TIGSource Forums

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ORIGINAL POST
-Entry 0-
Introducion & Concept

The main flow works as follow
3x (freetime→meetup) next day.

• Freetime
  Where you can talk to others, build bond, trust and information. Do certain activities to improve your abilities and pre-emptively prepare your plan. You can also learn the schedules of people.
  
  
  • Coverup
    If you kill someone you go into coverup mode, its actually no different from freetime except someone else can trigger the investigation at any time if something suspicious is found.
    
• Meeting
  Is what separates the day time periods, its also a way to make sure everyone is still alright.
  If anyone is dead, the meeting will trigger the investigation. (locks a timeframe)
  (Morning,Afternoon,Night)
  
  
  • Investigation
    Everyone goes out and search for evidence. So do you. You can talk to others to know what they have found and know what they remember from the time of murder.
    They of course don’t have to disclose everything
    
• Trial
  Where you try to convince everyone that you didn’t do it.
  

Concepts

• The kill
  -Very simple, approaching another person with a weapon equipped will add “Kill” option.
  -A stronger opponent could counter, making it your loss or even death.
  -A opponent could also flee and ask for help
  -Betrayals and surprise attack can be quite effective.
  -Different weapons leaves different mess and evidence
  

• The others.
  -They have their own lives, go places interact with others, notice when stuff is off and remember who they see.
  -Murder seals that what they saw is relevant: You can’t say you weren’t somewhere someone else saw you.
  -Scratch the above, you actually can! But it doesn’t work if 2 or more saw you.
  -They follow a schedule (not strict) so you can kind of predict their action, You can also guide them (ask to meet somewhere) But so can others.

• The cover up
  -You CANT have a perfect alibi
  -So essentially your goal is to make others as possibly guilty as you if not more.
  -The main threat during the cover up is being seen by someone else.

• The trial
  Id like it to be as organic as possible but that might be quite a challenge.
  -Would work on trust and like a battle.
  
• Two stats: Credibility & suspiciousness.
  
  • Suspiciousness: Is how guilty the person looks; The sum of all mistakes with very little room for recovery. ”Health bar”
    
  • Credibility: is how much the person seem honest. It is used for skills, used to determine whether people believe your claims.”Super bar”
    
  While both are quite linked, they differ in how recoverable they are. While you can regain credibility, suspicions are very hard to remove.
  
  -there is no predetermined path or ending the trial ends when someone (could be you) demands the vote casting and no one objects. For that to happen, everyone should have an idea of who did it; but that doesn’t say anything about what happened in the trial.
  -more to come on that
  

Forgive my drawing skills; Here is an early screenshot.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/52cb1b35f4a5b967cc6231d11eb0f81f/tumblr_inline_on1696pWEh1sm1x89_500.png)
Freetime, with a conveniently available knife... wonder where that goes.
note: the face icons on the sides are part of "dev vision" please ignore.

So what do you think interested? Art acceptable? How are you going to do this?!! Looks interesting?
All feedback would be appreciated.
I look foward to my next entry.

Hey, I think this is a really great idea. Looks like it will involve a lot of time to program though so I'd start off somewhere simple and then gradually add features if I were you. Anyway, really this is a great idea for a game and one that I definitely think could be big if done correctly (if it hasn't already been done!).

Yeah, keep the idea, run with it - it's definitely a keeper if you can make it.

Sam

Admin @
http://eclipsejapan.jp/

PS. Get a dedicated artist because that screenshot is terrible lol

I think it looks alright if he keeps it consistent. cactus-esque.

Thanks for the encouragement and tips, its is indeed quite challenging. Im starting with covering all bases, although in no depth. Its bit odd but It allows me to know everything I want to do is possible then I can expand on them.
So far, so good!

I want to have a lot more done before looking into stepping up the art. Before that point, ill try to keep things simple, Not an all out attempt that stills falls flat on its face, nor stickman, im aiming for simple with its own charm.
But between ''charm'' and proper talented art, I prefer the latter, so i'll definitly look into it.

-Entry 1-

Freetime & Day periods

As I explained in the first entry, Freetime is spent with no specific objective.
Everyday has 3 freetime period (morning, afternoon, night) devided in 3 sub period (Early, mid, Late)

The bar on top is the current time. It shows the current sub period(the 3 lines).

The plaver is free to move around, The others will only move for the 3 time sub period (if at all) according to their schedules. Time will pass by at a defined rate. Some actions will take a bit of time, like fast travel. Most actions that are "events" will take 1/3rd of the current day period. (1 sub period)

That is to say someone can be in the kitchen all morning, living room all afternoon and in his room all night. OR kitchen in early & mid morning but Toilet in late Morning etc.
Every period (morning etc) Is separated by a meeting time. In the meeting time everyone will gather in the kitchen and eat I guess. The meeting is used to make sure everyone is alright. Someone missing triggers an investigation. I might also make stuff happen during some of them; easter egg like events.

• Since you always meet after every day-period, the time of crime is always boxed in the last day-period
• While not necessarily relevant, it is possible to determine/search for the specific sub-period, granting alibies.

At the end of night there will be a wipe (change of day) There will be a reset of everything. Im sorry but I (and you) can only keep up with so much information. This means a murder can only take place over 1 day. I MAY add some inter-day interaction or carry overs but so far I can’t think of anything.

Needless to say, the others see stuff and will remember it.

Here is a screenshot with the dev-vision (won’t be visible in the final game) but you can see the info the other recoded.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/ef60cd2d48803b6e580926797e03bc94/tumblr_inline_on1697a6iu1sm1x89_500.png)
 
Well, I guess ill try to tell a story with my screenshots. And now the player has a towel… what Happens next?!

Another entry should come shortly, because I want to implement a bit more stuff. The next one will discuss the actions.
As always feedback & comments are appreciated.

Really interesting concept, I hope you nail the systems, looks like it's going in the right direction!
Good luck with this :)

Thanks a lot! I hope it all goes right too! your contribution is appreciated! :coffee:

Took me a bit longer than expected... some unexpected encouraging (Wink) stuff happened.
In todays entry id like some input on stats as gameplay element. It is detailed at the end of the post.

-Entry 2-

Actions

Talking: (Talking is not implemented yet so expect more when it is but here is what im planning.)
-Hang out: Goes in a “visual novel” mode to share a bit of the personal story of the character. You may learn pertinent stuff about their schedule, or just learn some interesting facts or maybe feel that person shouldn’t be killed. This also increases your friendship.
-Plan meetup: Ask the other person to meet you in X day at Z time period At Z location. The other will decide whether he does or not based on trust. There will also be other ways to make a meet up. 
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/a335166217101b8df9566c175dda4694/tumblr_inline_on1696lyer1sm1x89_500.png)
You use left/right arrow to change the element to edit (day, time, location); up/down to change its value. Its really straight forward and simple and functional! Pretty proud of that one.
-Never mind: exit talking

Interacting with objects:
Some objects can be interacted with. The knife per example can be:
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/9eeefe0830d7c70a50e2df501e309cef/tumblr_inline_on1696VRuN1sm1x89_500.png)
Picked up: pick it up in hand
Dropped: drop it anywhere
Placed: If near an object on which you can place the object, it will be placed on it when dropped. (like table)
Disposed: You can put the objects in garbage(and later more object) and pick them up from there too.
Disposed of items, have less chance of being found by others during investigation.

When next to someone you can kill (or attempt to) I have thought of new ideas for how to make it work, but writing it down didn’t feel right (in terms of explanation) ill try and make mock ups for next time.

Today however id like to discuss Stats.
I am wondering if I should have any stats in the game? I was thinking of having stats such as:

• Strength: Better odds at successful kill ; cant/harder to kill stronger people
• Luck: less chance of dropping/leaving evidence
• Charisma: obviously gives higher credibility in trial
• Intellect:  gives ideas(literally telling you things you can do) &/or unlock the ability to do things.

Training those stats would be another action you could do.
On one hand I feel it adds gameplay depth, stuff to do with your freetime that feels like its contributing to the kill. But im not sure if it really is important and people would like it (regret past decisions, dislike current position, wish they could get on with it already etc.)

What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Should they be highly influential, not influential or not present at all?

That's an interesting concept.

Yeah, that's a good way to go IMO. Focus on programming at first with art that does the trick well enough, and if the game ends up being an interesting proof of concept, a dedicated artist should be easy to find (if you want one) and will pretty much have finished templates and plans for all of the art that needs to be made and can just work away.

@Prinsessa thanks! and what you're saying is exactly what i'm aiming for.

Ok, so I managed to make the mockups I wanted to, I know they are not very good looking, but they should at least give a good impression of what I am thinking of.


This is kind of weird because it is both a minor and major element of the game. On one hand, it’s only the act that links the freetime interaction with coverup/investigation & trial. But on the other… it is THE kill, I don’t feel its right to make it a simple button press, even though the true fun challenge comes after.

Currently, If you are equipped with a weapon and next to another person you can kill him. If you aren’t fast enough or the other noticed you had the weapon, he will run away to the nearest exit. (I want to make them able to take you down too.)

Two new ideas I thought of.
 
