Week three. Unfortunately I got sidetracked a bit this time around, but not without good reason. Here's the breakdown.
THIS PAST WEEK
I didn't do as much rewriting of the plot as I had planned. The main reason for this is... well, I really like the plot I had written before. Maybe it was because of some kind of sunk-cost fallacy, but I didn't want to let my previous go to waste. Beside, I think it's a pretty good plot with mystery, action, and humanizing moments. So instead I looked over the plot and tried to identify what extra bits of programming I needed in order to make the plot work, and came up with a list.
The most important one was dialogue choices/trees. I do my best to account for player actions in my games, most notably in Space Fox Kimi where your actions/inaction can have consequences in future chapters. And if I couldn't integrate dialogue choices, well, there goes a huge chunk of player choice (not the microtransaction kind). Fortunately I was able to figure it out, though I will need to come up with a way to keep track of everything.
I also programmed a few movement patterns for NPCs, and wrote the code allowing a NPC to move to a specific location. These will be very helpful in crafting cutscenes that are necessary in telling the story.
THE NEXT WEEK
Other features I'd need to better tell the story include NPC pathfinding so I can use more dynamic maps in cutscenes. I would also like to work in an inventory system so I can make puzzles that rely on items. If possible, I'd also like to have a pacifist option for some boss fights like how there was a pacifist option in the RPGMaker version of Neo Edda.
...Once again I'm wishing I could use RPGMaker since a lot of these are built in, but oh well.
I'll try to write code for these things next week. Whether or not I can will determine how much of my original plot, so I want to give programming a fair shot before I continue. That will be the main focus of my work next week. If I have time, I'd like to look at marketplace assets (which I didn't manage to do this week). After seeing how expensive custom sprites are, I'm thinking that maybe only the main character and key bosses will need custom sprites and the rest can be store bought. Maybe. It would definitely save a lot of money, and I don't have that much of it lying around.
SUMMARY/TL;DR
Completed This Week:
- Programmed dialogue choices and NPC movements
To Do Next Week:
- Try to program pathfinding, inventory, and pacifist options
- Look at marketplace for assets/scripts
That's it this week, hope the next one will be better. Thanks for reading!