This week, or, this past week, I’ve been updating Infidemia’s introduction, again, as I’ve noticed this is a challenging part for me to plan out without having a clear path on knowing what I’m doing with the game.
I decided to change the second boss to be the first boss the player fights as part of the introduction, and to give tutorials immediately upon starting up a new game. There are some tutorials that will get annoying if you forgot to save at the beginning and you happen to start over, so I decided adding an option to skip the lengthier tutorials would be useful.
Additionally, thanks to a plugin I’m using (will update on which one it is by listing the credits for the game, though it’s not done yet and I may end up changing what resources I use. So, credits are to be decided for now, as this project is in its prototyping phase, still, though I’ve ended up using roughly the same resources and adding more), there’s an option to re-read dialogue, which may come in handy if you’re confused about what happened.
I’ve been focusing on getting gameplay working (Yes, the chat command finally works – wagers are being implemented, but I still have to finish working on the unlocking hearts mechanic) while doing some more of the game’s story (I’m not very good at writing, as you might be able to tell by reading this blog, so Infidemia’s script may be painful to read) and focusing on keeping things consistent.
The original introduction had the player moving around a lot more, which I thought was useful to show off the various areas that you can go to from the starting area, though this ends up being confusing if I’m trying to remember the last thing that happened in the story. I might add a “the story so far…” message that you can read if you want to, as I’ve played a few RPGs, and sometimes when going to play another game and then forgetting what I was doing in one that I started makes things a bit confusing for me to not really understand the story or what I was supposed to be doing. The intro is mostly “go to the next place you see” though I may have added an optional boss fight and optional event…
…Anyway, other things like music for the game and drawing enemies and bosses hasn’t really been a priority. I’ve been trying to come up with a new main battle theme, but I can’t think of anything that matches the style that I’m going for (as I don’t try new styles often) so I might end up using an earlier version of it. I was going to get around to drawing sprites for enemies though this is probably my lowest priority right now.
Here’s a list of what’s completed so far:
- Introduction: How to move, interact, use the menu, save the game, use the first few main battle commands
- Story: Explains that the player’s not given many details to start with (no spoilers)
- Gameplay: One new type of puzzle room has been added, used for the intro, wagers finally work (barely), and balanced the first boss fight. May need more balancing.
- Music: Experimenting with making a track for the intro area, the first city area, and the tutorial battle theme.
- Concept art: Planning to draw various enemies and the first boss, though haven’t started.
This game has been really fun to work on, though it’s also a bit tricky to try and get everything to a point where I’m happy with it.
Since a lot of this game does not make any sense out of context, I’ve been trying to focus on not giving away too many screenshots or gameplay of Infidemia, though that’s mostly my excuse…
I’ve been planning to get a demo ready, but I always feel really cringy about it because I’m concerned that people are going to dislike the game and it’s… a bad game… …though now that I’ve kind of accepted that Infidemia’s introduction was badly made, I’ve been using the game’s script to make fun of myself and poke fun at how ridiculous some things are in the game (because really).
A lot of the game feels embarassing to talk about because the basis for the game world was based on fourteen dreams I had telling one story, and that one story was pretty weird. A lot of it only makes sense in my head, so I had to give more context in Infidemia, and make sure to reorder events chronologically, as the structure of the game relies on telling the story in consistent time. There are some minor details like being able to tell what day of the week it is, so I hope players will notice the extra things like this.
The game itself isn’t based on those dreams to be exactly as I remember things being, though some of the dream sequences present in the game’s story may take a more literal approach of being based on that…
…Regardless, these details aren’t that important to know while you’re playing the game, though thanks for reading this anyway, since I’ve talked a lot about the game, revised the intro at least five times, and haven’t really shown any playable content yet. In summary, thanks for showing your interest.
Oh, yeah, the battle UI (user interface) still needs to be reworked. Just remembered that, since I have some plans to draw out some more windows and customize things.
I haven’t worked out things like what platforms the demo will be on, what user input devices will work (hopefully anything USB-compatible, though it’s going to take some work to get that ready) and what the content rating is.
Important Notice: No demo has been made officially available, published, or distributed. There’s not even an executable file for it. I’m adding this disclaimer because I have not actually made the demo yet. I’m working on it, but it’s not 100% ready.
And about the game not being 100% ready – it would be better for me to release a demo with what I have so far and getting players’ comments before revising it, but, I’d like to get a fully playable demo first before I decide feedback is important. Yes, there are tons of things that need fixing, and I am willing to listen to feedback, as long as it’s honest and hopefully (doesn’t have to be) specific. However, the game has many points where I didn’t use eventing properly (resulting in a character staring at a wall and freezing the game, or a character walking partially and then getting stuck because a non playable character has a pattern in which they walk around, and that pattern disrupts an event, freezing the game because I didn’t add an option to account for that, or maybe a battle’s about to start but it’s using the wrong battle theme file because I changed files around) and this is the least organized game I have made, despite having options for backup folders and source control, I have not used these options and have not used them efficiently.
Still, I’m focusing on making the story more consistent for now so I can add new story content without having to replay what I have so far (I try to limit my time playtesting to as short as possible, often adding in-game cheats or debug options to do this, but, playtesting with normal options and just going through the game each time is pretty useful in my opinion. I’ve been able to use a debug room, test individual battles, and stuff like that, though testing story events usually takes a little bit longer).
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope that this was interesting.
-ZoruaAl