24/11/2023 Patreon Devlog

Ramble

Hallo! Time for this week's update.

Leaky Roof Saga:

The report of the issue has been "passed on" (whatever that means). It's been raining for three days.

🙃

Otherwise, it's been a chaotic week. I'm exhausted and need 12 consecutive vacations. I am also running out of the house after typing this so forgive me if it ends abruptly. I've literally been trying to type it up for two hours with constant interruptions.

My life. 🤣🤣😩

Summary

• Started on Ch 6 edits...
• Then decided I need a chapter in between chapter 5 and 6.
  • There is now a "chapter 5.5" 🤣 (More below)

Writing

Why do you keep adding chapters, Esh?! IS THIS FILLER!?...you may be wondering.

Let me explain. LoL

So first of all this project originally was 13-14 chapters when I first planned it, and I removed chapters, condensing the storyline. Clearly that was not the best move for the story since I'm finding it too condensed and am having to add in chapters - not as "filler" but as genuine plot set up.

One of the drawbacks to this story structure - something I've noticed in a lot of games with overlapping routes and episodic releases - is a really truncated time frame of the story. Things feel like they happen really fast and, often, with very little build up. Including relationship development.

Part of the reason for this is that when you're writing in the framework of "episodes" you often find yourself skipping over lengthy character moments in favour of plot development and story development or making sure everyone has "equal screen time."

Each episode needs to be interesting on its own and lead the player through a standard beginning, middle, and end. Everything needs to be well-balanced and that can lend itself to spending a lot more time on flow and character screen time than things like plot set up..

In GS and Changeling, I often had short chapters where not much happened - sometimes just a single conversation would take up most of the chapter. These were moments meant to focus on character and relationship and/or to foreshadow or lay foundation for more important plot developments later on.

The problem with doing this in an episodic release is that you can't afford to have episodes where the player feels like nothing happened or it was a wasted episode because people only talked the whole time. And a lot of episodic releases are set up so 1 episode = 1 chapter and you don't want people waiting for a few months only to get a chapter they finish in an half an hour.

But what I'm finding is that I need these additional chapters to lay plot foundation and show character interactions.

My solution to the "interesting episode" problem is just to pair some short chapters with a longer chapter and combine them into a single episode.

So back to Chapter 5.5. It will most likely be released at the same as Chapter 5. (For the record, in the game this will be Chapter 6, not 5.5. I just don't want to rename all my obsidian files again.)

The main reason I added this chapter is because as I try to flesh out the foreshadowing for later events. If you recall, I said that one thing my edit needs to do is flesh out some of the plot foundation as well as change up the motivation and purpose of some of the antagonists. This new chapter is actually to help with that. The reason it became a new chapter is just that I realised I needed to insert a bit of content and, as I planned it...that "bit" became too much to shove into an existing chapter.

Chapter 5 is already 62,000 words. And Chapter 6 is 59,000 words. The part I'm adding is probably going to be another 20,000 words at least. And it really felt like a self-contained chapter (but is actually on the short side for a chapter in this game).

I wanted to delay The Ophelia's return to more populated areas of the galaxy and decided to give Wil a little bit of exposition about some of the ship's missions/stops as they head in towards "the main lines." This helps ground Wil's relationships and also shows setting-wise what this ship actually does. At some point, one of these episodes being narrated about seemed detailed and lengthy enough I started wondering if I should just show it on screen rather than tell the player about it.

Then I realised that if I did that, I could actually set up some major events that take place in the very next chapter, using the new incident I was detailing to foreshadow what's about to happen and who is behind it.

Ultimately, this is exactly why I ended up adding the entire event that takes place in [the new] Chapter 3. To be able to use it as a springboard for events that take place in Chapter 5.

That was when I really settled on making this thing its own chapter.

Anyway, I have about 10,000 words of the new chapter written and will hopefully get the rough version of it finished this upcoming week.

Art

Nothing in particular art related. I have been working, for a while now, to get my personal reference library more organised. And I absolutely did not buy new stock packs that now need to be organised because there wasn't a Black Friday sale and a couple of packs with couples which are really hard to find but incredibly useful for me for CGs.

That didn't happen.

*sweats profusely*

GS Stuff

I decided to add in a "People section" for the lore book. As I mentioned last time, I was undecided about it. But after adding in most of the other content for the setting and story, I just felt that it was needed and the lore book was going to feel empty without it.

There are a LOT of named characters in this game. So adding a "People" section is just going to take some time. Especially since the profiles are a bit finicky when it comes to formatting.

But I think it's necessary so I'm just going to have to buckle down and get it done. Hopefully people enjoy having this section and hearing some of the "developer" side of things and how various characters came to be.

So now I have to:

• Add all the profiles
• Add any deleted content that is worthy of being added
• Add any side stories, shorts, other writings I may have lying around.

Lore book is currently about 260 pages....and profiles, because they take up a lot of space due to formatting, will add...a lot more. I mean, it's definitely going to hit 300 pages. For sure.

Upcoming

This week I will be trying to get profiles further along in the lore book. As I said, they're more finicky formatting wise so they take longer to set up. And I have a lot of characters who do not have profiles written. So...it's going to take a bit of time to get that set up.

And writing this new chapter/insert for WSC which I hope to have finished by the end of the week.

I'm also going to try to get more progress on actually setting up the colour slider situation for WSC. It would be nice to have that squared away.

That's all for now. see you next week!