Saturday Update!

The weekend is here! Let us enjoy the comforting embrace of the spooky season as a small respite from the ever present tempest of horrors!

I did have a pretty slow start this week, but I've done this enough times to know that this was absolutely gonna happen. I always struggle to start writing, every single script I've done.

No matter how many games I make, it's still daunting to start. Looking at the mountain of the task, and carrying the weight of people's expectations. It's all fun and games hearing people say they're so excited and that YKMET:Lawrence will be the best thing ever, until I sit down at my desk alone and it's time to write the 'best thing ever' LMAO

I exaggerate of course, but the feeling is there. Luckily, I also know how to keep going forward- and for me, it's to let it be shitty. 'It's okay if it's bad' is a mantra I have to repeat often. So I have written some this week, and truly it might suck 😂 There will be plenty of editing passes to make it better later.

I'll be using this chart to show my writing progress for the future. It's unreadable as always, the point is to just show what charted plot points have been written out as actual script so far. As you can see, I didn't get too far this week due to the slow start. I also know that the intro bits will still need a lot of extra writing and editing in the future, but first I need to write the basic rough draft of the script.

Some things I'm learning so far as I'm writing:

• The intro is very short. Like, maybe even shorter than the original LMAO I'm a little nervous about people seeing this as a drop in quality, but I have my reasons for it. Hopefully it comes together and makes sense in the long run.

• Lawrence is definitely different so far. He's more anti-social. He's more coherent and less timid. Right now in the script he just met MC and his sanity is high though. I think there will be more contrast in the future as his sanity drops, or as he gets to know MC. In this beginning part though, I'd say he's really quite cold. It's quite a culture shock after writing for Strade for so long LMAO

I'm sure this will continue to be a strange experience for me.

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I also did some work on the UI last week. I wasn't satisfied with my first crack at replacing the chains with thorns. I feel like I was mistaken to make them straight like the chains. That only works on the scrollbar. For the corner by the dialogue box and the confirmation popup screen, I felt like they needed to be more curvy and have a different vibe.

Here's a picture of how they were before:

This is a straight replacement of the chains with thorns, and the same splatter as Strade, but blue.

Here's how it looks now after revisiting it:

I'm much happier with it now! I feel like it's actually for Lawrence now and not just "Strade but blue"

I've also updated the corner chains to be the new curvy thorns:

[ they also move similarly, I just didn't want to spam gifs ] As you can see, Law's dialogue box has been updated too, and the game is a grey void for now. This'll be how it is until I get to the art stages.

I also managed to fix a problem with the corner movement that existed in Strade's game. I'm kind of mad LMAO because I spent hours on multiple occasions trying to get the corner chains to not start their animation over every time the player clicks next. I never succeeded. Once I loaded up the new thorns, that problem looked MUCH WORSE because the thorns aren't straight. The jank was so much more visible. So I looked into it again and stripped the code from the dialogue screen and put it on the game frame instead [ the black line that goes around the whole screen for flavour and vibes ] then put it in an if statement that asks if the dialogue window is showing. And it worked perfectly. It took like 20 mins to figure out and fix. I'm so mad I never figured it out for Strade's whole production 😂🤬 But at least the thorns look great and work great now. [ You can also stop them from moving in the preferences too like Strade's game ].

Aint that just the way.

I also created Lawrence's sanity bar:

I decided to go with the same blue as the UI, because it comes across more as 'his'. I also felt that I could use another shade of blue since they're both sanity bars.

I'll have to be a bit more careful with the art in the future to be mindful of the screen real estate that the UI takes up. I think it'll be okay though. BTD looked well enough and that game was 800x600 [ less wide ] and still had hp/sanity bars.

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I also did a couple more doodles:

I'm still trying to get used to drawing Lawrence. I think the practice will make the placeholder phase go more smoothly.

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And I think that's about all I got done! Next week will probably be more locked in to scriptwriting.

I have a couple non-game related pics to show though:

I think Willow might be a bit of a 'velcro kitty' 😂 She wants to have full contact constantly. Good thing I work from home!

I also made my Halloween bags for this year! [ It's a hobby of mine- for the last several years I make goodie bags for trick or treaters with candy and little toys I buy from a dentist supply website LMAO ]

The toys there are a springy spider, little glow in the dark squishy skeleton, and clear squishy jack-o-lantern filled with orange orbeez things!

I think it's a pretty good set this year! ^o^

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Damn my updates are getting long 😂 They'll probably get shorter in the future as I get more into the writing.

But in general, I will try to keep pushing down the fear of doing a bad job and just write.

Stay safe folks! Especially if you're gonna be out marching today... seriously. Please take care.

See you next week!