New year, new ... habits?

Hey there my lovely patrons! Just thought I'd check in with a little progress report on Girl Games. If you knew me in real life, you'd know one thing for sure: organization has never been my strongest suit. 

In my eBooks, I like to just dive in and see where the story takes me, and I'm afraid to admit that when I started out on the IF adaptation of Girl Games, I went about it kinda similar - learning Twine (the program I've been using to make the game) as I went. 

Which was totally fine at first, while the game was still small, but now that it's getting more complicated, I've started to realize that I need to maybe do some "spring cleaning". 

After the last version went online, there were a number of bug reports and so forth over on the TFGames site forum, and it really made me realize it was time to knuckle down and do this properly. 

So that's exactly what I've been doing - starting from fresh, making sure that each piece of the puzzle works the best it possibly can, and also making sure that in future my updates won't "break" saves (fingers crossed). I want the world of Girl Games to become something rich and complicated and, in the future, I just want to be writing new CONTENT, not going back and fixing a shit ton of bugs! But for that to happen it means that it's gonna take me a little while to get everything shipshape. 

As I've said before, I'm aiming to do one big new update each month - and I'm confident I can get this new build up by the end of Jan. That said, I'm not sure how much NEW content there'll be. I do intend to write a little, but I forsee a lot of my time and energy going into constructing it all again from the ground up. 

To give you some idea of the mess my project was in before, here's a snapshot of Version 0.1.4 (lol):

And here's where I am currently: 

Note the color coding!! I've also written a bunch of new code and made sure lots of basic things are working super smooth. Like I said, this is all going to mean that in future I'll be able to create MORE content each month. So I hope y'all see it for the positive development that it is! 

Oh and I've done a little work on the UI too, making the whole thing look (hopefully) a little prettier, and with a fixed "Navigation bar" at the bottom now. Here's a sneak peek:

Finally, I'd just like to say a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all too. I hope you're having a fabulous year so far and that 2020 brings you everything you're hoping for. 

Dana x