Jesse Lozano

How has the Month been for Stillness –

pretty good. my time has been divided between Stillness and Halfway Home. It was not a very even divide, given Halfway Home is nearing completion, so we are in that final stretch to get it done.

On the opposite side, Alex Dejardin, whose helped with some of the graphical stuff has been very free, and helped quite a lot this month on the project.

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

• implement new dream sequence (partially, but no).
• implement all the SFX (no)
• Playtest (no)
• Polish Level 1 (no)
• Stretch:
  • Finish level 2 (haha no)
  • Start level 3 (see above)
  • Mock up more conversations scenes (a bit yes)
  • Paper prototype the emotional control mini-games. (all the nope)

What got done-

The dream sequence implementation has been underway, although some snags prevented it from being complete.

For one, my node editor needed a severe usability overhaul. multi-clicking, multi-dragging, at the least. I got Alex to work on that for me, and like always, he went over and above what was expected, adding in several other quality of life improvements, like re-centering the camera, multi color select, etc.

so while implementing the writing for the scene could not get finished, the art and the visual shots of the scene are in the game.

Also, not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve reworked the camera slightly, so the screen moves just a little, when you move the mouse. makes the game feel more dynamic. Alex also made these wonderful Bokeh particles for me, to really make these shots shine.

Other things Alex fixed up for me, included the mouse cursor, so it resizes properly with different resolutions (it is pitifully tiny on my computer, while the appropriate size for his for example). the thought bubbles, when spawned, don’t zoom around radically like some insane bullets anymore, and the thought display itself is much smoother. also, an animating text, so the text can shiver, dance, or glitch the hell out on command now.

(i realize now that glitch animation really doesn’t look good in screenshot)

outside of those, its been a lot of small fixes to get the dream sequence functioning, when I’m only like, halfway thru that list. The text box resizing I complained about having such a hard time last time, turns out I just had 1 variable not clicked on properly…. whoops. the aforementioned new camera movement wasn’t working in the scene for some reason, and it turned out I was turning it off for some reason. the camera can now move between shots with or without a fade (previously it was always requiring a fade). the fade can now be custom colored too, if I wanted it to fade to, i dunno, purple, for some reason.

Time Spent –

• Writing the new dream sequence – 3 hours
• bedroom art mock up – 2 hours
• other writing – 4 hours
• messing around with the text box – 2 hours

What to do next-

(Still didn’t get all those sounds in, so I should probably get on that…)

getting the new intro in and fully operational is however, my primary goal. right now there are some bugs preventing that (choices not going away when they should, thoughts leaving when they shouldn’t, and a font bug, to name a few). After than, fully implementing it, running it thru tests, and playtesting that, are my first priority.

Alex is still likely to be free, and I am hoping he can help me make the game prettier, mostly on the UI level (right now, 90% of the ui is temp assets in some way). like the grey text box. changing that, in some way, is likely. plus more thought system changes to make it both, prettier, and clear that it is doing its thing.

Once the dream sequence is good and done, the apartment itself will need an update, both in the continued intro, and as the first real level.

so, in list form:

• Finish implementing the new dream sequence
• implement all the SFX
• Playtest
• Polish Level 1
• Stretch:
  • Finish level 2
  • Start level 3
  • Mock up more conversations scenes
  • Paper prototype the emotional control mini-games.

Closing Notes-

happy 4th of July. 😛