Mapping and the Beach (Patreon)

Greetings! I apologize (again) for the delay in posting; I really didn't want to do another "Yeah... I'm still mapping" post, so I held off until that was no longer the case. Before we get to the rest of the stuff, though, let's talk about the picture!

The Pic

I used to do beach-themed pictures a lot in the game's early days, and I thought it'd be fun to do another one. It's not my best work, but I had fun making it! Alex is a firm believer in sunscreen; Ana doesn't have to worry about it as much, but a sunburn in the wrong place might make her a believer, too. I hope you like it!

The picture was made with Daz (as you might be able to tell), and this was made possible by the fact that I traded in the Mac for a new Windows laptop. It took a looong time to get set up since I'm on a slow connection (and because I had a ton of stuff to transfer), but it finally is and I thought it'd be fun to do an inaugural art project. I'm glad to be back on Windows, and I really like the laptop - a 17" screen is much better for this sort of thing than the old 15" (or even the MBP's 16".) And while it's not bleeding edge tech (12850HX and RTX A5500) I've been really pleased with the performance.

So I can once again use Daz until I get the art moved over to a more advanced program. And I think that program's going to be Maya. But it'll take a fair bit of time to do that, so I think I'm going to hold off on that project until I'm done with this job (a few months most likely) and once again have more free time. I'm definitely looking forward both to the job ending and being able to devote more time to the game!

10.3 Progress

As hinted at above, I'm finally done with mapping! (Yay!)

Well... that's not entirely accurate. There are a few places directly connected to 10.3's quests left, but I'll be mapping those as part of making the quest. So, the "map all this random stuff in the Commercial District" part really is done - finally, and thank goodness.

What remains is the following:

• Write the relationship plugin
• Plan out the quests (3 of them)
• Make/write the quests
• Make/write a few skits
• Write random NPC conversations

The relationship plugin is what I'll be working on next. I have a pretty good idea of what it should be now, and don't expect it to be terribly difficult to write. It's basically just going to be a place to keep track of various character-related variables and switches, and maybe calculate some numbers based on their state. Once that's done I can start work on quests. 10.3's quests - like a lot of the remaining ones in Chapter 11 - are mostly going to be character-focused. One of them is a date with Ana... or perhaps just an evening out, depending on your relationship. Another is an evening out (not a date) with Emily, and - Emily being Emily - you can probably expect her to get the two of you into some sort of trouble :)

The quests shouldn't be terribly long, so hopefully they won't take ages to create. There will be a ton of random NPC conversations to write, and perhaps a fair number of skits. I came up with a lot of skit ideas as part of planning buildings out before mapping them, but I may put some of those off until 10.4.

Before I start working on quests, though, I'm probably going to do another full playthrough of the game. I find it's good to do that every so often - it helps me maintain a consistent feel for the game, and even helps squash old bugs. I only mention it here because the game is so long at this point that a playthrough is a project in and of itself!

Conclusion

There's finally one big thing checked off the list for 10.3 (thank goodness), and most of what remains should be a lot more fun and interesting. I can once again use the tools I always have to make game art, and I just had to use 'em to make something. I hope this post finds you well, I hope you like the picture, and thank you for your support!