Jesse Lozano

How has the Month been for Stillness –

Direct work on Stillness has continued to be low, much like last month. Pre-production, and general design work for it has continued (as that stuff is easier to fill into my few gaps of free time), but very little show-able content was developed.

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

• Mock up more conversations scenes (done)
• Paper prototype the mechanical changes to the conversation system (done
• Stretch goals: (haha, no)
  • get 1 more puzzle from level 2 in completely
  • filling in more flavor for the area
  • Playtest?

What got done-

I continued to draft the other introduction scenes in the first story. neither of the other two the compose the entirety of intro are done, but work has been done on them. I’d say that the 2nd one is 50% done, and the 3rd is like, 30% done with drafting.

If you might recall from last time, I talked about some ideas I had floating around for integrating the players stats more dynamically into the gameplay. namely, giving them more of a presence in conversation scenes. One such idea was incorporating mood into choices posited. Where at point X in a conversation, there is a player choice, and the player gets to pick from 3 options, but there are actually 8 possible responses. 3 of the 8 are auto-selected based on the then current dominant emotion, and then the player gets to pick from there. I did really like this concept, as it felt like a natural extension, and would give a conversation a unique type of randomness to it. plus, the foundation for adding this feature was already there (thank you past me), so adding it was a cinch. Yes, this functionality is already in.

 

With that, there is now a present dynamic connection given by the mood system, along with any static ones I add. that does not mean, however, that I consider my work on this end finished. oh no. I still did want to give the conversation scenes a present, game-like feel, more so that a usual visual novel, which they currently replicate. an Idea I brainstormed was a sort of idea of “emotion control as mini game” concept.

basically, taking the “emotional gauges” concept discussed last time, where if the player collects X amount of Y emotion over the course of a conversation, they have an emotional outburst, but add an element where, if a player has 1 of a limited “emotional control slots” on that emotion, they get to play a certain mini game, as an attempt to rein in the high running feelings. like, for the panic attack example I used last time, if the player has one of their guard slots raised on, they play a little timed press mini game, to catch their breath, and calm down. the player would obviously have fewer control slots, than emotions, so its adds another layer of planning, specifically pre-planning for a conversation the player knows they’ll be going into.

Obviously, there are some kinks in the design that still need working out, like how the UI for all these things will work, but its solid enough to put further prototyping into.

 

 

Time Spent –

since I did a lot of pre-production work in little piecemeal bits, I didn’t clock any of it. My bad. 😛

What to do next-

So, December, I will likely have free time, but naturally, a good chunk of that time will be relaxing. still, I expect a brief spike in production at least, given the time openings.

As for things I want to do, there are a few things I know I want to refactor (like how I’m managing UI could use an overhaul), and in general, I have more than enough to just keep playtesting for general UX fixes that I know I’ll need.

beyond that, and further paper prototyping those mini-game/emotional control system idea, I should probably get back to finishing up the Mandala. the sooner I can get it up and running, the sooner I can get it playtested, because man oh man, does it need it!

oh, also, writing, If inspiration comes. this time, however, I’m not expecting all of these to be completed, especially the rougher defined ones.

so, in list form:

• Mock up more conversations scenes
• Paper prototype the emotional control mini-games.
• Refactor UI
• get 1 more puzzle from level 2 in completely
• filling in more flavor for the area
• Playtest

Closing Notes-

I’m looking forward towards this years end

:3