21/02 Patreon Devlog

Hey Everyone! 

Brace yourself. MWA HA HA

Writing:

So this week I finished up Caissa: Chapter Eight and I've started working on Chapter Nine. 

I also did some general plot fine-tuning for the remaining chapters. I had a full synopsis written up for Caissa's route but he was actually coming up a chapter short (most routes are 14 chapters and he only had 13). As I worked through the recent chapters and was looking ahead at upcoming events in his route, I kept feeling like the route was a little barren.

There are major romantic developments in Chapters six, seven and eight....and then it felt like we sort of skipped into major plot developments and route climax without being able to see the implications of the romantic development.

I kept feeling like we needed one more relationship oriented scenario before the plot kicks into high gear but I couldn't come up with anything. However, since we were coming up a chapter short anyway, I started brainstorming and came up with a scenario I like.

It not only works with the developments through chapters seven and eight, but also flows nicely with climax related events later in the route. And, of course, it develops Cai and Morgan's romance a bit.

Interestingly, one thing I've found difficult when writing - well, not *difficult* per se - is that Gilded Shadows doesn't have friendship/non-romantic "Good" endings the way Changeling did. With Changeling, I had to write a lot of scenes with a romantic and not-romantic version. And I keep finding myself trying to do the same in Gilded Shadows before I remember that the romance *always* develops in this game. 

I don't always have to counter every single romantic moment with a non-romantic variant. 

I feel like there's some inconsistency developing due to my tendency to try to do that so I'm going to have to smooth that out when I do my full structural edit at the conclusion of writing.

It's also always interesting to me how spontaneous writing choices and become much more significant as time goes on.

There is a party scene in Chapter Eight and I really needed some party guests so it wasn't just Morgan talking about how there were people at the party - I wanted to show her interacting with side characters. 

So I paused to create a sprite for one of these guests - mostly because it's easier to write when I know that a sprite exists for the character. As I wrote him, I realised he was a perfect character to use later on during the story climax and I ended up developing him beyond my initial intent.

I initially intended him as just some throw-away character with a cameo appearance, but he's turned into much more than that. 

I always like when things turn out this way. Surprisingly, he helped me smooth out a few wrinkles in the plot as well though I didn't have that in mind when I created him.

Art:

I completed 1.5 new "extra" sprites. These are characters who don't appear for long but speak enough that they need sprites. One is the guy who I mentioned above. He's kind of been upgraded to a proper side character named Donovan Benko.

The other is more of a "Bad Guy #1" and I may end up re-using his sprite as a general bad guy's minion in various places. He's got a pretty generic pose so I'll probably be able to also modify it by changing the hair and clothes so that other extras I need don't have to be completely created from scratch.

The other thing I did this week was that I began working on and planning the additions to Morgan's sprite. 

OWO;;

I've known for a while that if we achieved our stretch goal, I'd add in three new skin colours for a total of eight. I didn't really have solid plans on anything else beyond knowing I'd include additional hair colours.

There's a lot of stuff to unpack regarding the customisation.

The first thing I had to do was actually reorganise the sprite files. Because of the amount of options, I decided to finally move each skin colour to its own file. I also had to re-do some of the base images, which wasn't that big a deal.

Then we moved into..............other things. OxO;;

Initially, I wasn't going to let the player choose eye colour because, not only is it additional work, but I was thinking of having the "fade" plot element come into play and have Morgan's eyes shift to grey at some point in the story. I didn't want to allow the player to choose, then override their decision halfway through the story anyway.

I also wasn't sure how to juggle two variables for the eyes (The eye images have shading that is skin-tone dependent). I had an epiphany on that at one point so it's no longer an issue. While there's no denying that eye colour adds more work when it comes to CG creation, I also have to keep in mind two facts:

Morgan won't appear in every CG

Given that romantic moments often involve people closing their eyes (because they're kissing or whatever), Morgan's eyes will definitely not be visible in every CG where she appears. So I think the work is manageable. 

So at this point I'm planning for 7 eye colours to choose from.

The other issue that came up was…….eyebrows.

So a couple of people have asked about this now - mostly because they dislike the dark eyebrows on the lighter skin tones. There is a LOT to think about when it comes to eyebrows. 

This is one of those things where, from the outside, it looks like a simple issue. But from a design standpoint, it's really not. So I'm going to break it down.

People have asked why I don't make eyebrows simply match the hair colour. The simple answer is that 1 eyebrow shade isn't going to look good on all skin tones. The lighter hair colours are the more problematic ones. 

