Zoe’s character and Watto having an intimate discussion in Zion So, I’d been working a lot of battles into my game and my head started to spin. There are so many variables and stats going on it can be hard to keep track of everything. This almost led to me burning out on the project; not good news when it’s just yourself working on it! Luckily, having experienced burn-out before, I knew the warning signals, so I took a step back, relaxed and worked on other things.
Eventually, I was able to face the game again and see what exactly I’d gotten myself worried about. No surprise, it turns out my game was just getting too big. Ideas were growing, tangents were everywhere, focus had completely gone.
I sat down for about three days finding the core message of the story: what I want players to feel from playing the game, what I hope to achieve with the game as a whole. I’d spent so much time focusing on little bits of the game that I forgot about the big picture! This lead me to re-write the story overview and really nail what the game’s all about. I’m also story boarding more segments of the game, leading to more CG scenes, which I’ll get into later…
Now, I feel so much better about the project! It will have a lot less gameplay mechanics and become more of a traditional visual novel, but will ultimately be more focussed on the original goal. Seems I was adding a lot of “fun” elements which actually distracted from the story. My original justification for adding them was to create a good pace for the story and a more realistic MMORPG world, but it turns out they weren’t even fun and were creating much unnecessary work.
So, the good news is my estimated plan is now a few months shorter! There’s a slight chance the game will be done by the end of this year again (though it is very slight!). I’ve heard a lot of game developers say they’ve never worked on a project that included everything they wanted to add: I totally understand this now! For my first game, especially, I don’t want to spend too long on it. The development time needs to remain sensible, so yeah, huge cuts are now being made. Turns out some of the work I’ve already done is unnecessary… character sprites, story segments, menu choices etc. so I’m currently working through the game and changing the story to what it needs to be. This means removing huge sections and altering bits of dialogue. It’s a little sad to do, but if it makes for a better game (and feasible workload) then it’s totally worth it. I just wish I’d done it sooner, but it’s something to learn for next time. Heck, I’ve learnt a lot of things to help game development for next time!
So apart from pulling my whole game apart and putting some parts of it back together, what have I been doing? Well, Zoe’s Mum and Dad are now illustrated and animated. They were originally going to show up often in the story, but I’ve cut back on their appearance as it felt like the story was more about them than Zoe!
Anyway, you can see them in action here https://vine.co/v/iJj5iHOTMWW and here https://vine.co/v/i1LEBFKVwOW
I spent a lot of time thinking about the genetics of the whole thing… which physical traits are dominant? What’s Zoe inherited from who? And what about her brother? And mental attributes?? It was actually tremendous fun to think about, haha!
So, since I’m pulling a lot of “fun”, gameplay elements from the game, focus is now being spent on enhancing the romance and story elements, so there will be many more CG scenes than originally planned. Now, these take a while to do, but not as much as programming whole mini-games! Plus, I believe the pay off is higher, especially for visual novel fans. For me personally, Virtue’s Last Reward best moments were the CG scenes mixed with dramatic story moments (my favourite being Luna’s route!). And, as an artist, I feel it’s what I’m best at doing, so play to your strengths!
Eventually, I was able to face the game again and see what exactly I’d gotten myself worried about. No surprise, it turns out my game was just getting too big. Ideas were growing, tangents were everywhere, focus had completely gone.
I sat down for about three days finding the core message of the story: what I want players to feel from playing the game, what I hope to achieve with the game as a whole. I’d spent so much time focusing on little bits of the game that I forgot about the big picture! This lead me to re-write the story overview and really nail what the game’s all about. I’m also story boarding more segments of the game, leading to more CG scenes, which I’ll get into later…
Now, I feel so much better about the project! It will have a lot less gameplay mechanics and become more of a traditional visual novel, but will ultimately be more focussed on the original goal. Seems I was adding a lot of “fun” elements which actually distracted from the story. My original justification for adding them was to create a good pace for the story and a more realistic MMORPG world, but it turns out they weren’t even fun and were creating much unnecessary work.
So, the good news is my estimated plan is now a few months shorter! There’s a slight chance the game will be done by the end of this year again (though it is very slight!). I’ve heard a lot of game developers say they’ve never worked on a project that included everything they wanted to add: I totally understand this now! For my first game, especially, I don’t want to spend too long on it. The development time needs to remain sensible, so yeah, huge cuts are now being made. Turns out some of the work I’ve already done is unnecessary… character sprites, story segments, menu choices etc. so I’m currently working through the game and changing the story to what it needs to be. This means removing huge sections and altering bits of dialogue. It’s a little sad to do, but if it makes for a better game (and feasible workload) then it’s totally worth it. I just wish I’d done it sooner, but it’s something to learn for next time. Heck, I’ve learnt a lot of things to help game development for next time!
So apart from pulling my whole game apart and putting some parts of it back together, what have I been doing? Well, Zoe’s Mum and Dad are now illustrated and animated. They were originally going to show up often in the story, but I’ve cut back on their appearance as it felt like the story was more about them than Zoe!
Anyway, you can see them in action here https://vine.co/v/iJj5iHOTMWW and here https://vine.co/v/i1LEBFKVwOW
I spent a lot of time thinking about the genetics of the whole thing… which physical traits are dominant? What’s Zoe inherited from who? And what about her brother? And mental attributes?? It was actually tremendous fun to think about, haha!
So, since I’m pulling a lot of “fun”, gameplay elements from the game, focus is now being spent on enhancing the romance and story elements, so there will be many more CG scenes than originally planned. Now, these take a while to do, but not as much as programming whole mini-games! Plus, I believe the pay off is higher, especially for visual novel fans. For me personally, Virtue’s Last Reward best moments were the CG scenes mixed with dramatic story moments (my favourite being Luna’s route!). And, as an artist, I feel it’s what I’m best at doing, so play to your strengths!
Zoe’s profile picture I realised, too late, that this is 2016, not 2009, when these inspiring events happened to me. So Zoe’s outlook on online dating has changed quite a bit from the original script, which, at the time, reflected my own feelings and anxieties. She now uses social media and online dating websites (to no avail), but to do so, she’ll need a profile picture! I wanted to draw her in one of her favourite moments, before “things” happen. I’m currently working this into the layout of these make-believe websites.
Otherwise, I’ve been updating and adding some sprites that I felt were needed. I have another week left on this project before NaNoReNo, and then I go to Japan for nearly three weeks! That means this’ll be my last blog post until the end of April! That sounds kinda scary, but yep, I’ll be taking a break from this project, and probably at a good time. It’ll give me a much clearer perspective when I return too, and oh my God, I might have actually launched a game by then! Exciting!
Otherwise, I’ve been updating and adding some sprites that I felt were needed. I have another week left on this project before NaNoReNo, and then I go to Japan for nearly three weeks! That means this’ll be my last blog post until the end of April! That sounds kinda scary, but yep, I’ll be taking a break from this project, and probably at a good time. It’ll give me a much clearer perspective when I return too, and oh my God, I might have actually launched a game by then! Exciting!