Hello Everyone,

Apologies for the delay! Hope that you all had an exciting and fun-filled weekend. We’ve been super busy at Arcani and in my personal life. We just adopted a new kitten called Nike, after the Goddess of Victory, not the shoe! With regard to Self-Insert Draft, I am working on instituting conditional options based on your relationship with characters. Kind of like how in the Fallout Series you would have skill checks in dialogue (and other things), Self-Insert Draft will have relationship checks in dialogue. To this extent, relationship not only measures your bond between the character and yourself, it also measures your investment into the character.  While not game-blocking, using your party members to convince the folk of the world will become a critical component in advancing the story peacefully. Of course, if you want most of your dialogue to go violently… well, go ahead, you can do that too.

From,

William Lucht

Greetings folk! Last week I talked about some aspects of the story,  but more importantly, the battle system! This week was primarily focused on the battle system. At this point, I have to really realign/determine my game design. Is this game going to be primarily a visual novel or a JRPG? If I am promoting a mixed format, how can I integrate them well enough in order to have a seamless experience? I don’t want to burden the people primarily interested in VNs with unnecessary battles.

Progress Last Week:

As stated in my previous I am using DemonAngelz’s Framework. I built the skills for the characters so far and am trying to iron out bugs as well as improve the GUI. I was proud that I became familiar with the tooltip function so people will understand the mechanics of “Ha! Nothing Personal!” rather than sighing at a dead meme.

DemonAngelz framework is great, however, perhaps purposefully, bland. I’ve tried to spice up the system with multiple varieties of attacks that players will have to choose from. There are simple attacks like “Dark Blade Bathory” which just absorb health from your enemy, but then you have moves like “Passion of the Angels”, which removes most of Love Interest’s health but completely heals other party members. This, of course, can be combined with 90% > chance stun moves. To prevent the said character from dying.

Progress Last Week in Numbers:

Lines of Written Code: 235 (but a lot has been modified from the battle system discussed last week.)

Goals for Next Week:

Story:

• Finish Second Quest (Urgent)

Code:

• Finish skills for battle system
• Work on GUI for battle system

Please tune in next Monday!

From,

William Lucht

Last week, I talked about an Elder Futhark section as well as outlined my plans for a battle system. Trying to meet 100 lines of code a day goal is somewhat hard, but I’m working toward it. Its almost a bit like NaNoWriMo, but with code. Spooky.

Progress Last Week:

Story

I am currently in the works of writing for two new characters. One, the Redeemed Bandit and two, the Chosen One. These characters will have major arcs in the story and will be encountered shortly after the “tutorial section of the game.”

Art

Worked on a draft map, doing a bit of worldbuilding on the side. This image or an image similar to this will act as the “world-map” for the game.

Progress Last Week in Numbers:

Lines of Code: 400

Goals for Next Week:

Story:

• Finish transition into DoodleWorld
• Start arcs on the Chosen One
• Add Combat Scenes to Norse Outpost

Art:

• Work on backgrounds

Code:

• Finish draft for battle system

Please tune in next Monday!

From,

William Lucht

Last week, we talked about the development of UI elements such as avatar selection. While my dream of 100 lines of (story) code a day did not pan out to working (RIP), what can you really do eh? I would blame work, which to an extent is true, but of course, some days you are just lazy and want to play video games.

Progress Last Week:

Story:

The Elder Futhark section has been finished. Now, I don’t want to torture the reader too long so there are only a few lines in Elder Futhark so far. I think the novelty of having a town that “speaks” in a foreign language is cool, although the mechanical side of that can prove to be challenging to make fun.

Art:

I have continued trying my hand at backgrounds to varying success. I am writing a document of the backgrounds that I need based on the story that I have written so far. I’m currently up to 38, oof. That’s a good bit of work.

I am working with one of the freelancers, Pumahitam, to develop a new character. Here are the first designs of a new character: the “Redeemed Bandit”

Progress Last Week in Numbers:

Lines of Code: 200

Goals for Next Week:

Story:

• Finish transition into DoodleWorld (URGENT 1 WEEK OVERDUE)
• Add Combat Scenes to Norse Outpost

Art:

• Work on backgrounds

Code:

• Develop draft for battle system

Please tune in on Monday; sorry for all readers about failing to deliver my diary on Sunday/ was a bit slow there. I will be more punctual in the future

From,

William Lucht

Greetings reader. Thank you for stopping by! I’m a hobbyist indie developer working full-time in foreign affairs. I released a visual novel before this was riddled with delays, bugs, and honestly, I’m not so proud of this product. In order to ameliorate this, I aim to track my process through Developer Diaries. I will be as transparent as I can be, as well as will accept any feedback.

Concept:

You are a high school student in a classroom getting bored form the teacher lecturing about the Battle of Manzikert (a fascinating tale I assure you). Combined with your lack of sleep last night, you start doodling on your notebook where you fall asleep and are teleported into the world of the your doodle. There in Doodleworld, you meet wonderful people like Love Interest, your very own waifu/husbando. As the Evil Empire advances into the beautiful Fantasy Town of the 7 5 Brothers, you, the HERO, the Self-Insert, must defend the poor denizens of FTo5B and take the fight to the Empire.

Game Design:

Self-Insert Draft will be a visual novel with several battle elements. I plan to have a battle system like that that was in the RPGmaker engine, of course with variations. Your relationship with the Love Interest (or other characters) will determine how the story functions.

Progress So Far:

UI

Using image buttons and learning some tricks from GIMP, I made a short but sweet, choose your avatar function. While I’m not so sure about the bottom GUI, and the standard textboxes yet, I will work more on this later.

Art

Using freelancers off of Fiverr, as well as friends, having been met throughout different epochs, I have assembled some art assets. As these diaries progress, I will do a Meet the X character.

Story

The classroom portion has been written. Since I actually don’t want to bore people with the classroom setting and Manzikert, the amount of dialogue in this section is relatively short (maybe 20 or so lines of dialogue). Currently, I am writing about the transition into Doodleworld (the tentative name)

Progress Last Week in Numbers:

Lines of Code: 500

Goals for Next Week:

Story:

• Finish transition into doodleworld
• Finish up the Elder Futhark section (ooh spooky)

Art:

• Work on drafts for line art backgrounds. I will see how capable of an artist I am, and if I cannot do the backgrounds, well, I’ll find someone who can.

Coding:

• Work on the battle system.
• Clean up Information Screens

Please tune in on Sunday for the next update!

From,

William Lucht