Kill comic
Doing kill next to a person triggers a comic book sequence with quick time events. And slightly branching path depending on the action taken.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/42d4b64cb76411ce296b4f1e92097a6c/tumblr_inline_on169491H91sm1x89_500.gif)
Exemple: first panel focus on knife; three choice pop :Stab, Cut, Grab → next panel(s) shows up depending on your action, until next choice happens and so on. Result depends on the sequence you took opponent (reaction may differ), location (possibilities may differ too).
A true sequence would have more choices, that one also benefited of being a surprise attack.
Pros:
•   Assuming I (will?) have a good artist, it would look pretty good!
•   Controlled sequences, can be made with more care
•   No luck, can be learned. (well, still luck on your first try I guess; but common sense should help)
•   A nice nod to my inspiration :)
Cons:
•   The making of: All the art and alternatives! I guess it wouldn’t be so bad If I left the victim & location “grayed out” so it’s the same sequence for everyone. But that cancels out the pro of more care.
•   Limited, once you know the sequence of events, well you can’t really fail anymore.

Kill battle
Doing kill triggers a rock-paper-like battle sequence. Every round gives Attack/Defend/charge and the choice of player and victim clash.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/0c4c0ea6b415561c383d2ade74e30544/tumblr_inline_on1694OE011sm1x89_250.gif)
In the exemple, the victim was not surprised thus reacted appropriately.
the blue bar is the time to act (choose your choice) then they clash and result is displayed in both text & player action. Black bars would show up for that "cinematic feel" and the sequence would be in slow-motion during choice selection

•   Attack> hurts someone wide open, charging or fleeing.
•  Charging> gives superior properties to your next move
•   Defend> avoids an attack. Leaves opponent wide open (if attacking)
•   Charged attack> Will still hurt someone defending, Will deal critical damage to wide open, charging & fleeing.
•   Charged defense> Will hurt someone attacking (counter), will avoid charged attack.
•   Fleeing> only available to victim; tries to head to nearest exit.
•   Reach> appears when opponent is out of range.

Pros:
•   Stays in world, not really fancy next to a cool comic, but doesn’t break the experience.

o   Enemy can flee, the same he would not in freetime.
o   Enemy could defend himself with items that happen to be nearby.
o   Blood splatter/ evidence are create in real time.

•   Always fresh and full of surprises, the opponent can act randomly since there is no premade sequences.

Cons:
•   Luck based (still some strategy)

Overall
No matter what I end up taking as kill sequence/mechanic how it occurs should influence some things:
•   The evidence left, did you get hurt too? that would be hard to cover up
•   Did objects in the room get broken in the encounter?
•   Did you make a mess? (more blood spread etc)
•   Did the victim have the opportunity to call for help?
•   How dead was the victim after the encounter? Could it leave a final note?
•   ? stress level? Reduces carefulness (opposite of luck) may reach observable level. It would rise with how long (not according to plan) the kill went.

That was kind of a long entry... I hopefully I haven't lost anyone. What do you guys thing? It's probably one of the elements ill work on at later stages so I have time to think it over, but id really like to know if one method is vastly prefered over the other. I'm even open to suggestion!(or new ideas)
Bring in your opinion, it would greatly help! oh and im still listening for stats (Entry 2)

Really cool idea! I definitely see some Dangan Ronpa influence which is awesome. I will definitely keep an eye on this. Keep up the good work!

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate all the support, its quite a challenging game to make, but a concept I feel worthy of the ordeal!
Everything is going great so far! Next updates should take a bit more time though, features are growing in complexity so the true challenge still lies ahead :o

in the meantime still looking for feedback & ideas on the kill method (entry 3). So far I'd say the "kill battle" is winning, so please voice any OBJECTION! (ok... sorry) or suggestion.  :)

Well I definitely think the comic is much more visually interesting, but for game play purposes the battle seems better.

I think this concept is really cool.

On kill method I think the comic strip looks much cooler, but couldn't you still combine that with strategy, somewhat. For example, if you're including the stats, strong NPCs could have a chance of your grab failing etc with NPCs gaining abilities in the same way as the player?

I definitely think you should try to make the comic work as well as you can.

Thanks for the responses!
Seems pretty much everyone agree the comic would provide more interesting visuals but might not be ideal in gameplay department.

Funny this was a pretty straight foward suggestion but I didn't think of it myself. I thought of literally fusing the two. It kind of gives me the worse of both worlds (in development) but should provide the players with something decent.
It all struck me when I realised... why do I write the events in the battle? I mean I like a little description, but that felt dull. Its also obvious I couldn't deliver quite complex animations (& emotion) with the Battle method.
So I replace the bottom with the comics, they would essential Display a detailed version of what is happening above (in battle mode)
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/325b6aea4c4c4716840492b38dc233a0/tumblr_inline_on1695EY6N1sm1x89_250.gif)
In terms of layout I think there room for improvement, the mockup is also smaller then full screen, so the strip wouldn't be a small little bar like it is.
Part1 & 2 are different in the way panels appear. while sliding in is fancy, I think ill just go with simple appearing.

What do you think? I know the concept of "i'll just fuse both idea" often leads to something worse, but I think it could work.

I'll keep on listening for anything on kill method, as I said its something ill work on later so theres still time to really think things through. So do not mind bringing it back up.

Today, I bring up what i've been working these days


When you kill someone, evidence is generated by the death, what it is depends on the weapon and how it went down.
For exemple, a knife kill will splatter blood around and on yourself.
Blood splatters can be cleaned with tissue/towel. They can only clean so much and need to be washed at water sink for further use.
You can also wash bloody weapons at sink.
Obviously being seen with blood on yourself is a big no-no. You can clean yourself where there is water (would still be flawed),change cloth (still need get rid of the bloody set) or cover yourself (better get rid of set, but not linked to you)

Items can be discarded and hidden. Current available exemple is garbage. Putting an object in the garbage makes it less likely that it will be found during investigation.
Another is the fireplace that will not only hide some stuff, it can destroy them from existence. Some things, and others… if you really try it… I think ill put easter egg just for it.(like really… don’t.)

Items can be picked up and dropped wherever you want. So you don’t need to destroy evidence, you could also place it in misleading locations.

 I made a beautiful chart illustrating some of the above possibilities.

Could have discarded the lab coat in garbage or simply leave it in a room as a misdirection. Clearly simply washing yourself is the simpler solution, but I want “Observant”  NPC to be able to see through it (low odds, might be influenced by stats).
Also note that some events/objects are in different rooms. Travelling between room unnoticed will be the biggest challenge. You won’t Know where the NPCs are (well you can kind of figure out some stuff, but its not shown).
Evidence includes the body, but the body is quite tricky, if its bloody, it could let blood  puddles as you move around. Its also very incriminating to ever be seen with it and it slows you down.

In the end the goal is to make it so other people would be just as likely (in possibility) to have committed the murder by making it occur somewhere they have been, you obviously were there too, but ideally no one else would know.
That or the other extreme, leaving so little evidence that a good judgment can’t be made.

Thats all for now, I think it covers the basics but I feel its missing "something". So I might revisit it add stuff, change stuff, ill be sure to keep you updated.
How is this looking? Any ideas, feedback, suggestion?

First gameplay gif!
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/cleaning.gif)
I find him adorable! But its also a reminder that he needs to go!
Im making this post to mention I started looking for an artist (& partner) for this project (among other things)
This would be game 3 in my collaboration post (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=48283.0).
I can't stress enough that this is all still early. If I can't find anyone right now, I'll be sure to ask again when the game is much more complete.
You can pm me or contact me at johcreations"at"gmail.com
preferably with portfolio &/or mockup

on the current status of the game: It really is hard to make "visible" progress now, im working a lot under the hood. I also jumped a lot from part to part so I think that once I manage to complete my next entry (moving around) I should start facing the biggest challenge of this game.
Turning evidence into context sensitive full sentences with variation.

As always, feedback, suggestion and even comments are appreciated.

Looks like a cool game. What are program are you coding this in, and what platforms are you planing to release in on?

Interesting concept! I'm assuming it's singleplayer but whodunit mysteries are also very interesting to explore in smaller multiplayer experiences, that's one of the reasons why I enjoy Space Station 13 so much. But now I'm off on a tangent. Anyway, I look forward to see where this will go.

Thanks glad you like it!


Welp, I guess I could only keep my deep dark secret for so long... I use Game Maker Studio, GML.
Hopefully by the end it won't show (no offence GameMaker  ;))
I am targeting PC atm.

Im not familiar with Space Station 13 but multiplayer is something that was brought up to me, and something even I considered.
However I'll admit that I lack the skill & knowledge to make such a game. It also wouldn't work really well with what I have in stores. I also doubted a "nobody" like me could generate enough of a community to make it worthwhile.
I appreciate the interest nontheless.

I just managed to make the inter-room fast travel (the hard part being NPCs noticing your and the other NPCs movement), I'll make sure it works right before working on an entry for it.

I'm still open to any interested artist, open to cover-up suggestions or anything really!
thanks everyone.

I think it's a wise decision to go singleplayer, multiplayer programming is hard I've been told and as you say it's hard to attract a crowd when you're not an established name in the indie scene.

Though, perhaps a sequel could be multiplayer?  ;)

Came for the JJBA reference, stayed for the concept. Sounds cool!

-Kris

Alright! Reference was understood by someone! (and he stuck around! Bonus!) Seriously, I hope the game will allow to scheme until it bites you in the ass! (That's truly planned tough... too extreme precautions could backfire).
Now that the title has served its purpose... maybe its time, I start thinking of a true title.
Kinda hard thinking of something original...
The last of us (goddammit!)
But it was me! (i dont think so)
Murder island (for sure this exists)

If I don't change theme/setting my current idea is: Best Friends for now.
but ill think this over, for now its project killer; You thought it was [insert innocent person] but it was me! The Player!

eheh... One game at a time :P (can't believe im saying that)
Not sure i'd use the same format, but id definitly love to make a whoduntit online!  but who knows, maybe by then ill have a better idea... thats probably whats gonna happen :( So many ideas, so little time!
I'll at least commit to this one!

