Steamberry Studio

19/06 Patreon Devlog

 Hi Everyone!

Esh here with this week's patreon devlog.

Sorry for the late update today. I meant to do it earlier, then got distracted. And by afternoon I was feeling pretty bad and didn't have the energy to focus on an update. ;A;

But here we are - 10:30 PM and I'm posting on patreon!

Writing:

So let's talk about writing this week.

Back when I started Gilded Shadows, I knew that the original six LIs would have two problem c...

12/06 Patreon Devlog

Hi Everyone!

Esh here with this week's patreon devlog

Writing:

Ugh. Guys. ;~;

Why is this the year of distractions? If it's not global pandemics, it's going to be something closer to home, I guess.

This was another week of distractions where I made progress but not as much as I wanted.

Chapter Eight is about mid-way through, but not complete. To that end, Caleb's route did move forward. Just not as much as I wanted. It is now a...

05/06 Patreon Devlog

 Hello everyone!

Sorry for being late with this again! I had some things to deal with this morning that just sort of took over. And then I got really distracted with other things.

So here we are with another late devlog! 

(Also, where is time going? How is it already June? WHAT IS HAPPENING?)

Writing:

Okay! So...this was a weird week in writing.

I got the potato draft of Caleb-7 finalised but then…...went back and revised a bunc...

30/05 Patreon Devlog

 Hello everyone!

Everything sort of crashed into me yesterday afternoon and evening, so I apologise for this being a little late. 

While the situation in Minneapolis is far removed from us here in Australia, it's still saddening and worrying to see. It was terrifying to watch the twitter feed last night and see the fires, arrests of reporters, and just the general pain and anguish feeding the riots and protests.

We hope that if any of our supporters are in that are...

Personality traits - mechanical function

Hi everyone! 

Just have a quick question about personality traits in the game. I've already posed this on the Discord server but wanted to post a poll here on patreon too!

Right now, the personality traits are chosen once at the start of the game, and remain the same throughout. They are set up as a boolean, which means that each trait is either true or false. You tend to be stubborn...or not. And if you're not stubborn, you're adaptable. You can't be both.

From the beg...

Maintaining Steam Part 4: Determination and Discipline

DISCIPLINE AND PERSEVERANCE

Sometimes, the issue that causes a slowing of forward momentum isn't actually writer's block. It isn't frustration or discouragement and self-doubt.

Sometimes it's just boredom and lack of focus. Everyone knows the best way to make progress on a project is to spend time writing every day, but it can be really difficult to have the discipline to do that. Especially when you reach that point where you're kinda bored.

And what happen...

23/05 Patreon Devlog

 Hello everyone!

I totally forgot to update yesterday! I think the Thursday update threw me off and somehow my brain decided at some point that I'd already updated?

I don't even know. Let us jump in.

Writing:

What all have I done in writing? Well, I finished the potato draft of Chapter Six for Caleb's route. I still need to spruce it up a little since it's pretty bare bones. But the plot is starting to go somewhere now and Morgan is finally going ...

Maintaining Steam: Writer's Block II

Last time I started talking about some of the types of writer's block I encounter when I'm writing. And this time I'm going to continue and talk about some of the other types of writer's block I encounter...and how I tend to work through them.

I do strongly believe all types of writer's block can be worked through - often it's just frustrating and easy to procrastinate instead of working working to get through them.

So let's jump in!

Too Little Planning

Maintaining Steam Part 2: Motivation and Writer's Block I

MOTIVATION AS A DRIVING FACTOR

Right off the bat, I want to acknowledge that many things can affect our motivation - that is, our desire to work on things. Motivation may be an internal feeling, but feelings are impacted by outside influences all the time. And not all these influences can be powered through with discipline, determination, and good habits. 

Let's imagine motivation like liquid in a container for a moment. The top of the container is like a cri...

15/05 Patreon Devlog

Hi everyone!

Time for this weeks patreon dev log! 

Writing:

OOF.

This was a tough week in writing.

