28/09 Patreon Devlog

 Hey guys! Sorry for the delay this week. As has happened before, I got into a bit of a loop of "I'll do it when I finish this thing." and it was kind of never ending.

So I ended up putting it off until today while working on other dev stuff! But here we are. And we are jumping into the update this week.

Summary:

• Code catch-up
  • (Cleaned up a lot of little things that have been on the to-do list for a while)
• Finished Jack chapter four - started Chapter five
• Another BG sketch (I think. They all blur together...)
• Finished coding BGs for Caissa's route
• One (1) new sprite

The Ramble:

Okay, so let's talk coding first.

I worked on a lot of smallish (but numerous) code related things that have been on the to-do list for a while now. None of them were major and, for the most part, it was just kind of a time sink.

It was mostly stuff like placing Quill's profile in the game, or placing Quill on the main menu and removing Kauri's images from places. Putting Quill's name in menu lists, etc.

I did also revamped the relationship meter page. The main goal here was just to get all the meters on a single screen. I really disliked having them scattered across two screens. I had to swap the horizontal meters out for vertical ones to get them all to fit.

And since I'm not as familiar with all the "bar" code in renpy, I had to learn some new stuff. But I got it up and working.

I also put in the flowchart key with all the symbols and whatnot.

I've been contemplating a first CG for Quill. All the others have an introductory CG you can achieve when you first meet them in the common route, but Quill does not. At the same time, he has an incredibly short encounter with Morgan before she loses consciousness so I'm not sure I should cram a CG into that moment or just wait until his route starts.

The other option, of course, is to lengthen their encounter a bit so there's space for a CG.

Anyway, that's kind of another topic. LoL

Okay, writing has been going along at a reasonable pace but I honestly wish it was going a little faster. One chapter a week isn't bad but it's not amazing either. Jack's chapters have been proving a little longer than I'd like. The last one was around 9000 words (but it's also nearly 50% branched due to Rory potentially showing up).

I really can't keep his chapters this long so I'm hoping we get some more reasonable chapter lengths going on.

I have hopes for the next chapter! LoL. It has a major event I've been looking forward to writing as this is the event that drags Morgan firmly into the goings on at the Court.

There have been small burblings of the plot so far - hints about what is coming. But this is the first major situation and it will lead to some touching (and funny) situations over the next couple of chapters.

So I'm looking forward to it! 

As Rory spends much of this next chapter recuperating, I shouldn't have any major Rory-related branches to deal with. One hopes.

Finally, in writing news, I made two world building/plot/character decisions.

One is a smallish detail that will actually require some editing of other routes because it's small, but has larger implications. I've mentioned in the past that Morgan sees psi-energy as coloured light/smoke around other people. Initially I had written it in a 'every person is unique' kind of way - so everyone has a unique colour and structure to their psi.

I ended up revamping that into the idea that everyone within the same rank has a similar colour. It doesn't mean that, for instance, every king has the same shade, vibrancy, and structured green light. But it does mean that all kings have some hue of green that has small variation person to person.

The reason this ends up being more significant as a plot point is that it means Morgan, once she realises this pattern, would be able to tell at a glance what someone's rank is. It's not a major change, but it will require some rewording here and there for continuity sake.

I will especially have to take a look at a scene in Caissa's route that involves Morgan and the other queen rank, Veli. 

The other major plot thing...is related to the character Brenin Roi.

He is an antagonist that appears across multiple routes. He's in Caleb's route, he will appear in Jack's route. And he will probably appear in Magnus' route and maybe Lance's route.

I had...an interesting idea that lets me tie together Changeling-verse and Gilded Shadows-verse in a way. I don't want my games to take place all in the same universe - I don't think it makes sense. But I do like the idea of connecting them as a sort of Easter egg.

So I'm using the concept of multiverse theory to suggest that Gilded Shadows-verse and Changeling-verse are AUs of each other. Which means a William Lee (not the same one as in Changeling) existed on earth in the Gilded Shadows universe. This William was an Esper - a powerful one. 

Which suggests F-class Espers have been around much longer than anyone on Arcalis realises. GS William was studied and experimented on - like many Espers of his day. His genome was completely mapped and that information was available to Arcalian scientists who cloned him (and other 21st century Espers) to compare them to modern Espers on Arcalis. 

Brenin is, basically, a clone of William Lee.  I'm unsure how many of Brenin's exact details will make it into the game. I suspect that, at most, it'll be stated he's a clone of a 21st century Esper from Earth. This requires me to make some continuity fixes to Caleb's route but I think it's not only kind of a fun Easter egg, but it also makes Brenin more interesting as a character.

So I'm pretty happy with it. 

I also drew his sprite over the weekend (no expressions, of course. I also do those later on). You will find that below! 

But yeah, that happened and was kind of a fun, unexpected development.

Otherwise, I think that is really it for now. We'll move on to sneak peeks.

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

So I don't really have any new BG stuff to show you guys since last week. But I do have a screen cap of the new relationship meters.

As you can see, they are smaller, vertical and otherwise look the same. LoL

I also have Brenin's sprite. I wanted him to look similar to William but obviously in the GS style. I may have to make a couple of tweaks. William's lips were a little thinner and his eyes, not quite as big. I do want people to be able to immediately catch the resemblance. 

I think the lips are throwing me off a little. 

I did pose them similarly too. I was initially going to give them a similar haircut but ultimately gave Brenin his own hair style.

So yeah.

Upcoming Week:

Chapter Five...hopefully Chapter Five and Six. 

I'm going to try to not let myself get distracted this week. (there have been a lot of distractions the past two weeks.)

I do want to leap ahead progress-wise when it comes to writing Jack's route. I don't intend this route to take three months like Caleb's did. So I really need to speed things up.

I expect to get a few BGs this coming week. So hopefully I will have some of those to show you next time.

And I think that's it for now.

OH! The Caleb wallpaper.  Spicy won...so I'll be coming up with that design and everything over the next couple of weeks and releasing it.

I have an idea in mind but we'll see how it goes! LoL

See you then!

~Esh