When Stars Collide - Unofficial Ramble (Patreon)

So I have been working really hard to make sure that I'm not spending every waking moment on Gilded Shadows. In the past (even when I was working on Changeling)...

I literally spent every day working on my official projects for at least a couple of hours. I am trying to not do that as much any more.

I am spending more time reading (most recent books are Star Daughter and Iron Widow - but I started The Dream Runners recently too). I've been following a few webcomics and webtoons as well and watching a lot of educational (IE. FUN) youtube things as well. (Mostly about science and history!) 🤩🤩

That said...

Writing and drawing are my hobbies...and lately I tend to mostly gravitate toward writing and drawing stuff relating to games. Even if I'm doing it "just for fun."

Which means I've been doing work on my side projects. Just for fun, of course.

Some may not see how that's different from working on Gilded Shadows, but it's more about the stress factor - working on GS stresses me out and I'm kind of burnt out on it, which means that working on it isn't really...*fun* a lot of the time.

But my side projects don't come with the same baggage as my active commercial project. So even though working on my side projects may seem like it's still "work", it's not quite the same as working on GS.

All of that to say that...I've been working on WSC a little more often these days. It lay dormant for months and months, but I've revived it a little recently, kind of poking at it here and there on late nights and weekends. (Re-working the scoring strategy again and again and again...and again.)

So I thought it might be fun to post a little update from the last couple of weeks with this project:

1. I have actually started getting some of the official BGs for this project, which is really exciting.
One thing I love about WSC is how colourful it is. So much of this game is going to take place on this little ship called The Ophelia...

And I really, really needed it to not be drab. I think that will help differentiate this project visually from some of the other SF projects being worked on right now (of which there are actually quite a few, surprisingly).

And I also just like colourful, organic science fiction with quirky BG elements that might seem out of place (like chequered table clothes in the mess hall. Those will never not make me laugh.)

2. I also went and tracked down a bunch of royalty free music (as well as a few royalty free space BGs) to use in the game and actually...put those in the prologue and first chapter. It really changes how it feels running through the early chapters when there's actual music playing.

One of the most difficult thing with finding music for futuristic settings is that for so many composers, "futuristic" or "science fiction" means "horror + synth" or "electronica" or "epic orchestral" - finding music that is bright, relaxed, and maybe slightly synthetic enough to give a futuristic vibe is so tricky.

3. Something else I finally did was put the main character's sprite in the game. The customisation page is not coded so I have to manually change all the variables if I want to try things out but it's really cool seeing the MC down in the isolation corner.

(As a side note, I spent a lot of time questioning if I should have the MC on the screen with everyone else or down in the isolation corner and I finally decided on the corner. Mostly because of the size of the other sprites and I just felt that fitting Wil on the screen with them would be tricky.)

One of the good things about putting the MC in *now* is that I immediately learned I *do not* like one of the hairstyles as much in the game as I did in Photoshop. I'm not sure I want to completely take it out but I think I need to reconsider the available hairstyles.

It's good to be able to work that stuff out early on. Sometimes things just do not look good when you are staring at it for half an hour or when you're seeing it at a smaller size than you're used to.

4. I also have been considering the story. Well, more the 'structure' - but that impacts the story I can tell.

This was originally going to be my "overlapping routes" game where I tried to make a game in the structure of "When the Night Comes" or "Ebon Light" - where there were no distinct character routes but, instead, a single story that all the routes shared in an overlapping fashion...

With the romances centred in scenarios that would branch off from the main story.

The problem is that I have discovered I really dislike writing this game style. Like...a lot. (I don't mind playing games written this way, but I'm not enjoying writing this way myself). Part of the issue here is that I'm probably going a bit overboard in the branching - to be honest. One of the character scenarios that happens in chapter four, for example, is 5000 words.

There are five versions of this scene that all track similarly and have some similar events but have entirely unique dialogue through the scene. Even so, it felt like writing the same scene 5 times. Writing short character scenarios 5 times is not that big a deal (like if they're 500 words). But writing lengthy scenarios multiple times is really tedious to be totally honest. And the branching is a bit...nuts.

Here is a screencap of me trying to see if I can make a flowchart from this content.

*heavy sigh* (┬┬﹏┬┬)

The problem with me not really enjoying writing the game with this kind of structure is that...the story was plotted to be this kind of game, so it's not easy to change course at this point. But I've been questioning more and more if it's *possible* - even if it's not easy.

Not to re-work the entire game, but to at least re-work the last ⅔ of it. I guess what I'm questioning is if it's possible to instead create a game with a very long "common route" and then much shorter character routes. Lots of games have this kind of structure where there's a lot of shared content, but it does eventually break into individual story paths.

It's kind of a compromise between my usual style of totally independent routes and what I was trying to achieve with totally overlapping routes. This compromise would allow me to escape my current overlapping-route-hell while also still letting me write in a way that is conducive to trying an episodic style release.

Maybe?? The routes would probably still have a recurring plot arc (similar to Changeling, where Nora's plot arc was basically the same in each route and the routes all followed similar timelines, but the details of events and sub-plots were different).

I'm still trying to make up my mind on whether I can feasibly change the structure for the last act or so. But I'm still unsure if I should do that or stick it out. 💪

Anyway, this is what I've been spending some of my late nights and weekends pondering and working on lately. Fun times!

And now! Would you like to see some screen shots? These are all from the prologue and all include official BGs!

Noel and Asher on the bridge! The image in the background is a black hole image I licensed from creative market. The cool thing about this BG is that I have a transparent version that lets me put whatever I want behind the "window" so I can change that background to be whatever is relevant to where the ship is or what they're doing.

Here, they're getting ready to cross the event horizon of a black hole...so...

A mysteeeeeeeeeeeerious planet they encounter. It's very purple. *wiggles her arms spookily*

This is a very purple game.

A mysterious glowing cube! *mysterious arm wiggles intensify* There is definitely nothing shady at all about that cube. Putting that cube on their space ship is not going to come back and haunt these people *at all*.

Nope.

Narrator: That was a lie.

Mystery cube is definitely not to blame for Raif being cranky. N O P E. (Also, Noel coincidentally ended up matching the ceiling. I'm still torn on if I should change his shirt colour. But I kind of...like that colour. LoL)

Narrator: That, too, was a lie.

Even though I have a few screen caps to show off, the game is remarkably...*un*put together. LoL.

Most of the UI is not finished (in fact, the title screen and dialogue box are really the only completed parts of the UI. The customisation page, the gallery, the settings screen, side menu, etc, etc. None of that is actually complete yet.)

Beyond the BGs you're seeing in these screen caps, I have two other custom BGs and a smattering of licensed (but royalty free) space/planet BGs. None of the other custom BGs are complete.

Of the main cast sprites - I have the 5 love interests and MC....and...one side character of like...7 side characters completed. *counts the side characters* Eight. There are 8 side characters.

I have the prologue + 4 chapters written and edited (out of 13 chapters), and none of the CGs are done. I don't even know how many CGs I intend to do in this game.

Anyway, yeah. Definitely a not-very-far-along project at all.

But because I have been tinkering with it lately, it's fun to be able to talk about it a little more than just scattered bits on my server.

(I don't think I'll be posting regular updates for it - but maybe here and there going forward!