dev diary: surprise, it's a syrup 2 update (Patreon)

um... ok so yknow how i've been saying "i wanna finish treat this year!!!! syrup 2 is delayed!!!!!!" well i'm really bad at following my own plans. syrup 2 has been sitting untouched for long enough that it became extremely easy to work on, so i'm taking advantage of this motivation to polish up what's there and fill out things that were missing. it feels really good to make progress on this game and i'm having a lot of fun, but i feel a little bit guilty too, because i SHOULD be spending this energy on treat... but my brain has not been cooperating at all, so here we are!

i do have a small treat status update at least: i set up some of the events for the next section of the story. i was only able to do an hour or so of work on it in the past few weeks though... right now i only have a general idea of tasks the player needs to complete for that part, so i have to think about the specifics and set up the logic for all of it, and place the different NPCs around... i still want to finish part 8 this year, but i can't force myself to do it. it's only july though, so who knows what will happen! i'll do my best :)

ANYWAY, SYRUP 2!

since the last time i did a lot of work on this game was at the end of 2022, i'll give a quick summary so everyone's on the same page:

i started development on syrup 2 in october of 2017. at first it was just a prototype to see if i could make an atelier-like game, so the first couple years was just me having fun trying to get all the systems to work in ren'py. i released a patron-only demo 3 years later, once a decent amount of the story was fully playable. the current WIP build (from december 2022) has a lot of improvements since the demo (plus a lot more story content), but it's only available for higher tier patrons.

i'm thinking i'd like to do an early release for patrons way ahead of the public release... as a sort of closed beta i guess? an early access version, once the story is completely finished and all that's left is balancing what's already there or adding extra events, idk. i think that's gonna be the way to go with this mammoth of a game, but i'm still a little ways off from scripting the rest of the main story. i definitely don't want to do the public release until after treat is finished (and out on steam and whatnot), but it's looking like i might finish a new wip build before that point? even if it's not a lot of new story stuff, there's been some really good improvements so i want to share it if i can.

anyway, please play the demo (or the last wip build) if you want to! i think reading about the features will be more exciting if you do lol.

new features, yippee!

how did i get here. i was talking about RPG design with a friend, specifically about a couple features in syrup 2 that i planned but hadn't fully implemented yet. one of these feature is TITLES!

on the status screen you can pick a title to equip, and it'll give different bonuses. a bunch of them change your stats for battling, but some of them give item/alchemy related bonuses so it'll be fun to swap them out depending on whatever your immediate goals are. you earn these by fulfilling certain conditions, and there are hints for what these conditions are when you hover the "????"s.

previously, the titles were something that was set automatically depending on what condition was met, because i thought it'd be funny to open the menu after losing a lot of battles and go "omg my title is 'loser'?!?!??" but in playtesting i never really opened this menu, and the logic for picking which title to show was overcomplicated and didn't feel representative of what the player was doing anyway. SO that's why i changed it so you can set it yourself, and give people a reason to swap them out.

i realized this functions like a sort of achievement system, where it's encouraging you to do different things in the game, but you don't HAVE to engage with it. you just get a little reminder every now and then by unlocking a new title as you go along :)

next is a feature requested by a few different playtesters! A SHOPPING LIST!!!!!!!

while synthesizing, you can click on the ingredients to bring up info on where to find them, how many you have in your bag, price, etc. you can add 5 items to your memo at a time, and you can cross them off when you don't need them anymore. buying it will automatically cross it off the list for you too :)

i'm going to replace the memo frame with cute stationery, and my partner suggested tying the look of the stationery to which title you currently have equipped. i'm excited to draw lots of variants!!!! but it's boring-looking for now for prototype purposes lol.

this actually solved an issue with the market screen--there was a big space on the left that had nothing in it, so now it has something USEFUL!!!!!! check it out!!!!!!!!!

you can also check your items from the map. previously this only showed you a small list of what battle candies you were carrying, but now it's the full inventory PLUS MEMO!!!!!!!! lots of places to access this thing!!!!!

the other thing i did was polish up some of the library UI. in the last build it was very placeholdery, but now it has nice-looking menus... here's the tutorial section, for players who might need a refresher on how to play.

i made a lot of progress on music as well (like 4 new songs???) but they're only halfway finished, so nothing to share atm. i'm also working on the cover for another piece of candy volume 2, so that will take priority lol. lots to do, lots to look forward to, as always...

what's next / life updates

so, right now i'm playing through syrup 2 and adding/fixing whatever i run into, because i've had the energy to just DO that. it's amazing. i always get to a point with my larger projects where i feel like i can't move at all, and i think that's how i feel about treat right now sadly. so i gotta do this instead...!

as a personal update, i recently started taking some medication for anxiety. i'm getting used to it this week. i've never really taken pills for anything before so it's kind of a new journey but i'm hoping it will help get me back to a normal baseline, because... i'm sick of feeling burnt out so often!!! it feels like my anxiety has been really getting in the way of me doing things i want to do, so i'm trying to be proactive about fixing it instead of just hoping i'll feel better soon. maybe i can be a little less all-over-the-place and focus on the things i want to haha. (and also to stop crying randomly. life is good, i don't really have stressors that would warrant this!)

as a second major life update: the lease for the place i'm currently living will be up at the end of october, so i will be busy moving into a new place by november. i expect to be very busy and drained by this... but maybe i'll be completely fine, who knows. i'm trying to plan releases around this date, and i've been worried it will push the treat update into 2025 or something, but it's not the end of the world if that happens... you guys have waited longer than that between chapters before........ you know how it goes............. trust me when i say i want it to be released as much as you guys want to be playing it!!!!!

that's all i can think of to say, so i'll end it here for today. thanks for reading!