what I'm working on next

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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

Post by jack1974 »

Today's update: Cursed Lands' writer just emailed saying he'll try to make the first full moon missions next month. I am STILL working on the sidequests, but I think they should be all done next month so that's perfect timing. Obviously if I get new updates on Love Bites I'll work on that first.
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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

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Image
today started coding the first full moon mission. It's going well, there are some interesting choices, and if writer manages to send me the remaining texts, I might finish this event by mid-November, which means after this a very good amount of the game is playable. Unfortunately there are still several things missing, since the game was written "in blocks":
- second and third full moon events (obviously!)
- the nagas recruitments/rescue mission, and their personal quests/romances (this is probably the biggest part)
- Jasper romance
- epilogues/endings (there are a few different ones based on some big choice in the story)
- various other stuff about merchants, zachary, etc (several minor scenes)
currently the whole script is almost 195k words, once all of those are added will probably be 240-250k as I already announced :o

I must say the writer is doing an awesome job - but still it's really hard, as I said thousand times I'm going to write such games myself in future, because there are just too many little details that needs to be checked with gameplay-heavy games and also based on an existing world...did Apolimesho knew about vampires in Loren? is this enemy a strong enemy enough? can I do XYZ with Ren'Py coding? are skill checks needed? and I could go on for hours!

About Love Bites, Miakoda is working on doing the romance CG/ending of Sabrina/Viktor, so in theory once that is done I can release the game in beta/pre-order since half of it it's done :)
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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

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So I thought to update this thread lol. I made good progress this first month of 2018, considering how both Cursed Lands and Love Bites turned out to be more "small games (tm)" :lol:

Cursed Lands:
- waiting for the editor to send me back Jasper and Enok romances, then will script/code them
- waiting for the official writer to send me act2 vampire lieutenants texts, more main plot scenes and some edited texts
- need to write the act3 final battle but all epilogues are done

Love Bites:
- Miakoda finished Tyrone, so there's only Nadia left
- still need to script whole Tyrone and Nadia though

I might release a new build of Cursed Lands even without the vampire texts, since there's A LOT of stuff happening in act2 (or that COULD happen, since this game is much more "open world" than my others, you can do some quests even in act3). So I might decide that's better to do another update to get feedback/fix bugs once I have Jasper/Enok texts edited :)
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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

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Another update! Doing this monthly is much better than the old system with 500 games listed where I had less control and in the end even a game that I thought done, in reality wasn't :wink: Now I talk only on the thing that I work myself, or where trusted people work.

Cursed Lands:
Writer said should send me the missing act3 texts + my edited texts this week. I have coded everything else, but once I get the new texts I'll probably need a couple of weeks to script/check everything.

Love Bites:
Miakoda finished half of Nadia, so only Kaitlyn/Nadia left! Then is left scripting and some testing from me.

Volleyball Heaven:
Writer is working on the Hallowen events, then will review the whole script one last time. It still needs to be fully scripted/coded/tested. I think this one might be out in Summer though.

Planet Stronghold 2:
I've finished reviewing the starting intro scenes and first missions/quests. I'm not going to code the actual gameplay until I have all the story written down, I'll keep that as last (also because doing it at same time as Cursed Lands while in beta might be confusing!).
This one won't be out this year, I mean maybe a beta towards the end of year but it's too early to say right now.

After PS2 I plan to finally start working seriously on Loren 2 so another long-awaited game will finally get finished hopefully! :)
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Miakoda
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Re: what I'm working on next

Post by Miakoda »

If you get Volleyball Heaven out, then it will be 3 games, not two out this year. That would be excellent news.
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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

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Yeah, 3/year is a very good rate! Especially considering that one (Cursed Lands) is a RPG and 300k words long :)
Troyen
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Re: what I'm working on next

Post by Troyen »

While I am excited for some of the titles in your upcoming list, you did recently announce that you were asked to "help finish" Corona Borealis. Roughly how far along is that game? Does "help finish" mean "do all the gameplay, scripting, music, etc." or is it more "polish, test, and market/release"? I notice it's not in your 2018 list above.
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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

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Ah DOH :lol:
I forgot about it completely! Yes I need to do the gameplay/scripting/music, but it's a really small game for my standards (I think like 50k words) so that really will take me 1-2 weeks at best to do everything. Currently Deji is drawing the latest CG images for it, but the music is still all missing :)
I'd say that that game will come out between the bigger releases since will take me so little to finish it that I can decide to "insert in the schedule" anytime after all is ready, but I hope will be done before end of this year.
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jack1974
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Re: what I'm working on next

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Another quick update. Cursed Lands is finished obviously, it's only missing the theme song, and maybe there's some minor bug left but it has been very quiet in the past weeks!
For Love Bites I'm testing the jealousy dialogues today and I plan to code the "weekend activities" this weekend :)
For Volleyball Heaven the romance CG lineart is being made, that has taken longer than I thought (we're in March and they were supposed to start last year in December!) because as usual there has been various real-life issues going on, but now things seems to be progressing. The full game still needs to be scripted, but right now I'm going to finish Love Bites next month and then start looking at VBH once I've "cleared my mind" (doing two games at once is a bad idea).
I am also making progress on PS2 as you probably noticed but I'm going to focus on finishing the current games in the next month or so, so development on PS2 will resume full speed probably in June or something. I might still get something done in my "spare time" before then though.
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Re: what I'm working on next

Post by Troyen »

Are you planning on a modern demo of Cursed Lands, or waiting on the theme song and official release?
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