30/01 Patreon Devlog (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Time for this weeks' devlog - it's a little short since all I really did was write...a lot.

This Week's Summary:

• Finished Magnus Chapter Thirteen
• Started Magnus Chapter Fourteen (Last chapter!)
• Some small changes to Maggie's sprite
  • Sprite improvements ahoy!

The Ramble:

Okay, so I made a ton of progress on Maggie's route this month. It was my entire focus and I kept to a really strict daily word count goal system to keep me making progress. Maggie's route is not quite finished, however, I expect the rough draft to be finished within the next couple of days.

I just have to finish the last chapter. (I ended up having to rewrite a substantial portion of Chapter Thirteen after randomly deciding I didn't like how it was going. Lance shows up in this chapter and it's his first time appearing in the game with speaking lines! XD It's been fun to actually write dialogue for him for a change.

I'm going to slightly surpass the "goal" of 110,000 words - which is fine. The longest route is 114k so I'm trying to keep everything within about 5000 either side of that.

The overall game total is 605,000 words with one of the original love interests left. With all remaining backgrounds I could now feasibly send out Ari's route for alpha testing - but I need to not just code the background but also personally play test the route. I'd need to set aside a few days to do that which won't happen until after Maggie's route is fully squared away. I may do that just to give myself a break from writing before settling on Lance's route.

I did work on a slight sprite improvement for Magnus' sprite. I have a list of sprite improvements I want to make - mostly small changes/additions that involve things like adding jewelry to a few characters, making some slight re-designs of their clothes.

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

Snippet:

Caleb: "So stop worrying."

Morgan: "Sure. I'll just definitely do that on command."

Caleb: "Glad to see you're getting better at following orders."

"I elbowed him in the side lightly.

Caleb: "Come on. You need to rest, but Magnus wanted you to stop by when you were released."

#Magnus office with blinds

Magnus: "It's good to see you're feeling well. We were all quite worried about you, Morgan.

Morgan: "Well, so you know - I'm under strict orders not to show up in the infirmary again any time soon."

Magnus: "We'll have to make sure to protect you extra carefully during the next assignment.

Caleb: "There's already another?"

Magnus: "Not for a few days."

Magnus: "We weren't able to pull as much information from the man you brought back as we would like. He had a very peculiar sort of brain damage to his memory centres. The autopsy is still not in on that, so we're not sure what happened. It may have been deliberate."

Morgan: "Deliberate? Was he an Esper?"

Magnus: "No. But as you experienced today, it's not that difficult to set up psi programs in advance. The mind bomb is one type."

Magnus: "It's possible the man had a psi program that damaged his memory centres upon death."

Ari: "That would be a surprising amount of caution from this group."

Van: "Everything this group does is cautious - I mean, that bomb Morgan encountered probably took days to set up. Whoever these people are, they do not want us to find them."

Magnus: "I wanted to hear more about your experience with that. Sometimes the particular hallucinations involved in a trap like that can be a clue."

Morgan: "I don't know. It was kind of non-specific. Just the feeling of another presence. And feeling like I was..."

Morgan: "Like being devoured by..."

"I stopped suddenly as a previously forgotten incident rose back to the forefront of memory."

"(Devoured by someone's gaze. By eyes. I've heard that before.)"

Magnus: "Morgan?"

Caleb: "What is it?"

Morgan: "I don't know. Maybe nothing."

Morgan: "I was just suddenly reminded of something. Back when I was first recruited - back at the Vivarium we went to. When we got separated, I ran into that man again. The one from the incident in New Albion."

Morgan: "He was lurking in the shadows there - like he'd been waiting for me."

Ari: "We are certain that someone's Bishops predicted our arrival. That has to have been how they found us."

Morgan: "He attacked me - that was the reason I fled back to the main area."

Morgan: "He never made any sense in any of our interactions, but that day was different. Something had clearly happened to him. He looked different and he was saying really odd things."

Magnus: "Curious that you never mentioned this before."

If bold/stubborn/emotional:

Morgan: "No one bothered to debrief me, Magnus."

Morgan: "And I've been a little preoccupied. Until this very moment, I had no reason to really think much about this incident. But I'm telling you now."

Morgan: "So maybe let me finish?"

Magnus: "Well, it's good to see you're treating me like everyone else does these days."

Upcoming Week:

Well, I definitely expect to finish Maggie's route in the next couple of days. And I'll probably start taking a look at Lance's synopsis to make some fixes and changes to it. It needs to be massively re-worked to be honest, so I'm not sure how long that will take.

Hopefully just a few days so I can start writing it as soon as possible. Now that I only have one route left, I'm really eager to get it finished.

Anyway, that's all for now and I shall see you guys next week. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you more about what I have planned for Lance's route!

See you then!