August 2024 State of the Game

I generally try to do one of these a month but I think I missed July because there was just so much content in progress.

Future Plans

The end of August's build will complete Alexander's main route. Side content will still be in progress, but some will be included.

In September's build, I'm expecting there to be more Alex side content and Brandon's route will begin.

I've already added new Victor & Brandon voice lines. I'm still trying to get more for Quinn & Julian. Each character will have (if I can get Q & J) over 160 voice files.

CGs are wrapping up for Alex's route. Two are still in progress, Clairvoyant+ has seen the previews of both. August won't have any new CGs, new ones won't start until I write Brandon's route. I'll probably offer some sneak-peek previews of story text in August or maybe early release side content in text.

Story stuff for Alex & Route patterns...

(Minor high-level spoilers, feel free to skip to the next section.)

I'm imagining you're all thinking something specific (if you're thinking about it at all 😅).

Since Alex, Brandon, Julian, and Sebastian are all caged... their routes are going to be the same, right? They all have to escape, deal with Security, rescue the others, deal with the gem situation and Victor. That's gonna get boring.

That would be boring! I agree. I don't want to write that either. Zzzzzz. Just the duplication of "OMG you're in the mafia?!" in Obsession annoyed me. I'm sure it annoyed everyone.

So no worries! Brandon's route is going to be extremely different.

Alexander's route was designed to be an introduction to everything - the mystery, the city, "That Day", all the characters, etc. The nature of his powers, his powers being "weak" in comparison, who he is as a character, and his role in the history all made him a good route to be the starter one.

I thought of this same problem when I was doing my initial planning, so worry not. 😁 Each route will be different. And we're not going to have the surprise-mafia problem when it comes to most of the info you learned in Alex's route.

About side content...

A long time ago I said somewhere that I wanted to do all the side content for a character while their route was being developed. And that's true, that's what I want...

But it's not happening. 😭

Given the more linear story progression... some side content I'd like to write for characters are historical..... which would give away the plot mystery. So some content for characters won't be unlocked until you're much further in the story.

I sorta wrote myself into this situation. Oops. 😅

I'll still develop what side content I can while I'm in that character's route, but there will likely be more added towards the end of development for every character.

I don't want to waste time writing content the members can't play for months. That's no fun for either of us.

DEMO

Sometime this month I am planning to release the game demo on Itch, which will include:

• Obsession: Abridged

• Particles: Chapter 1

• Common route

• Alexander: Ending #3 (Mimic)

Rambling about demo ending/content

It's been hard to choose an ending for the demo, honestly. I want the demo to be a full experience of what to expect (as Obsession's clearly was), but Alexander's route is probably one of the lightest in terms of gore & horror.

The next release will include one of the more horror-esque endings but... well, that path gives away too much info in my opinion to be a demo. I highly doubt any player will hit this new end first since it's a weird combo of choices you have to make. By the time most players reach this ending, I suspect they'll have at least 2 others endings under their belt, which I think makes the impact of that ending a lot stronger.

The game up through Alexander's route is sorta on the light side. Obviously it's still all bad endings, but I'm expecting things to get a lot more gore & violent in other routes.

Once the full game is complete, I think this'll be a good thing. Build up the hope and smash it down over and over again. 😁

But I don't want the demo to suggest the game is something it's not. Ending 3 is very light on horror, but does still properly represent the 'shit's fucked, everything is tragic, and bad things will happen to you'.

So as of right now, I think I'll eventually add another ending in another route to the demo. What route and what ending and when? I have no idea. I'll continue developing content as normal and when I see a suitable one, that'll be what I add.

So because of all of that, I have updated the 'In development' screen in the next build.

More New Features!!!

All of these are in the end of August build.

Icons & Side Content

• For side content, there are now icons for Adults Only (AO) content and Patreon only content. And the teddy bear is back!

• Also, "Mini What Ifs" are now a thing. What ifs are a lot of fun for me and minis are quicker to produce since I don't have to deal with graphics, music, voice, sprites, etc.

  • This is NOT replacing normal What Ifs. It's an addition.

  • If I end up making a lot of these, I'll make a "What If Mini" tab.

  • Mini What Ifs will probably only have 1 end, but that may change.

• In all side content, there's now a "Summary / Branch (or Situation)" header to give more context to what you're about to jump into.

Quickly Unlock Side Content

I've added a "Quick Unlock Screen (temp)" button to the settings. (Ignore all the dev stuff & text beneath the music, you won't see that. That's for dev stuff.)

This is exclusive for Patreon members and will be removed before release.

This button displays the second screenshot, which gives you 3 buttons to unlock all side content.

This exists so I won't have to worry about forcing YOU to replay old content just to trigger an unlock. That's annoying.

Now, I can now freely add locks in content anywhere at anytime without causing a problem. I won't have to go back and do that before release (possibly screwing up or missing something).

Super fancy screen yeah. 😁

I could have just placed these in the settings page but this is easier to delete later without having to worry about how the settings page is arranged.

Save Screen Overhaul

Save & Load are now 1 screen!

I'm sure all of you have accidently overwritten a save. Me too. You make a lot of save points in this game. Juggling them was annoying. I tried color coding the backgrounds last release but it just wasn't good enough to solve the problem.

The new save and load buttons will be disabled/grey when you can't use them (like now I'm in the main menu, there's no game that can be saved. The check button is normally green.)

You still get the normal 'are you sure' prompts when clicking all of these.

Note: The size of these screenshots have changed. So if you save a new game beside an old one after next month, it'll look a bit out of alignment. BUT since all your saves are going to crash next month (as announced earlier), you need to delete the old saves anyway.

Specifically for the demo I've added a little Patreon info note on the main screen. I'll remove this later.

Locked Route Info / Walkthroughs

I've added a popup to a user clicking a locked tab. (I saw people click this. I dunno why. It's obviously locked. Why would it do anything?)

But since the player is always right 🤣 I've added a simple popup info box to the locked route button. This will sum up whatever info's on the walkthroughs.

(I've also generally set the expectation that all unlock info is provided in game. The worlds, Particles, and all the side content give you unlock info. So the routes really should, too.)

Since the tab is locked, you can only access a walkthrough for a locked route in the main menu. So this is a more convenient way to get the same info. Maybe with the bonus of no risk of spoilers?

(I am including route unlock info for the next route in the walkthroughs of the current route. So Alexander's walkthrough tells you how to unlock Brandon's.)

I want things to be intuitive and obvious when possible. That's hard to balance with information overload, though. GUIs should be simple, too, and there's already a lot going on in my screens.

This is a good & easy information delivery option. Since other content tells you what you need to know to unlock something, it's good to offer the same for routes in the GUI.

There's also been a bunch of little tweaks in the various Ren'py screens. Text, fonts, sizing, buttons, etc. And some backend work to support the removal of patreon & AO content from the game.

As always, if anything causes an issue, let me know so I can get it fixed. 💖 I'll be testing this out all August, so hopefully I squash any bugs.