Interesting concept, the only thing I have in mind is probably the art style. For now the characters seem a bit too cartoonish (constant smile, black outline, lack of shadow), I think if you can use a darker or more subtle palette or give your characters some shade it will be a lot more consistent with the theme.

Other than that, fantastic work and I look forward seeing more of this, keep us posted!

The art is pretty placeholder, not only would I rather have a proper artist join me on this, If I went all out, I should be able to do much better. (although still not good enough for me)
Right now im mostly working on gameplay, but maybe it's time I try updating the art myself.

Speaking of which Finnally time for a new Entry!
(please note it is very work in progress)


I'll admit I found that one pretty hard to make. I think it had more to do with having a bad base more than anything but I managed nonetheless.

So this is a very incomplete map of the game, but it is enough to test it’s functioning.
You can use the map at anytime to fast travel. The arrows let you pick the room (grid tile) you want to head to, and your path is also shown.

People in the location you pass by will see you and retain that: you came from room X; passed by room Y; and  went to room Z.

Passing by a room is not the same as being in a room, passing insinuates you didn’t have time to do anything and is not very incriminating. That could however change, im thinking of making them the same to keep things simple.
The other individuals as I mentioned before have their own schedule.

They used to simply appear in the room they were scheduled at the right time. Now they actually travel to it. I found it challenging because it involved imaginary travelling. Once someone leaves the same room as you they still travel from room to room until they reach the desired destination.

For example if there is living room>hall> kitchen and person A is in living room. By waiting in Hall you will actually encounter the person during the trave(from living room to kitchen).
After having done it all I realized… Why? And really I have no idea.(except that it “didn’t: make sense”)

Was that all gibberish to you?
Let this awesome (Very placeholder & work in progress) Gif (with explanations!) give you a better idea.

(http://68.media.tumblr.com/c87881ab0da3486d2ec0ae3ca764eb10/tumblr_inline_on1698ZY0U1sm1x89_1280.gif)
oh, you obviously don't have access to others memory, and you can't see them on the map unless they are in the same room as you.

One “cool” thing is the complexity it adds to avoiding others. Before they used to simply be where they had to be for every day part. With this traveling, you might encounter them at unexpected places.
Using the exemple of above; “Knowing” that one person would be in living in early morning and kitchen in mid-morning, staying in the hall in between would keep you safe as you’d never be in “the same room” as the other. With the traveling, as explained above, during the travel, the NPC will encounter you in the hall.

In the end this is all part of the information gathering. It allows people to notice when others (yourself included) lie in the trial or say the truth. You (and the others) can't know everything, but you can at least know what you saw.

Up next, I was thinking of working and expanding on the investigation... but the art, maybe ill experiment with it. I might not be very good, but its fun from time to time, would be a nice little break :)

Anyway, thats all for now, as always feedback, suggestion and comment are always appreciated!

What percentage of the profits are you offering the game artist?

Im really not sure to be honest I wasn’t even thinking of profits yet (although sure, that would be ideal). I guess it might have been early to look for an artist, not that I claimed otherwise. I don’t feel like I have enough information to set an amount in stone yet. Further discussion on the topic should however go to pms or email.

Actually, realizing my plea might have been too much commitment for anyone but myself (fair enough) and that the Art may have worse than I thought, perhaps even off-putting for some. (Big thanks to those who stuck around nonetheless :P )

Well, I started looking into what I could do to improve the art.
First I started doodling. It had been forever (Years!) since I last drew, so it was much fun! I also got reminded of how bad I am at it. After much bad to decent attempts, I compiled those I thought looked alright.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/23df62688a47b687e7284b08e8ead5bb/tumblr_on1794RnJ71tjsbp3o7_r1_1280.jpg)

• 1 and 2 are the last ones I made, I was trying to make to make the character looking older, I feel 1 looks off and 2 still looks young.
• 3 would be my first try anime influence is quite heavy.
• 4 is a surprise, result of random doodling, Im actually quite fond of it.
• 5 was an attempt at “de-animefying” 3 to little success
• 6 is probably my favorite, most normal looking attempt
• 7 is another one I like, simple and cute, not sure it fits the setting though.
• 8 Is awful… me trying to hand draw what I currently use in game.

So out of those, 6,4 and 7 are my favorites. What do you guys & gals think? Anything I should try? Any suggestion comment?

Oh and well, hand drawings are not very relevant to how the game looks, so I also tried playing around with the main character.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/a93f23efd224dffd13de595fa37cc341/tumblr_inline_on16kdx2c41sm1x89_500.png)
I wont go through all these iterations, just the general idea: A story!
B is my awfirst attempt, C is returning to A and attempting to improve it. I thought It gave a decent head. I went through many head edits (1-3 + more) and ended up with D. Figured I wasn’t good enough for shading so removed it. Felt it looks too young so started shrinking the head. Some small edits here and there and reached L, what I feel is my best one.
Other notes

• Head 5 is a representation of my hand drawing 7.. still think its cute.
• H was an attempt at adding some grittiness, I didn’t really like it.
• I’ll admit I do kind of like some of the bigger head (3,4) but I just don’t want little kid-like figures killing each others and no, they are not 9000 y.o dragons. Maybe its ok?

So the same questions as above apply once more. Is this better? (id hope so!) do you think it reaches “not off-putting” level of quality? Perhaps acceptable <- please say yes :)

Well, I put art experimenting on the side, although im still progressing. I think ill be able to put out something that looks good.

Sorry, but the original art will stick around a bit longer.
I however have a new update! Things are moving quickly!

Investigation starts after a meeting with someone not joining in, or when a body is discovered.
When someone is not found, everyone will part way looking for that person: the investigation has already started and thus anything suspicious they find is recorded. Once someone find the body (and someone will) everyone else is called to that area. A body discovery scene/discussion occurs and then the investigation continues.


If the body is found before a “missing person meeting” the person that finds the body calls everyone, there is the body discovery discussion and the investigation starts straight away. In that case the investigation lasts longer because it will be all the remaining time until next meeting (premature investigation) + all the time of the next day period (like normal investigation)
In this scene, Tyson was killed in the kitchen and left there alone. When all the others headed there for the meeting well: Bad surprise! Dat emotion though! forgive the poker face; it will also be replaced eventually.

Not sure if I should go for bigger pixel art models or simply drawings for the VN models. (after quick research, pixel art vn models dont really exist... Im doomed! ok, not really ill figure something out)

During investigation you can no longer cover up. All you can do is investigate. To save you from “slip ups”(and myself some work), you can only mention things you have investigated or remember during trials.
So even if you know where the weapon is (because you hid it) you can only ever know/use it if you investigated/found it during the investigation.
Ex. If you hid the knife in the toilets, but never investigated it in the toilet, you cannot mention that fact.

When you investigate an object it gives you some evidence. Your player has a short reaction(not yet) to whatever is investigated and new evidence pops up and is recorded to your phone.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/bf4db04cdc7df5fe0b235d4af1e57dda/tumblr_inline_opuv75Tjve1sm1x89_1280.png)(http://68.media.tumblr.com/f3d4042a89dd4de18c2bb386af34b0f6/tumblr_inline_opuv6wsNJ21sm1x89_1280.png)
During investigation by talking to others you can get more information: testimonies. Right now they just give you all the character’s knowledge excluding everything related to you.
I want them to eventually consider the relationships they have and importance of the info to choose what knowledge to disclose.
Im not sure but I may also add false information. (if relation is very bad perhaps)
Furthermore, listening to testimonies ends the current time (sub)period. So basically you can only have 3 testimonies in a normal trial. (but one might result in more than 1 evidences)
You can talk to the same person more than once, they might have obtained new info after further investigation, but it still costs you the time period.

I still have some bits to work on for the investigation, mostly the details i mentionned I want to add, but thats about it! It was quite a challenge and im glad to have made i through after I finish up the little things left I can go encounter the final boss, The Trials (with final form The Art).

Im looking foward to it and hope you do too!

Its been a while since my last entry, And I honnestly haven't had much visible progress. Worked a lot on improving things I already had. for exemple when investigating, NPCs move (in the room) to the different points of interest. (evidence)
worked on a sentence generator so when you discuss evidence they talk about the evidence:
ex:(responding to having to being asked if anything interesting was found)
Well I saw blood in the kitchen.Can't believe someone did that. Absolutely disgusting.

This is made up of multiple small sentence parts, some are present some are not, most have some variants and I want to have a lot of variety so they stay kind of unique. although there are only so many ways to say you saw blood somewhere.

I also started to work on the trial, the base is there, been approaching the challenge of generating the trial. kind of hard but I think I can do this. Discussing what im planning for trials is probably what my next entry will be about.

except bug fixing, another thing I did and put quite some time into is working on Art, lots of time went on it (oups) and I think i managed to get something good. I still haven't implemented it yet, but it really shouldn't be hard/long once I decide to go for it. I just wanted to at least get some feedback before going ahead.

So here is what I have:

Made the model by trying to convert my hand drawing to digital, and thought I fell on something interesting (as far as amateur art goes)simple cartoonish, sketchish
I'm curious if the text box and font are alright, checking most VN they tend to go for gradient boxes, haven't seen speach/thought bubbles used (although im sure it exists). They are a bit plain, but do the job, not sure how id improve on that.


So what do you think? approved? comment, suggestion? fire away!

oooh and bonus! some (reverse?)fanart (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/danganattorneymd.png) I made! maybe ill color it someday.

The kitchen looks nice and it looks like you're making good progress! The mechanics look like they're starting to come together and it sounds like it should be fun. I wasn't a huge fan of the text font, but I don't really have any suggestions for a better one.

