Jesse Lozano

How has the Month been for Stillness –

oh boy, was June a powerful month for Stillness. Several major breakthrough’s occurred in production as the month went on. In fact, so much was happening, that halfway thru the month, I had been forgetting to update my logs on what was done, because I’d just move right onto the next one

I kinda wished May had lasted a few more days, because if it did, what goals I had set for myself would have been very different. Because of these new developments, several of the goals I had set had to be dropped to much lower on my priority scale. basically, what had happened was, Daniel Ospina, who had agreed to assist me making editors and whatnot, had a family tragedy, and thus, could no longer help. Given what I was up to doing last month, what that meant for me was having to make those editors myself. They were kind of needed asap too, if I wanted to keep progressing. That had resulted in a new wave of massive refactors, to streamline and ease up work flow and production.

in doing that, it also let me examine the intro I had, which in turn, revealed “updating the intro” to really be “remake and expand the intro”, so that began the other big pillar for the month.

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

• finish updating the intro (Completed)
• refactor the screen fading (Completed)
• add feedback to the inventory combination (started)
• in general, if possible, add sound feedback to stuff (started)
• refactored conversation system (Completed)
• playtests (not started)

What got done-

Setting out to refactor the Conversation system turned out to be an A++ ranked task, with several multiple minor pieces and phases to it. It first started, actually with the progression system.

See, while last month the progression system itself was refactored to be more usable and whatnot, it still had one primary point of usability issues: chaining its progression checks together. Now, checking a piece of progress in the game has this interface:

a bit clunky, but it is manageable for needing to check a single element. the problem is, needing to check multiple elements results in having to daisy chain these components together, manually connecting each one, and it results in a very difficult to follow mess. the fix for this was twofold. 1) make a new component that handles multiple checks behind the scenes, and 2) this:

a node editor for these progress chains is unbelievably helpful in readability and editing, but it was a major forefront cost to get it up and running. But, I did it. Now, with it, I have an amazingly easier time editing puzzles and plot flags and whatnot.

how this relates to the Conversation system, is that it too needed a node editor, and the Progression editor basically served as its base, given the conversations basically needed all the progression editors functionality, plus some. that resulted in in this beauty:

Okay, its not Unreal level quality, but it is loads better than my previous option, working directly in Json files. uuuuugh… I do not recommend it.

with an actual ability to work in this system, the next step was going into the system proper, and updating it to work with this new set up, and oh man, if a script could collect dust, that system would have been full of it. I could practically see the digital cobwebs all over it. I hadn’t touched it since I first made it, because of the aforementioned json working being SATAN, so it needed a bit of updating. surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), the core of the system was basically fine, and most of the tweaks were to how it dealt with json files. (ah, I was so inexperienced back then). then from that, was updating it with the new features it had. there were a handful of things I wanted to do for a conversation that I didn’t really know how to implement back then, but do now.

One of those was how to allow a Speaker to appear for a line, and for it to have a pace to it. the speaker was kinda obvious, the pace less so. my solution was to make a struct holding the line itself, its speaker (if any) and the pace, and just send that. it worked, but did have the issue of replacing a simple, Unity friendly array of strings, with a more messy List of a custom struct. That issue being needing to update every script that deals with dialog to the new system. In a dialog heavy game. 0_0

so, that lead into a sort of gold vein of refactoring systems, form the conversation system, to the dream system, to how the description displayed itself. additional, since I was now working with a more compact data type, to keep and even improve usability, it meant needing to create custom editors for many of these scripts that previously just had defaults. so days of massive (and admittedly very fulfilling) updates, finally got me a system with this:

now, each line can have a speaker, it saves the speaker if I give it no new one, and can easily be assigned a Pace, to help me control the flow of the conversations, and add the gameplay elements to dialog trees.

Those Gameplay elements? also added now. One of the first mechanical idea’s I had for the game, was to find a way to make dialog scene’s more engaging that just reading text, and occasionally making choices. the solution? The Interruption System!

taking a page from Ace Attorney, at any time in a conversation, the player can use an item, or an idea to interrupt the flow of the conversation, taking it in new directions with different outcomes. This promotes both a more active player engagement with these scenes, and a higher degree of uncertainty and anxiety when talking with people.

