I got the new update for Magic Girl Contest! It was kind of a mess yesterday but I think I sorted it out and it might have worked out okay. I wasn’t sure where I would take the game next but sort of made an outline for where to go. So we got several battle scenes to frame things. I added several place holder scenes as well, for where I want to add new stuff. The place holders will be where I focus on adding content the next update.

The stuff I added changes a lot depending on your stats, but there isn’t really many choices to make during them. Though there will be a lot more choices for the other stuff happening with the relationship scenes and such. It is only a weeks worth of work, so will take some time to get all those in. Just keep that in mind.

Play

I am not sure if it was a good idea to just make a ton of random combat scenes. Well idea is to add more stuff in between the scenes later on so there is more context, and so that it all works and flows better. Though right now, it is a bit of a mess.

I am a little bit behind on my daily goals since I had a ton of distractions. I also need to get up up early tomorrow because I got an appointment to get a covid shot, so might head to bed early tonight as well. I should still be able to get everything done though, just need to make sure to work hard tomorrow when I get back!

So right now, I am just working on getting a bunch of scenes done. Five today, then five tomorrow and the five the day after. So far the ones today seem a bit random. As I go, I will have to see how I can fit them all together.

Also I am testing some different ways to do it. For example, I can make a scene where if you have fire magic 3+ you get result x, and if have fire magic 1-2 you get result y. Or I can do it where if you have fire magic 3+ and attack 3+ you get X, but if you have fire magic 3+ but attack 1-2 you get Y. The second one gives more different results that are more closely matched to what you have, but is also more time consuming since I am basically writing the same scene over and over with slight variations. Can also break up the scene where one check gives the result for the entire scene, or have multiple checks in the same scene that changes different lines. Again the more detailed and reflective it is of the players skills, the more work it is.

Realistically, the big difference is that if I have to spend a lot of time on smaller details of the scene, the scene is probably going to be shorter than if I just have it lightly influence the scene. Anyway, I am testing that out to try to get a feel for what the best balance is, so writing some really complex scenes that are a bit shorter and some longer one that just make a couple of big checks.

Okay this week I am doing another update for Magic girl contest! I was trying to think of what I should do next in the game, and had the idea of doing like a montage of a bunch of different contest battles. That way you can play through many battles and can really put all the stats and training stuff to use. Though I was thinking it would be good to interspersed other scenes throughout it too, for relationship stuff. So it wouldn’t really be a full montage but just a series of more fast paced action scenes.

Thinking on that a bit more, I think the best way to organize things is to get montage of combat scenes all finished this week. Then for the next update I can add in the relationship stuff and weave them inbetween the scenes. That way I am not trying to swap back and forth and I can focus on each part one at a time. So here are my daily goals:

Tuesday: Finish 5 contest scenes(one scene focused on each magic type; summoning,energy,love,water,fire)
Wednesday: Get to 10 total contest scenes(add a scene focusing on each character; sonia,elena,lisa,isabel,the player)
Thrusday: Get to 15 total contest scenes(add 2 group scenes, 2 scenes focused on your signature move, and a scene to sum up your overall score and tell you how well you are doing in the contests).
Friday: Organize all the scenes and get them to work together, and then release the update.

Also I been thinking about releasing a new update every week, which is what I have been doing. I can definitely do enough content for it to be worth releasing an update in a week’s time, though some times they can be pretty small too. If I do a lot of organizing, planning, or code, then that update might be kind of small content wise, or if it is just a bad week that might be true too. I do like the idea of trying to release something every week though, since releasing updates weekly greatly reduces the risks of getting side track and not updating a game for a really long time. Anyway, I will probably keep doing that for now, at least until I finish the backlog of old games. Though it is just something I was thinking about.

So it is Sunday and been relaxing a bit today. I been playing project zomboid and killing a bunch of zombies. It is kind of an old game but I just got it, even though I still have a bunch of other games I really need to finish first. Also playing a zombie game makes me think of the story I mentioned before that I was writing, about a zombie apocalypse.

Fixed the bug where being a whore doesn’t work for old souls. Other than that, been writing some random stuff today. I am not sure if having a day to work on random stuff is good or not. It is good creatively to constantly be doing different things, but I also feel like a lot of this stuff isn’t ever going to get released so isn’t super productive either. Though many goods ideas come from it, so maybe it is kind of productive just not in a direct way.

So finished the update for Old Soul. It is a bit ugly but I added a way to have a save and load on all the pages of the game. I will work on it later but for now having a save option, even if it is just one slot currently, should be an improvement over not being able to save at all.

There is also a bit more content before and after the city. Though I didn’t get as a big of an update I was hoping. Now that I am more familiar with it again after the long break though, I plan on having a much bigger update next time, which should be in May at some point.

Play

So working on Old Soul and now I got a bit more before and after the city, which makes the trip a bit more interesting for the first trip away from the family. I am still trying to think if I should put the save feature in and where I should put it. Maybe before leaving to the city and one a bit earlier in the game some place, since they have to be at specific points.

Next week, I will be back on Magic Girl contest again, then Kawaii.

So I finished my goal and added two new encounters. One of them is a bit short, since it is going to have a part before the city, then a part where you meet the same person after the city and get a special event if you did something specific in the city. I probably just wont count that one, and add another encounter later tonight as well. So will have two good sized ones then a small one that will expand if you meet the requirements after the city.