Development Update! (Patreon)

What's up boys and girls?

So, here comes another development update where I'll get you on par with what I've been doing on The Inn so far.

As I got all the mechanics in the game to a point where I can say I'm trully satisfied with them, I've been more focused on creating the scenes for Day 9 content and doing some polishing on minor aspects of the game.

I recently finished the breakfast sequence (one of the longest on this update ) for Day 9 and started working on the last 4 events of the update. Those events will be divided into:

1  Event with Luana

1 Event with Val

1 Event with Joana

1 Event with all the girls to wrap up the update

I'm well underway on Luana's event (I'm actually on the final part of it) and will soon move on to Val's.

Don't worry, greatness awaits!

So, without furter ado, let's get on with the development update!

First things first, check out some sneak peaks of the content so far:

So yeah, that's as much as I can show without spoiling too much!

Now, for the second part of this development update, I'd like to explain some of the new stuff I've added to the game and some Quality of Life additions, let's start with...

1 - EVENT HANDLING SYSTEM

I finally was able to finish the Event Handling System for the game. I can't really show any picture of it because it's pure code and an "under the hood" feature. In essense it handles 2 types of events: Character Events and Location Events.

• Character Events are events that will start when you go to a location and click on the character present there. One example of it is during Day 7, after you brush you teeth, you go to the kitchen and click on Linda's character there to start the breakfast event.
• Location Events are events that will start as soon as you enter a location, no matter if there are any characters there or not. An example of location event is when, after waking up on Day 7, you head to the bathroom on Linda's house to brush your teeth.

"But Lykanz, how will I know when an event is available for a location or a character? You're going to make me click all the rooms and characters on the map??? Oh, I see, this is one of THOSE games???" - You may be asking...

Well, I have a solution for that, and that will bring us to the next topic:

2 - VISUAL CUES FOR EVENTS

One of the systems I was able to finish along with the Event Handling System is the Event Visual Cue System.

Whenever an event is active for either a girl or a location, a visual cue will appear to tell you exactly where you should go, this way avoiding nedless clicking and getting straight to what matters.

Visual cues are represented by a STAR and will be displayed in two ways:

• For Character Events, the STAR will appear over the Character's Bobblehead wherever location the character is, here's an example of a Character Event active for Joana:

• As for Location Events, the STAR will be displayed over the Location Icon on the navigation menu, here's an example of several Location Events active for different locations on Joana's House:

"Wait... Why are the buttons sometimes rounded and sometimes squared???" - You may be asking.

Well, that takes us to the next topic:

3 - CHANGEABLE LAYOUTS FOR THE NAVIGATION BUTTONS

This is something I did just as a proof of concept and to thest some stuff I had learned recently, but I liked the result so I decided to keep it.

As I delved deep into the code on my never ending crusade to make stuff as automated as possible, I started using some ren'py features to create the buttons on the navigation screen. The buttons are created "on demand" and consist on several images layered one above the other.

Through that method, I found out I was able to change the button layouts at will, with the click of a button, like this:

You have only to click on the desired layout there and *poof*, it's done.

Right now it has only two layouts, round and square. but the possibilty to add more layouts in the future exists, so you never know...

4 - IMPROVED AND EXPANDED THE PHONE'S WALLPAPER SYSTEM

Another thing I've worked on a lot with new things I learned was the Wallpaper System for the phone.

On this update the Phone will be available to use and, as such, most of it's features will be available too.

One of those features is the Wallpaper System, which has several different wallpapers ready to use but also has the ability to use any image the player wants, as long as they're on a particular folder.

The biggest improvement on the system is that now the player can use any image, with any size and name as wallpapers, as long as theyr format is supported by ren'py. The supported file formats are: JPG/JPEG, PNG, BMP and WEBP.

5 - TUTORIALS FOR EVERY GAME MECHANIC

Another new addition to this update are the tutorials for all the mechanics on the game.

They'll show up as soon as the mechanic becomes available and is accessed for the first time.

Here's an example of how they look like:

"Man... Tutorials suck! They're a waste of time only losers use!" - You may be thinking to yourself.

Well, if you don't like tutorials, I got it covered for you too!

A new section was added to the Options Menu that deactivates them completely, check it out:

6 - UNREAD SMS COUNTER

With the introduction of the SMS system, the player will be able to, sometimes, receive messages from the girls, those will most of the time trigger new events for them.

As I reworked how all the buttons in the game are created, I also was able to add a nice little touch to the visual cue that appears when the player has one or more unread messages.

It looks like this:

As you can see, the number shows how many unread messages you have.

As the last topic on this development update, and still related to the SMS system:

7 - EMOJIS DURING SMS CONVERSATIONS

This is something I did just because I thought it would be cool and add a little touch to the SMS conversations.

Often when the player talks to the girls through SMS, either them or the player will use emojis on their text, like this:

As I said, it's just a simple addition that makes the SMS feel more lively.

8 - FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

And that's it for this development update! I hope you enjoyed it! 

As the Corona outbreak goes on, a lot of people had to stay quaratined on their homes. As my daytime job is on public healthcare sector, I didn't get to stay quarantined and kept working through it. Luckily Brazil haven't been affect by it as other countries and the state I live only had a couple cases of it so far. Still I have seen how this can affect everyone's lives and completely change the world's schedule overnight. I know it's not easy, but hang on, it'll come to pass sooner or later.

On the meantime, stay home as much as you can. Your life is more valuable than anything.

See you all later!