Progress 06.11.2023

 

Hello everyone.

Monday is upon us, unsurprisingly. And things got done over the weekend. Most of the technical side aspects are dealt with, there is some tweaking left as always but that is relatively easy. That and I have a pile of music that I need to listen to. Anyway, the first half is done, tested and proofread. Just need to merge it to the script and couple other things. Rendering of the second half started as scheduled, and I'll start writing update 7 on Wednesday. And that's the important bits now to other things...

Tribulations of the Mage... catchy title, no? I'm not going to lie, naming things is my least favourite thing to do mostly cause I suck at it, but alas, it works and fits. Maybe it should be "of a mage"? Eh, details! I'm happy though with it. Generally the colour scheme is something I like, things might need some tweaking, but that's comes down to feedback. Now to the more technical aspects.

The font. That font is used only for the menus and character names. The actual font that is used for the dialogue and other "important" things will be the default ren'py one. Just to keep it easily readable. 

You've might have noticed that there is a "codex" instead of characters in the main menu. This is one of the changes I wanted to implement in this game.

And behind that button is this. Characters split into the main and side characters. Main characters are the people who the story revolves around, mostly. They are the ones in the middle of the action. And side characters are the supporting cast, however that is just made like that so it is slightly easier to go through the people.

Character information is a bit bare bones, but I'll come to that in a moment.

And because it is a codex not a character list, there will be other additional information. God's tab is fairly self explanatory. It has information about the gods in this setting, currently it only has the gods that get mentioned within the first five updates. Although, I might change something about the layout on this screen if I can get it to function properly.

And then we move to the in game changes. Dialogue wheel instead of the usual menu. However, while I designed the game with the dialogue wheel in mind, I will add an option to the preferences to switch it back to the standard ren'py menu. But I can't guarantee that it looks normal in every situation.

Then the portraits. This is the style I've chosen for the character portraits in the game. The large images on the side just irritate me, which is why I haven't used them before. This? This is I can live with personally. And as I said before, not everyone gets a side portrait. Most are those unimportant no-name types who you don't need to even remember. They most likely won't even get an entry on the side characters page... I know it looks a bit small in these previews but it's large enough in game.

Which brings me to the last item. The information. One of the issues I have is that I know everything regarding this setting (and others), so as the time goes by, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to "fill out" relevant information. Partially because to me, everything is more or less relevant information. And now some of you are thinking, how can I help? That's easy, ask questions. If there is an information that you would like to see in the codex (or generally even) ask in a private message, in comment or on Discord. If the information is something I can give without spoiling the story (at that point) it gets added to the codex relatively quickly. If it spoils things now, but doesn't later it might go up later. There probably won't be massive articles as I still need to work on the game as well ;)

There are a couple other features I'm still thinking. One of them is implemented but I'm uncertain should I put it in, at least in the way it is now. And then the obvious question. When it releases? Best I can give right now is this month. I have a target goal in my mind but it all depends on rendering. Which goes decently. A bit slower than I would like, but the scenes are more complex than before. And while there are no preview render cause no spoiler policy. Have an environmental test...