Greetings everyone! For awhile now, we’ve been posting weekly game development updates for Scribe-level patrons over on our Patreon. But as a result, we’ve forgotten to post regular updates here on our blog! So today we offer a summary of our development in January, picking out the best excerpts from our weekly Patreon Dev Updates.
SETTING BOUNDARIES – WITH AN ECHO FROM THE FEY
In the beginning of January, we focused on preparing a new demo build of Crimson Spires. We wanted the demo to include an explore-able section of Bataille. But to achieve that, we needed to cordon off the part of the town relevant to the demo.
Building the full town of Bataille in 3D is a huge endeavor, and we’re far from finished. So there are parts of Bataille that are still empty. Fortunately, the demo takes place in a small section around the town square, but we needed to prevent players from stumbling into the unfinished parts of the game.
To start, we placed long/wide boundary actors around the relevant parts of Bataille. These actors were children of our general “TouchClick_BP” actors used to trigger scenes, just invisible. The goal was to trigger a short scene telling the player to turn around.
These actors, however, had a funny side effect because of a little bit of code left over from Echoes of the Fey. In Echoes, clicking on scene actors from ANY distance would trigger the scene. That worked great in 2D space. In 3D space, this leftover “mouse click” code started triggering the boundary scenes in random spots in the world. The reason was simple: if you surround 3D space in actors that consume a mouse click and trigger a scene, sometimes you’ll accidentally click on them.
Finally, we removed that functionality and the boundaries now work as intended!
ART MANIA: DRAWING A SIBLING
In the screenshot below, you’ll see one of the minor town characters, Principal Vincent.
Well, Principal Vincent has a brother named Caleb Vincent. So far he has precisely ONE line in the script. But it’s kind of important, so I (Jenny) decided to go ahead and draw a portrait for Caleb. Due to the fact he’s Principal Vincent’s brother, I thought I should give them some similar facial features.
Unintentionally, by copying a lot of Principal Vincent’s facial features, my first pass at Caleb looked somewhat effeminate:
I love effeminate men and sometimes draw them on purpose, but it was NOT my intention with Caleb. In fact, I wanted him to be a gruff hillbilly type.
I asked some local artist friends for advice, and it blew up into a huge conversation about what typically constitutes “masculine” or “feminine” in anime designs, which is a difficult thing to pinpoint. The easiest solution for Caleb seemed to be giving him a beard, but for whatever reason, my first pass at that looked terrible. You can see the iterations below, ending with the latest (and perhaps final?).
This is a funny example of how you never know what will take up the most time in game development. I’ve probably designed full-bodied character portraits in less time than it took me to draw Caleb. And the most ridiculous part is that–so far–he only has ONE FRIGGIN LINE in the whole script! *Sigh*
THE CHALLENGE OF WRITING JULIAN’S PATH
Now it’s time for me (Jenny) to be real about something. I have an embarrassing confession to make.
I HAVE BEEN STUCK ON THE SAME FIVE PAGES IN JULIAN’S SCRIPT FOR THREE MONTHS.
Yep. You heard right. In three months, the script for Crimson Spires has not progressed. I have written and rewritten the same five pages over, and over, and over again. But each time I did not feel happy about it.
Firstly, I should point out that this is very rare for me. Writers talk about writer’s block all the time, but it’s something I almost never struggle with, and I’ve been writing novels since I was in middle school. This particular block was also easy for me to ignore, because I could always work on something else for Crimson Spires. There’s always portraits for me to draw, blueprints to code, and music to compose. But now, game development has caught up to the point in the script where I’m blocked. So I had no choice but to confront it.
It’s hard to say exactly what caused this block. Some of it might have been personal. Malcolm and I suffered a big discouragement regarding the project last November, around when my writer’s block started. This was when we thought we might receive some funding from a convention we attended, and were very surprised and demoralized when we didn’t. Creatively, this took a lot of wind out of my sails.
But I think the reason is also related to the challenge of writing Julian’s path. He’s a friggin vampire. On top of that, he’s sort of a snobbish jerk. As his creator, I know what makes Julian lovable and interesting. But getting Erika to fall in love with him has been the real challenge. In so many ways, they are incompatible. The section of the script where I got stuck involved their lowest point, from which Erika was supposed to start falling in love with him. But it just never felt right. I couldn’t find the spark between them.
I can’t go into too much detail without giving away plot spoilers, but I’ll just say that I finally broke down to Malcolm and admitted how much trouble I was having. I’m so grateful to have a creative partner I trust and respect as much as him! He listened and thought about it quietly for a long time. Finally, he told me how he would write it if he were in my position. Although I didn’t fully agree with him, his perspective allowed me to see the story in a new light. I saw where I might be able to create that spark between Julian and Erika.
We kept bouncing ideas back and forth, until finally, I went back to my outline and jotted them down. After a day or two mulling it all over, I knew it was the right way to proceed. Once again, I needed to go back and rewrite large sections of the script. But I finally did. And I finally felt capable of forging ahead.
The struggle has been real, but I hope that it pays off in the end. I hope the romances we write in this game are ones you can all fall in love with!
AND FINALLY, HERE’S SOME MUSIC
Sometimes my creative cycle hits a point where I strongly desire to focus on one outlet, whether writing, drawing, or composing. Last month, I went into a long composition spree. Here’s the primary new song I created, from which I’m developing a few other versions:
This song features a new instrument and starts in a different key than the rest of the soundtrack, so it will be a challenge to keep blending it with the other tracks!
SEE MORE ON PATREON
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