The Next Project? =O

I still have a fair amount of work to do for GS - probably close to a year of project development, then additional time to get KS rewards like the art book and lore book done. (The total writing for GS will be 130 chapters and 82% of those are complete now!) =O

However,despite that there's still a lot of work to be done, I'm already putting thoughts to my next project (I mean, I essentially have my next three projects planned out - the one I'm about to talk about, another one jokingly called "ASOWAM" right now, and a third steampunk one whose title is up in the air)

If you are on my server, you are aware of my "late night projects" - these are side projects I work on basically in the evenings, late at night, or on the weekends, when I put Gilded Shadows aside for a while and take a break from it.

I feel really nervous talking about this project in any official capacity because it will be *a while* before it sees the light of day. It's all comfy-cosy to talk about it on my server but posting about it here makes it feel...REAL. (which is silly because it is real and has been for a while.)

So huge disclaimer: I work on this project literally for a few hours a week at most. It is being developed slowly because it is literally my "free time-side project" right now. I do not intend to give updates about it on a regular basis until it becomes my main project.

It is called "When Stars Collide"...

I meant to do this post this past week but basically...

Got really wrapped up in writing Reuben's route and forgot. 🤣 I was also expecting to get the first background artwork this week which did not happen as my artist has gone a bit AWOL. So...

Anyway here is some info about When Stars Collide for those who don't know much (or anything) about this project...(Also I might have even already talked about this project here. I literally can't remember. But this is going to be a much more detailed post).

Genre and Story:

(Will this remain the main menu? WHO KNOWS)

WSC is another science fantasy project though this one is more of a "space game" in the same general realm as things like Star Wars or Farscape.

The story follows the crew of a small exploration and science vessel called The Ophelia. They locate a stash of what appears to be artefacts of an unknown species, among which is a large, glowing "cube" that later turns out to be a stasis unit housing the MC.

The MC stays with the crew out of necessity at first (since they are in deep space and there's really nowhere else to go) and then later by choice.

The crew gets involved in related shenanigans.

It's a pretty standard set up for introducing the MC and LIs. LIs do space things and somehow find the MC. MC joins the crew....SHENANIGANS.

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Literally everything that follows below is subject to change as this project is in early development. And...WHO KNOWS??

Love Interests:

There are............FIVE. I am determined to limit myself to five LIs going forward. And we all know how amazing I am at following self-imposed limitations.

Asher Dioscuri - the cocky ship's pilot and "virtuoso" (a specific type of pilot capable of folding space with latent telekinetic abilities). He is the youngest member of the crew and is a flirty, arrogant mess of a human.

Daazlon Cree - a xenoarchaeologist who functions as the ship's "ops" officer when they are in normal operations mode. He is easy going and inquisitive with an insatiable curiosity about other species and people. He is from the night side of a tidal locked planet and has bioluminescent flecks of light on his skin.

Noel Ramirez - an astrogeologist who also functions as the ship's captain and mission lead. He is a bit of a worry wart with a powerful sense of responsibility for his crew. He has a scientist's curiosity but is less reckless about exploring it than some of his other crew members.

Raif Atlas - the Mylorien engineer of The Ophelia. He is a quick-tempered and non-nonsense empath that sometimes struggles to get along with others. They are brutally honest and expect the same from others. And he absolutely cannot tolerate lies or people who hide their feelings.

Yren Ladon - a bioengineer with a specialty in xeno-botany. He is a quiet, taciturn man who prefers to watch others and listen rather than talk. He's in charge of the ship's life support system, which includes a massive forested garden in the centre of the ship.

Other crew members (these characters will have sprites and interact with the MC on a fairly regular basis, but are non-romanceable. That is why they're all married or in a serious relationship with others. Rofl):

Fraise Eriks - Second in command of The Ophelia. He is an emotional astrophysicist who doesn't quite manage to keep a cool head all the time. His spouse is Larin, the ship's physician.

Larin Eriks - Ship's physician and the person who is usually able to keep Fraise calm when he's panicking. They are friendly and calm, approaching things in a logical way.

Kato Rui - Armoury officer and weapon's specialist. Deep space can get pretty dangerous and Kato is the one in charge of the ship's weapons and armour. His partner is Connor.

Connor Alexei - Assistant engineer and Kato's partner. He and Yren served together on their prior ship but were the only survivors when they hit an asteroid convergence. They were rescued by The Ophelia where he met and fell in love with Kato.

Gates Stellan - The ship's communication officer. He is a father of triplets and though he has to be away from his family for long periods of time, is very dedicated to his family.

The sciencey people - A group of five scientists that work for the private company that owns The Ophelia. They stay in the ship's labs studying the artefacts and materials found by the crew. They don't often socialise with the others and are on temporary assignment. Generally, these people swap out with new teams every time the ship goes on a new mission. They have names and get mentioned but don't have sprites.

