Important Dev Update!
Hey there, you beautiful people! if you're reading this, then yes, that's you ;)
Honestly, for some time now, I haven't been certain if or when I would post another update on the game. But, these past few days, I've been feeling more like my old self, and just overall, in a much better place 😊
So, the good news is, that I've officially continued working on the game, because I feel very inspired and creative again. Yay!
The not so good news is that, I will be taking a different approach to developing and releasing updates for the game.
What does this mean? I'm glad you asked 😊
In the past, my process for creating updates has been as follows
- Create story plan
- Write dialogue
- Edit and transcribe dialogue from paper to notepad++
- Prepare, compose and render scenes in Daz Studio
- Code new game features and bug fixes
- Create Music
- Game Design
- Miscellaneous Stuff (Like art assets, Photoshop stuff, UI design etc..)
And presto! Game update created! 😄
There's just one problem.. going through all of these individual phases for EVERY.. single.. update.. is excrutiatingly exhausting 😩, both menatlly and physically. I have to be in a specific mindset to work efficiently on each of these phases to create something that I'm happy with. So bouncing back and forth between each one is very counter productive for me. The more I work on this project the more apparent that becomes. I would like to work on this game while being able to manage my time for personal life stuff.
The most ergonomic thing to do (Which I've also considered) would be, to switch to renpy, and then cut corners (like render quality) to speed up dev time. It sounds cheesy but that's not a project I'd be passionate about working on.
So what's my solution to this? Can I still make a game I'm happy with while keeping all of these crazy dev phases?
The answer is YES! I can and I will! I'll just work on ONE thing at a time 😊
This just means that I'll be taking my time to FIRST write down the full story and dialogues from start to finish. Once that's done, and I'm happy with it, I'll then edit it with grammatical fixes as well as potential changes to the story and dialgoue lines, then transcribe all of that to my computer (That's a lot of typing 😓)
Why did I say this was a not so good news?
You see, once I focus all my time into writing the story and dialogue, that means, renders, coding, music and all that other stuff will be on hold. Which means, no game updates for a while. I know that's not how other VN creators produce their content, but then again, most of them don't even finish, or the story just goes on forever cuz they never planned ahead, especially if it's a solo dev. Who am I kidding, I'm just coming up with excuses lol, what works for them just doesn't work for me unfortunately.
So I guess what I'm saying is, hold on a little while longer, even tho I might not be posting updates here like I originally planned, rest assured I will continue working on the game, just at a pace that allows me to manage my time more efficiently. I couldn't abandon this project even if I wanted to. trust me haha 😂
Once the full story dialogue is completed, depending on the complexity, I will either release it as a whole game (Single/Final/Large Update) or divide it into seperate updates like what you're used to. Also, at that point in the developement cycle, all of my focus will be on daz renders, with the occassional coding and bug fixes, which means less hassle for me.
I'll also include a little progress bar, like so 😊
Maybe not this one. Mine will look a lot nicer.. or worse, I haven't decided
I'll update the bar based on how many renders that need to be created for that specific update. That way it's easier for people to keep track of updates.
Phew, that was a loooong one lol, but I guess that's everything I wanted to cover.
Last year was pretty terrib;e for me, so I'm really looking forward to making the most of this one.
Take care and Stay Safe everyone! 🤗