Jesse Lozano

How has the Month been for Stillness –

this month has been one of schoolwork, stress, and suffering for me. Because of it, work on Stillness has felt more slowed than in previous months, the time I usually devote to it taken by more immediately pressing matters. That does mean no work got done on it, but definitely not as much as I wanted. Right after GDC, and coming off the heels of February, a lot of work got done, as I ended up with a few free days before school picked back up to just work on the project. Once school did get started however, I’ve had to throw myself into schoolwork and the team projects there, which have been more than stressful, and eating into the free time I’ve usually put towards Stillness.

despite little concrete in game work being done, I did get a lot of more pre-production stuff done this month, so that was nice. Also, in a windfall of serendipity, I have somehow gotten another programmer friend of mine, Alex Dejardin, to agree to assist in production. Alex is a super-programmer I’m good friends with, and is a graphics wiz. I’ve asked him to assist with the UI related code and general polish work/prettyification of the project, and I’m glad to have him on the team. Of course he, like Dan and myself, has been swamped with schoolwork, so I’ve gotten nothing from him or Dan over this month.

What I said I would do (and did it get done) –

• added Dreams editor (completed to a point*)
• added Notes App editor (completed)
• added Images App editor (completed)
• added Task List App editor (completed)
• add Json Items editor (completed)
• Redo the Choice UI layout (completed)
• Re-integrate Thoughts into intro puzzles where needed (Started)
• begin remaking and working thru an art asset list (Started)

What got done-

with the Thought editor done last month, the expanded editors  for the other systems were easier to get done. each one did have their own little trick to them. like, the image editor I needed to figure out how Unity did sprite selection for its editors. I don’t feel like any of them are “complete”, as the flow of functionality between all of them seems… off somehow. Not actually sure how. may be because I don’t fully feel most of the systems are finalized, just prototyped. hopefully, when the conversation system editor is in, and all the editors are in, I should be able to best pinpoint the niggling issues I feel are there, and work on fixing them.

the art asset list for the apartment rooms has been started, and I did knock out one of the ones on there for the longest time. the closet hanger and boxes (shown above). I leave the list as “started” as with a list of tasks like this, you can’t really finished it at the beginning, as there will be stuff I just didn’t need to think about, and add it to the list. the point being is I now have a full list I can reference at a later date, versus the sticky note I was using before. In general, I’m making an effort to organize all my notes and whatnot for Stillness to be more comprehensive and readable as I move the project from the proof of concept prototype stage, to Pre-Alpha.

to also push towards that, and now that this project isn’t a complete solo project, I’ve been working on other needed maintenance. A shiny new Git repo is up and running, and I’ve reformatted the placed puzzles of the TV power cord and broken broom to be complete-able again, so playtesting can resume. They were disabled to make way for an update to the progression system, that isn’t quite complete. I had to revert to a previous version of the progression system to properly set them up, but they are now complete-able again, so we once again have an LKG copy. So that’s Nice.

Additionally, while I’ve been usually a bit quiet on this aspect in the last few months, a good chunk of work on the GDD has been made, which has been done pretty consistently compared to prior months. In truth, I didn’t really talk about the GDD in previous monthly reports, mostly due to an internalized fear, that the work I put into that  isn’t as “real”, or what have you, to the stuff I can show in engine. the Stillness GDD, while containing descriptions of mechanical outlines, art and sound references, early level concepts and the like, consists in its current form, with 75% of it focused on the narrative design.

to me, one of the biggest motivating factors for making Stillness has been wanting to talk about things that interest me, in a way I find interesting. That is what has resulted in the game being a mechanical fusion of a point and click adventure game, and a visual novel. this passion has resulted in me trying to best design a game following a “Beaded-string-in-a-Box” structure of non-linear narrative (something I will no doubt discuss at length at a latter date). With that, I’m going thru it on a 3 pass set-up to best nail down what I want to talk about it, how I want to go about it, And figuring out scope of what is a scarily large project, all things considered.

all that stuff I tend to work on as well, but it doesn’t feel like really belongs in these reports necessarily. I should probably start up another series of logs discussing those elements of my process, and design.

Time Spent –

the “hard” work, making editors and stuff, I clocked as follows:

• debug and set up the first thought puzzle – 30 minutes
• fixed up the description choice UI – 10 minutes
• closet art – 2 hours
• dream editor – 2 hours
• image app editor – 1.5 hour
• Note App editor – 1.5 hours
• Task list editor – 0.5 hours
• item editor – 0.5 hours

the “softer” stuff, the pre-production stuff, I didn’t clock. so I will be spit-balling it:

• set up private Git-repo for Stillness: 0.5 hours
• wrote up task list for Alex – 0.5 hours
• GDD narrative outline – 4 hours on and off

What to do next-

April is the last month of direct schoolwork for me this semester, so it is likely going to be just as productive as March, in all honesty. Like the last few months,  I have given task lists to Alex and Dan, but am not expecting them to be able to complete any of them til late April at the earliest.

playtesting is a definitive, as I want to get the game in front of people, and definitely want feedback on things that are not working/need fixed. To meet that, I should likely throw in a clear end, as more than 1 playtest session I feel is going to be done online, or out of my presence. also, an end survey to get some basic calculable data.

as for what I want to focus on in playtesting, general complete-ability and readability are my first priority. Can a player solve the puzzles present, and do they know what all the mechanics are/how to interact with them, etc.

• make a clear “end” for playtsting purposes
• make playtest survey for online playtests
• general playtest at least 3 times (hopefully more)

Closing Notes-

GDC was fun, by the way. loved meeting all the new people there, and talk to people about all the things I’m doing, Stillness included.