This really did move a lot, I also think the new coat of paint delivers makes it more evident.
I started adding it in-game and took the opportunity to resize the game.
used to be 960x480 and I shrunk it to 640x360, scales nicely to full screen and the previous size had way too much free space.

One design element im not sure of is where to position the smaller rooms. when in small room (like toilet) much of the area is black (not room) and I don't know if I should center the room (always in the middle) or leave it "location sensitive" As in room is on the edge of the side you come from.
ex the toilet is right (to the hall) if you enter it, the room will be glued to the left side.

As for the font ill look into that, is the Hud font alright? I could use that. Part of me want to use something really simple and bland like Arial but I feel it would look off/lazy.

Im working on the new models for the other characters, so some might face some changes. (not that I ever really showed them). Anyway, looking foward to have more to show!

Alright!
Afraid there wasn't much progress since last time, I left for a trip expecting to come back full of energy but actually came back sick. A great mental recovery (not that I was in a bad shape) kind of ruined by a bad physical state.
Anyways if the coding side didn't progress much(so much revisiting code because of the resizing!), concepts did! It wasn't too hard to just relax and think of what I wanted to do with it.

So here goes:


The trial much like danganronpa & ace attorney revolves around finding contradictions/lies in opponent statements. With the added responsibility of putting out your own and not getting caught.
Since you are the killer, framing anyone else results in a victory. Since you made the kill and it obviously wasn’t scripted, theres a bit more freedom at the cost of, ill admit, a bit of narrative.
I initially said the trial would be akin to a battle, and that is the case.
Everyone has an health bar (suspiciousness (0- > 100)) and special bar(credibility (100 -> 0))
since going from 0 to 100 is weird in bar form, I might change it to "innocence".
The goal is not to outright bring one person to 100% suspiciousness, but to simply have someone else take be found guilty (high suspiciousness helps, but if everyone is highly suspicious, it doesn’t help the consensus.)

Gameplay
The main mode is
Listening
In this mode, one at a time the others make statements about whatever is being talked about.
Each statement is shown for a while before moving on to the next (automatic change)
During this time you have your “listening” menu open (similar to an rpg action menu)

• You can Object if (you think) the statement is false
• you can support if (you think) the statement is true
• you can use skills for whatever reason.
• Or you can simply do nothing and let the statement change.

Mockups
(sorry for no background)
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/3bdc0cd13db700deb23c2092860f7a17/tumblr_inline_on16kfuVEi1sm1x89_500.png)


Both Objection and supporting work on two level: general & specific.
If you select objection(general), you will claim the statement is wrong. To which your opponent could simply say: no its true. (could also admit his mistake)
In that situation you can accept having been wrong or insist on it being wrong by pulling out evidence (specific).
If you pull out correct evidence after being denied you will deal critical damage. If you are wrong you receive critical damage.
dmg= initial objection +(maybe) specific (critical) objection
You can also object directly with an evidence.  This goes directly to specific critical damage.
dmg= specific (critical) objection
So depending on what way you decide to object/support you can deal (or be hit by) different level of damage.
Id say general objection is better when you’re not sure and a specific one and specific objection when you are sure.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/a0ff29d46325cb7467dcb49ba01f1bfa/tumblr_inline_on16kgm8xJ1sm1x89_500.png)
(Specific) evidence menu for Objection. (same for agreed) (mockup)

One problem I am facing is the ridiculous ammount of evidence that is available. (everyone records their everymove over potentially 9 sub-day periods.) I am thinking of only showing "context sensitive" evidences (depending on the subject at hand) But I am curious How much evidence choice is Too much evidence?

At the end of the discussion you are asked if you want to rerun the discussion. If you do everything will be resaid, giving you another chance to spot contradictions. You can rerun the same discussion 3 times with no consequences, more than that and your credibility/suspiciousness take a hit.
So that is the main gameplay mode of the trial.
It also contains two sub elements.

Think Fast
At anytime during the trial someone could ask you a question, you will have answer choices replace the usual “listening” menu. The answer is permanent and final. The consequences will only happen once (Even though it will be restated when you rerun the discussion) So stay on your toes!

My statement
This one is very large because it will depend on context, but this is essentially how you give your facts about whatever is being talked out. So if  you are discussing your locations throughout the day, when it is your turn your character won’t be honest and say where you have been. You will have the map pop up and be asked where you have been. Feel free to say the truth or lie. Don’t be stupid however, the others will spot illogical stuff.

So that is the core of the trial, I do have ideas for other modes (and they will likely be implemented) ill discuss them some other time. On thing at a time, just building this up seems intimidating enough.

So, does this system seem alright and interesting? Used a different font this time, is it better? And of course how much evidence would be too much?
Answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated.
 As well as any contribution really. As always, I'm open to suggestion and feedback!

Been held back by the jams lately, but I've made progress. Unfortunately the progress involves simply Achieving in game my mockups (mostly functional too). I Feel I should stop doing mock ups or at least showing them because it shows progress that has yet to be made, lessening the perceived progress when the it is actually achieved.
(But hey, I love mock ups, they give a good vision I work hard to achieve :P)

Things having slowed down nonetheless, I think I will start weekly updates regardless of actual progress made, to keep myself involved and the community updated.


SO things are starting to come together really well!
Main thing that is still missing is Text that makes more sense and feels fluent, but the main ideas are there.
and some chatter may happen
(background still in progress and not quite perfect yet, but its a start)
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/5ec01ef63f6af7144efd699def5ad194/tumblr_inline_opuvtuFYqk1sm1x89_500.gif)
Essentially everyone is divulging the locations they have been at throughout the day.
Everything is still very basic but can easily be complexified.
Characters choose if they lie or say the truth. (Obviously wont be all In your face in the actual game)
All their statement are based on evidence they gathered.
Using that, I can easily figure out what objects & agrees to it.

An actual Objection (Not shown in gif)
Either damage the opponent and make him change his version (right)
or Hurt you and continue (your mistake)

I haven't done Agreements yet. (essentially the same as objection)
but they will either Heal you and your opponent (right or no one has evidence against it)
or cause a third party objection. (wrong+someone else has evidence against it)

there is some random chatter that is essentially irrelevant.
-That's cool and all... (transition chatter, more fluent flow)
-They see me trollin... (totally irrelevant chatter)
-thats odd.. (context relevent chatter, kind of hints)
But what it does is prevent the talk from being: I was there,I was there,I was there.
Right now they are all fixed for exemple sake, but Ill make them more varied and appropriate.

oh and all of that is randomly generated!

Hope this was interesting! Feel free to ask any question or post feedback. My previous entry questions are also still Very valid.

You thought it was Joh but it was me, gunswordfist, all along!

This concept reminds me of the comic book Criminal: The Last Of The Innocent. That might be worth checking out.
Edit: Also, lol at this exchange: (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/newbattle.gif)

Wait... so I didnt make the Ga.. NOOOOOO!!!

Welcome onboard gunswordfist! dont steal my game!   :beg:

I really need to give this a proper name -_-

Have'nt heard of Criminal: The last Of the Innocent. Ill try looking into.
I really like the Mystery genre, although I'm quite busy these days with this game.

And good eye on noticing the glorious nature of the exchange.
Been a while since I thought of the kill system but due to the appreciation it received I definitly want to include a comic portion. I hope it turns out well.

But for now, im still on the trial. Its essentially half the game so I hope it sounds great!

It's more of a "he definitely did it crime noir Archie comic" comic than a mystery...hell, it's no mystery. lol

Yes, please keep the comic book exchanges. That could lead to a lot of greatness.

Been a week, time for an update!


Iv’e revisited a lot of stuff again, I guess that is the downside of starting fast. That and deciding to reskin the game mid-development. It does look far more pleasing now, so I feel its worth it.
So what got done?

• Made skill usage
  -made a nice (not nice enough yet) usage anim
  (https://68.media.tumblr.com/e2c0b64ab1b5672c2ee950ca20ff7096/tumblr_inline_nsfdn6O6oE1sm1x89_540.gif)
  More on skills to come
  

• Added general objections
• Made answering questions work.
• I started redoing the main menu
• Realized talking to people made them give you “Investigation locations” and removed that. (For the most part, where you (all) have been during the investigation should be irrelevant)
• Returned on the working on the player sprite, as well as the other sprites.
• Probably a lot of smaller stuff

And this is a little art piece I made! (I guess, I like trying stuff out)
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/f13985e81e491e3a211675841b3e3397/tumblr_nsc17tssjG1tjsbp3o1_250.png)
It should be the background of the pause menu

I should have more stuff next time, so hopefully you stick around!

Wow, looks like you're making a ton of progress. Keep up with these awesome updates! I think the presentation of things during the trial looks really cool. The closeup face and "hold it" looks great!

Thanks a lot, that's super encouraging!
Things are actually going quite smoothly these days!
Got my first follower on my blog (http://johgames.tumblr.com/) :beer: (features some of my other stuff too), things are moving along, got time.
It's great you like the presentation, i had mostly positive feedback on it. I'm not satisfied yet, but I think it is good.

I think  ill have to edit the zoom model as I find it looks a bit too young.
It might be missing a little flash/impact
and the font is still not set in stone.

As for the overall look, I think the bubbles stand out oddly. ill eventually try to remake them better (better and wiggling if not annoying), but for now it works. I like the concept of thought bubbles as theme, although sometimes I wonder if I should have went for a more gamey menu.

im looking foward to the next update, I hope things keep going smoothly because its an essential part.

