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[TheGoatee]

....I'm not the only one who thinks this is more of an acid trip than a game, right...? 

I think you are, friend.

[blekdar]

....I'm not the only one who thinks this is more of an acid trip than a game, right...? 

I think you are, friend.

Well, when we look at his screen name...

[oldblood]

Hey guys, thanks for everyone that has played it so far...

@Zizka: Thanks for the detailed feedback. I will respond to just a couple points. 2: Yeah I had talked about this earlier in the devlog. I'd prefer voices too but its expensive to bring on quality actors and I'd rather do text-based than voice actors who aren't up to snuff. So that's mostly just a budget thing. 5: That's a good idea. Will see what I can do. 8: Yeah, early into the game- dialogue is fairly linear because the game needs to force you a long a defined path. Generally this game will be fairly linear although your responses will not always be. Sometimes we can respond to the same event in different ways and still end up with the same result, that's generally how life works and how a lot of the game will be. That being said, as you progress deeper into the game, you will find the dialogue starts making more impact. 4 & 14: Eventually the cellar will have it uses. The attic is similar to the cellar, you will eventually need to go there- but not yet. 15: Hmmm, something to think about. May need to do that.

@and: Great, looking forward to it.

....I'm not the only one who thinks this is more of an acid trip than a game, right...? 

Is that good or bad?

It's funny you mentioned that as one of the goals of this game when I set out was actually to make it more about an experience... Not an acid trip, but not a traditional game experience. Here was part of the first sentence I ever wrote in this devlog:

...“Game”. I’m using the term loosely of course, less “game”, more “linear experience”....

I guess that means I've been keeping to the original vision?

Adding a new link since new page:

[Sgt. Pepper]

....I'm not the only one who thinks this is more of an acid trip than a game, right...? 

Is that good or bad?

It's funny you mentioned that as one of the goals of this game when I set out was actually to make it more about an experience... Not an acid trip, but not a traditional game experience. Here was part of the first sentence I ever wrote in this devlog:

...“Game”. I’m using the term loosely of course, less “game”, more “linear experience”....

I guess that means I've been keeping to the original vision?

^ *super quote*

I think it's trippy in a good way. It's good you're keeping it close to your original vision.

[slarti88]

Wow played the alpha II demo a couple of hours ago and still can't shake off this eerie feeling. This game certainly has an impact on you. And the visuals and the sound together make for a very compelling experience. I'm eager to find out what happens over the course of the game (but a part of me is a little scared )

[oldblood]

I think it's trippy in a good way. It's good you're keeping it close to your original vision.

Well, that's good to hear. Appreciate you playing the demo. If you have any feedback or suggestions, I'm all ears.

Wow played the alpha II demo a couple of hours ago and still can't shake off this eerie feeling. This game certainly has an impact on you. And the visuals and the sound together make for a very compelling experience. I'm eager to find out what happens over the course of the game (but a part of me is a little scared )

That was very encouraging to read as that's really what I'm hoping to achieve. Thanks so much for taking the time to play the Alpha. I appreciate it and hopefully the rest of the "story" will live up to the expectations!

[oldblood]

DEVLOG 44.

Past the Alpha II and I feel I've gotten enough feedback mechanically to know what is or isn't functioning as it should. 'Thank you' to everyone who has played or provided feedback. And thanks to everyone who retweeted or shared the demo. It has been very helpful and given me a lot of things to work on.

I had 155 downloads of the Alpha II over the first 5 days since posting and in total about 400 downloads between I & II. Again, I have no real sense of if those numbers are good or bad but overall I feel I'm pretty pleased that several hundred people have played the demo and thousands have been exposed to it with videos online. I can't ask for much more than that. Especially considering that the only real exposure for the demo has been TIG and Twitter.

I've always been a bit... anti-demo. But I do feel in this case, it will be helpful to keep a demo up for people to play. Particularly with the content that will be coming in the game. I don't think I will post anymore public demos but I will leave the current Alpha II up so that anyone who is interested in "getting a taste" of Masochisia can play the demo without getting very deep into the story. If you play the demo and like it, you will probably be interested in the game. If you play the demo and don't like it, then you're REALLY not going to like the full game. So I think giving people the ability to give the game a test-run is probably for the best...

Any future demo's will be closed demos that I probably just do via TIG and personal contacts. So onward to Beta we go...

***

My focus right now is shifting towards what may be my two largest bottle-necks on the project.

