Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2024-06-21

It's the Friday Rambles.

I (finally) got my car windows tinted because I will need to drive a lot in the coming months and it's starting to get hot here. Shoulda done it years ago.

Merch stuff:

The new sticker drop did pretty well. I quickly sold out of Skye, somewhat unexpectedly, so I had to order more, so more people can buy the bundle.

Above: popular Skye sticker. Penny sold out shortly after too, so I guess she's also popular...

I spent a day packing orders and shipping them out. I had forgotten how long it takes. Still probably worth it, I think.

In other news, I got back the new revisions from Makeship after my feedback for the new "Timewarp" version of the Skye Plushie, and it looks pretty good. It unfortunately doesn't look exactly the same as the original version, because I guess their manufacturing process changed or something in the 3 years since it was last made, but I actually think it looks better. lol

Above: Ah! Cute!!

I'll post more about it when we get closer to campaign launch. Man I hope people buy it

Gamedev Stuff:

We hit 1,000 reviews for Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines this week! It's a big milestone that most games on Steam never reach, so I'm pretty honored and humbled and happy about it. It may well never happen again. So please permit me to boast a little.

Above: I drew this in record time, too

Above: Still 99%, against all odds

I just hope people like the bonus chapter enough to keep it going.

Speaking of the bonus chapter, I wrote like 4,000 more words, and while implementing the menu to move around the office with some QOL updates, I decided to apply the changes to the original game too.

Above: Took a long time to make sure it didn't break any sequences and to fix the localization for all languages too. But now you don't have to go back to the main office area to go back to someplace you've already been. A kind of obvious change that I was too stubborn to add because of "immersion" reasons. Just a bit concerned it might be slightly more overwhelming or confusing

During this process I found the mysterious crash bug that was plaguing the build I uploaded the day before I left on my 2 month trip. I had rolled it back immediately after I first heard about it in a (otherwise positive) Steam review out of an abundance of caution, but I'm super glad I did, because dang, it's pretty darn easy to trigger. The fix was a one line check to make sure a certain block of code didn't run for some certain condition. Anyway, it was a big source of uncertainty, but it's fixed now, and I'm happy with the current stability of the game.

I also added a menu to confirm you actually want to play the bonus chapter, if the game hasn't detected the achievement or a save file for having completed the true ending (because idk, maybe you got the game after you watched someone stream the true ending or something. or can't connect to steam for whatever reason. shrug.)

 Above: a simple thing, but probably helpful for some

I think for game 2 I'm going to build a better UI framework from the ground up so adding menus and UI elements isn't a total pain in the butt.

I replaced calendar on Penny's desk to a Tiger-chan doodle. this is kind of a reach as far as a devblog update goes

 Above: Totally not because of time travel reasons that make updating the bg every time the date changes annoying to do. Time limitations force creative solutions

Plotwise, the new chapter is kind of like, more of the same, but different. More lore and more dialogue with familiar characters, and possibly some new ones :-) With a bit of the absurd, of course, as in the original. And hopefully will be a proper segue into the sequel plot. or not, depending on what I actually decide to do for Game 2.

I've gotten enough scripted out that I can navigate successfully from the intro to the end of "part 1". It needs a LOT of massaging and editing for a more natural flow and bg artwork now to make it presentable, and is missing some key "gameplay" elements but right now it's a perfectly good scaffolding on which to hang everything on.

Above: Whiskey doesn't seem to be very pleased with Penny

I'm also adding new achievements, but having learned a lot from the original game, I'm going to be a bit more deliberate about when and where to add them. For example, I'm avoiding design that like, basically makes you read a long thing and then pick the wrong choice at the very end for a joke achievement, making you to go through the same thing again to pick the right choice to actually continue the story. I'll still have choices, of course, they'll just be more meaningful and the joke ones will be less annoying to recover from and might not have achievements at all. And of course, no more achievements for grinding 10,000,000 of something. People get really passionate about achievements.

And of course, next week is the Steam Summer Sale, so I made another sale pic for that.

Above: Really getting a lot of mileage out of this pic. I might make a new one since I think I've been using this for over a year at this point, but I'll post this one here anyway

Well, that's it for the week. Hopefully will keep up the productivity and have something cool to show off next week. Thanks for your support, as always!