Hey there Joh, just posting to say that I absolutely love what you've done with this idea! This game looks like it's going to be completely awesome, especially the trial sequences. It's sort of like Final Fantasy with words!
Also, I would love to see the interactive comic sequence kills. it's much better than traditional "battles".
Keep working on the game!

Thank you hsnabn! I'm glad the trial looks interesting, especially so early on! Final fantasy with words is what I have in mind, well pseudo-rpg to say the least. It still takes a lot from murder mystery though.

Oh and its great to hear people, speak up about the killing mechanic, I asked about it a long time ago, but it's still up for discussion, as is pretty much everything I asked about.
And yeah, i'm definitely heading towards a comic approach at this point, lots of positive feedback on that!

But today, Is update day, and I have been waiting for this one (well more like rushing to make it)


Quit a big update today, also Slight title change to... smoothen title transition? Don't want to loose you followers!(and lurkers) Project Killer will be the title until I settle with a final name.

I actually never mentioned the overall flow of the trial in my previous posts about it so I made a flowchart.
I did mention it was non-linear, semi-linear would be more exact. And I have shown the listening mode gameplay. However, how does it all connect?
TLDR:(or/& read what follows)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/trialchart.png)

The listening mode I showed (where everyone states their location) is one of many sections in a trial.
The trial should start with an intro: the basic facts being laid out.

Then the case is defined: this section you set the current consensus on:
•   Time –set the time frame for the murder
•   Location –set the scene of the crime
•   Weapon –set the murder weapon

Then you debate: In this section you set the personal alibi, weapon access & other things.(these use the case defined facts(consensus) as a basis)
•   Alibi –this is what I showed (in an incomplete state) Everyone speaks out their locations.
•   Weapon access –In this everyone speaks out their awareness of the murder weapon; did they see it, did they know it existed, does it belong to them.
•   Other – this is more open, and is a discussion about other relevant facts. Did someone not like the person? who found the body? Was someone too clever? Was someone acting suspicious? Etc..

I think I will make all of these flow one into the next one and after one run, you will have access to the overview menu from which you can revisit any of those and:

[maybe mode] <- not sure if it will happen yet (a big damage dealing) pre-accusation of sorts.

accusation: Accuse someone of having committed the crime.
This is big, when you accuse someone others will have their (independent) opinions about it, agree or disagree depending on the suspiciousness of you and the target as well as other things such as their alibi, relation; Knowing for sure its impossible etc..

If majority is in favor, case is closed and you win, if rejected it causes big damage to you.

Oh and yeah, Ai will be free to launch accusations too!

Heres the overview menu
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_40.png)
Its essentially A hub, nothing* happens it. you can choose what section to (re)visit next.
You get to see the current consensus, as in what your group currently thinks are
the time,weapon and location of the crime.
It also shows the current assesment of the other members (it cycles trough them)

and a simple scale of suspiciousness of everyone.

*I want to make it so Ai can decide to go revisit something on their own.(after a long enough delay)
*Accusation from Ai would happen from here

That's it for now!  Feel free to ask any question or share your thoughts :)

I'll work a bit more on objections and agreements before returning to the murder part of the game. (taking a break from trial progress on a good note) Theres the whole new look I have to continue and probably fixing some stuff.

I had already explained how objection works, but I finally got something to show for it!
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/objectiongif.gif)
Fairly straight foward, this was a "General" objection.
-After claiming the statement was a lie (which it is, its in the text!)
-the opponent refuses to admit it; he has no reason to, you used no evidence.
-You then get the choice to back out (slight damage)
 or look for evidence (big damage if wrong, big damage to opponent if right)

In this exemple I just picked a random evidence, that was wrong, so we are put in our place, and the game goes on.
Had I picked a good one, the opponent would change his version to the truth (or another lie)

text is placeholder'ish, some might even recognize "stuff" :P
As for the "Objection" exclamation,(I really wanted to use Objection) I at first thought of having multiple different ones for everyone, but I think I will give each character a unique one. suggestions welcomed.

oh yeah, i was wondering if I should make damage more "damage-like" by adding hitmark and/or damage pop-up. its subtle, but there is character shake for now.

Feedback on this would be appreciated, its a fairly important element of the game.

I'd say it looks good, Joh! And about the damage thing, a character shake would look good without popups or hit marks. Bonus points if the "health" bar shakes a bit too.

Looking great! I showed my friend the game and he thinks it looks really interesting too. Can't wait to see more!

@hsnabn
I was actually thinking about health bar shake until i put character shake and thought it was enough. Ill go look for those bonus points! :P

@wizered67
Nice to see you again, pretty cool of sharing it even with friend and even better that he likes it too!
Heres more! just for you! (ok.. this was meant to happen for the weekly update)

Hi, been pretty busy this week (and assisted to an awesome 3 day convention) so not much happen, plus I showed the objection before this weekly update.
Anyway, back to the daily life "gameplay part".
I made the other characters and im ready to show them, as you can see some got some slight change, some major changes, hopefully for the best.
This is not the full cast, but it should last until I got a complete gameplay going. (from murder to trial conclusion)
Might be insane, but ill set the objective to September 1st ludumdare!!! so first half of september :shrug2:. This is of course not the whole game being done but simply the bigger part of gameplay being done and meshing together.
Right now im working on animations
Also,  thinking about changing the interactions, It currently simply shows a text bubble describing the action. Im thinking about using small little bubbles with icons.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_42.png)
text bubbles
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_45.png)
icon bubbles (+ incomplete living room)
I might add the specific action (like text bubble) at the bottom of the screen, away from focus.

Oh, and those are in-game, so mockup no more (pretty close right?)

Thats all for now, will stick with the daily life part of the game for a bit, try to make everything look and work better as well as perhaps add new locations.

Whoah, the characters graphics are a huge improvement! Art is not my strong point so I'm sorry I can't elaborate any further but something feels a little off about the main character. Hmm after staring at it for a while maybe it's just that he has a really blank expression and almost seems bored. Overall though all the characters look much, much better! As for the icon bubbles, I think it's a big improvement over the text bubbles too. Another great update :)

The dialogue system seems really interesting! Great concept, looking forward to trying it out.

@wizered67
Thanks for the feedback! While the blank expression was kind of what I aimed for, being "bored" wasn't part of it, It really hard to do much with so little pixels in the face. I guess thats why most games have faceless characters these days. Anyway I tried to play a bit with the eyes, I think it improved a bit.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/newplayer4.png)

@Alex Higgings
I take it, your talking about the trial? It's pretty challenging to work on, but right now I feel like everything should go alright. I'm past the Hard parts, at least I think. Im looking foward to completing this game too!

but today, Update day!


A pretty good week, lots of under the hood stuff, but also some art improvement.

I never showed room traveling before, except for the Map teleport. Well I just added a little transition animation. I was planning on making the room change occur when the screen is totally black, but with the speed it goes, I though it looked fine even imperfect like it is (instant room change, the transition actually occurs afterwards) Is this cut corner unacceptable? Do share (if you notice it)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/walkaround2.gif.gif)
walking travel, featuring improved rooms, new bubbles, new higlights and the shady transition.

Worked on the locations a bit, Living room got a whole overhaul… so much for showing it last week.
Added the “study”,”Library” and “playroom”. They have been there for a while, but never got updated with the new art/screensize, now they are!(still not done though)

Pretty useless but I changed the AI investigation pattern (looks). They used to travel between points of interests continuously in circle. Now they go to the point of interests and stick around for a while, before checking another at random. It just looks more natural I guess, When looking for clues, you actually stay at one point for a while before checking another spot, and sometimes you revisit past locations.(Using that real life experience‼)

Somewhere along the way I broke the “Run away from guy with weapon” system. I fixed it and added the other possibility I wanted: The Ai can instead rush at you. (No attack yet) Or Ask what it is about or stay there (Defend, but no attack yet).
Unfortunate these elements rely on not yet implemented features, I made them but have nothing to show for it (yet).

Worked on my “favorite” >:( problem… the Information amount.  During the investigation you can collect information by talking to others, They used to give you everything they knew (too much info‼!) - > then everything except what is related to you (the player) - > then excluded all (location) info coming from the investigation (still too much‼) - >
Now I took drastic measures, and I hope it doesn’t break the game. The info is randomly given, so asking the same person what he remembers twice, could grant different info. Also the maximum info given is 8.
Im also working on “info condensation” where I could condense multiple evidence in one sentence Ex: if the person  was in the same room all day if fusions all the individual claims into one “was there from X to X”. The evidence pieces would still be received individually though.

Oh and speaking of talking, the last (relevant) thing I did was turn the player interaction to the “VN” style.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_49.png)
New interaction (talk to) it used to appear in a bubble like the ones I just removed.

Overall Im very satisfied with this week, might not look like much to an outsider (I do avoid showing whats not ready) but things overall moved quite foward, lots of little issues fixed, everything looks much better, everything is coming together just fine.

Next ill return to the trial, try to have it fully running. I don't expect to make it for the next Entry with ludum dare taking a lot of my free time(I wonder what ill make!) but we will see how it goes.

Ooooooooh am I hyped for this!
I actually tried to make a game like this once, but it was more like a roguelike and it got abandoned...
I'm so glad to see somebody have a proper attempt at this idea!!

Im honored to see my attempt be deemed proper :P Ill be sure to deliver on that!
I'm curious though what did you have in mind? (no need to go in too much detail)
And well, if theres anything you thought of that seems to be missing from what im doing, feel free to share it!

Just as I expected with ludum dare (my entry) (http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?action=rate&uid=17529), not a very good week in terms of progress. I'll nontheless share what I did and take this opportunity to share some other things im planning.

