Fortnightly Progress - 30th March (Patreon)

• No Haven

Currently on the planning out and writing stage. Decided to do things differently for this update and going forward too. What I used to do was minimal planning and then do absolutely everything in RAGS as I go including all the writing. I'd then copy the text as I go into a document for backup in case of crashes and typo catching. 

What I'm doing now is all the planning out and writing in a doc and then when all that's done I'll be able to do all the implementation, pasting in the finished writing as I go, without having to constantly stop and work out what to do next and all be possibly stumped by the writing or puzzling out exactly how the mechanics should work. 

I think that before has played a part in me having no clue whatsoever how long things will actually take, as now I should have a much better idea of what exactly has been done, what needs to be done, and what I've got still to do. 

Mentioning I was having troubles with the Spa Drider one last time led to some fantastic brainstorming on the Discord which really sparked some inspiration for me. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed, and now I've got that one completely worked out. 

There's been some really fun gameplay reports happening on the Discord and they've also been really helpful to me as they've inspired some quick quality of life additions that I can do. Those will now also be included in the next update.

• The No Haven Conversion / Picarto Streams

Okay this is going to be a thing. It may get emotional but I do want to emphasise that it has worked out really well in the end, really, really welll...

Managed to start up the streams again and on the Tuesday one I at last solved the Quick Start bug. Solved it in a way that I had to cut short the stream early cause wow. 

Turns out the code was fine. 

The code was always fine. 

So you might remember that I mentioned that when I was away over Christmas that I got like twenty quick starts working in a row, and then it immediately crashed when I got back. If I hadn't have had those eye issues occupying so much of my mind at the time I might have worked out that given all those quick starts worked on my laptop using chrome, and at home using firefox for the testing was the issue. Probably not though, as I was so, so very sure I had to be the problem. It just made too much sense that I'd cocked something up trying to take all this RAGS code and try to make it work in Twine. 

There was also the factor that it had occasionally worked before, and so I was also sure that there was some random thing(s) in play causing the crashes given the many, many possibilities that can occur during starting a game of No Haven. 

Nope to both. Well mostly nope anyway. Having learned how to use console.logs with Twine rather than using just text like I had before I was able to exactly track what was happening, and painstakingly backtrack all through the code, and there was nothing that could cause an infinite loop to occur. Nothing whatsoever. 

That was when I did some googling and it turns out it's a known issue with Firefox where there just simply was too much stuff happening for it too cope, and all I had to do was add some more pauses the player will need to click through and it works perfectly. 

That's why I never had the problem in non-quick starts as those already had a bunch more clicks already. I'm guessing the reasons that I had got some working quick starts is that they had been cases where they start with smaller encampments and so less generation had been needed.

So that's sorted now. Yay. 

Accentuating the positive it is very, very good that I found out about this before hand. Can very much imagine what would have happened if I'd never known about this, and the first impression that many people would have got of the conversion would have been it imediately breaking. That would not have been ideal. 

Streams are now back on to the regular schedule, and I will be doing one tonight. 

• Commissions

January+February - They Choose You : It was not done by next weekend like I said might actually happen on the last one of these. Let us take a moment to process such a shock. At least all the sketches are done now, but still no date to have this done by. Sketches really do look good though!

May+June - Laughing Trickster Priestess : It was done, and it's fantastic. Did especially well on twitter which was lovely to see.

July+August - Dominance Training : Has had a bit more progress. First stage is like 95% done?

September+October - The Shorty Set (Desert Neko) : Also got done and I still love how fierce these kitties look. 

September+October - The Shorty Set (Kobold) : Finalized the artist at last and should be seeing the first sketch by the end of this week. 

November - Lich  : Not had anything since the sketch I got just before the last one of these. 

Up to Feb -  Kreen Caravan Raid Aftermath : Going really nicely, and it's up to the base colours stage.

Up to Feb - Wind Swept : Another artist blanked me, aww. Trying another this week. 

Up to Feb - Banshee : Artist is confirmed and they're planning to start this in April.

Up to Feb - Unattended : Just got the base colours today.

The Alternate March Commission poll has now finished and as for how it went:

So that's a win for Grim Anywhere. Might hold that for Verax when they've finished the current one that they're doing for me as this one also features a desert neko and I really liked what they've did with them before. 

Next commission poll will be up towards the end of next week. 

As always I hope that was worth the read, and thank you so, so much for your patience and support!