Changes and Improvements

Work continues on my silly murder game. As I continue to work on the game I have continued to rework and redesign the game's structure. I created a system that could see when the player has asked an NPC about something from their list, and then provide a brief summary. I have decided to remove this system from the game for two reasons. Reason one is that it was limiting what I was able to have in the responses from characters. I felt that having a guaranteed one response from character limited player involvement, but having multiple possible responses made making something that could summarize what was said much more difficult. Reason two was that I felt it took away from the core of what I wanted the game to be. I want to encourage players to pay attention and take notes, so having something that simplified information into its simplest form took away from the fun of noticing things and putting together solutions. In its place is a check mark that appears if you have already asked the character about the info. The player can ask about the same topic again for a shortened response, but some characters don't like repeating themselves, so if the player doesn't have anything new to say it may be in their best interest to get what they need the first time around.

On the narrative side of things, I am a bit behind where I had hoped to be. I foresee long nights in these next few weeks as I try to get the game to a beatable state. I have been making an outline mapping out the paths of information needed to beat the game, and it is a mess of lines and boxes unreadable to anyone but me. I am excited to really get into writing the dialogues between characters and settling into a consistent tone for the game.

I have also gotten most of my costumes together for the characters. I should be able to get pictures taken and images imported very soon (maybe a sneak peek in the next devlog.) I think that will really bring out a lot of the personality the game is missing at its current state. The stick figure drawings I made as placeholders are great, but not perfect.