03/08/2023 WSC - Rambly Update

Hi everyone! It hasn't been that long since my last update on WSC but I've kind of done a lot of stuff since then and decided to do a new update on it.

So this time I'm going to break it down because there is a lot of stuff.

• Non-Kav related writing.

Basically I have one small bit to finish for Yren and Noel, Raif, and Yren will be completed up to Chapter Five. That may not seem like a lot but each chapter in this game is pretty long so often the character scenes for each chapter will total 10k words per character (or more). Not always but in certain chapters that's definitely the case so getting all the scenes done for the characters can be thousands and thousands of words.

I was initially going to go back and write the new chapter three and then maybe try to catch Kav up to where the others are. And I haven't given up on that but I've been basically focusing on planning all of that stuff for now. I haven't written any of it yet.

The new chapter is completely planned out now so I can probably go back and write that at this point. And I'll talk about Kav's route below.

• Story edits for Kav

So by now I've mentioned there is a new love interest in this game. He won't really appear until Chapter Three - the new chapter three. But to make his addition work in the story, I have to go back and add some references to him and about him in earlier chapters. So now, the characters do mention that this guy exists - in the prologue, in chapter one, in chapter two, etc. They are just brief mentions to pull those chapters into continuity for when he is properly introduced.

I may add some more additions when I go back and do my full, proper edit but Kav now exists in the story as a character.

• Some writing for Kav

Kav's writing right now is very much in the planning stages but sometimes as I work on things for characters I start getting snippets of scenes and interactions with them going in my brain. And for Kav, I have started writing those snippets down. It's not much. But there's a bit of content now to help me get more of a feel for this character and who he is.

All the routes initially track pretty similar story beats in that the same major events happen across all routes. But the dialogue and individual interactions are different. Kav has some unique back story elements that I want to reveal slowly, so I have to plan his interactions out to drop hints about those things.

In addition, the story splits at Chapter 8 (currently - will be Chapter 9 after the new chapter is added). I really want each story resolution to be a bit different. The story conflict is the same for all routes of course. They all follow the same plot line up until Ch 8/9. But I really wanted to find different paths for the MC to take to resolve this conflict and achieve their goal.

In Kav's case there were several possibilities and I had to kind of think about the different pros and cons or different strategies. I think I've settled on a climax/resolution for him. Now that I know where his story is going, I can go back and start filling in some of his scenes in the early chapters.

• New Backgrounds

So far I only have 2.5 (I have seen the sketch of a third background but have not seen the complete version of it). The game is going to look quite different with the new backgrounds but I'm looking forward to it. I will miss some of the old BGS but I think that this change, as a whole, is for the best.

• Adding Kav to screens

So..the thing is that certain screens have references to the characters on them - the gallery has a list of names, the "affinity metres" have one bar for each LI. Kav has to be added to all of that. In addition, while the flowcharts aren't ready yet, I have made the icons and each LI has their own icon....so I had to add a Kav icon.

That was a bit of an adventure since it took me a while to find the layered file that would let me easily replicate the style of the existing icons and even then, sizing them to be the same was tricky so I ended up having to re-save a lot of images. But that is also done now.

• Screens overhaul/corrections

Now, as a whole, the game still looks the same. When I say 'overhaul' what I really mean is that I cleaned up some issues on some of the screens. Things that have been on my TO DO list for a while and now most of them are done.

Though not all the screens are complete yet as I will need help with some of them.

• Main Menu

Revamped the main screen for a variety of reasons. Mostly re-organising buttons in avoidance of setting up an "extras" screen. The art is the same but the buttons look different.

• Music Room

I added a music room (with help! LoL). I had decided a while ago that I wanted to add a music room since I knew an OST would not be available. Rather than a list where you click the song, I wanted to do something that worked more like a play list that cycles through the available tracks, and also thought it would be fun if there were special images to unlock and look at while you listen.

I have half the art done but will be completing the reset of it over the next few weeks.

(No, you don't get to see it yet but full, wall-paper sized versions will be available here on Patreon).

• Navigation

Created a new menu navigation using a drop down menu. I really hate having an 'extras' page that requires extra clicking to get around to screens people want to access. It kind of means you need more cluttered menus to be able to access things with a single click. But everything is a trade off.

• Background Error

Fixed small visual error that was visible at the top of some menu backgrounds. It was just an aesthetic thing that has been there for a while but is now fixed.

• Save/Load

The page buttons have been changed a little and an error that was caused by spacing issues has been fixed (you previously couldn't really access pages 3, 4, 5, or 6. But that's fixed now

• Frame overlap

There was another small visual issue I didn't like where some of the background frames on some screens like "Credits" were just big enough to overlap the screen label in a displeasing way. Again, a very minor aesthetic thing that is now fixed.

• Settings sliders

The settings sliders had a hard line where the soft glow on the bottom edge was cut off. This was particularly visible on the lowest one but was there on all of them. I've been meaning to fix this for a while but it became really noticeable with the new navigation button so I went ahead and fixed it.

This was another purely aesthetic thing that is now fixed.

• Changed colour of selected text

The selected text on the Settings screen wasn't a problem because there are visual selectors there but I just felt more contrast was needed. So I ended up changing those as well.

A lot of these were incredibly minor or purely aesthetic but they are fixed now. I've also more or less (I THINK!?) finished Kav's sprite. And I also made a few small additions to some of the other characters - additional outfits, etc.