The last two months have been the worst for my productivity in a long time. To spur myself on a little bit I’ve decided to write another one of these, although I’m reticent to post anything without pictures at this point because I don’t want to come across as someone who’s “all talk”.
Anyway, I’ve been working like crazy for the past few days, and it feels like I’m getting back a bit of vigor, so hopefully I can continue to stay on track. So to speak. (Editor’s note: She didn’t.)
For clarity, these last two months I’ve worked on user interface data, input mapping, character shader code, dialogue data formatting, ability flavor text, setting mythos, game structure planning, a new system’s design and scripting, overall ability data changes, ability modifier data, a new ability set’s design and scripting, game balance changes, player movement changes, misc. scripting, bug fixes, etc.
I’m still behind schedule, and I apologize for that to everyone involved.
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I’m going to talk about story and “flow” just a little.
I have the sort of questionable goal of producing a CRPG that both feels like a handheld JRPG to interface with and has a kind of ??? flair.
If you don’t know, “Computer RPG” is a very oddly-shaped genre of RPG that’s at once maligned and worshipped by man and beast alike, featuring all of your favorite fantasy monsters and archetypes stuck to quavering popsicle stick paper dolls.
JRPGs are games you cry over because a 16x16px image of a girl with pink hair rotated 90 degrees after she walked through poison flowers.
I can’t talk about the last type of game just yet, because it has very much to do with unrevealed aspects of gameplay. You can take a guess if you’re observant.
Anyway, a while ago I had been watching footage and guides of certain early RPGs. You know the kind. What I noticed right away was that they generally featured narrative threads and set-pieces placed so meticulously that a third to two-thirds of the whole game were made up by direct, straight-into-your-veins dialogue and story moments. I started agonizing over it right away.
UTTER INVERSE isn’t going to be like those games. There isn’t going to be a collection of interesting NPCs to visit or engaging, long quest chains, or anything like that. It’s just not possible.
Both CRPGs and JRPGs usually feature a party of characters to allow for a wide range of character interaction and story moments. The ones that don’t still usually pull the protagonist into all kinds of interactions to push their narrative forwards.
This is the story of a girl who’s all alone. A few characters show up, and one of them can even talk to her no matter how far from each other they are, but mostly it’s just the protagonist, alone. Traveling down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And then the game ends.
So “flow” is important. The story has to come from the natural places; images, music, sound, text, but also how the player interacts with things. How often they have to turn back. What naturally emerging events occur, since the more structured events are only spaced thinly throughout. May’s journey matches the player’s, for the most part, so the story has to proceed out of that. That’s why I’m putting so much emphasis on game systems and planning.
It has to be effortless to fall into and difficult to grasp. It has to be good.
– ANWN M.
Tooth and coin and small, smooth rocks. / Acorns in a jewelry box.
