Fun facts and behind the scenes about CoG v0.3.x (Patreon)

As I get started on v0.4 content, it'll be a bit before there's enough to talk about in a Development Log, so it's time for some fun details and facts regarding all of the things I crammed into the recent update!

I'll start this one off by giving you a warning about some mild violence, there will be a few screenshots with Darwin's bruised face that happens during the fishing storyline.

And with that, we're all set to go!

Let's start off with some smaller things

The title screen

In the previous version, the title screen featured the river where you go fishing. The time of day changed between the three phases in the game and was determined by the clock on your device!

In v0.3, the title screen now changes between the two new areas: the bakery and the bar. With the bakery appearing during the day and the bar during night.

Hey, we're getting paid!

I fiddled around a bit with how I wanted the paycheck get delivered to you. It felt a bit odd to just add the money without any notice every time the month rolled over. How about a short bit of dialogue after waking up? The player could be recovering at the hospital when that happens, meaning they completely miss out on it!

In the end, the solution I settled for does require you to go out of your way and pick it up, but I suppose it makes the money gained feel more tangible, and it does happen only once per month. As an added bonus, I'm quite happy with the sound effect I got for it, making it very satisfying to pick up.

And as a fun detail, even if you somehow forget to pick it up and leave it on your table all month, the second paycheck just gets added on top of the old one, so you don't just lose all that money!

Here's some unfinished business

Among the new cards added to the crafting list, two of them require 'Half-drunk beer', which is an item drop you get from beating Arnold. Both of the cards are actually used by Arnold himself, so the Beer bottle is a bit of an extra step to the process, rather than simply awarding you his cards. It also gives you a choice of sorts regarding which of his cards you want.

The first card you can create in v0.3 already, but since the other one requires two of them, that means you'll have to save it for after you beat him a second time... but since that encounter isn't in the game yet, if you plan on getting your hands on it, save that beer bottle for later.

Speaking of the Arnold encounter

This encounter has very specific trigger times - it only appears at night on Wed/Sat/Sun. Now night makes sense, he's drunk from hanging out at a bar after all, but what about those somewhat specific days? This is another case of the narrative intermingling with the gameplay!

During that encounter, you meet the bartender. A bit of conversation later, you find out that he's a teacher and it is insinuated that he's working part-time at the bar to make ends meet. Hence him only having the time to be there on weekends and the occasional weekday.

Since this encounter is meant to be both a revisit of Arnold and an introduction of the bartender, this condition makes sure the encounter doesn't happen on times that don't make sense with his schedule.

Did you also notice? The bartender never tells you his name during that entire conversation, you never do either, actually. However, if you've peeked at the Model Viewer, you'll find out that his name is Edgar!

Some variety in the way things play out

The conversation you have with Gordon about what happened at the bakery can happen in one of two ways:

• You just go to his room and talk there.
• OR, if you hadn't finished the crafting quest with Ricky, since you run into Gordon at the end of that, the conversation happens there instead.

This was completely unnecessary extra work (and I'm pretty sure no one will ever see the second case?), but I just thought it was a cool detail in which the conversation is brought up in an organic manner.

Details during the fishing storyline

There are two ways the 2nd encounter with Darwin can play out, depending on if you win or lose. If you win, Darwin gets kicked by Ted and loses his hat. You then pick up that hat with the intention of returning it to him later - the hat is an actual item in your inventory during this!

(Here is its entry in-game!)

Either way, after the 2nd encounter, Darwin will no longer wear his hat, seeing as he gives it to you instead - regardless of if you won or lost. His attitude when he does so, however, is significantly different depending on what happened.

Actually, you know what? Why don't you keep this old thing? Err, yeah, that's a little weird, isn't it? Figures... but I, uh... I don't know what else to give you.

(Snippet from if you won the battle.)

Oh hey, I know, why don't you take this? It's my favorite hat, see that? "Big Catch". I was thinking that fits a stupid, fat pig like you more than me anyway, haha!

(Snippet from if you lost the battle.)

Bruise talk

Darwin also gets a bruise on his face during the encounter. However, if you lose: seeing as you aren't there to calm Ted down, he ends up giving Darwin an even more intense beating. These bruises also actually work in "real time"!

(Whoa, cool bruise technology!)

The bruises change from looking freshly red to a purple after the encounter. Currently you only see Darwin again during the first fishing encounter, at which point he'll still have the bruise unless 18 days have passed. 

And regarding a certain scene...

I really stretched my gainer fic muscles with that cake eating scene with Russell. To accommodate for the fact that the player needs to be able to gain all that weight, Russell only moves in once you're below 24 Wgt (on top of a 7 day wait). This means you will always have the capacity to see it through to the end! There's a similar condition for the bakery scene, however in that one, you only gain 1 Wgt, so despite being highly unlikely, if you walk in with 53 Wgt, the game will just say the bakery is closed.

Another fun detail is that you can see the gradual growth you experience as the scene goes on if you check the Status window regularly. This actually also happens in the scene you get if you manage to beat Vernon in the forest! 

Oh god, oh so much text

And by that I am referring to the Arnold encounter specifically: both the battle dialogue and the usual dialogue itself. Since it's the first time I got explicit with the text, it was time to also write alternate text for people who don't much care for it.

In this case, there were two alternate cases I had to consider: the kind of words used, which the player can disable in the content settings, and whether the player is interested in Arnold. The second case is the reason why you get that certain choice at the beginning of the event, it's basically me asking the player if they're interested.

To give you an idea: there are about 11 sentences/small paragraphs in the battle dialogue that had to be rewritten to take all the various settings into account, with of course a few branches of text simply closing off afterwards if disabled.

And that's it

Writing these is honestly one of my favorite parts of this project, since it's quite fun to run into and think about all these intricacies and details as I work on the game, and I'm always excited to share them and see if anyone noticed.

As always, thank you for reading and for supporting the project!