as fix some of the writing I'm unhappy with.
I plan to release it as an individual scene in the coming days to get some feedback on it, to see if this is what people imagined when they voted for diary pages to summarize skipped days. It also felt strange to include the summary of the fifth day without any content for the sixth day itself.
I'm not sure when the next release will be, and not going to make any promises. I feel bad about not being able to deliver on them, and it's tough to predict how long writing an update will take, because every scene is different. I want to include day five, the date with Sarah, and work on the game's second route for the next update. I hope you enjoyed the update, and sorry once again for taking so long.
Comments
Agree with you; in real life, splitting up is better. However, writing that in the game would make me have to spend a lot more time on it, and I don't think most people would enjoy it. You also have to realize that the MC is still pretty young and was raised religiously. It's not a major focus, and he's not religious himself, but it will still influence his view on divorce. I also want to keep her around to shift the focus away from the swimming since that is likely to bore people if it drags on. I can delegate something to her and skip writing about it without creating a plot-hole. Adding a diary entry for the fourth day as well could be interesting, I'll think about it. I kind of want to let her thoughts be a bit of a mystery for now, since the boy is going to be wondering about it as well. The plan is to skip quite a few days, so you will definitely get an idea of how she feels about things, and hopefully, I'll be able to execute the idea I have for the shifting of her feelings towards him well. My plan was always to write a bit about how she felt about the previous day in the diary page for the fifth, but I'll see if I can expand a little on it; she fell asleep before she had a chance to write in her diary after all.
2020-11-08 13:10:06 +0000 UTCReally nice update man, would have really liked to see the diary entry this update but you make a good point, didn't make sense to skip a day without any content after, good call. Can I make a suggestion, I think a day 4 recap, that leads into the day 5 summary would have been the cherry on top for an end to the prologue. I say that because (MINOR SPOILERS) I'm very curious to know what the roomate felt about the touching in the homework and late night tv scene. Anyways, just an idea, I really like where it's headed, keep it up! *SPOILERS AHEAD* Sidenote, I didn't enjoy the handling of the convo with the landlady by the MC. in my experience, the two parties would be much happier if they separated and the MC's insistence on then staying together made me disappointed in him (staying together for the 'roommates' is never a good idea). However I understand why you decided to write it this way, a separation in the household could cause a fight for custody of the roommates, and the story isn't about separation but togetherness. Just saying what I think, is your story you write it how you want, I'll still be here to enjoy it.
Dustmonk
2020-11-08 11:45:58 +0000 UTC
