The chit chat option... (Patreon)

Alright, time for another update. I fill a bit emotional today, but I'll try and keep my cool while I'm typing this. Let's start with the progress report then. A couple of days ago I finished working on a final big thing that's been missing from the game. After that I thought that I finally reached the point where I could test the game properly for the first time. And I mean test it for real. With all the events in place and leveling up mechanics and triggers and flags and EVERYTHING that is supposed to be in there. Well, apart from the music and sub-quests. It was quite exciting to finally see the game the way you guys would see it. I mean no placeholders or anything like that... The actual gameplay. Well, about two minutes in I stumbled on a rather lengthy scene of Genie taking to professor Snape. Throughout entire scene professor Snape's sprite remained completely emotionless. Well, and easy enough to fix thing, so I let it slide... a couple minutes after though I realized that every single item in the game still costs 200 gold. Normally I would need to take care of that because I need to test the in-game economy as well... But I really wanted to see whether or not Hermione is going to level up at the pace I envisioned it... So I kept on playing... And then I stumbled on another rather big part of the game that has completely slipped my mind and is still missing... The chit chat option... Both Hermione and professor Snape have one... Now, I did cut TONS of things I wanted to put into the game originally... But the chit chat button made it and I couldn't bring myself to take it out now... So that's what I've been doing yesterday and today... Here is how it works: Hermione has 8 levels. 01 to 08. Most of the in-game events are tied to those levels. Meaning that you progress through the game by leveling Hermione up. For every level there are 10 phrases (or short scenes) that are selected randomly every time you click the chit-chat button. So 10 different phrases for every level. And we have 8 levels. Which means I needed 80 phrases for Hermione and another 80 for Professor Snape. And those phrases can't be just "I am doing fine, thank you. How are you doing?". If not all of them, but at least about 80% supposed to be at least relatively witty or funny or atmospheric... And that means that sometimes I just stare into space with a pencil in my hand for 10+ minutes in a row trying to come up with something halfway decent. So I finished writing the ones for Hermione today. And I hope to put most of them into the game before I hit the bed tonight. I will be writing Snape's phrases tomorrow. I have no illusions about this and know that it will probably take me whole day. (at best). Although I think it should be easier to write for Snape. But we will see... And that's about it. As soon as I am done with this damn chit chat things I will quickly fix that emotionless scene I mentioned. Then I need to price the items properly. And after that there shall be my second attempt of testing the game properly... Now, to the philosophical portion of today's update. Back when I was working on "Princess Trainer" this one guy on "HU" forum would urge me to release it ASAP. I did not listen to him (and many other like him) of course. (Although as HU subscribers they had every right not demand things like that). But I would apologize and beg for more time but by the end of the day it's practically impossible to actually force me to release an unfinished thing with my name attached to it. Well, maybe if you were to literally have a gun to my head... Or maybe not even then. When I finally released "Princess Trainer", the same guy contacted me and said "Dude, I had no idea the game would be like this. Now I totally understand why it took that long." The point of this captivating fable: whatever you expect from "Hermione Trainer" right now, you will be surprised when you will actually have a chance to experience it for yourself. I can only hope that it will be a good kind of surprise. Working on this game taught me a lot. And if "Princess Trainer" taught me how to use Ren'Py and basic ren'py coding, "Hermione Trainer" taught me how to (or not to) plan the game beforehand, and what gameplay elements work well and what gameplay elements don't work at all... My next project will be "Princess Trainer Gold Edition" and to be honest I am very excited to get back to working on that game. Since I only will be adding new content there is literally nothing that could go wrong with the gameplay. There will be no surprises for you in that regard and no headaches for me. It will also take way less time since I will be working on a "DLC" of sorts. Next topic. Thank you for literally drowning me in cash. At the moment my mind is way too preoccupied with other things and I can't even reflect on this properly. All I know is that I want to release "Hermione Trainer" and finally move to a decent city. Then locate some local art-studio and start taking live-drawing classes again while I am working on "Princess Trainer Gold Edition". And then we will see... Too many things can go wrong at any given second so I am usually very hesitant to voice my long-term plans. But Russians like to say: "Помирать собрался, а рожь сей…". My russian is deteriorating by the year and my English fluency reached it's peak years ago.(Meaning that it's as good as it will ever be). But loosely translated it would be: "Even if you are about to die, you must keep on sowing the wheat." Which means that although I don't take my current financial independence for granted and although I know that it could go away as quickly as it came into my life, I still should hope for the best and keep dreaming big. Well, that was the emotional part that I warned you guys about at the begging of this post. Thank you for supporting my work. And thank you for giving me a chance to finish this game properly.