Having multiple “Main game element” is pretty sweet because you can just jump from one to another to avoid fatigue. The bad part is you actually need all of them to function to have the game work. (unlike building upon a base and expanding)

Anyway, This week I returned on working on the trial.
I failed to add all trial sections, but I did add the
Define location
Define Weapon.
with Define time & Debate alibi being already there, only Debate weapon access & debate other are missing.
I thought with the base system already being there (I had 2 sections already) It would be easy, but it's still challenging, different section use different info, use a different template so it didn't go as expected.

Heres a gif of overview + a run over define time; not perfect in terms of dialogue yet and still has some debug notes but getting better.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/trialmain4.gif)
Yes, I know it makes no sense to discuss time of death when he was last seen and found dead in the same period but yeah...

I also started the Accusation
That essentially means the main gameplay of trial is nearly done.
Unfortunately this doesn’t mean the game is done at all… Maybe it reached 40% point.

I had mentioned there were other modes than the “Listening” I wanted to have and that I would expand on them later.

Now is the time. (concepts & subject to change)

Id like to implement at least 2 more “gameplay modes” in the trial.
Opinion clash: During the Define case sections, you are asked if you think the current consensus is wrong and would like to change it. If you do, you’d enter this mode where you’d go 1v1 against whoever proposed the current consensus (of the topic at hand).
You and your opponent will be free to select all the evidence that backs their idea. Then the rest of the crew will majority vote who to follow. Evidence count, suspiciousness and relations would of course be involved in the judgment. Hence you could just try again after making the opponent suspicious and win that second attempt. (but one does not “make the opponent  suspicious” easily)

The other mode is Meltdown.
Lets be honest, who get framed for something and doesn’t freak the hell up at one point?
This mode is a 1vs1 battle against the opponent that snapped. Its actually a very bad mode, one you’d want to avoid facing too much.
In that mode the opponent just throws facts and insults at you. And you have to properly respond to them in a very short time
You’ll have 3 answers: one good(hurts opponent), one neutral(nothing happens), one bad (hurts you)
But very little time to think, for the most part it should be easy. Thing is, you barely have anything to win (opponent is likely already very suspicious), but everything to lose (do bad and you can become quite suspicious yourself)
This mode would be triggered when you destroy someone too much (like really focus on one guy) or when you make the person reach a “breaking point”, It could also be used in an offensive if you yourself are very suspicious.

That's all this time, next week i'd like to complete all the trial sections and start working on the game modes I just described.
As always, feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

The trial's looking great! Opinion clash sounds really cool in theory but some more info on its implementation would be necessary for me to actually decide if it sounds good. You mention presenting all related evidence. Can you give an example of multiple pieces of evidence that would all support one idea? I guess it's a little hard for me to imagine exactly how this would work.

Really good reply, I do know my intentions a lot, planned the game for a long time before even starting so sometimes i'm sure I don't explain stuff well enough. You actually put me in doubt because suddenly I couldn't think up of a situation and realized maybe it didnt work afterall! thankfully that was only temporary.

Let's say the murder happened in (our favorite place) the kitchen. You took the time to move the weapon and clean up tool to the living room but the body was found in the kitchen while you were doing it.
Default reaction is thinking the scene of the crime is the kitchen, that is afterall where the body was found.

Still, the weapon is in the living room, bloody cloth is in the living room.
When asked if you agree that the "scene of crime" is the kitchen you could say no and claim its the living room.
Then you'd get a list of all evidence/facts you know.
Of them: weapon in living room, bloody item in living room both support it while only the body being in the kitchen goes against it (would have been blood too, but you cleaned it).
So 2 v 1 (but yes, the body alone should weight more than both of those weak arguments, ill consider it)
Add in a bit of relashionship & suspiciousness sway and the individuals will pick a side.


And yes, you could just go around, put blood in multiple rooms, drop some evidence in random rooms, and (attempt to) put the scene of the crime in any of those. Actual scene of crime would mostly be well "soiled" so time would need to be taken to tone it down or bring other rooms to its level. That would involve moving around a lot; number one way to get caught is moving around. You never know where others be at.

Hope this explains better and makes it clearer!

Some slow progress, nothing worth showing so far.
-I did the weapon access although still early and subject to change.
-Decided I shouldn’t do the “Other” part yet. "other" elements just aren't there yet.
-Got the accusation functional, not pretty but functional.
So far it takes into consideration
Lie count, suspiciousness and the alibi (even though the alibi isn’t complete yet)
Relationship (trust) & weapon access are the other element I plan to add.

The way it goes for every member is they compare the “Accused person” to the “average of the group (lie count/ suspiciousness) ” to see if overall the accused is “suspicious or a liar” they also compare the accused to themselves those two comparaison add up points or take away points <-black box (sorry guys)
With alibi the kind of alibi itself add/removes points and at the end, depending on the score the person will decide whether the the accused is guilty (agree) or not (disagree).
The result of all of the above also adds "tags" to the reasoning behind the choice. Hopefully I can use those to form coherent small justifications.

Other than that I worked on the opinion clash, Its a lot bigger of an hassle than I expected. I did code some other parts (like the accusation!) having in mind to reuse portion in this mode, and while it does work, im not sure it was worth the hassle. Anyway, just like the accusation its functional but not pretty (nor complete), so I'm not showing it yet.

Id like to show it before the next update but im leaving on a little trip, I also expect a reduction of free time so im not sure how it will go.
Still stay posted! While still in the same "trial setting"... its a bit different so can't wait to have it as I envision it.

RAAAGEE‼! Never have I wasted so much time on something! And honestly this
(http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/my-code-doesnt-work-i-have-no-idea-why.jpg)
is exactly what happened. I have no idea why it didn’t work and I have no idea why it now works; ill just avoid playing around with that part.
All I wanted to do was cause a “route” switch when you opinion clash and win.
Since the first “current opinion is always where the body was found” the sentences didn’t make sense after the consensus changes. And that was no problem really because I already had an alternate route for it. The Only problem was I needed to add a third route (basically just an alternate ending to the second route) But the game just wouldn’t have it. Whenever I added it, the 2 nd  route got broken (breaking the whole thing) But adding a third level was nothing new, So I have no idea why that happened. After a while, even removing the third route left the game broken (any dev worse nightmare: when backtracking doesn’t work‼) So yeah… after hours (read most of my day) The third route worked and while I know what I did (not why) I still have no idea what it has to do with what was getting broken.
Whatever now it works.

-fresh rant, written right after the event.

All this route/level talk probably makes no sense since I never detailed how the trial works under the hood. Not sure if I should keep it secret or share it, tell me if interested, might do an entry on that.

 :monoclepop:
Reached 100 th script, It feel like a lot really, and at the same time like too little. On one hand for what the game actually contains 100 feels like a lot. (then again I do have a “sub program” in it) At the same time, the amount of time im disappointed in my own efficiency, makes me feel like I didn’t compartmentalize enough. Well Cheers 100 th script, I probably wont double that so It’s a pretty good sign that code wise, game is coming toghether!
What is the 100 th script? Well it simply creates the evidence list for the specific section at hand. I mentioned many time that too much evidence‼ This is launched during the trial creation at the end of each section. It goes through all speech and check all  evidence that works (and you possess) and creates a list. That list is the evidence list that will be used in that section.

I originally had plans to do a code clean up if I ever reached 100 scripts, Well it’s a bit intimidating and I probably won’t go through with it, I am kind of curious though: Anyone ever did that? Recheck/organize/format previous code just to have everything cleaner? Is it worth it?


I didn't manage to make the clash proper (in looks) enough to show it in gif; it is progressing though heres a screenshot!
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_56.png)
Select the location of the crime you will propose

Oh and I did other stuff.
I made it so the trial can now flow from one section to the next (instead of doing it from the overview menu)
Theres even transition text!

And as described by the 100th, the different sections now get unique "sub-selections" of all the evidence available to you. I guess thats a lot like danganronpa, but no way someone could scroll through dozens of choice in time.

Ill try and get a Opinion clash gif for screenshot saturday, Next ill take a break from the trial section and go back to everyday life. Ill work on adding new locations(rooms) and start working(thinking) on the relationship system!

An Opinion Clash gif #screengifsaturday?
Just according to plan.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/clashgif2.gif)
A bit of Fastfoward here and there and placeholder text, but im not too worried, got all the info needed to make it work already.

Fairly straight foward;
We are asked if we agree with the current consensus: the murder location being the study (default, where the body was found)
By selecting no, we cause an opinion clash. (the "I dont think so!" scene is placeholder)
first you select (for this case) the location
Then the evidence you can pick as much as you want, anything wrong gets called out and is ignored for voting process.
-REASONS- Well, that would be the very reasons used to make it the current consensus in the first place.
-TBD- Well, I explained in my previous post that the people have independant reasons for voting, Right now they are not "sentences" so I hid them to keep their reasoning secret  8)

Then there is the whole voting and verdict as you can see, the verdict is listening to my awesome new idea (because my argument was valid and the previous idea had nothing for it)
This is also seen by the fact that after it all,
"Thus the murder location is the kitchen" <- it changed from study.

If we were to re-listen to the testimonies, the whole thing would have had changed. (that's what went so wrong last week)

Anyway, glad to finally have something to show. Does this look good? Any feedback and questions would be appreciated.

I think it looks pretty cool! I don't really have any constructive feedback at this point but I'm looking forward to more updates!

The UI's a bit plain, of course, but everything moves around and is arranged on the screen nicely. All of the visual information's conveyed clearly in a way that makes sense, which is the important thing.

