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Weekly Update - Intro's Almost Done, Next Steps

3 years ago1,260 words

I've almost finished the intro bit in Collie's Psychepelago!! Took long enough... I need to figure out exactly how it ends and ties to the beginning bits I had from before, though...

I wrote the last update on a Friday, but I'm writing this on Sunday because I was too tired to all yesterday! Which was annoying.

I don't have a huge amount to say this week. I got nothing done on Tuesday because of the hospital appointment, and almost nothing on Monday because I was so mentally distracted by that. For the other three days of the week, I decided to try working three solid focused hours rather than the usual five or six (which I rarely actually achieved), then to do 'social' stuff for another hour or two, which worked out okay. I was able to maintain focus and get a decent amount done. I'll have to try the same next week and see if I can keep it up.

Yet again I worked on the intro bit set in Collie's Psychepelago. It's only the first 10 or so minutes of the game, but it's taken months to make! I'm hoping that the decisions I'm making here will mean the rest of the game will come along more quickly, though.

I've almost finished the bit in Collie's Psychepelago, which concludes with a battle against The Beast. A big concern I had about feedback from the alpha test a few months ago was that several people didn't realise that taming was a big deal, or even that it was a feature of the game at all? So this battle focuses around it, with The Beast summoning an endless supply of these Pawnights (with that being the name for black versions, while the white and red one is 'Pawnite'... for some reason) which you can tame with Savitr and use to whittle down The Beast's health until it reaches critical levels and a cutscene plays. It's possible to do it without taming, but it's more time-consuming.

I'm eager to see how players' experiences will differ from the last test, and hopefully another test isn't much further off now. I hope!!



I've written The Beast in a silly way; it's based on a character from Taming Dreams whose name I keep forgetting because I changed it around a lot (I think it was Dhor at first, then Berdanre maybe? Berdan? Something like that), whose 'thing' was that he was always always mockingly sarcastic. Hopefully its lines might be slightly more entertaining than if it was just some big stupid monster, but we'll see.



I've probably been inconsistent with the voice of this dream version of Savitr, but I wonder whether anyone would actually notice or care!



I've also included some of these sexual innuendos - combined with dog jokes - for Collie, but I'm getting the feeling I'll end up editing them all out since people have typically reacted negatively to them. A shame, since I find them funny and easy enough to write, but not a huge loss really. (It's hard to convey them in a screenshot since they typically involve two or three lines of setup before the 'punchline'.)



The UI 'statue' things for these early battles only show HP (and I think attack and defence?) at first, but because the taming mechanic is introduced soon, the halo things and light/dark/mental defence stats are also unlocked. Runes and arousal stay hidden until they're introduced in a later tutorial though. I'm wondering if this'll be too overwhelming; we'll see during testing.




Glowy eyes. I took this font directly from MARDEK (I originally got it from some random website) for the sake of connection, but it seems barely legible in the second screenshot here, so I might have to find - or make - another one.

I've intended this intro - set in Collie's dreaming mind - to end with a transition to the waking world, with Collie sleeping beside the real Savitr on their transport monster thing. I planned for this line here to lead to this dream Savitr casting some immensely powerful spell, which destroys The Beast and the screen fades to white, then fades through to Collie waking up... though that'd require some kind of fancy particle effects and animation, or something, and I've been dragging my feet about getting around to it.

I wonder whether instead Collie could just hear a voice from afar which is the real Savitr waking her up, meaning this scene would end here and I wouldn't have to make that extra stuff... Hmm. I'll have to think about the best way to do it. A lot of decisions need to be based on what's practical to make rather than what might be most impressive to see, since I'm doing all this myself and everything is already taking ages.

Once I've figured that transition out, I'll also need to figure out what's shown next. Savitr and Collie astride a summoned figmon out in the sea, where they see the island they're approaching off in the distance? I'd need to make some special cutscene setting for that, and some graphics for the island seen from afar that'll be used only for a few seconds. Or should I make a kind of mini world/area map thing similar to this one from Memody: Sindrel Song -



- which you could use to select a destination when fast travelling between save crystals??

Or should they just start having already landed on the shore of the island, meaning no extra stuff to make at all (other than the figmon they ride)?

I'm unsure; it's the next big decision I need to make.

Once I have decided on that though, I'll need to clean up the Sprouting Isle area that I already have - the area from the previous alpha test, where you battle Pierce and can run around having battles etc, most of which have some more explicit tutorials than the Collie's Psychepelago intro - which hopefully shouldn't take long, but who knows. I also need to do some other relatively minor polishing things like composing music for the battle against The Beast, adding some sound effects, particle effects, animations, etc.

After all that's done, I'll do another alpha test. I can't predict when that'll be though! I'm just working towards it one step at a time.



I talked last time about how I'm planning to get a new computer, and thanks again to the people who replied with some good suggestions about that, since I'm clueless myself! I've still not decided on anything though because I've not found the time/energy to devote to it, so hopefully I'll be able to sort that out soon too. It's annoying that even when I do have the time, I just have no energy/motivation to make big decisions...

Seems the idea of a virtual pet isn't generally appealing to people though, which is a shame since it seems like something I could make fairly easily (but then again, I thought that about Atonal Dreams). I might write about some other ideas for some simple side project I could make at some point soon, see what - if any - sound interesting to minds other than mine.

I also need to sort out the Taming Dreams album I mentioned! I'll do that today and write a separate post about it. HOPEFULLY.