Map Progress

 Hello, WoW has been taking my free time for a bit.

And now that this excuse is out of the way, I have some updates for the maps which I can show you.

Below you will see a work in progress layout for Aegea, The city where the first part of the story takes place. It will be a large, very large city.

This may take from a month and up to Christmas, depending on my availability. I will set a tight deadline for November so that I can make the first Demo ready by Christmas. I believe having people to play the game for themselves will set the tone and they will have something to come back to.

Dialogue Progress Update

I have finally reached 6/11 Dialogue interactions from the story!

Unfortunately my progress has slowed down due to work but I make sure to allocate at least half an hour on this task every day.

Balancing my full-time job as a Functionality QA Technician working PST hours with my creative pursuits has been a challenge. The time difference and demanding work schedule can make it difficult to find consistent writing time. To overcome this, I've implemented a dedicated writing routine, allocating at least half an hour each day to focus on my RPG dialogue.

Despite the challenges, I've made steady progress. I've successfully developed intriguing characters, crafted suspenseful scenes, and introduced plot twists that keep the reader engaged. The dialogue has evolved to reflect the noir genre's distinctive tone and themes.

As I approach the final stages of my RPG dialogue, I'm eager to see how the story unfolds. I'm excited to continue exploring the noir world and bringing my characters to life through their interactions.

If you're a fellow RPG enthusiast or aspiring writer, I encourage you to share your experiences and insights in the comments below. Knowing that this blog is just a personal space for me to share my progress and potentially help others follow the art of developing games, it would be a pleasant surprise to see what happens of this in the coming years.

~Stef

Refactoring Dialogue after taking a short break

Hello! Here I am again with another update on my game!

I've been juggling a QA gig and other commitments, but even a short break from my project has led to some valuable insights. One significant area that caught my attention was the structure of my dialogue system.

Initially, my DialogueSystem was doing a bit too much. It wasn't just managing the presentation of dialogue; it also included flags that determined things like whether a scene should change or if a reward should be given to the player. This approach made the DialogueSystem feel bloated and less focused on its core purpose.

To improve this, I decided to refactor the system by leveraging DialogueObjects more effectively. These ScriptableObjects were already holding the dialogue content itself, so it made sense to move the responsibility of these flags directly into them.

Here's why this move was beneficial:

• Clearer Separation of Concerns: Each DialogueObject now encapsulates all the information relevant to a specific conversation. This includes not only the dialogue lines but also the associated flags for scene changes, rewards, and any other special effects. This makes it easier to manage and understand each piece of dialogue as a self-contained unit.

• More Flexible Dialogue Design: With the flags living in the DialogueObjects, I have much greater flexibility when crafting dialogue interactions. Each conversation can have its own unique set of consequences, making the game more dynamic and engaging.

• Streamlined DialogueSystem: The DialogueSystem itself is now slimmer and more focused on its core functionality – displaying the dialogue text, handling player choices, and interacting with the DialogueObjects.

In the coming days, I'll be diving deep into crafting the narrative and fleshing out the world my characters inhabit. Dialogue plays a pivotal role in RPGs, shaping the player's experience and immersing them in the story. I want to create engaging conversations that not only drive the plot forward but also reveal the personalities and motivations of each character.

The next step is to bring my world to life visually using tilemaps. While I'm not an artist myself, I'm fortunate to have acquired fantastic assets from Limezu, which grant me commercial rights with proper credit. These assets will be instrumental in creating detailed and immersive environments for the player to explore. I'm excited to get started, but I know this will be a more time-consuming process.  Building a vibrant world takes time and careful consideration, but I'm committed to creating an environment that feels rich and alive.

I'm excited to share my progress with you all as I continue to develop Project Delta, we'll meet again soon!

June 1st folder Restructure update

Today I did some major, big, gigantic changes that will make my work way more efficient.

You see, due to my ADHD it appears that I make very impulsive decisions when creating folders, file names etc. While the latter has been fixed since I have found out the hard way how file name mismatch stuff works, Folders are usually the least of my worries when it comes to folder naming, unfortunately, Unity does see into this for me, crazy I know.

I took my time to simplify things, for example all scriptable objects are now in resources, their scripts for unity are stored into the Core folder named "scriptables", I literally cannot miss it, I literally do not have to navigate through each module if I'm in the explorer. I am so glad I had to do this today because now even with my Impulsivity during peak ADHD hours there will be less time where I am trying to find something.

When I say I refactored this folder structure, I mean it.

 

Last Friday of May update

 I have been working literally everyday on my latest game, Project Delta. It is a Crime/Noir Topdown RPG with Alternate History elements, a fictional world taking place in a country which has Greece, the US and England combined. The Assets I am using have been acquired from humble bundle deals, particularly licensed so that they can be used in a commercial setting.

 Unfortunately due to the limited time I have worked on the cutscenes The images you will see are still very "prototype" work. But I can show you the progress I have made according to my crazy Trello plan.

 I am positive that in the future I may be able to share more details.

Thanks for dropping by!