Thank you, UI is indeed plain, not sure where im going to go with it but I definitly plan on improving it! (hell if it weren't for the lines could have had that update a bit earlier but it was so dead.
It good to hear the info is well conveyed, that's kind of important!

No need to always bring constructive feedback, although it always help, simply a post letting me know your still interested is just as if not even more powerful :) . It always feels great to know people are interest in what your doing and waiting for more! (and then you feel bad for failing to deliver fast enough)

Any update finally!


My free time has taken quite a hit, so sorry for not updating as much as used to.
Finally managed to get something done though. Or at least started: The relationship system. its similar to social link/bounding.
For now I just did a simple menu from which you can check your current relationship with the others. The white squares represent the level of closeness. You increase it by hanging out with the character. For now one hang out gives one level, but I think I might make it a bit more complicated like a hang out and actually doing good in conversation (answering questions).
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/f-link.gif)
Each level and hang out will let you learn more about the character. Might make you actually like a character, or dislike him or you might learn stuff to frame him or reasons not to.
I mean if a character happened to say: “I don’t know about you but I always take a dump before dinner” that’s good to know I guess, but you know what: IT IS GOOD to know. Don’t be in the bathroom before dinner red-handed.

I just made up the above, but its an exemple of the kind of info I’d like to be obtainable from hanging out. And no, not everything you learn has any use. Some will be useless and some might be a lot more subtle in use.
So character will have 6/5 hang outs clearing them all for “max friendship” I put friendship in quotation because its not really friendship and more closeness. The closer you are to someone the more you know about them, and the more friend you are likely to be.

But doing dick move/ betrayals won’t reduce the “friendship level”: what you learned is learned. It will just make the character not like you; even though he still shows lv 4/5 to you.
The way id put it is the same way you could just “grind” a relationship just to better eliminate that person; someone you actually like might not like you back as much. The relationship levels are not exactly mutual (still, you do have much sway) and the way others feel about all the cast stays in a black box. Or who knows! Maybe you could learn some stuff by talking with them!

As for why its all so complicated, well id just rather avoid any abuse, and masterful relationship playing for victory. Since relationships have a major say in trial results.

Oh and I explained there being 5/6 levels of relationship. And I would call those “main line” events, but I also want to have some more hidden special events. They would be obtain in unique situations a bit like easter eggs, but still relevant if not more than normal events.

Still subject to change of course, so id like to know what you guys think.
also, this(Tigs) is still my main devlog but having recently gotten 1 new follower (such humble beginings  :-[ ) if tumblr is your thing you can follow me there too (http://johgames.tumblr.com/)!

Another extended down session, Game is still alive and well though, simply was fairly busy for a while.
Anyway got to work on this a bit slowly yet surely I have been building the Meltdown mode; the final main gameplay mode of the trial.
Not sure it will play as expected though
Currently I have 3 types of attacks planned out (thrown by the opponent)
-Swearing
-Fact checking
-Questioning

I started with the simplest: Swearing.
When the opponent swears there is really no right answer. At first I wanted to make it so there where but I came to the conclusion it was too subjective, I mean whats the proper answer to “fuck off”?
Instead I made it so there are only 2 possible answer, Insult back or calm down/spin it. They come in multiple form and my goal would be to have enough of them so you cant just learn them all and the same ones wouldn’t pop up too often.
As I said, that mode really isn’t hard, Its more about not screwing up then being clever. At hardest, maybe the subtleties of passive aggressive responses and whether they count as “lowering yourself to opponent level”.
That being said, I want to make it so that by insulting back: you would take damage (loss of credibility) but also deal some more to the opponent, the choice becoming essentially: Self damage+more damage on opponent or simply “basic damage” by deflecting the insult. (fail to defend yourself and youd take the damage alone, but there’s no reason for that to happen.)

early screen (clearly I need to work on new reactions for the characters)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_59.png)

Haven’t started working on the two others yet, but the idea of fact checking would be asking question about stuff that was said in trial. In that situation there would be good & bad answer hurting either you or the opponent.
Questioning is more random question that don’t have anything closer to a trivia with good bad and neutral answers. They are there to add variety, a true feeling of “what the hell is he even saying anymore” and actual opportunities to screw up. + Maybe some question would look a lot like they belong in one the other group.
Ill admit though, even im not sure if it will end up interesting/compelling so im realy curious of opinions or even suggestions (improvements or even different ideas).

I really need to get to making new emotion/reactions for the characters, looking forward to having the whole trial a bit more alive. 

Very glad to see more progress! Good work!

thanks, it feels great to find out people are still following.

Fairly small update, but I wanted to post something for screenshot saturday!
I worked a lot on the characters reaction/emotions models so they aren't always neutral and indifferent.

I felt it was very flagrant in the meltdown exchange and went to remedy that.
I also wanted to show how it looks in movement because its probably the most "animated" part of the trial. So im curious on if the whole thing is fitting.
It's still missing some little things like the health bars, impact & maybe a bit of flash/particles but its what im going for.

Ever had a friend so out of it he had to clam down?
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/meltdown1.gif)
what do you think?

Thats it for today, short & sweet!

Really interesting presentation. I like how the speech bubbles turn into the animation. With a little polishing I think it will look really great!

I agree - the speech bubbles and general animation in the scenes is pretty cool! Been reading about the dialogue/relationship coding, etc - I imagine coding a "faction" system like that (in a loose sense), is rather involved and challenging.

Alright! its good to be back on this!
Very happy to see the speech bubbles be liked! I had that idea pretty early on, and thought it would look pretty cool!
Little story on that
It was inspired by comics and "hurtful comment" bubbles portrayed as arrows piercing the target.
turning a bubble into a shield just felt appropriate, reflection came later on.
-I originally planned on the mode having an attack and defend phase.
-when it came to it, attack phased seem hard/not implementable.
-it became defense only making it kind of unfair.
-the solution was reflecting successfully defended attacks!
-I also added (at least when receiving an insult) insulting back: It doesn't bring up a shield, it straight up throws an arrow at the opponent.
-failing to respond in time will leave you defenseless
-responding a bad answer will bring up a shield... that gets shattered by the upcoming arrow. (but not done yet)
---

The whole project has been quite challenging, I also happened to take a courses that thought me a lot and is making me feel bad about some implementations (as in I could have done them better). But hey its working so its all good! might still go back over some stuff though. The dialogue is very much insane and i'm kind of postponing it a lot (lots of placeholder) the faction stuff should be a lot less challenging as its more of a number thing. Strings are really annoying to play with.

Anyway, don't have much to show for today, just did a little warm-up and added health bar shake upon damage!(and size increase!)
Agree gone wrong?!
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/agreegif.gif)
Don't think I ever showed agreeing.
the opposite of objecting should cause a mutual healing.
but you can't just agree with anything, if you agree to a Lie, that someone else can spot, you all get called out.
oh and people have reactions and talk now.

I really like that "NOT THE PLAYER" using objection!

Anyway, not sure what ill do next, but more updates should come soon.

Looking nice! Always glad to see more progress. I love the Ace Attorney-esque "No Way" graphic, but I'm not a huge fan of the "True That". Maybe you could make it look like the same size and font as the "No Way" but in blue instead of red? Also I don't know if it's placeholder but the phrase "True That" sounds kind of informal and out of place... what about something like "I agree!" or "That's right!" or "Of course!". Just a thought. Keep up the great work!

I just realized I didn't change the agreeing  :-X . It was always meant to be smaller though, Objections litterally stop the progress of the trial and go on a tangent. I want agreeing not to be intrusive, more of a btw sidenote. I wasn't even sure I should make the camera go to the agreeing person. but yes the font would have to change. The phrase is not a placeholder, it is meant to be informal but its not the only one.I had others like "yep" and "agreed" but those you suggested are great and i'm suprised I didn't think of them.
Speaking of those bubbles, Objections also used to be multiple different ones, and I do plan on going back to that. but each character would have their own "objection" phrase.

Thanks for the criticism and the ongoing support you provide, it's really appreciated!

Okay, I think I have a better idea what you're going for now. Sounds good and I'll be looking forward to seeing more!

Wow, this looks really fun.


I'm definitely seeing an awesome mix of Ace Attorney and DanganRonpa, keep it up! 

Thanks guys!
Things are moving along quite nicely, and im hoping to reach quite a milestone soon!

I have been on the trial side of things for a while, decided to make a little return in the everyday life side.
Added a whole new room, the gym.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_65.png)
It's pretty useless so far, but when I add a stat system(i decided ill go with it), it should have plenty of use.
plus location count is important, the more rooms, the more spread out people can be and... >:D

Also fixed the object interaction (got broken when I changed the talking)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_66.png)

now ill be working on animations, for when all the other characters move around, doing art is quite long but i hope to do more than just that.

I like it! The gym looks nice! How will the Stat system work? I assume there will be some combat stats that make it easier to kill people? Will there be other stats too? Looking forward to seeing more!

Can't say I really started working on the stats, but I had it in mind for a long time, so i can share what I have.
Everything subject to change of course.

I was thinking like a good old rpg;
Strenght: Better combat abilities
>Gym
Intellect: more ideas/possibilities; leave less evidence.
>Reading
Charm: more convincing, get more info
>interacting with others
?Speed: move between rooms faster, better combat evasive abilities.
>moving around, gym
Looking back at the first time I brought it up, I also had luck, but I guess I no longer feel like its relevant.
im also unsure on if I should have speed.

By ideas & possibilities i mean essentially unlocking "actions" or giving ideas that can be executed in the game.
More convincing would be an effect in trial, getting more info would apply to investigation.

given the amount of opportunity to raise these stats, they'll probably function with xp/lv.

