Dev Log: November 26, 2024
Tremendous writing day. I’m in the throes of menstrual agony, yet it’s the exact brain chemistry the moment demands!
beep beep
I got to work last night on some Writing System documents, an important aspect of PT:STS that I’ve nonetheless put out of my mind for a while. To help in the development of these systems, Matt poses excellent questions that force me to clarify the game’s vaguest and most disjointed elements. My work last night - freshly listing out each writing project on a timeline with its many approaches/outcomes - was a good start, but a second look at everything this morning through a narrative lens really brought it all together.
After sharing this work with Matt we got on a call and hashed it out further. It all felt like music. There is a surprising amount of narrative power in these systems. And when the systems tell a story, it’s easy to find support for them within the larger narrative. It really feels as if a new and equally compelling dimension has been added.
I spent the rest of the day doing Mom stuff but with the special kind of dot-connecting brain hum that comes on a good writing streak. Amazing to see this kind of progress right before the holiday lull. If I sound delirious, I may just be! But it’s worked out before, and I trust the process.
Dev Log: November 21, 2024
I’m home from my trip and I’ve begun my work on Systems.
Actually, I started it on my 7-hour flight because I couldn’t wait. After months of story and visual work, I’m hungry to code. Finally, some cold hard numbers in a world where nothing is ever objectively true or correct!
Not so fast, of course… These numbers need to be fun. As I’m coding I’m also spending plenty of time on the UI and how it feels to move around. I need to make sure the player actually wants to use all these systems I’m creating.
And truthfully, the numbers won’t mean much on their own. A while back I spoke to Tony Howard-Arias about keeping systems opaque in our games and allowing for numbers to roughly represent feelings, vibes… human stuff. It almost seemed devilish to admit that out loud, like I was lying to the player. But the things I’m looking to convey are not statistical, and the lie is my way of translating to the player the true meaning behind those numbers. I am converting integers to strings in a highly complex way that a computer can not do!!
The main thing is that it all needs to seem fair. The player should be able to read their outcome and more or less understand how they got there. I haven’t always been good at this. But I’m trying to be more honest.
Okay, so I wrote that a few days ago but didn’t get around to posting it. First of all, say goodbye to this bitch above me. Systems have taken their toll on me. I am not the woman my loved ones remember. I’m a hideous thing. I spent three days wiring the book exchange UI, pushing my build last night with a nasty crashing bug. I walk through the house agitated, puzzling over code that quickly becomes meaningless. I end up editing lines without remembering how I got to them.
This is not the easy work. Story is the easy work. Whatever I’m not doing now is the easy work. When I’m doing this kind of work the evil questions start to enter, questions like “Will this be the impassable thing?” and of course it won’t be, but the work put the fear in me, so congrats to the work.
Anyway I hopped out of bed at 6am and fixed the bug. On to what’s next.
News Roundup November 2024
I’ve been busy, but lots of non-internal things are going on in dev world and beyond.
Perfect Tides is now Steam Deck verified! The game was already working pretty well, but I’ve gotten it up to Steam’s standards and now it’s playing great on its own exclusive build. You can get it here.
I was recently on Flat Art Show hosted by my friend Evan Dahm, who came up alongside me in the 2000s/2010s webcomic age. We discussed our long lives in comics and art, I went off somewhat on the Octopus Pie days, making sense of those stories today, and transitioning into game work. It was a fun and lively show, and you can check it out here:
During AdventureX last week, I recorded a live playthrough of the Perfect Tides: Station to Station demo, adding context and commentary. You can view it here:
That’s all for now - back to the game grind.