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Dev Journals April/May 2023
🕑 Added 2023-05-31 22:46:04 +0000 UTCPutting both logs in one post, just so I'm not spamming you with a thousand things today.
So for the first dev log I want to talk a little bit about pathing. Minor spoilers ahead
So fun fact about the above images, you'll only see one of them per playthrough.
Each of the shots above comes from three different versions of the scene you get depending on choices you made in our last update regarding Kana. Did you sleep with her? If you did was it more a causal or romantic thing? Those determine which scene variant you end up getting.
Obviously I'm not the first dev to ever make branches and I'm not trying to pretend this is the most impressive thing ever done. More just sharing a little of what it looks like behind the scenes on my end. Obviously I can only speak for my own experience, but I think you'll probably hear somewhat similar things from other developers.
Obviously one of the big draws of our games is the ability to make choices, to have a little bit of freedom in how your narrative unfolds. Giving you that ability within my resources is what I'd like to do. A big struggle with it is trying to give you choice, without completely overwhelming myself on a development end.
I'm sure you understand that ever permutation adds little bits of work, optimization becomes the name of the game. Is the branch smaller, and therefore I can recycle some renders or do I already have a pre worked in scene that I need to make changes to, but still have the lighting and base done? Larger branches are more difficult, especially if they end up requiring an entirely different set, different props and blocking. It's a constant battle as a developer trying to figure out how much autonomy you can give a player, every branch adds renders, words and increases the time it takes to get you fine folks an update, but of course too few branches and people don't feel like they have an impact which is also undesirable.
It's a hell of a tightrope and I doubt I'm the only developer who constantly is thinking about which side of the coin should be favored.
The reason this was sort of on my mind was that this update has fallen more on the branch side of things, there are quite a few scenes that have quite a few permutations, that's actually why this update is such a chonker, the joy of having four LI's together all at once. What the hell was I thinking?
Jokes aside I'm actually having a good time, it's like a puzzle, that hates me. But in the end I'll go to my second favourite platitude the juice is worth the squeeze.
That's it for this dev journal, the second one will be below.
I'm going to ramble a little bit about character changes now. I've been pretty open open in in Discord, but I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here, but Unbroken takes place over a year and a half or so in game time. Now I can't speak for everybody, but in general a lot of people I know change things about themselves over the course of a year. So you would hope that your characters would change as well.
This is another double edged sword from a developer standpoint though, I'm sure you're well aware but people get used to a certain look and sometimes when you change something it goes poorly. So again you find yourself on a bit of tightrope as you attempt to navigate the murky depths. Obviously the easy change over times is swapping hairstyles, it's a fun way to give somebody a new look without completely changing them. Though of course some characters have hairstyles that make it difficult to give them something a little different, not calling anybody specific out... *cough Amrit cough*. But at least from my end I feel that little changes over time help the world feel more lived in, which is important, we're attempting to simulate some measure of reality, a much sexier reality than most of us will get a chance to experience but you get my point.
For me my attempt to thread the needle a little bit is all about smaller changes that you might not even notice. I've mentioned this before in places, but hair is often my little tweak, all my shorter haired girls you might have noticed I've added small amounts of length during updates, Amrit's side shave gets fuller over time, but then cut down again depending. Obviously everybody in Discord loves to tease me for Els and her billion haircuts. And long time fans will remember when I went full arty farty in The Author and moved Lyndie's fringe further from her eye as she got more comfortable with herself. The above picture I posted because it fits the the theme, with Kana wanting to get back into her best shape in the previous updates we'll see some of the results of that effort.
Changes don't only need to apply to characters of course, changes to environment can really spruce up your game as well. As you saw in our last batch of sneak peek renders changes are coming around in all sorts of places. As the Vet centre starts to get more employees and money the office changes, now that there's a cat in the house suddenly cat toys and other nonsense start appearing around the place. Such things are small changes, but I think they help things feel more alive.
Is anything I spoke about absolutely needed? Probably not, but I think it really does just give that little extra tint of realism and I think it's worth the effort, but maybe I'm completely nuts, wouldn't be the first time.
I'm done rambling for the day. I'll let everybody get back to it. Thanks as always for the support.
Sláinte!
Comments
Saucers
I think building the world this way is what gives your games its great quality. In a sense people would play it either way but this makes it feel organic which is essential I think.
Bobo Bobo
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your reflections on choices and branching. Also, I will definitely be looking for cat toys in the house.
Callisto
That was quite interesting, thank you.
Alexander Freeman
Building on this, I only recently discovered that, when presented between meeting a character and doing nothing, doing nothing actually means spending time with someone else. That was a bit of a surprise.
Impracticality
I'm confused; there was a non-casual way to sleep with Kana in the last chapter? Sure didn't feel like it. I like branching at least as much as the next guy, but I think the distinctions between those branches might need to be better illustrated. The game feels very opaque a lot of the time.
Jonathan Hang
Nice Dev logs. I wonder which version I'm going to get. Also, that last render of Kana looks delicious! 😋
Deranged Ewok
Your attention to detail regarding subtle changes is greatly appreciated, Stew. It's one of the many things that make your VNs special
hoffd2177
Glad to hear about the progress. And for what its worth that last render of Kana is gorgeous and very fitting for the character
