It’s been a while since the last devlog, and the reason for that is… that I have done mostly nothing since then. Issues in the so-called “real life” started piling up and I was/am dealing with some stuff that leaves me with almost no energy after work. Hopefully, everything should be sorted in the next few months (if nothing goes wrong again), then I hope to go back to the schedule I had in mind.
Now, not to say that I didn’t really do anything, I actually developed a small concept where I’ll be able to include some sparse storyline in the game. Before, crossing the desert was the story, now there might be some parallel storytelling happening, but I have to develop things a bit more. I also elaborated a system that could allow me to make events separately and then just insert them into the game loop but, as I expected, there will be tons of variables to keep track of, so I need to be careful here.
Meanwhile, Decker’s creator released a story format that allows people to script a story in Twine and then import it into Decker. It has amazing potential but, after some testing, it wouldn’t work for what I want to do. The usage of Lil expressions would simplify a lot of things I’m having to work around in Chapbook, but sadly there are so many conditionals and variables that I need a more robust testing environment for when implementing story parts. Chapbook has an amazing utility panel for that, natively available, so Ply will have to wait until the next project, I guess.
I also started messing around with the possible interface configurations in Decker, to have everything ready after finishing the project and then just needing to convert the code (by hand) without thinking about anything else. This is the original idea I sketched for the interface:
People with UI skills will probably spot an issue right away: in a long interface, having a wide textbox isn’t that nice to read. Ideally, the text has to be as tight as it can be in a column so it’s easy to follow each line with as minimum eye movement as possible. After some testing, I’ll probably use the following configuration:
I’m also setting up the environment for the variables in Decker (since they all need to be some sort of widget), which will all follow the same name used in Twine (to make my life easier).
Just as last time, what I need to do now is to just write proper content for the project, something I haven’t started not because I’m lacking creative energy, but because I’m lacking energy overall. We’ll see how things go after this month is over.
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