Status update Episode 1 (Patreon)

This is the first real status update for Being a DIK.
It feels weird...I'm not really sure where to begin or what to include.

As you know, I've been working partially on BADIK during these last couple of months. So I've gotten a good head start.

Developing an episode of a new game from scratch takes a lot more time than the development thereafter.

There are so many things that you, as a developer, take for granted as they are in place after the first release; e.g. the graphical user interface (GUI) and fundamental functions such as a scene gallery or certain gameplay elements.

That's what I've been focusing on lately and it's starting to shape up. I've been implementing a lighter version of free roam that I think adds value to the game.

Here are some previews of the current GUI for the main menu.

Yes, I'm adding scene and reward galleries from the start of the game.

Currently, I'm trying to finalize my overall development strategy for BADIK. To me it's very important that everything I begin will see an end. I don't want to create games that go on forever with pointless updates or ends up being abandoned. To achieve this, I need to properly define the plot and specific end goals for each character in the game.

In a way it's the same approach I had for Acting Lessons, but this time around I'm leaving room for more updates, if they are needed, along the way. Preliminary planning indicates that BADIK will go on for 10+ Episodes, but don't hold me to that number, things may change.

I still have to work on the stories for a subset of side characters, but the concept I have at the moment really feels like a complete game with an intriguing story of ups and downs.

Something that's difficult to do is to set a standard episode length. I can already tell that Episode 1 will be longer than anything I've done before. I really want to start off strong, to show you what the game will be about and to give you a chance to familiarize yourself with the environments and the big cast of the game. I aim to have a 1-2 hour long first Episode, with replay value.

It will be hard to count renders per episode this time around. This is because I'm doing different things with the renders in BADIK. For one, I'm implementing something I like to call "dynamic images" that brings more life to the game. These dynamic images contain several renders, introducing motion to some scenes, and it feels weird reporting more than one render for them, even if it's the truth.

I'm also doing a lot spot renders for the free roam feature, that also will skew the render count. I will have to think about the best way to present the progress to you in future status updates.

What I can assure you is that game development of Episode 1 is coming along nicely and that the script (barring code for mini games, scene and rewards gallery) is already about 4000 lines of code, Episode 3 of Acting Lessons, which felt the longest, had 5000 lines of code.

As always, I'm continuously rendering a lot of animations and static images and writing the script. Remember the 700 frames (17 second) animation I told you about last week? It will be done in 40 hours and it is definitely something special.

To take things even further, I just posed a 900 frame animation (38 seconds long @24fps) that will take 9.5 days using one PC to render (15 minutes per frame, 95% convergence, 4k). Yet again, it's a big experiment that I hope pays off.

I know, it sounds ridiculous to have two animations make up for 1600 renders, but truth be told, I need something in my render queue while I work on the BADIK framework and I really want to do these animations. 

Have a nice weekend!

Dr PinkCake