Dev Blog 30 | Jel's Cafe | Code Cleaning and the To Do List

Friday, time for a new blog post! Sadly I don't have anything super interesting to talk about this week when it comes to new stuff. Not that I haven't been doing work of course, its moreso the work I've been doing is something that no one will ever even see!

I've also updated my to do list too, which can be found at the bottom of the blog post.

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JEL'S CAFE PROGRESS

Code Cleaning:

I've been primarily going through all of the code in the game and updating it where I can to make it much cleaner. Something RPGmaker can do is something called a "Common Event", its something I used very frequently in Drawing with Nat but hardly touched in this project until now. A common event is basically a string of code that can be called when needed, and I've been using these to replace bulks of code. For example: The way the hud updates when you obtain a food or gift item appears in the code as a giant list, checking every item to see which one the player has and then displaying it, these take up a ton of space inside the code, and it makes returning to the code to edit it very teidous, now as a common event I move all of that original code over to this simple call function, and its gone from lets say, 40 lines of code, down to just one. It's a very neat way of handling things and it helps me out a lot as I have to frequently go back to look at or alter code. This stuff however has zero impact on the gameplay whatsoever, meaning no one will ever even see all this work I'm currently doing. That's how game dev is I guess!

I still have a lot of spaces I want to do code cleaning for, right now I've completed the Items HUD, and the player sprites code.

Sprite fading:

This is somewhat related to Code Cleaning, and is still being worked on, but now when you talk to characters their sprites fade in which looks really nice! The method I used to create these was teidous, but uses the same "Common Event" method. Both the hud sprites (like fullness and friendship) and the characters' art will fade in and out. I still need to apply this to all the characters, as only a handful have had this treatment as of right now.

Player sprites:

I've been working on the player sprites yet again, finally choosing a colour scheme I like, and outfit options too. Something I would like to add but isn't final yet is player head options, right now you only have the blank bald head, but I would possibly like to add 2 more head options, the concept art for these were posted over in the discord. This would require more work and more programming, so its currently a maybe!

Laura and Idris:

I've also been working on Laura and Idris' finished base artwork, I'm likely going to go ahead with the Idris sketch which was posted in the discord, though Laura might need some more adjustments to the pose first before I continue with her. For the time being her placeholder art has been added to the game files.

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The Dev To-Do list:

Lastly I want to talk about my To Do list, these are all features or things I would like to add or are planned. These features have either been prototyped or have yet to begin development as of right now.

I will consider the game out of alpha once all of these features have been at least programmed as art assets and cleaner writing can come at a later date.

Edna:

Edna is the last customer I would like to add to the game, rounding the total cast of to 15 possible customers. She'll have certain requirements that you will need to meet in order to unlock her, due to still planning these requirements out she is still currently absent, although certain code for her does currently exist, like her gift items and a slot of her in the log book.

Writing and Character progression:

Every character is planned to have new interactions unlock after raising their fullness up by 10, a few characters have had a couple of these added, but it is currently still early on and is absent from the majority of them. These interactions will eventually lead to a character's ending.

Character endings:

Like above, once a character reaches fullness of 100, a special ending screen will be displayed with that character, how these will be displayed and being able to view them in game is still being planned, as well some of the characters endings are still unplanned too.

Text sounds:

This is something thats partially programmed and can currently be accessed in the debug/test room. I'm still not 100% sure if this feature will be finished and added, as the process will need good sound design, and I'm also not too happy with how all the sounds overlay and play at once if you try skipping dialouge, this is an issue that cannot be fixed from my knowledge and is simply an rpgmaker issue.

Overworld interactions:

This system would allow the player to talk to the staff, vendors and customers in the overworld without warping them to a new unique screen, this would make the flow of the game feel better, and also means I won't need to make background elements for a lot of areas too. This is something I feel like can be developed without issue, but I'm not 100% sure yet so this system for now is a maybe.

Fullness and Friendship icons:

This is a simple one thats totally doable but will require some new art and programming, but this idea is when you raise the stats of these two requirements with a customer then an icon for both fullness and friendship will appear next to the character before slowly fading upwards. This makes it more visually clear that you've increased their stats.

Quick exit from menus:

A friend of mine playtested the game a few nights ago and mentioned this, and I thought it was a good idea so I'd like to add it. Basically hitting "X" or the back button when in a menu like Jel's food screen for example would ask the player if they want to exit the screen, instead of forcing the player to move all the way back over to the return button. This is a simple ease of access mechanic that is totally doable. So I'll even maybe see of possibly adding it in the current build I'm working on.

Hard mode:

This one is a HUGE maybe, and will only be included at the end of development. But I have some ideas for a hard mode for the game, making customers gain less, quota's harder to reach, more unique interactions. Reiterating that this is a maybe, and only has some basic plans as of right now.

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That's everything this week, I'm currently still working through the YCH commissions and a few other patreon rewards too. It's also currently really hot over where I am and that makes working on the drawing tablet unbareable, thankfully things like coding or playtesting is easier to work on during the heat, so hopefully the weather changes soon lol.

Thank you all for your support! see you next week!