So got a ton done over this last weekend, though today I don’t feel like I got very much done at all as things were super busy and a lot of stuff going on. Well I hoping to get back on track tomorrow, since I got a lot to do. Though overall I am still ahead of what my plans were, and should finish everything well before the contest deadline.
I am thinking I am probably not going to have an update for the contest game this week. The reason is because all of the branching stuff. I don’t want to leave it where, there is multiple ending points for the update. If I can get everything to the same point on all the branches, then I will release the update but since there is a lot, not sure if that will happen.
Also as I am getting nearer to the end of the game, I am doing some of the passages out of order to help organize where each branch is leading ending wise. So that they all make sense. I feel I should be able to finish the game by the end of the month. Or at least the first pass through everything by the end of the month.
After I release the update with all the content, I will go through to spell check everything. Then I will probably post on the tfgamesite to get feedback and tweak stuff as needed. I will probably have time left over at that point to go back in and add extra substories as well. The ones I add will probably be ones focused heavily on reinforcing themes and helping people better determine which path they are going into it.
So I was thinking about how to organize the game and I think I finally determined what I am going to do. It will have the branching paths in the framing story and the game will be divided up into 4 parts. How I have it now, is that the first quarter effects if Meshia ends up using the aphrodisiacs to sleep with the king or if you escape her plot. Then you move to the next quarter effecting the next part.
That keeps things a bit more simple, but it means the game diverges a lot later in the game. Since it goes from 2 paths in the first quarter, to 4 paths at the mid point, then 8 and then ends with 16 different endings. I already made sure to change the format to one with a save feature, so that will be in the next update.
That should make it not so bad to get all the endings, since you can save the game right before the game splits, then go back if you want to go down a different path.
I posted the update earlier but I was on a roll and completed night 9 and 10 just since I posted the other update earlier today. Since it is still Saturday I figure I will post the new update with the extra stuff!
So I got my update for the contest game today. I advanced the story a good deal this week, though I do have one concern. The path you end up on the framing story is based on your choices in the substories but I am not sure if players will figure out what choices do what. There is a logic to it, but it is kind of subtle. I may rearrange some stories later as well to help make the themes more clear and fit together better but for now I am just getting all the stories out to advance as far as I can.
Anyway here is the update for this week.
Got a little side tracked today with distraction but I actually think I made a lot of progress on the game over the week. So if I can get a few things done tomorrow, I will probably have an update for the game, including some of the branching paths for the framing story I was talking about.
So I am working on the game, and suddenly had a thought. My original plan was for the storyteller of the contest game to keep trying to be manly and resist sex until the end. After all the idea is that you are telling stories to avoid sex you don’t want, because you are a man!
Though I was thinking, what if you do give in early and have sex and stuff? Maybe you gave in to a moment of temptation or the like and regret it. So I was thinking, what if there was branching paths in the framing story? Maybe one path is you resist sex at all costs until the end! Maybe another path you give in and have sex and you regret it and try to pull yourself back from temptation? And perhaps another you fall to the temptation way to easily and you end up a total slut.
I was planning on having these sort of endings anyway, but branching them off earlier would give the player more feedback on the direction things are going and give them a chance to change paths before it is too late!
I am up really late tonight. Actually I been up pretty late a lot recently. Anyway, today I was working on the framing story for the contest game. I was having some pretty fun ideas with scenes to do with the framing scenes, since there is one between each of the mini stories. Though I also run into a slight problem.
I kind of want it to get more sexually tense as the overall story goes on, but it is really important that the main character can’t have sex. After all, he is telling the stories to avoid sex, so it of key importance that no matter how naughty those scenes get, there can’t be any sex until the end of the story. Which made me wonder how I am going to balance that, since there is a lot of those scenes
So I noticed for the contest entries, some people were posting photos from their game. It seems like games with pictures automatically have an advantage over purely text based games a lot of the time. That doesn’t surprise me, but it does mean I need to make sure the game turns out really well to compete with that.
So I mentioned this before, my plan is to try to get all my old games finished by the end of the year. Though the contest finally coming up made that a little harder, since it took a lot of time away from my other stuff. That said, I would still like to make it. The contest ends at the end of October, so that basically gives me 2 months afterwards to finish all the games.
I suppose I can try to get some work in other games done, while also working on the contest game, though I don’t want to get too distracted. I do think I can get most of them done, or at least have them finished enough to be playable through to an ending. I might have to settle for that, where they are basically finished but have to adjust and fine tune them a little afterwards.
The biggest problem is probably Is all girls sluts? Since I have not worked on it in a while it has a sort of combat system, so it isn’t so easy to just jump right into. If I end up having to try to finish that game in a week and it is also during Christmas holiday, that might be tough.
Anyway, there is about 8 weeks to work with. It will probably be 2 weeks on kawaii, 2 weeks on old souls, 2 weeks on magical girls. Then 2 weeks on cleanup for the smaller projects. I suspect there will be a bit of spillover into the next year. So in January I will probably do 2 weeks to finish out are all girls sluts, then the last 2 weeks finishing anything else that I couldn’t get to.
Then I will hopefully be 100% done with all the backlog.