Arbiter - Monthly Recap - August 2024

Greetings JJK Apologists!

Gonna keep things short and sweet this month. August went pretty well overall, but I have been dealing with some personal stuff lately that's been a bit emotionally draining. In general, I've just been feeling a little hollow and out of touch with myself for a good while now, so I figured it was time to make some changes! Thankfully while it's definitely been a process, I'm feeling much better as of late. Honestly, there's a lot of self-care I've been neglecting over the past year or so, so I'm making more of an effort to get out, touch grass, spend time with friends and family, and just take care of myself more emotionally. All that said, I'm happy to say that while it's been a rollercoaster of a month, my passion for Arby burns ever brighter! We've never been more locked in chat. 🧍‍♂️

With that, I finished the Arbiter Bible! If you didn't catch my last gospel, I've essentially written a massive document for EVERY aspect of the game's design, levels, story, characters, etc. I'll be working much more closely with my art lead in the coming months, and I needed to make sure I was fully communicating the game's vision as succinctly as possible. Unfortunately, uhh, being succinct was never really my strong suit, so it took a minute!

Of course that means I don't really have much to show this month (I refuse to take screenshots of a document god damn it). But trust me, I've been cooking! Once I wrapped with the bible, I figured that since I'm already in writer mode, I might as well finish the whole ass script—and we're just about there! Right now it's sitting at a cool ~50k words, and I've got about 3/10 chapters left to write. Yes, I have essentially written a lite novel.

I touched on it last month, but man, I really can't understate how cathartic it is writing everything down like this. I'm essentially going through every scenario throughout the entire game, scene by scene, encounter by encounter. It's been tough, but the process has been super creatively fulfilling. I've been likening it to untangling a massive knot, with multiple threads representing different parts of the game. While getting gameplay, narrative, and characters to all play nicely with each other has been a thorough parenting exercise, it feels great when it all comes together (even though I still have to, y'know, actually make the damn thing).

I've gone through several stages with the project over the years, but while I had a "finished script" before, I also had piles and piles of notes for changes I wanted to make for when I eventually did my redraft. It got to the point where I've basically had to rewrite it from scratch, but putting all those ideas together has really given me a lot more confidence in the project. I actually think it sounds pretty neat! But we'll see what my art lead thinks :^)

In a general sense, I'm looking to do some very moody, stylish, and dramatic storytelling that has the audacity to take itself seriously. Throughout the years I've realized that Arby's aesthetic gives me quite a bit to work with when it comes to dramatizing the idea of conflict and duality, and I've decided to really lean into that both visually and thematically. We'll see how it all shakes out in a few years though, teehee.

Anyways, that's it for me this month! Appreciating the patience during this time as we've low-key entered Pre-Production 2.0, but I genuinely feel that this refocus will help make finishing the game a lot easier. Once we get that ball rolling, we can really start bringing this thing to life. In the meantime, thanks for your support as always everyone!

Cheers,
Jordy