So, another Game Making Drive is on, and I’m participating daily again.
It should not be too hard, as it’s been already a couple of weeks with hard work every day, and since the game is nowhere near finished…
Day 1
Short Version: Worked on In Search of Dragons’ subquest eventing.
Long Version:
For about a couple of weeks now I’ve been hard at working on Dragons. Mostly…well, let’s just go out with it and say the truth: I wildly overestimated myself, and underestimated the amount of content left to do.
It’s the same difference in effort from “idea” to “execution”. What I thought would be no work at all, proved to be a monumental amount of sheer crap that OH MY GOD LET IT END WHY DOES IT NEVER END!?
I totally agree, Damon. This is bullshit.
But nope! I’ve not even gotten into the bloody gameplay tweaking, I’m still eventing! And there’s a ton of it left!
My only consolation is that it’s getting DONE. I admit some corners have been left a bit rough because I want it OUT ALREADY, but well, I’ll leave polishing scenes with fancy effects when I’m not seething at the sheer amount of quests left to do.
So…I should say: there’s a LOT of subquests in Dragons. Fuck, and the subquests have a LOT of dialog going on (good dialog, I hope). They’re not the “fetch me tea and I’ll give you an item” type (there are those too, but not that many and they’re very simple to make anyway); but real, tits out, plot involved subquests. They explain a LOT of the backstory, so I refuse to just cut them out, because I’m a pigheaded idiot.
Most of them are related to the temple, and only ONE (which is basically a long chain of critical scenes with no actual gameplay that wraps up the whole temple arc) is left to do (for tomorrow). After that, I’ll have some quests OUTSIDE the temple, but thankfully they are not as long or confusing (hah, here’s hoping I’m not underestimating them again).
It’s also hilarious to me that the temple, where most of these subquests happen, has no random encounters at all. In exchange, there’s a bazillion bosses and minibosses.
Ah, did I forget to say? This is all the PRE-ENDGAME stuff. Once you get into the last dungeon (which is pretty big) there’ll be a few more, and there’s also different endings to event. Coupled with the fact that I have to split a lot of content in Normal/True routes, it’s a pain. Hah. Kill me now.
Also a small question, what do you guys think about multiple endings?
What I mean is: so far, Dragons is designed so that if during a critical event during the game you take the “easy” way, you’ll be stuck to the Normal route, which nets you the mediocre ending. IF during the critical event you take the “hard” way, you’ll be on the True route.
However, this does not give you the best endings directly! It just LETS you take the true route subquests (that are giving me so much fucking trouble). Completing subquest chains will eventually lead you to triggering certain factors that influence the ending.
Basically, if you finish ALL the subquests (and there are a lot of them) you get the best ending. If you don’t, you’ll get a mediocre, normal or so-so endings, depending on how many triggers you made for the end.
So…what was I saying? Right. Is this TOO MUCH WORK for the best ending? Or is it fair?
This means that if you make the wrong choice before the “sidequest time” phase (before moving on to the last dungeon, basically) you’ll be stuck on a route with no chance for the best game, and locked out of a lot of content (the plot related one). Even the Last dungeon will be a different experience somewhat if you don’t have the proper triggers.
Is this fair? I will try to balance it out by giving New game + bonuses once you unlock certain endings so going again through the beginning of it won’t be as annoying, but still…I’m a bit scared that people could get severely pissed off when they learn they have to start again if they want the true ending and do a long list of subquests.
Well, besides this whole insecurity and whining: development is going well. I’m also working on a commission at night, but so far they get along well enough and I have some time to work on Dragons and the commission both.
I’m working at a good pace, and in a week or maybe two, I should have all the subquests pre-endgame done, leaving me with the last dungeon and the endings to make.
And then comes gameplay and polishing EVERYTHING and testing and…all that. But it’s still some ways off, so I’d rather keep focused.
So that’s day one, and a small (hah, yeah right) summary of my latest period of silence. Cya tomorrow. (I will keep my small, no big explain entries at the forum blow over here so as not to clutter the main blog with inane “i evented” posts.)