Overall, there are 15 people on the crew when the MC joins, but the ship can house up to 30 people.

The Main Character:

I do plan for the MC to be customisable (to a degree) and to have a visible sprite and to appear in some CGs. But the customisation will be massively toned down from Gilded Shadows with only limited options.

It's really the only way to make it at all sustainable as a feature. (GS was fun to do and I don't regret it but I can't do that level of customisation going forward. LoL!)

Gender/Pronoun customisation is on the table but up in the air for this project.

There are multiple considerations with this feature - especially keeping in mind common complaints players have. The first one being the "invisible sprite" issue.

The MC will not be a blank slate style self insert. They will have a defined personality, a defined backstory, pre-determined goals, and a narrow set of parameters for appearance. If gender is customisable, this will be reflected in the sprite's body type (of which there will be three that are choosable by the player). This will be reflected in whatever CGs show the MC (or it'll show only from the shoulders up so it's easier on me.)

Body and pronouns will be set separately so there's not a "girl" sprite for she/her and a "boy" sprite for he/him. You'd be able to choose any sprite with any pronouns

However, there are a lot of other issues people have with gender/pronoun customisation. And I have to consider how best to approach all those things if I include it.

I am currently writing the game with the assumption this feature will be included because going back to add it after writing a gender-locked MC seems like it would be a huge pain and cause some significant writing issues. This means that, currently, I am giving a lot of thought to where things need to be kept neutral and where things need gendered variations, etc etc.

MC Personality/Backstory:

The MC's name is Wil Nymera. They are found in a stasis unit on an isolated and otherwise deserted world (though the crew isn't aware it's a stasis unit until it's on their ship.)

Wil's father is from a race of advanced telepaths who have long since abandoned the Milky Way galaxy for other galaxies. Their people's reputation and notoriety precede them and they have to convince the crew they are not a danger to anyone. 

Though Wil is 1/4 human, they have difficulty speaking due to their Veleian heritage and usually resort to telepathic speech most of the time. They are confident and a little cheeky most of the time. Not a typical Veleian, they also aren't human enough to be able to completely ignore their heritage.

They really just want a normal life flying through space poking interesting things with a stick. But things don't always quite work out that way for them.

Structure:

WSC is a "overlapping route" style game (in the vein of something like Ebon Light, Oathbreaker, Cardinal Cross, etc). I wrote it this way because I wanted to try out this game style to see if it's something I like or want to pursue in future games.

Spoiler alert: It's not. And I don't.  😱😱  I have learned the hard way that I don't really enjoy writing in this style and it's actually much harder than my normal way of structuring games.

That said, the project was designed to be written this way and I really wasn't able to reverse course once I got into the writing. Though, as of now, I don't plan to write any other games in this style - I'll be finishing out this one in this style simply because it's necessary and it's how the game was planned.

I also wanted to try an episodic style release. Again, this is just something I wanted to try out to see if it's a more sustainable way of developing for me (because projects like GS are so exhausting to release in the way I've been doing it and there are some benefits to episodic releases that this method of game release misses out on). That's another reason the game was written the way it is. It's more conducive to an episodic release style.

I intend to go for a fairly standard release model where releases go out to Patreon backers first.

As of right now the size is estimated to be around 450,000 words with a prologue + 13 chapters. I won't start releasing it until it's completely written and the gap between episodes will be primarily to help me space out the art so I don't destroy my hand again.

For those curious, the project is currently 170,000 words long. This writing style makes your word count SHOOT up so fast because there 5 versions of so many scenes. 🤣😱 One chapter is 55,000 words.

*dies*

One of the difficulties with this structure is keeping replay value high and avoiding a situation where I'm just swapping out the LI names for scenes. I am doing my best to have the scenarios be different enough to be enjoyable. It means the word count explodes sometimes.

Features:

I'm exploring some other features as well. I may do flowcharts? I don't know that they'll be as helpful for a game structured this way unless I alter how they're set up but I think it would be fun to show some of the branching.

I'm also going to be playing around with "affinity" notifications - things to let players know which choices align to which characters.

And I haven't decided whether or not there will be love scenes in this one (and if so, what will they be like.)

So there's actually a lot about the game function and features that is still totally up in the air right now. Almost all the "development" work has been drawing a few sprites an doing the writing. 

This game is one where I get to experiment with some things and try some features I've been thinking about but haven't implemented before. It will definitely be a while before this project really sees the light of day.

But I've been eager (and scared) to share it somewhere other than my server.

If people are interested, I may share more of the lore and tidbits about characters and setting. You know me and my world building. 🤣

But only if you want to hear it because - and I can't stress this enough - no one is going to be playing this project for a long time. LoL!