04/11/2023 Patreon Devlog

Summary

• Finished Raif's Ch9 scenes
• Started Yren's (about half done)

Ramble

Hallo. Time for this week's devlog everyone. I took a semi-break for a few days this week (I was working on something tangentially related to games but tried to keep it chill. I did write as well but wasn't really trying to push myself as hard as normal.

So this will be a short update!

Writing

This week I finished up writing Raif's scenes and started on Yren's Chapter 9 scenes. I would say about half of Yren's content is written.

I am 1.5% from reaching the 90% milestone overall.

Despite that I took one day off from writing entirely and was just being kind of relaxed about my goals for several other days, I still wrote more this week than I have for the last three weeks (per week, not overall).

I've mentioned this to a friend of mine but one of the biggest drawbacks for me in writing a game where the routes overlap the way they do in WSC is just having to write the same scene multiple times, trying to find a unique way to have events flow during the scene when the starting point and end point are the same and certain revelations or moments need to happen in all the variations in order for story "equity" and plot.

Particularly keeping the romance very even across routes is really important because one of the big complaints I've seen for games with this structure is when players feel that one LI is given more romantic content than others or when an LI seems to not be given the same consideration as the others.

Making sure I don't repeat content but have things flow equally is really important.

Often, we end up with a flow like this:

In this situation, the start and the end are the same. Certain moments happen in all routes (like, they always flirt, they always have a conversation, and they always have some kind of incident (character moment or 'shenanigans') that occurs).

What I try to alter is the chronological flow where maybe the "flirt" moment happens at a different point in the scene for different characters, the Incident (™) happens differently, etc. And then I try to make the details of the content different. They all have a conversation and maybe the same topic comes up because I need it to, but overall, their conversation is different. It's reflective of the character and some of the details are unique to their version of the scene.

The flirting happens differently, revolves around different in-jokes or interactions, etc.

I know that one of the frustrations players have with overlapping route games is the repetition of the storyline and events. I can't not have that in this game. But I do try to off-set it by ensuring the character scenarios you get are worthwhile.

It's really hard, honestly. And as much as I try to insert characterisation and differences into the LI scenarios, there's no helping that the main bullet points in the scene are the sometimes the same. And in chapter 9 it means bullet, bullet, LOVE SCENE, bullet...etc.

Sometimes in a slightly different order.

Now I already had 2 of them written (Asher and Daaz) but I still had 4 left. And I'm on my 4th love scene in a row.

Writing this many sexual encounters with the same starting context, while trying to vary them without having things get too out there (because I try to make sure they have somewhat widespread appeal), trying to somewhat match word counts so no one ends up with a 500 word love scene while others have a 2000 word love scene, while not using repeated metaphors or descriptions (despite that the PoV character is the same across all the scenes and therefore has a similar mindset and view of what's happening), while also having the nature and vibe of the scene match the LI's characterisation...

Has been...a journey.

In GS it wasn't quite the same because the entire context of each love scene was different. Even Morgan's point of view was different because she's experienced different things up to that point in each route and was in a very different mind space each time the relationship crossed that threshold.

Unlike Wil who is kind of in the exact same mind space in each scene because more or less the same events have gotten them to that point despite that it is with a different person.

Anyway, point is...

😩

I'm feeling very love-scene'd out at the moment, not gonna lie.

BUT - nearly done with chapter 9 and while there is a much shorter love scene towards the end of each route, it's not as detailed and I won't be writing them all one after the other.

So yeah! That's it for my writing ramble this week!

Art

It looks like it was this week when I received the new completed BG and sketch (sometimes I forget which week art stuffs happen). They are continuing to slowly roll in. But it's going to be a while before they're complete, for sure.

Welcome to the ship's garden. A critical component of their life support and oxygen supply, it's looked after by Yren.

It's basically the only place the crew gets to hang out in "nature" on their months long journeys into deep space so it's a popular spot for walking, chilling out, and staving off the inevitable insomnia of having circadian rhythms thrown off from living in a place without proper day/night cycles.

Colour Sliders

For anyone wanting an update on this, Feniks has been working to improve the tool to include more channels you can colourize so I've been waiting for the new version of the tool and literally just got it. So I'll have to try to play with it in the upcoming days and weeks to see how viable it still is for me.

No real updates there since I've been in wait-mode. But maybe I can talk about it more next week!

Other

None!

Upcoming

• GS Lorebook stuffs
• Writing

I should finish Yren's Ch 9 content this week.

At that point I will have to decide if I want to finish out the routes or actually focus on editing so I can address continuity issues regarding the changes in motivation of antagonists THEN finish out the routes with that new framework in mind.

I've been doing some early-chapter editing on the sly but my focus has really been on continuing to write new content.

This is a hard decision because obviously my goal is to get the draft done which means I need to be making forward progress.

And editing will halt that progress.

At the same time, getting the new motivations and story elements edited into early chapters will make drafting the remaining route content easier when I get to it.

As I've mentioned, I don't like writing non-sequentially and usually find that it's better not to - especially when I have a deadline I'm trying to meet.

But there are always exceptions and I'm trying to decide if this is one of them. So there we go!

That is where things are this week! And I will see you all next week.