5/12 Patreon Devlog (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

I'm writing this a day early so that hopefully I'll remember to post it on time this week! Mwa ha ha! LoL

LoL

Summary:

• Am DEFINITELY done with Jack's rough draft now. >=V No more tweaking.
• Play tested Caleb's route, making some needed continuity fixes (and repairing typos I caught)
• Released Caleb's alpha version to testers.
• Finished revamping Magnus' synopsis
• Wrote Magnus Chapter One
• No BGs. QnQ
• Worked a little on more BG variations we needed or just didn't have coded.

The Ramble:

Okay…

So my first order of business this week was to re-write Maggie's synopsis and get it decently planned out.

It's no secret that the last couple of routes have taken quite a lot more time than I wanted them to. While in both cases, I would say there were extenuating circumstances, I think it also comes down to planning. For both Cale and Jack, I did end up re-writing parts of the synopsis as I went along and sometimes in pretty significant ways. Compared to Ari and Caissa, which I wrote fairly quickly, Caleb and Jack's routes were not as well planned out. I think it definitely resulted in more struggles getting them actually written.

With Magnus' route, because I knew going into it that I'd be revamping a lot, I wanted to do that up front and not really be sloppy about it. I really wanted things to be fully planned in the hopes it will make his route much easier to construct in potato/rough format.

The fastest I've ever written a route of this length was Corvin in Changeling. I don't think I'll ever do another route in a month. But I am hoping that planning Maggie's route allows me to take two months. That said…

Let's be real. This is a busy time of year. There are multiple holidays coming up - Also my wedding anniversary. So that is going to impact things. But I am going to try to be very productive in the next couple of weeks to make up for the inevitable slowdown at the end of the year.

Anyway, I did finish Maggie's synopsis fully. I started writing his route and have gotten entirely through chapter one. I'll be starting chapter two next, of course.

The other thing I did this week was do an actual play test of Caleb's route. There are a couple of reasons I did this now.

1. I ended up just needing a little break from writing.
2. I wanted to get his alpha version to testers soon...ish. Which I have now done.
3. Sometimes it's just necessary to re-read earlier routes to remember things that need to be covered in early chapters, or to refresh myself on some continuity. There are some world building elements that are sort of vague in my mind, but that I actually do mention and flesh out...then go on to forget I did.

Re-reading Caleb's route helped re-centre a little and refresh me on some of the things that need to be covered or mentioned in Maggie's route.

1. I knew there were some changes I needed to make to Caleb's route regarding Morgan's ability to see psi energy. This went through a slight change during Jack's route and a few key scenes in Caleb's route will need to be altered for continuity. There were also some surprise continuity fixes I needed to make. There's a concept in the game called a "mind bomb" which is sort of a psychic trap that can be set up with concentrated packets of psi programmed to do mental damage. I initially came up with this concept during Caleb's route and then expanded on it in Jack's route. This required me to go back and fix some areas in Cale's route. I initially described the mind bomb in Cale's route as "powerful" but its effects are nothing compared to the devastating one Morgan encounters in Jack's route. So I needed to go back and adjust Cale's route so the one she encounters there is described as more of a "weaker" mind bomb. So there was stuff like that as well.

Every subsequent route I create requires me to expand on world building and explore new concepts and create new things to keep each route fresh and interesting. Sometimes I create something new that's somewhat at odds with earlier routes, which requires me to go back and bring things back into alignment.

I think one of the tricky things about writing a VN is creating multiple routes that remain interesting and fresh but are still cohesive and non-contradictory. For me, this means ever-expanding world building and always trying to come up with fresh ideas.

Anyway…

My current word count target for the original six LI routes is 710,000 words. This is just the number for what I think my word count will be (ish). Currently, with four routes completed and a little bit done on the remaining two routes, my total word count is 507,000 words and over 70% toward the final target.

My next big "milestone" is getting my "remaining word count" (in other words, how much I have left until I hit the target) below 200,000 words. I have about 3000 words until I hit that.

After that, my next milestone is getting myself to 75% of the total target word count (for the original six LIs). That'll be fun.

Even though I still have a lot of writing left to do, it's always fun to hit those big numbers because it just shows how far the development has come.

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

??? Nothing this week. I didn't get anything from either BG artist. T_T

Sadness.

Upcoming Week:

I will try to get another chapter or two of Maggie's route written. The first couple of chapters tend to go by pretty fast. It's usually about chapter four or five where things start slowing. But I'm hoping to speed through the first chapters as quickly as possible before I hit the inevitable slow down.

I'd also like to get some more BGs by the next update.

With Caleb's alpha version released to beta testers, there will be a list of corrections piling up so I'll probably work on them some as well.

And that's kind of it.

Writing purgatory continues, really...

So that's all for now! See you next time!