1. Environment Art

2. Dialogue

My goal is really to just focus on both of these aspects throughout the month of May. If I can make serious head-way on these two fronts in May, then I will probably be well-positioned to complete the game this summer. At this point, I'm targeting August which I think is fairly realistic, barring any large issues that are unforeseen...

Hopefully my next devlog will be... less wordy. More visual.

[oahda]

Found the time to give it a go now.

What were the changes? I did notice the new areas (really liked the creek with the sound of the water) and you seem to have moved some stuff around, but other than that, what's new? It still ended at the same place as alpha I. Inventory and stuff seemed to work the same as well, so did you make any decisions there?

Some of the problems from the first alpha persist. It takes an incredibly long time to start the game up and I think a lot of people would either lose the patience and force quit it or really think the game is broken. I wonder what might be causing this... And like before, when the game does start and you initiate the game from the main menu, after the loading screen, the sound effect for presenting text is played once and then everything freezes for another while until the text started rolling in. No problems after that, like before.

One thing I wasn't sure whether it was a bug or if it's not done yet, but when visiting father I couldn't talked to him by clicking on him, and figured I'd have to give him the medicine first. I gave it to him, and then I could talk to him. But there was nothing indicating that it had been given to him at all. And nothing indicating you'd have to give it to him to talk to him first. Maybe you should at least give him a line demanding the medicine when you try to talk to him before you've given it to him, and some sort of animation to indicate that he's taken the medicine when you do give it to him.

Another thing I found weird is that you have the option of telling your father that the pain feels good, but still you're begging for mercy when he beats you. Why would you do that if you enjoy the pain?

That's all I've got! Sorry if I sound negative, but since the alphas seem to be so similar, all my praise of the first one remains and I figured I'd point out the few things that seemed weird to me. Overall it's still just as exciting to see the progress and the new areas I was able to visit look great.

[karlozalb]

I'll test the alpha ASAP, I'm quite busy with the damn KS campaign, sorry old!

[oldblood]

What were the changes? I did notice the new areas (really liked the creek with the sound of the water) and you seem to have moved some stuff around, but other than that, what's new? It still ended at the same place as alpha I.

The Alpha II was really just to clean up the first demo based on feedback I had, it was supposed to stop at the end of the first act just like the original demo. It's on the previous page so it may have been missed but I clarified this demo still ends where the first demo ended. As for what all's changed-- not all of it is directly impacting to the story. Here is the changelog:

● Added a build for Linux
● New Progression system back-end (doesn’t impact gameplay)
● Music throughout the whole demo
● New “pill popping” mechanics
● More "voice in your head" conversations and "ending conversations" with Walter & Mother
● Inventory updates. Can now be accessed by either pressing I or moving the cursor over inventory
● Optimization. Figuring out ways to make the game run better, particularly on smaller machines
● Faster outdoor environment movement speed
● Reducing some of the SFX by about 30%
● New system to make it easier to see where each exit leads
● Dialogue update (additions, subtractions, changes, grammatical corrections etc)
● Item art updates. There will be actual pill bottle icons, better "medication" art etc.
● “Loading” prompts. Other misc. bug fixes, level tweaks and changes etc etc.

Some of the problems from the first alpha persist. It takes an incredibly long time to start the game up and I think a lot of people would either lose the patience and force quit it or really think the game is broken.

Can you elaborate on what the "incredibly long time" is? The only references I have are the machines I test it on and the few let's play videos that have appeared or that people have sent me. I have seen it load for a few seconds on start-up but not for an incredibly long time so not sure what to reference. If at all possible, could you grab a video of the launch? I realize thats a lot of work, so don't worry about it if not.

Im obviously concerned and want to fix that but it does seem a bit isolated as I haven't heard anyone else send in that feedback yet so any additional details you can provide will be helpful.

Regarding your other feedback, those are good questions/suggestions:

● I really should add some additional SFX for when an item has been used with Father to reiterate that item has been given. Good call there.
● Yes, I've thought the same about the abuse sequence. May be worth creating a separate sequence depending on how you answer that question.

And don't worry, I didn't take the feedback as negative at all. Was good feedback, thanks for playing both the demos and giving feedback on both. Huge help.

[oahda]

Well, minutes.

I don't know how used you are to seeing programs starting up on OS X, but at first the program icon is animated to jump in the dock, which I guess might be the program getting loaded into RAM or something. When the program's loaded, the icon stops jumping and a dot appears under it to show that it's running.

