New month! Time for new content.
Current hope for this month is to finish the next major build. Changes that will include:
- Aldsea remade. Writing is almost done, with 2 major cutscenes left to cover. Then, I'll need to implement the new gameplay scenarios and cutscenes. But, before I implement the new gameplay and cutscenes, I need to finish a draft-map of the new Western Woods. The Eastern Path (shown in the last thread) has significantly been polished since then, but remains at an unsatisfactory level. However, as it's playable, it's a lower priority.
- Two new bounties (sidequests). With Babel, I'm trying to follow a design idealogy of "three tiers" of content. More on that later. One of the bounties is actually being worked on right now (yay! alt-tab). It involves a young man who is infatuated with a young woman, and asks you to collect a special flower for her, in the hopes of winning her heart. Sadly, our love-struck employer will not be successful. But, through that, it allows our party to tell a joke in a hidden way. He'll ask you to collect 7 for her, as 7 is her lucky number. Afterwards, he'll reward you, and leave for a bit. Once he is turned down, he'll return, although a bit sad from his failure. If the party then presents him with 13 flowers (without being prompted to), he'll laugh, and reward you a second time for making him feel a bit better. Mechanical jokes are fun, and I hope players will enjoy this bit of tomfoolery, even though it'll be a tad hidden.
- Finalizing the "iconography," talked about in the last thread. Mainly picking a color for consumable items, and making all the relevant icons.
I may remake one of the bounties in the first zone, Aldsea, however, as I'm not happy with it. All in all, after these changes, the game will have 6/9 playable bosses, 2/3 playable dungeons, 6/9 bounties, and.. I don't even know how many sidequests there are. I think there are 8 in Aldsea (including 3 bounties), and.. 7 in Transyl? So 15 sidequests, out of probably ~20 total. With any luck, this build will last players 8-12 hours, but we'll see.
Touching back on the "three tiers" thing! The first tier would be the basic story, mandatory content. Second tier would be the bounty system, which is more or less sidequests that you're brought to, and it's up to you to determine whether or not to do them. Finally, the third tier is obscure content, or hidden content. For example, the second dungeon utilizes a color mechanic throughout the dungeon, finally capping out at the boss of the dungeon, who uses a color-based mechanic. Should the player do the dungeons mechanics in a particular way, and then replicate that during the boss fight, it will cause a hidden trigger, opening up a new path in the dungeon. From there, that leads them to an item, and through that item, a sidequest that will reward a powerful piece of equipment. By following this rigidly at first, you allow yourself to clearly define what is mandatory, and what isn't. From there, you can blur the lines. Like in the new bounty, outlined above, the main part of it is strictly in the second tier. However, as there's a second part that is triggered through the player.. well, trying random stuff, that would fall into tier 3.
The hope is that by blurring these lines in certain areas, I'll be able to provide an experience where people see their friends save file and think "wait, how did you get that?!"
I love discovering secrets in games, and hope that by hiding plenty of them, players will be able to get something unique to them out of it.
With that out of the way, is this thread also fine for like a "general discussion" regarding progress? For example, if there's a technical trick that I'm trying to pull off that relates to the progress posted in this thread, is it fine for me to ask about that here, or should I keep it to its own thread?