If I give the silver hair matching white eyebrows - they completely vanish on light skin tones. Like...you literally can't see them (they honestly don't look that great on the dark skin tones either anyway). If I go with a lighter grey eyebrow that is dark enough to show up on the lightest skin tones but still isn't "too dark" - they look quite bad on the dark skin tones. 

There is no one eyebrow colour for the blonde and silver hair that is going to look good on all skin tones. Which means if I lock in an eyebrow colour based entirely on the hair……...some players aren't going to be able to use a hair and skin combination they want to use. I refuse to do that to players.

This is why I locked in a single eyebrow colour based on skin tone. Even though some people may not like the darkest eyebrows on the lightest skin tones….it doesn't look objectively bad. But a lot of light eyebrows look *objectively bad* on dark skin tones. So dark eyebrows were a much safer and more flexible design choice.

The only other option is to simply let players choose from a selection of eyebrow colours. The issues with making this a player choice are:

• More work. Again. (Note: Recolouring eyebrows isn't really that big a deal. But even if it just adds 10 more minutes to each CG….that adds up. If I have to spend 15 more minutes recolouring and coding eyebrows….per CG. And there are, lets say, 30 CGs in the game that show Morgan's eyebrows...  
  15 minutes x 45 CGs = 450 minutes of eyebrow focused CG work. (That's more than 7 hours of me recolouring and coding eyebrows for CGs. This doesn't even include the sprite).
  So when you hear me talking about customisation adding work, you can see that I'm not just trying to be lazy. It really does add up.
• I still have to limit options. Again, some eyebrow colours just *don't look good* on certain skin tones. And while I suspect most players would naturally avoid choosing hideous character designs, I know some players would choose terrible combinations just to be funny. And I don't want screen caps floating around of my character art looking bad - this can create the impression that artwork is poorly done. So I have to try to make all eyebrows look good on all skin tones.
  The only real way to do this is to give each skin tone a unique set of options. In other words, that means that some colours in particular (like light grey eyebrows) would actually be different shades of grey based on what skin tone you're using.
• This cycles back up to #1…….more work.
• But I also have to consider that with all the additional hair colours, I really can't ignore the eyebrow issue. So...here we are. Eyebrow colours! LoL

WHEW! That was an intense amount of discussion about eyebrows. Who knew they were so complicated!

I start designing a new customisation page. It actually took a surprising amount of brainstorming and trial and error to settle on a design (this mock-up isn't quite finished yet.)

I really wanted to keep the concept of choosing from visible swatches, but with a lot more options, it was harder to fit it all on the screen. Initially, I kept trying horizontal set ups (like the current one) but I just didn't like them and they all felt cluttered. I was struggling to work out a vertical flow, though.

I almost resorted to just scrolling through the options with arrows but I honestly didn't want to have to use that set up. It's not my favourite and I hate having to click ten times just to get back to the hair colour I want. I feel being able to click on different swatches makes it much easier to pick and choose. And you only have to click *one time* to pick the thing you want. No scrolling forever to find it.

Anyway, I finally got myself to this point design wise and I'm pretty satisfied with it! With some of the skin tones it's a bit difficult to see the difference when you're just looking at the swatches. But on a full sprite, it's much more apparent how much different in small shifts in the base tone can be.

Anyway, at this point it's still all concepts and mockups. I have one skin tone fully set up with all the recoloured parts. I have 7 more to colour and then I have to code and test it all.

I do expect I'll update the demo with all these changes at some point - probably several months from now.

Since the Kickstarter currently has reached Reuben's stretch goal and I think we're probably in the clear with it and unlikely to lose it (but still going to be cautious about that), I also need to create an introductory CG for him. And then include that in the update. 

So…..YEAH. Wow. That was a huge ramble. Wtf, me.

Coding: 

I worked on adding sprites to Common: Chapter Four. 

Sprite coding is so tedious guys. SO TEDIOUS. Especially in long chapters. And that one is long.

But that is finally done. 

I've been giving thought to the additional coding I'm going to have to do for Morgan's sprite. I think I have a strategy that will streamline it. The sprite itself won't require too much changing, to be honest. I'll have to make some changes - mostly to the eyebrow code. But nothing major.

It's the customisation page that is really going to require the re-coding. And even then, I feel like it's the button placement that's going to be the nightmare….

You know what's going to take the most time?

Saving the sprite files. Ugh. =w=;

Upcoming Week:

OMG I DONT EVEN KNOW AT THIS POINT. LoL

Um. Finish Caissa: Chapter Nine. Start on Chapter ten. 

Work on sprite recolours for Morgan. LoL

BUT YEAH. Now you're up to date on that stuff. I hope my ramble was a fun read! Here are a few more random combinations!