Tutorial area events Ep.2

So over the past few days I've made a start on making the first bits of Retale 2. The Tutorial, possibly one of the most important part of any game is something that's been quite a challenge for me to do personally.

So in the first of these image above you can see that we now have a naming system in the game, looking online I realised for NPC's to call you by your name that you chose, you need to insert \N[x] with the X being the actors ID number on the database list.

The naming System

By default there is an 8 character limit. I can't have it unlimited as even with long 8 letter names, it messed with the dialogue on screen pushing some of it off screen. (So this may mean I have to shorten the name character maximum to 5-6. 

Mia then comes into the room after a short interview with someone you may know, and teaches you how to use your office phone. 

The biggest challenge with making these tutorials is making sure the player does what Mia asks, instead of just walking off. So Mia in these cutscenes is either cleverly placed so that the player cannot walk past her, or I've set invisible trigger walls in places so players cannot simply walk off. The red boxes marked on the images show you where some are located.

The Save Point

After showing you how the office phone works and how to save your game. (If people are wondering why you can pet the savepoint, people from long ago will know we had a stream on designing our very own Index for a savepoint!)

When making the savepoint however I ran into quite a large issue that took me a good few hours to find. I found out that you can't have events that are currently randomly generating variables in the same map as you're saving in. (I'd imagine this would get funky on the games code if the game has active random number generator events and therefore refuses to save.)

So this will definitely be a problem in the future. Unless I outright make it so nothing in the game is RNG and everything is on a set timer.

The Freezer Upgrade / Admin Office Shop

After checking your office out Mia leads you outside and tells you to look at all the rooms. So the player now steps over 3 invisible variables hidden at the entrance of each room. Once they trip every single one of them she allows you to move on with the tutorial. I intentionally only put them at the entrance instead of having to talk to the NPC's within the rooms for returning players/speedrunners. (As I found out with Retale 1 that some people liked to try and speedrun that!)

Cassy is the one you meet in the admin office and she tells you about how to order upgrades for your store that'll mean things break down less and in turn you get way more cash for your buck. Currently there is just the one free upgrade (that doesn't do anything but shows the player how to buy things)

Conclusion 

That's really about how far I've gotten with these. I'm currently working on the main tutorial on how to work through the store and how to clean and stock shelves. Its relatively simple stuff that only requires the player mainly to be vigilant more than anything else. I really want Retale 2 to have a feeling of depth but not something that'll stress the player out quite as much as Retale did with its math problems.

If you guys have any cool ideas for upgrades or things you could do around the store just comment below!

Thanks for joining me here for another episode!