Chapter Five has been a really difficult chapter to write. As I mentioned before I realised my original idea for Chapter Five was just not going to work out. It was repetitive and boring. And while I don't want to gloss over how untrained Morgan is, I also don't want to rehash the same training sessions over and over again in the Endgame routes...

Maintaining Steam Part 1: Motivation vs Inspiration

Hi Everyone! 

I'm going to be posting a series on a variety of topics I consider related - writer's block, motivation drain, and how to stay productive on a project when you're facing those things.

All of these things are based on my personal experiences, and if I've learned one it's that everyone is different. And we all work through these kinds of things differently.

Even so, I hope this is at least somewhat helpful for you...

08/05 Patreon Devlog

 Hi everyone!

Posting this week's patreon devlog.

Writing:

This week I started writing Chapter Five of Caleb's route. I initially started off somewhat sticking to my original synopsis, but quickly went off track. When I tried to get back to the synopsis, I realised that my original plan was to have a confrontation between Morgan and Caleb - one I feel is a little pointless given how Morgan has developed in this route to the current point. This caused me...

01/05 Patreon Devlog

Hi everyone!

Hopping in with this week's devlog and update! I have no idea where this week went but it feels like it somehow passed me over and I managed to not experience most of it..@_@

Let's jump into the update!

Writing:

This week I did finish Caleb Chapter Four and got started on Chapter Five. The route has passed 33%. So yay for that!

That said, I got massively distracted by other dev stuff this week and that's about all the wr...

Background WIPS - Delphine

Just posting some of the background sketches we've gotten for various places in Delphine!

You can really start to get a feel for how different Delphine is from New Albion.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing all these places fully rendered! OwO 

2020-04-27 00:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

24/04 Patreon Devlog

Hi everyone!

Popping in with this week's devlog and update! I may have rambled.

Brace for impact and all that! 

Writing:

So this week, I finished editing Chapter Three and started working on Chapter Four. I was hoping to be a little further along with Four, but I ended up doing some other dev stuff this week as well, so that ended up taking time away from writing.

But the writing is progressing, and Caleb's route is nearly 30% toward the fin...

Testing, Dev Schedule, Flowcharts

Hey everyone! I am here with the previously mentioned post about beta testing! 

So here's the thing I'm making good headway on my third route of Gilded Shadows. Once it's complete 50% of the original six routes will be completed at the rough draft stage. We'll actually be more than halfway through our original target word count as well since the routes have gone over our target by a fair bit.

With Changeling, I really didn't start editing and coding routes until all the writi...

17/04 Patreon Devlog

Hi Guys!

Sorry the update is coming later in the day - I had a busy morning and afternoon so I'm just now getting the chance to sit down and work on this.

Writing:

I've been working on Caleb's route and have the potato draft of chapter three done. I really wanted to do more but have actually been feeling kind of bad this past week with off and on sinus pressure. Seasons are changing here and it's really throwing me off.

After feeling like ...

10/04 Patreon Devlog

Hi everyone! Time for this week's update. Except....where did the week even go? Man, it passed so quickly! 

First of all, we want to wish everyone a Happy Easter and a Happy Passover. We hope all of you have a peaceful and safe holiday.

In the meantime, let's discuss this week in game development.

Writing:

So this week I completed the rough draft of Caleb's first chapter and got started on Chapter Two.

The first chapter is always a little ea...

05/04 Patreon Devlog

Hi Everyone!

Things are continuing to be really crazy and it's been a huge struggle to continue to write through it all. But we are persevering.

So let's jump into our update!

Writing:

Caissa's route is edited into "rough draft" state and is complete.

(With the understanding all routes will get a final revision before coding).

Currently we are at 286,000 words. I'm still tracking according to my initial word count goal for the ...

Patreon Devlog 27/03

Hi Everyone!

Things are continuing to be really crazy and it's been a huge struggle to continue to write through it all. But we are persevering.

So let's jump into our update!

