22/01/2024 Patreon Devlog

Ramble

Hi everyone! Just popping in for a quick update. Sorry I missed this weekend. I wasn't feeling great and it was honestly a hard week in general so I didn't make as much progress on anything as I wanted to make. ;o;

Summary

• Started a new Yren art for Patreon
• Started re-organising the remaining route endings based on the edits
• Have also been editing story content while doing that.
• And continuing to work on the variable spreadsheet to track variables.
• Fen made a ton of cool progress on the flowcharts

Writing

So I didn't make as much progress in the writing area this week as I wanted. I just hit another period of being unsure how I want to tackle the remaining work so I'm just sort of feeling my way forward slowly.

I did finish all but one of the short stories for the lore book. I'm a little stuck on the last one. I got 1000 words into it and decided I hate it...so. I don't know. I have to think more on what I want to do with it.

I started editing Daaz's route while brainstorming the remaining endings and I hit a problem I was worried I might hit - which is that even one route in, it's actually a bit difficult to remember which details are route specific and which are not. That means that as I edit Daaz, I may want to mention or reference something earlier in the game only to not really remember if that's a common route moment, an Asher-exclusive, a Daaz-exclusive, or something in one of the other routes.

This was also a problem in Changeling where the routes shared some plot points (but was less of an issue in GS where the routes were fully self contained.)

I think I'm going to just have to edit each chapter as a unit (which is a bit more tedious) to be able to keep it straight. So I've shifted gears to start doing that.

The brainstorming for the endings is going okay. Just a lot of shuffling things around and deciding how things are actually going to play out in the final chapters of the remaining characters.

Art

Other

So this week, Fen made some really cool progress on the flowcharts.

With Gilded Shadows, the flowcharts are what is called an image map. Essentially each flowchart is made up of these three images:

It works by creating hotspots at the coordinates of each node within the flowchart. I basically tell the game that when the player encounters a specific variable in the script, to show the opaque version of that node vs the transparent version.

The value of this technique is that the code for the flowcharts is actually pretty simple. The drawback is that making the flowchart images is kind of a pain in the butt.

Each route in GS has 14 chapters + 4 common route chapters. That's 130 chapters. On average, the chapters have about 20 nodes. Some have more and some have way less. But that's over 2000 little nodes that I had to place manually in photoshop, type a name, then position the connectors. It was a lot of time.

What Fen is trying to do is create a method that will reduce the time needed to create each flowchart by automating some parts of the process - like making the connectors and some of the placement of the nodes as well.

This means the code will be a little more complicated but overall, given the complexity of the WSC flowcharts, it should still save a lot of time.

The flowcharts in When Stars collide are basically like crunching 6 routes into. Instead of Asher Ch 5, Daaz Ch 5, Kav Ch 5, Noel Ch 5, Yren Ch 5 all having individual flowcharts...those flowcharts all occupy the same space. The result is one much more complex flowchart. (And this example was before I added Kav. So it's actually less complex than  the real flowchart for this part of the game).

Imagine having 150 nodes on a single chart instead of...20. It's so much more work to place all of those manually and then manually draw all the connecting lines.

That's the work we are trying to reduce.

This image may not look exciting to you because it's ultimately the same image as the one above. The difference is that this one was built entirely with code.

Obviously the flowchart in the game wouldn't look like THIS - it would use the correct images to match the rest of the game aesthetic. These are just place holder images. It is pretty cool to be able to build a flow chart entirely with code instead of having to do the whole thing manually.

Fen has been working on this for a while (since last year actually). But it's really cool to see progress as they've figured out some of the required maths.

Anyway...yeah! None of that has really been my work other that me giving feedback and advice here and there. But it is happening! So that's cool >3

Upcoming

I'm going to try to finish that last lore book short this week. I'm still a bit stuck on it honestly but I'm going to do my best to brainstorm my way to a solution by Friday.

And I want to finish editing chapter 2 for all characters...

Beyond that, I'm not really sure. Just continuing to try to work on STUFF, really.

I also want to get the Yren art finished and posted this week if possible but...I am not sure. My right arm has decided to be a pain (literally and figuratively) so drawing will be dependent on if it continues to improve or decides to implode again.

That is all for this update. I will see you...later this week. LoL