A Long Quest (And Maps!) (Patreon)

Greetings! I'm still at work on the main plot quest for 0.9. I mentioned last time that it would probably be big, and it's definitely shaping up to be that way. It's on track to be the largest one I've made so far. I finished all the mapping and character sprites, and I've been at work writing dialogue and events. I also revised the quest's plot a bit; I liked it before, but I'm much happier with it now. Now if only it turns out as well as I hope it does! My revisions made it a little bigger, but mostly they accomplished two things: a) making everything fit together more logically, and b) weaving in a few threads from the overarching plot/conflict of the game. It's mostly foreshadowing at this point - I don't think I'm giving much away - but hopefully it'll give you something to ponder when you play :)

There's still a lot of dialogue left to write in this quest, and then I have to make a boss battle. Unless I happen to get really inspired, the boss battle probably won't be super complex. After that, I have a little more stuff with the nightclub and then one more quest. I don't anticipate the last quest will involve a ton of writing; it should be fairly small and straightforward. It's killing me, but I think it's really important to get the quest I'm working on right, or at least as right as I can. I kinda wish I didn't have to make a whole village for it, since that involves a lot of mapping and writing for random NPCs, but unfortunately the plot calls for it.

I have a couple of pictures to share: they aren't sexy, but hopefully they'll be of interest anyway! For the village's mapping, I switched to a 'doll house' way of showing - or rather *not* showing - the front wall. It's supposed to look sort of like you'd removed the entire front wall of the building (like a dollhouse):

For comparison, here's an example of the old style of mapping from the Servant's Quarters in Ogremarsh (pay attention to the front wall):

I think the 'doll house' method looks a lot better. The new maps also look better because I put a lot more thought and effort into mapping them, but I still think the 'doll house' look helps. What do you think?

I'll probably continue with the 'doll house' approach when making future maps. This will unfortunately create an inconsistency in visual style between the old and new maps, but I'll probably go back and fix that when I port the game over to MZ (which I'm anticipating will be around 0.11.) I'll likely have to go back and mess with a lot of other old stuff anyway. 

That's all I have for now - I'm going to keep grinding away on this quest. Thank you for your support!