Writing:

I got my potato draft of Caissa's route done and am now working on edits of the last two chapters. These chapters are INCREDIBLY rough. I wanted to finish Cai's route by the end of February. The Kickstarter slowed me down through Feb. (which I kind of expected) but then ...

Patreon Devlog 20/03

Hi Everyone!

First off, I apologise for the lack of devlog last week. Things have been a little crazy around my house and with the pandemic issue, I was just having some issues regarding devlogs and what to say and how to update people.

I did update on tumblr and for those who read that, you may recall me saying that my spouse would be working from home but I didn't expect it to be a huge distraction.

…

Narrator: It was, in fact, a huge distraction.

Route Summaries

Hi everyone!

I wanted to post this earlier in the week but the week really got away from me. There was a lot going on and the week kind of just got away from me.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about routes and what my plans are story-wise for Gilded Shadows.

GS is what I call a "butterfly effect" style game. Each route is different and events from one route may not even occur in other routes. The general idea is that different paths Morgan takes through the world will cre...

07/03 Patreon Devlog

Hi Everyone!

Sorry for the slightly late update here. 

With our Kickstarter ending yesterday, it ended up being quite a busy day for me.

I hope you're all well! 

Anyway, let's jump into this week's update! There's a lot to talk about!

Writing:

I finished up with Chapter Ten and have moved on to Chapter Eleven.

I finished the potato draft of Eleven, and started working on the edit. This is a really heavily charac...

28/02 Patreon Devlog

Hey everyone! Welcome to this week's patreon devlog!

Writing
This week I finished writing Chapter Nine and have gotten most of the way through Chapter Ten. This chapter involves a love scene so it's a little slower getting through the end of it (especially because there is branching based on romance level and whether or not the player has the scenes toggled on and off. So I have to decide how things join up and flow, etc.)

I am hoping to get Chapter Ten com...

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 ...

Mid-week check in

So this week I've been doing a lot of writing. I got chapter eight of caissa's route done. And have started chapter nine.

A lot of times when writing it feels like I don't have much I can talk about. I can't talk about what I wrote since it's often spoiler heavy. And there's not necessarily interesting stuff to share about the process every single time.

One thing I finally did do was go back through all the chapters and note good possible CG moments. 

I don't...

Couple of Sprite sneak peeks

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give you guys an early look at some artwork I've been doodling! 

New sprites! 

The first is a new character for Gilded Shadows. I won't give a ton of information on who he is just yet but as he's probably going to be worked into the demo for a brief appearance, I ended up working on his sprite a little earlier than I intended to.

His name is Wynter. And...that's all the information you get for now! 8D

2020-02-13 01:03:12 +0000 UTC View Post

07/02 Patreon Devlog

Hi everyone! 

Ditching the normal format for this as (wonder of wonders), launching the Kickstarter completely threw off my work schedule this week! LoL

First order of business, Progress:

I'm still working on Caissa, Chapter Six. I'm about half finished with it, I think. Plot starting to pick up and there are some fun moments between Caissa and Morgan as their relationship shifts and she starts to see a new side him (that slightly drives her nuts - in b...

31/1 Patreon Devlog

Hey Everyone! 

Today I not only remembered it was Friday but I remembered to do the update early! =OO I didn't remember at 4:00 PM when I'm so busy with other things that it takes several hours to get it written up.

And this in spite of being WEIRDLY SLEEPY today. 

So let's get into it!

Writing:

Lots of writing done this week! I finished editing Chapter Four. I wrote and fully edited Chapter Five. And I'm nearly done with the potato dra...

With the Wind - Sprite peeks

Hey guys! Over the weekend, I was doodling some sprite related things for the non-existent side project that definitely does not exist! =D

I thought I'd share.

Silas is the only character with a full sprite and expressions.

Silas is...a doctor. He has a more serious, gentle demeanour.

He's around 27-28 years old and was a soldier/knight in a war a few year prior to the start of the story. He "retired" afterward and now practices medicine - something he was interested t...