Mad dev ramblings on Quinn behind-the-scenes

Mad ramblings of me sorting out my brain, feel free to skip.

If you haven't played any of the game at all yet, skip. Mild spoilers ahead.

This mini-vacation aligning with the start of Quinn's route has been oddly beneficial, because it's given me a lot of time to think on Quinn's route without the writing pressure, and during this time I realized I've already made two critical mistakes. 

Mistake #1: Brandon v Quinn

At some point in Sebastian's route, one of the first things you learn is that Monika moved in with Quinn thinking Quinn was biologically female. Once you get to know Monika, it's pretty obvious why she would make a mistake like that.

But after getting to know Brandon, it's painfully obvious he would absolutely not make a mistake like that. Brandon would never let his sister move in with an unknown person without a massive amount of research. Upon finding out who Quinn is (and the type of person Quinn is), he'd forbidden the arrangement entirely.

I've already figured out a solution to this problem, but it means I need to massively rewrite the opening.

And if you follow Discord, yes, this'll be the… third (?) time I've rewritten the opening already. Writing is an iterative process! You put words on paper and throw them away until you get it right!

Mistake #2: Relationship speed

Quinn's a complicated character. He's someone who is respectful and friendly, but he's also very… forward, shall we say. He's the type of person who has two relationship speeds, slow crawl or rocket launch. And what speed the relationship goes is really up to Quinn's partner.

I didn't consider this during my planning, but as I hit the point of their first romantic moment, it dawned on me that this is probably the first decision the player should probably make.

And that ruins ALL of my planning! Haha.

So… that second mistake made me start reconsidering how I do planning.

Here's a bit of history on my planning process…

When I first started PoR, it wasn't a game. It was just me toying with an idea of a stalker choose-your-own-adventure style story. Before I made it into a game, I already had a bunch of endings of Sebastian's route rough-drafted.

I created the plan flow-chart because I got lost. Depending on the path you chose, Monika had access to only certain information (like Sebastian being in the mafia) in some routes and lacked that information in others.

I found myself making references to information Monika wouldn't know in some routes, so that necessitated a flow chart for story development.

Yada yada yada, it became a game.

I thought to myself - I should make the flowchart in advance for Julian's route to avoid that problem… and looking back on it now, I think that may have been a mistake. Some of you who've been around on Discord may remember I've mentioned a lot that Julian's character was really difficult to write for me.

Of the three current routes, (in my opinion) Julian's is the weakest and I blame some of that on restricting myself to the flowchart plan. I think that may have limited development of both character and story, and I think that's what made his character so hard to write. I limited my own flexibility too much.

That wasn't a problem in Sebastian's route because I didn't create a plan until I was halfway through it, and at that point I already knew what was going to happen.

It also wasn't a problem in Brandon's route, despite me doing the same thing, because Brandon's entire life had already been developed in my mind during Sebastian's and Julian's route (through all the flashbacks and dialog and Brandon's various appearances). Similar to Sebastian, I already knew everything that was going to happen.

But Quinn's route I'm already realizing is going to have similar issues to Julian, and I don't want to put myself in that complicated situation again. I don't already know everything that's going to happen because Quinn hasn't been in the foreground much.

So…. all of that is making me reconsidering what I do for 'planning' now and in the future. And I think I really need to reframe 'planning' in general more like 'brainstorming possibilities'. Something along the lines of 'here are possible directions this story could play out'. 

Then I would freestyle write like I did in Sebastian's route, and develop the plan alongside the writing (for keeping track of details AND the game walkthrough file).

This idea obviously makes me a bit nervous because I have in the past written myself into corners, which means I scrap work sometimes. Given the patreon situation, I want to avoid scraping work and wasting time as much as possible… but at the same time I felt I wasted too much time in Julian's route being 'stuck' for all those mentioned reasons.

So… bear with me during Quinn's route! I'm going to try something different this go-round.

Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Let's find out together and wish me luck!