It kept jumping for minutes, and then it stopped jumping but no dot appeared for another few minutes. No game window thus far. Then the game window finally showed up and the dot below the icon in the dock appeared.

Does that still need a video?

[oldblood]

No that helps, I thought you were talking once you actually start playing the game itself not when you launch the game. I have an old iMac somewhere I need to dig out and try giving the demo a spin on that-- see if I can replicate. Thanks.

[BigThink]

I like the artstyle! Really cool.
The game seems as creepy as you haha

[oldblood]

I like the artstyle! Really cool.
The game seems as creepy as you haha

Thanks for the compliments...

***

DEVLOG 45.

Been writing a lot... Hitting this wall where my biggest challenge is: In a text based game with diverse characters, how do you give characters a distinctive voice?

The answer is obvious of course. Distinctive responses and personalities but of course, that's easier said than done. I've had to rewrite several dialogue trees because I couldn't tell the difference between one character and another or because I hated the "voice" I was trying to find for that character...

Things are getting... messy.

A small portion of one conversation... bouncing around...

[blekdar]

'She didn't stop your fat'
'She didn't stop your fat'

I know it's supposed to say father but, that made me giggle.

I played the second alpha last night. The issues I had seemed to have been smoothed out. The all-around polish is very good.

However, for whatever reason I was curious as to what it looked like on the lowest resolution, 640x480 I think. I found that it was nearly impossible to navigate by dragging the mouse left and right. That was the only issue I found.

Very nice work overall.

[oldblood]

'She didn't stop your fat'
'She didn't stop your fat'

I know it's supposed to say father but, that made me giggle.

I played the second alpha last night. The issues I had seemed to have been smoothed out. The all-around polish is very good.

However, for whatever reason I was curious as to what it looked like on the lowest resolution, 640x480 I think. I found that it was nearly impossible to navigate by dragging the mouse left and right. That was the only issue I found.

Very nice work overall.

Haha, yeah the nodes only show a portion of the conversation. Just enough that I know whats in each node. Sometimes they show just enough to make for... odd... sentences.

Thanks for playing the Alpha II and glad to hear you felt it was pretty polished. That was sort of the goal of the 2nd Alpha. Create a better demo experience based on all the great feedback you all have provided. So thanks to people on TIG and Twitter, I was able to get a lot of great feedback and improve the demo enough that any future players will be able to get a better "first experience". So thank you.

I will be honest, I haven't tested it too much at the super low resolutions, just ones that are more common so it probably wouldn't hurt me to check those and see what I can do to improve them although frankly speaking-- not sure how many would actually play it at 640x480, but you never know...

***

DEVLOG 46.

Made a lot of headway with dialogue this week. Almost done with all the dialogue in Act II. Making some headway on environment art as well... Here is a teaser of one of the rooms currently in-progress:

Some things don't need a comment...

[oahda]

Woah, I didn't even notice that was animated at first and suddenly it crept up on me.

[oldblood]

DEVLOG 47.

Very quiet as I don't have much to say at the moment. At least not anything other than what I've already said I would be doing in May...

But that won't stop you from rambling will it?

As stated, my objectives for May are really focusing on churning out as much environment art and dialogue as is physically possible. Churned out probably 100 random assets this week that will be used to create various rooms. Random shit like trees, rocks, skys, grounds, grass, statues... all kinds of random assets...

Mostly non-exciting things but I will show some random assets to break up the monotony. The goals of the environment assets remain the same. Simpler than the characters (less detailed), more textured, more subtle.

A gate. To what?

The things you will find in the woods...

What I call a "tree block"...

I've received some comments that people don't care for the tree designs in the game. But for whatever reasons, I enjoy them. They're one of the first assets done for the game and generally speaking I think they have a unique style... So for those reasons, I've become attached and I don't see them going away.

"Tree blocks" are actually a new type of tree asset that I want to utilize for denser wooded areas in the game. They're sort of inspired by the designs of one of my favorite painters, Eyvind Earle. They look a bit "odd" as a stand-alone asset but I think when utilized properly should make it easier to create a sort of unique looking forest area.

***

Unrelated note but through the demo up on GameJolt yesterday. Figured, why not? Can always use feedback and a little extra exposure is never a bad thing...

So if you haven't played the demo yet, here is another way to do it...

http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/masochisia/66013/

[and]

I am feeling awfully disturbed by the things you will find in the woods. Very good job you've done there.

[slarti88]

Like how the trees also look like scary faces! Plus its night time!