Chapter 3 Roadmap

I've been really excited about making this post, because I'm very excited about Chapter 3. There's a bunch of big things happening in this chapter that are going to make the game much better, I think. Let's talk about them. 

13 New Scenes - There's new scenes for Detective Rodriguez, Jamie, Lisa, Tammy, Suzy, Mari, Izzy, Kendra, Ms. Welch, Juliana, Mrs. Mills, and a new character. These all contain a ton of new images and 8 new animations.

1 New Location - The gym. You'll be able to work out here to build muscle. 

The Affection System - This is the biggest update in the game. I'd wanted to do this since the beginning, but hadn't implemented it very well. Now I'm going back and redoing some of the earlier scenes to fit this system. Basically, when you respond correctly while talking or spend time with a person, you gain affection with them. When you gain enough affection, you hit the next threshold and get access to new things. It's fairly simple, but I didn't have it working correctly in the first two chapters. I believe I do now. There is a new menu that you can access from the map menu that will show you your affection with all the characters as well. 

Cell Phone - Eventually you'll be able to use the cell phone from the map menu or from your bedroom to call characters, text them, check your calendar, and maybe other things as well. With this update, I'm laying the groundwork for that, adding in the ability to call the characters that you have phone numbers for.

Laptop - Eventually you will be able to use the laptop in your bedroom to study on, buy items on the internet, watch a webcam show, or play a game with another character. I'm adding the groundwork for this in this chapter, where you'll be able to study on the computer and get access to the shop for the first time (though there won't be many things for sell at the moment). 

Update - It's important to me that you be able to play the game every chapter without having to restart your game from the beginning. I believe I have the update function working correctly now, but I'll be sure to playtest it a bunch once I get everything done. 

Removing mini-games - I've been thinking about this pretty hard, and I think I'm going to remove mini-games from the game. Right now I have two in the game serving as the tests for your classes. These are honestly very difficult to program in Ren'py and I'm not sure they're worth the trouble. Come Home is supposed to be a time management-style social simulator, so I'm thinking that instead of a mini-game, I just base the tests on how much you studied for that week, having a sort of progress bar for your homework. Let me know what you think about this idea. I'm going to put a poll up about it next week.

Changing character models - I've slightly changed the character models for Izzy and Juliana (fixing their skin tone), for Detective Rodriguez, and for Mrs. Mills. I'll post those soon so you can see them, but I'm much more happy with them now.

I'm actually really far ahead right now, which is nice because it allows me to add more scenes to the game, such as conversations with characters that are not necessarily story points. 

So right now, here is my status: 

Write Scenes - 13/17 (76%) - Just a few more left to write. I've done this chapter differently, where I've been working on the images as I write the story, instead of writing everything up front and doing the images later.

Images - 91/150 (61%) - There are probably going to end up being more than 150 images in the chapter. Once I get done writing the scenes, I'll know for sure.

Animations - 2/8 (25%) 

Locations - 1/1 (100%) - I've got the Gym added in now and once you unlock it, you'll be able to go there to lift weights and build muscle.

Functions - 2/5 (40%) - I've finished the Cell Phone and the Update function. Still working on finishing up the affection system, the laptop, and the affection menu.

TOTAL PROGRESS (60%)

So as you can see, the chapter is moving along very nicely. So let's talk about the release dates.

Starting with next month I'm going to move release dates to Friday instead of Wednesday. I think that this will just work better for most people, as you will have the weekends to check out the new chapter. I'll still post the walkthrough the next day on Saturday for those that want it. 

$5 patrons - August 7th. 

$1 patrons - August 14th

Public - August 28th

That's all I have for now. Hope you guys all enjoyed chapter 2, if you've had a chance to play through it yet, and are excited for chapter 3. I sure am! Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions, as I love feedback. Take care and thank you all so much for your support.