Lángrén Blues [25/09/2023]

Good afternoon, good evening and good night!

Lots of progress ahcieved since last week, leading up to playtesting round 2 on Thursday. Most importantly, Lang is finally in the flesh! It was so much less hassle than I anticipated to finsih him. I just got into the groove over the course of 2-3 days and knocked him out. Finally! I think he's ended up looking pretty good, with only a couple issues I'll eventually need to tweak, 1. His over-shirt needs to be more transparent 2. His chin and head squash and stretch with his mixamo animations and 3. I need to change his sitting position in the Den so he doesn't look so crazy. Additionally, I still need to implement him into the Cage cutscene by replacing the Cliff-clone with him. Also, I'm now starting to see the real draw to having heads that turn to follow the player around on NPCS. This may be a future endeavour.

I've also made additions in alot of other places, like the Roadside scene. Naomi now has her sprites implemented! So cute and so gorgeous. She also now glides away after talking to the player to lead them down the road. The collider that takes the player to the Station scene when triggered is still broken, but easy enough to fix. 

And that's another thing; the station! This is where the final part of the game will take place, one environment externally and one environment internally. I made these as experimental mockups for when this part would involve filling up a canister of gas at a gasstation, but now that I'm thinking of ditching this (that van would use up too much gas to make this realistic, it should really be solar powered) the gas station set may go too. I do like the little road tunnel though, I'll add some dripping water for atmosphere and some garbage to sift through. The station itself may instead become another strucutre, or could be kept as a gas station with an abanoned city complex behind it, who knows? Its a WIP, but it needs to WIP faster.

There's also the advent of the title screen and pause screen being added! These are also WIPS, but are very much functional and just waiting to be pretty-ified.

And a final nice new thing, calling using the Hand Radio (and using items in general) now works! To be honest, I don't even know what I'm using it for. But... we'll see...

That's it for today! It's been, in all honesty, a good week! Whatevers next on the agenda is in the list below, and after that, it's all hands on deck for the final level and completing it all. Wish me luck!

- Monkeydog

Oh Man Oh Man! [18/09/2023]

Greetings!

Now we are in the time for crush and strife. The holiday is over, the next playtesting session is next Thursday the 28th, we are 6 weeks from due date, and things that were supposed to be done by now have not been. According to my original gantt chart, this includes Lang and Naomi's models, the Mission scene, the Inventory System (still fixing), and shaders. This is okay! Part of the process is assessing workflow and pace and deciding what can be cut form the process and what should stay, aka what is actually achievable. Therefore, now is the time to decide where I'm going next, and that I have! Can I talk about it confidently? Mm.. no! But you have to believe me.

This past week, I did everything else under the sun but work on Homolupus -- a sacrific to priority. I do have some small things to share, however.

1. A "save" system is underway. I say "save" because it's really just a DontDestroyOnLoad function for keeping stats and UI consistent between scenes. I don't think the final game will have Saving/Loading as a function, since it's so short it should'nt need it. I also don't think the final game will have an Options menu, since there's really not much I would really say needs to be customisable. This used to include WIndow Mode, Brightness, Text Speed, Volume and Censoring. I think I can trust the users own settings and jurisdiction for that.

2. Lovely James has done lots of lovely work fixing up the dialogue system post-playtest to perfection. Thank you James!

In more interesting news, I have had a lightbulb moment on the topic of Splash Screens. I was dreading having to illustrate each screen lovingly and painterly-ly. Alas! The magic of multi-media collage and photo editing! I've decided to instead use my own photography within the game to take the place of Splash Screens, with heavy dithering to create a rough, retro look. For this test of the "Window" interaction splash screen. I took a screenshot of a video I took on holiday with my dad a couple years ago near Mt Ruapehu and imported it into photoshop to make it look more "snowy" than I initially remembered. Then I exported this new image into Dither Me This (https://doodad.dev/dither-me-this/) in order to apply some dithering effects. The results look pretty neat in game, but still need some tweaking. For example in this image, the colour needs to be graded to match the lighting outside, and I think it needs to be a little more distorted and low-res to work. I'll also ahve to make a little makeshift border for my splash screens, but otherwise, bravo!

Also, Naomi's coming along. So's Lang, but thats unimportant and I don't want to look at him right now. She just needs an outfit change and a bit of tweaking, but she's just so cute!

Well... that's kinda it! This week, I'm both busy as hell and overburdened as hell with uni work and life. But that's okay. I just gotta do what I gotta do so I can have fun and be happy. And as Leslie has hammered in today; I am not a cheat! I am efficient!

Much love and awooo to youuu!

- Monkeydog

Something in the Way [11/09/2023]

Not much to update on this week, because I'm on holiday! I've done many fun things and neglected Homolupus for the moment to focus on other work. To be honest, I don't even really have pictures or screenshots to show. I've worked on ProfPrac, Exegesis and James' Sprites moreso. But that's okay! Clearing everything else out of the way will make sure I can be more focused on HMLP in the coming weeks. Merry spring!

-Monkeydog

Playtest-topia! [04/09/2023]

 Oya!

Playtesting has passed! It was awesome getting to see people play HOMOLUPUS for the first time and hearing their first impressions and responses. Overall, I think it was 90% a success! The other 10% accounts for new bug and glitch discoveries and all the patches now needing to be filled after taking feedback, but that's exactly what playtesting is for!

Here's a collection of playtesting feedback/data:

As you can see, the results yield alot of new information. From here, my next steps are 1. Fixing bugs and issues as listed 2. Figuring out an improvement for communicating LH and PM stats and deciding how these will practically effect the game 3. Potentially easing up the controls to make for a more pleasant playing experience (though I might not do this because I think the bad controls have artistic merit, and I say that unironically) 4. Fixing and finalising the Inventory and Item Use system, and 5. Further developing and exploring the implications and communication of werewolf-dom to players.

Other improvements include, finally, brand new U.I! This has been one of the most satisfying developments yet in really polishing the game and making it feel real. You've got the LH bar in the syringe on the left, PM/Character stats on the right with icons for each NPC, and inventory in the bottom right corner. I think it looks great for what it is and I'm so glad it's finally done.

Additionally, that shower cutscene I always wanted is now implemented! Polishing out the bugs is still a work in progress, but I think it's a great detail that players will really appreciate if they happen to discover it.

Lang's model is still... a work in progress. I feel very little motivation to work on him, though I know I really have to. I think the biggest problem is that I still really don't know how I want him to dress. The original costume designs have just kindof fallen though, so I need to redesign them once and for all if I want to get my mojo back.

Naomi, however, is looking very cute in her design stage. I think I'm far more motivated to work on her than anything else, even though her model is the least of my concerns right now.

The main concern is exactly where I'm gonna go with the rest of the game. What's going to happen next? A part of me just wants to make the beginning of the game first, like the opening cutscene and prologue. I'm just brimming with ideas for it and barren as a desert when it comes to the continued story. 

So then comes my holiday checklist. The next playtesting session will be Thursday the 21st of September, so I have about two weeks. What do I want done by then? I have some ideas.

    - Finalised and functioning Inventory / Item Use system.

    - Redesigned and finished Lang model including textures and Mixamo animation (this also means I'll finally be able to re-animate the Cage cutscene.

    - Illustrated Naomi icons and semi-final Naomi orthographic design

    - Shaders implemented (outline shader, PSX shader, etc)

    - Rough-out of exactly how the opening cutscene and prologue will play out and, likely, a working portion of this in-game and ready to play.

That's alot, but that's what I want before next playtest. We'll see how feasable that is.

I love you

- Monkeydog