23/12/2023 Patreon Devlog

22/12/2023

Ramble

Hi everyone! Time for this week's update!

Summary

• Finished editing Chapter 6!
• FINISHED THE GODFORSAKEN PROFILES
• Received two (2) new BGs!!
• Started designing the Fancy Game Guide (â„¢)

Writing

With Chapter 5.5 out of the way I have finally (FINALLY) been able to move on into editing chapter 6.

Chapter 6 is sort of a critical junction. It contained some set up for the previous more messy plot motivations for some of the antagonistic forces in the game. And now I'm changing a lot of that. So there are tons of edits in this chapter.

But it's really nice to finally be able to work on this and get it cleaned up. 

EDIT: I finished up editing Chapter 6 a few hours after I queued up this post. 💪 I've made some edits to the wording to account for the fact that I'm actually done with Chapter 6 but if anything reads like I'm still working on it, that's why!

Of course, in addition to making the necessary plot fixes/changes, I'm also focused on general clean up. There were some minor continuity issues and places where I'm realising I need to have small variations due to previous references.

Something else I knew I'd have to do but often didn't bother with in my first draft was alt-scenarios if the player doesn't end up on an LI route - which is possible.

WSC doesn't have a platonic path, really. It's a romance game and honestly I didn't want a platonic path dogging my steps all the way through writing. So if the player doesn't end up with a love interest on the ship, Wil does end up leaving at a particular point in the story.

This made sense narratively and just simplified the writing which is already much more extensive and complex than I originally planned. However, there are a few chapters where you can be on the crew without a love interest (so it's after the LI path is chosen but before you leave).

A lot of those variations don't exist yet and I've been adding *some* of them in. Some of them won't get added yet.

In some places where Wil has an interaction with the love interests a non-LI version involves Wil talking to other crew members - Kaeto/Cim or Fraise/Lerin - or Gates. These variations, I'm adding in as I go.

(And yes, for those paying attention, I'm still playing with name spellings to try to add visual distinctiveness to names without changing them completely).

But in some situations I think it makes more sense that Wil would interact with Noel - but in more of a Captain-Crew Member capacity than Romantic Partners capacity. In these instances, I think it makes more sense to write those while I'm editing Noel's path. It will just be a little easier to compare the "Crew Member" versus "Romantic Partner" version of the scenarios and make sure that they are different and that the "Crew Member" version reads as non-romantic by comparison, etc, etc.

There are only a couple of these so far. But I'll catch those in a future revision.

I'm excited about getting into chapter 7 next. It takes place largely in a new environment - Aether Station. That's going to be fun to work on as well.

We will get to see one of our semi-antagonists for the first time. Kind of.

The player will have potentially met him before but kind of a dreamlike, not-quite-reality version of him.

And this will be the first time meeting him in the flesh, so to speak.

(On that note, I feel like WSC doesn't necessarily have very solid antagonists. Certainly, there's no real villain.

I feel like this is a common thing in my work. The antagonist may have goals at odds with the main character, but a lot of times they aren't evil beings like Sauron or Voldemort or something.

If there is a "villain" they're often far more petty than a Sauron would be. They are slimy politicians and things like that. It's a faceless organisation or government.

I guess that's because I feel like in real life, villains aren't convenient caricatures like a dark lord or evil emperor. They are much more insidious - people who are selfish and have the power to hurt others because of their position. Or organisations that are hard to fight against for individuals.

A lot of times the people we're at odds with aren't evil. They are flawed - like we are - and often just have goals contrary to ours.

And so I guess that's just how I often position the antagonistic forces in my work as well.

ANYway!

Art

I received two complete backgrounds this week! Thanks to having a second BG artist, hopefully I can shorten the time remaining for the rest of the BGs.

Unfortunately, the second artist is working on BGs that I don't want to show off right now.

They're not spoilers per se but I also want people see them in the game for the first time.

But I did get the lounge/rec room for The Ophelia. I think this is the last of the ship environments.

It's somewhat similar to the observation deck but this is more of a "group hangout" area versus an area used more for 1x1 scenes.

Other

This week I started trying to design the...what I guess will be the "premium" version of the game guide for WSC.

Just like with Gilded Shadows, I will have two guides. One will be the public guide which will be straight forward and simple. The "premium" guide will be prettier and have a lot more information in it but it won't be necessary to have to play the game or anything.

It's just a nice bonus for supporters.

GS Stuff

I FINISHED THE PROFILES.

Omfg. That took *forever*

It took forever. And ever.

And then I realised about halfway through that I'd forgotten four characters IMPORTANT ONES!

Unfortunately when you're working on these double pages like this, you can't just insert single pages between them and expect everything to magically get re-ordered. So I had to manually re-organise them. Which is a pain.

(And yes, technically they're not "finished" because I have to add the images to some of the profiles, but that's actually really easy because with the frame, you just drag-and drop so it takes literal seconds to add an image to each page. So I'm counting them as DONE.

What remains for the lore book is finishing up and adding any side stories or drabbles. And compiling any deleted content.

The profiles were the most tedious and time consuming because they're just annoying to format basically.And I had to write up all the little "backstory" bits for most of these people since I didn't have functional profiles for them.

But that's done! The worst part is done and what remains is kind of fun stuff. So yes. Happiness. 😌

Upcoming

Of course, holidays are right around the corner and my wedding anniversary is smooshed in the middle of it all so the next week will be a little hectic.

However, my son's semester is over.

So for those of you who've been around, you know that I have to help my offspring with time management when he's in school due to ADHD and some other struggles. When he is in school, I am essentially his office assistant. I manage his schedule, I keep him on track, I help him manage assignments, figure out project instructions, make sure he turns things in on time and often proofread or act as a sounding board, and things like that for him.

So that eats up a lot of my day but when he is on break, I too get a break from that aspect of my job.

And I have more time for dev stuff.

Apart from the upcoming holiday week, I will have a bit more time than usual, which I'm really looking forward to.

Hopefully that means I'll be able to make a lot of progress with my editing.

We'll see how it goes!

I am not sure if you'll hear from me next week or when. I may try to queue up a post on Friday to get it out to you. Assuming I have any updates worth sharing.

I will see you then or just after then or just before then. Or sometime!

(There are other content posts queued up until the beginning of January so posts will still be happening even through the holiday week. Yay for post scheduling! 💪 )