Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2023-10-13

It is Friday the Thirteenth, and it's time for the Friday Rambles.

Not much to say today. It looks like Patreon fixed the text editor so it doesn't flicker anymore. Font is still tiny, italics still don't work on web. Whatever. 

Above: Whatever

I've been busy developing the story for Endless Monday Episode 2. It's been undergoing some major revisions and it's still very much in flux. You should see all the diagrams I've drawn in OneNote.

Above: Ramblings of a mad "game" "dev"

I wrote a draft intro for "Episode 2" and ran it through the new engine.

Above: Oh, Penny

Yeah, it seems a little too familiar. Well, I'm still workshopping it.

Whenever I have the chance, I watch a VOD of a Twitch or Youtube stream of Endless Monday. A lot of it is like, "how the heck did I think up this stuff" and feel proud of myself, and feel so weird that these streamers and vtubers are actually enjoying my game, finding all the serious situations relatable, being delighted at the silly surprises and twists, then I feel this big pressure to not only live up to what Dreams and Deadlines was with my next game, but exceed it. It's been difficult because I'm no longer filled with the immense angst I had while I was working at my last job, so it feels hollow to do something about the angst of working at the office again. Maybe I should do something about the angst of working as a solo game dev. lol. Remake Game Dev Story. It's high time for another Game Dev Story "homage".

Above: Maybe it's high time for Tiger-chan Simulator

What makes a story better or worse than any other story? Origin stories are I think inherently interesting, because everything's new to everyone. The sequel now has to take these established characters and actually do something interesting for people who already know these characters, and also be interesting to people who haven't seen or played the previous one. The problem (for me) is that there's no surprise when Hana ropes Penny into another ridiculous Operations Team job. There's no surprise if Penny wakes up in Tiger-chan World again. There's no surprise when Penny gets abducted by an alien. Then again, maybe that was a cheap way to make the story interesting anyway. 

I feel like a good "Episode 2" just continues the story established by the first episode, and expands upon the world and characters. It doesn't necessarily have to be "bigger" and "louder" with "higher stakes" but I do think it has to be as satisfying (or more) to play. Whatever that means. I'm just concerned with it being boring if it feels like I'm just rehashing the same material, I guess. Time to read the story writing manual again. Let's see, "how to write a good Act 2"...

Above: Wow, it's like that, huh.

So, I'm torn between wanting to do a straight up sequel that's basically just "Episode 2" of Dreams and Deadlines, and doing something just completely different (RIP graph game). To bring up Toby Fox again, he didn't make Undertale 2, he made Deltarune. Not that I should compare Dreams and Deadlines to Undertale. But really, I guess my biggest root issue is that I just feel like the story for Dreams and Deadlines is already told, and I don't really feel like going back to expand on it yet.

Above: Maybe it's time to bring back Graph Game (again)

I've also been floating ideas about brand new game mechanics that add a new dimension to the established formula, like switching POVs between characters, stats and stat checks, resource management, truly branching storylines, random/roguelike elements, or some combination of all these, but I won't be doing that unless it actually serves the storytelling aspect of the game and makes it more fun.

Anyway. I think I'm just gonna devote the next week to playing games for research. I have a big list of popular indie narrative games that I've bought but haven't played yet, so maybe that'll be more productive than sitting. If I do that I'll have a big ol' report for you next week, otherwise, you can probably expect a lot more whining about how I can't get inspired.

Above: Ohhh noooo, I've been hoisted by my own petard. On a side note, I'm still wondering how I managed to think of all this crap, and also managed to do it all in 5 months

In non-game-dev news, I've still been jogging. I haven't really felt that great in terms of my physical health, though. I think it might be due to lack of sleep, with a little dose of despair (might be a chicken and egg situation there, though). I'm gonna focus on that this week, too.

Okay, so that's all I've got this Friday. Sorry it wasn't a lot of "progress" but that's just how things are, I guess. Can't expect every week (or month) to be a winner. 

Thanks for your support, as always! See you next week.