Good grief! It's a weekly update!

It is indeed! Well new year, new habits and all that, no?

Actually, having fouled up horribly in November by not doing  updates, even if those updates would have been rather dull ("Still rendering!"), I've decided to learn my lesson and do a once a weeker regardless.

Naturally, I haven't a lot to say in respect of what I've done on Chapter Two so far so instead I'll tell you what I'm going to do this week instead. It'll be interesting at least to see what I manage to achieve when I report in next week at any rate :)

First off the block is some general tidying up. At the end everything was getting a bit rushed and so my daz files are a bit messy at the mo. There's also a few tweaks I need to make to Chapter One as we go forward. Nothing serious but I need to wire the two music channels together so that the volume slider runs both of them, correct the odd typo that slipped through and compress two animations that I'd forgot to squeeze down in size. I'm also working on learning how to make an official android port as well. I have the software, I've run it but it's giving odd memory errors and then falling over. It's probably a settings issue somewhere that I need to get my head around.

As for Chapter Two, the main task is to set up the various location maps for the station. This is going to be one of the biggest changes you'll notice when you play the next chapter for, instead of being led by the hand scene by scene until a decision point - I'm handing you a lot more agency. A lot.

The station will use something akin to what you saw when moving around the Vanguard, but will cover a lot more locations. Twenty of them in fact. So the main map will look something like this (and as before when people are in locations they'll have their little char icon on the location).

but for some locations I need to break it down further. The airfield, for example, would be supported by an additional map on these lines.

(Chadwicks parking was a bit rubbish, still I suppose she had an excuse.)

But you will be able to get most places with one click with two at the most, which considering the size isn't too unreasonable. You can also perhaps understand why I was so keen to lock down all the location designs back in October now for all the location on the station will be open from the start.

What I'm attempting to do here is give you more options as to what you do with your time. You want to be the dedicated LT who is mainly focused on fixing the plant? Go for it. You think a certain someone might be right in her conspiracy theories and just want to do some work on the plant and then perhaps poke around? Fine by me! (and her)

(doesn't recall Velma smoking in the original tho...)

Or do you just want to slack off and mess around? Hey, it's your mission. I'm not going to judge. You're the engineer expert - not me!

Regardless of what you choose you'll still have romance options and other little side quest options to play with of course. I'm not making a plant repair simulator after all :) But I am trying to give you both more gameplay and roleplaying opportunities with regards to H5.

Speaking of which that also brings me to the other two things I want to lock down this week. Firstly, the plant repair/mystery mechanic was weak in the original and I want to beef that up with some better mechanics and secondly, I want to firm up the mechanics of Caverns and Creatures. I already know the rules, it's more ensuring that will provide you with adequate entertaining gameplay. After all, entertaining you is the point, no?

Laters!