It was the last of the original mechanics I had planned, and the last major mechanic I needed to get in, and now it is! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

(okay, I haven’t tested it yet, but still, its implemented)

Aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnny ways, onto the next thing. You may have noticed my Line’s in the Line Node image are in a nice little list-y thing. That’s because I discovered the wonder’s of Unity’s Reorderable Lists. started using that shit everywhere. So useful for all the large chunks of data I have in the game. found a pretty good tutorial /rundown here, if your at all interested.

so, once I had the Conversation Editor up and Running, I could finally start using it. So, I said last month I’d finish updating the intro. that was because then, All I thought I needed to update was adding the phone pickup. well, one of things I had to do in refactoring the conversation system, was having to remake the 2 conversations I had already made, since the old json files were basically useless in the refactored system (they were hand written json files *shutter*). in remaking the intro, I found it severely lacking. Not a very effective start, and the start is probably the most important thing to get right.

the old intro was very passive, and relied almost completely on telling over showing or doing. In this new iteration of the intro I tried to fix that by servery upping player action in the opening minutes, and refocusing the opening cut-scene aspect to be written and framed with a more active voice. the old intro consisted of 2 people the player didn’t know, talking about stuff in a very passive, past tense perspective, followed by gameplay. the new intro consists of: showing the main character as he wakes up, having the player walk around their room with the simple task of getting their phone, then a monologue from the player character, about his current situation in a present tense as he goes about his day. I also tried showing more of it visual, doing a handful of simple animations to better convey the set up. I feel like this version of it is much improved, and hopefully that should be reflected in the playtests.

speaking of playtesting, you may have noticed I didn’t get any done this month. With all the system refactoring, testing for content feel and usability has not been the immediate priority. That plus, I’ve been wanting to get the three desperate areas of the game I’ve been working on (intro, lv1, lv2), into a state where all 3 can be played in succession, which was being blocked by the conversation system. now that that has been refactored, I am now able to do that, and thus can get onto playtesting immediately.

And Finally, the auditory feedback. I am not a sound designer. I do not have the tools to make sound effects or music for the game, as I would like it. As such, I have again began looking into getting outside help. namely contracting a sound designer to make the sound I want. and in that, I have focused on the designers side of making the sound asset list, and detailing what I need to several audio designers.

Time Spent –

the work I did, and what I clocked it as follows:

• refactoring the fading screen and center text – 2 hours
• made the progress node editor – 6 hours
• more progress editor work – 5 hours
• finished connecting phone data to progress system – 1 hour
• created the notification pop-up for the phone – 3 hours
• organized the use of inventory items – 1 hour
• conversation Editor working – 5 hours
• conversation editor work/ system refactoring – 6 hours
• refactored the Dream system to support the new descripton functionality – 4 hours
• refactored the Decription display system to support greater functionality – 1 hour
• editing the inventory items to support the new Describe system – 3 hours
• finished up the Conversation Editor – 15 hours in total
• art for the Intro – 6 hours in total
• writing up the intro – 2 hours
• updating auto-typing to allow for speed adjustments – 3 hours
• refactored the progress tracker system – 5 hours
• updating levels to return to having all the content, in case it was lost in the bazillion refactors – 1 hour
• GDD and Sound asset list – 2 hours

What to do next-

PLAYTEST!

I have no more excuses, as the game is now in a perfectly playtestable state, so I’ll be playtesting for the month of July.

Additionally, the next task do tackle is Level 2 Proper: The Mandala. right now, the intro to the level is done, and the puzzles are being finalized, design wise, meaning its onto implementation.

those two, along with whatever bug fixes and feedback I’ll get from testing, should be more than enough for the month

as such, in the list of things I should (hopefully) be done by end of next month:

• PLAYTESTS ()
• Fully Implement Level 2 ()

Closing Notes-

Pride Month was Fun ;3