That's all for now, open to suggestion & feedback on it.

Sounds interesting, althought I'm sure how they're implemented will make a big difference. I like the idea of a stat giving access to more possibilities!

Happy new year!
Been working like crazy on the game, but I'm at that awful spot where progress doesn't translate in visible improvement.



I made the first one a long time ago to test the feasibility of the feature, but as the Trial comes together, the time to add all the others had come.

Basically, My statement is where you select the Information YOU are willing to share. Everyone else does that when they mention where they have been and what they have seen, it is only fair that you do it too. (note, the others are just as free as you are to lie and omit information.)

The first one I made was choosing the location you have been at. Looking back at the devlog, it seems I never shared it. It was reused in the Opinion Clash though, its the part where you select where you think the murder happened.
Anyway when it comes to "my statement" in alibi, you choose the locations where you have been.

If you recall the trial flowchart (top page 3) I made an input equivalent for every section (excluding Other that doesn't exist yet)
One big thing I did was add an evidence use option. I felt it might be a pain to manually select every input when some evidence flat out lays it out.(directly or indirectly) When using evidence, only evidence related to the question will show.

For time, you can simply select the time period you will claim to have last seen the victim. (thinking of adding location too)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_70.png)

For location you actually use evidence of "suspicious" elements in rooms that COULD be the crime scene.
can also claim you have seen nothing.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_68.png)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_69.png)
Weapon, you can suggest a weapon that could have done it. Directly select it from your "known weapon database" or select it through evidence (ex: I saw knife in kitchen = could be the Knife)
Alibi is the one I first explained, you pick the locations you have been at.

And finally weapon access is simply stating whether you Knew of the weapon or not and if you did, did you have access to it or not. Can be selected directly or through evidence (Automatically known, but will select access depending on if you saw it or not)

Oh all the input you choose obviously gets translated in full sentences, variation is a problem though.
under the hood, every evidence has some "bullet points" about what it entails and when they are selected those are added to list of claims. That's what can be used to retrieve contradicting claims and place people at scene of crime, access to weapon etc.

That's all for now, got a bit of fine tuning to do and after that, not sure. Ill probably stay on the trial side, working on either sentences making more sense when generated (mostly the older ones) or Others (AI) detecting and calling you out on your lies. Looking forward to that, hope you do too  ;)

Can't believe its already been more than a week, time flew by. Nothing major to announce or new element to present, but got to keep the dedication and i overall like to leave updates, keeps me focused and its always nice to reread this.

speaking on focus, can't say i was as I strayed from my previous intentions of next implementation.
Actually a lot of bug fixing happened instead of progress, I mean,its still progress, but not what I expected.


I fought the lamest bug, it drove me crazy! (somehow I got really into it so)
Joh vs the rebelious player
In the streamlining/improving text, I decided it was time to make sure the PLAYER is not included in the talks (as in "player" doesn't say a line in the discussion) fair enough and simple.
But for some reason, in ONE discussion (Location) No matter how much I made it so the player wouldn't talk, he always would! And someone else would say his line! ("My entry time").
Didn't take long before I assumed one "speaker"(player) was being inserted, offsetting all speakers by one.
I check like crazy what could possibly cause that insert?! as far as I coded it, I can't insert a speaker without a line associated with it, so it made no sense.
Went full in debug,and realized that the creation of the discussion was how I wanted it.
The problem occured only when it was being loaded later. checked my loading mechanism, all makes sense.
but then I notice, to load the speaker I check for "person" and pick the number its associated with.
that's when it hit me... the "=" was missing. It never made any difference because the other inputs were more obscure terms, and all other discussion never had the word person in them.
But when I updated the "location" discussion, the word person happened to be in it.(in speech part)
So it would see "person" load the number after inexistant "=" ->0, 0 is player number. MYSTERY SOLVED (Hour(s?) wasted).
Best part is, That didn't even resolve things.
Imagine my surprise when after face-palming and fixing that stupid mistake, it still didn't fix it!
I'll end the story with that, but know that everything works now.


Other than that, after thinking a lot about how i'd make the AI object and hitting a wall. I realized I already made an objectionable detector (I love my past self) so now Player entries are also tagged with "the objecting/supporting evidence".
Still need to make it so AI can actually act on them, but it's nice to have a very egalitarian method.
Even recognizing this ill still have to implement unique interjections and that will not be fun. (if you mention you were the last to see the victim, its not something that's "objectionable", but it's kind of noteworthy).

Finally did a bunch of work on the everyday life side (all the above was tiring). Worked on the investigation, making the movement better, bit of randomization, actually using the right exits when changing room.

I also did a bunch of drawing, i'd really like to be able to draw cool promotional and key Art. Who doesn't want to  be a bit more well rounded!

That's all for now, I guess as much as I advanced everything my next goals remain the same as last entry's.

Always nice to see/hear more progress. Sorry to hear about the bug though haha. At least you know what to do if something similar happens in the future!

I showed my game to a friend,  Impressed by what I showed, the first thing he asked was:
I want to see you lose, what happens when they accuse you etc…   >:D
Unfortunately I hadn’t done those things so they were bumped up in priority.
Thus I worked on accusation, I had already worked on it and all the decision making side of it, Improved the selection screen and overall flow of it.
As I had explained in entry 16, multiple elements of the trial (at the time of accusation) are taken into consideration for the verdict.
Back then I was thinking of converting the reasons into text and having every person explain their decision.

Now I’m also considering not giving the reason and simply having everyone answer Agree / Disagree in style of Disgaea awesome courtroom. (probably my favorite unnecessary gameplay implementation ever)
(http://i69.servimg.com/u/f69/12/59/25/69/disgae12.jpg)
It’d be simpler and more stylish; the more “not text bubble” the better.

Still in that direction, I was thinking maybe also having verdict weight, as in the more “sure” the person is, the more weight its verdict (dis/agree) has. And the final judgment would be the sum of those.
Right now it’s still majority rule and I feel its quite fair, It’s unfortunate that the degree of “dis/agreement” is lost, but its more in touch with the actual reality of the game.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/accusegif1.gif)

But all that didn’t resolve anything in terms of losing. Ai, anyone else, needed the ability to launch an accusation. And I also did that. When in the Overview menu, other member can initiate an accusation if they feel someone is guilty (you included). It pretty cool because it’s exactly the same thing as you accusing someone except  you are a third party (or the accused one).

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/accusegif2.gif)

Well, I guess I still don't have game end states; making someone else guilty is essentially "victory"
Being found guilty is "game over" still not sure how ill go about it.
Other than that, things are moving along great, I hope to have another update shortly.

Wow, looks like its coming along really well! Can't wait to see more!  :)

So I further worked on the accusation, after some discussion, I decided to go with simple decision prompts  for the verdict.  The repetition of iterating through all justifications, was a drag, and not very relevant. One thing I will do is have the  bubble have different emphasis depending on how strong the dis/agreement is, so you can at least have an idea who could switch side. I will however maintain the Majority vote for final verdict. It just makes more sense.

Accused doesn’t vote and Tie has the accusation rejected.

Little other elements I added are a light focus during accusation pick and a little distribution bar, so you can know “Live” how the voting is going, its very bland now, ill probably make it more exiting. Its also not very relevant right now with 4 people, but I expect it becomes more useful as the cast grows.(totally casually hinting this is only a test cast)
Also made the trial End, if anyone else is found guilty. There is a nice (placeholder) screen prompt that shows the guilty individual being branded as such and serves as a transition back into the everyday life mode.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/accusegif3.gif)

Amazing concept, kind of a rival to Yandere simulator which is very popular right now.

Concerning the art style, you moved from charming to generic, between charm and talent you want both. Talent will do nothing for you if it doesn't provoke areaction. The stupidly open mouth with minimal graphism tell more story than the new one IMHO. Good style is not about execution, it's about the reaction. Also the former style is WAY MORE clear and readable, the sillyness complement that greatly.

However I hope you select an artist with some damn personality because this has so much potential!

Oh Yandere simulator  :) was wondering if it would ever be brought up! Wish I had had that idea, pure genius.
Its funny though, I learned of Yanderdev shortly after I started to work on this and honestly, it kind made me reconsider making the game. On one hand the fact that it was popular gave me confidence my idea wasn't stupid, on the other, well since someone was already attempting it and further along; I wouldn't want to come off as a rip off. In the end I convinced myself the games were different enough and that my game would be just as worthy an experience.

Interesting take on the artstyle. Is it the pixel art or model? ill assuming both. First off thanks for calling the original charming, I think that's a first. It's a style I made for myself over the years, thinking it was both simple yet cute and inoffensive. I still use it whenever I work on a little something (mostly jams) and reaction is mostly positive but they tend to be in small silly games. Anyway, that's not the reception I had here. If anything I felt it might scare away people that wouldn't even reach the concept after being terrified by the screenshots.
The response to the change has been overwhelmingly positive, even though its still placeholder, I at least feel like it could be played as is.
Needless to say, I didn't aim generic and the look i got came from actively avoiding what I felt was generic (even if I thought it looked better).
As for models, im fond of them, and wouldn't want them improved because if they change (that is my intention), I want it to be for an entirely different and unique style.
When the time comes, I too truly hope I can find an artist with a unique captivating style that can elevate the game.

When it comes to the superiority of the original artstyle in terms of readability do you have any specific pointers or overall tips? because ill admit im not sure I follow on that.

You are kind of different too, the dialog fighting seems to be more in depth that all your original inspiration.

About the style it need to be an exploration, you need to start somewhere and then iterate until you have reaction, when you have reaction you iterate base on them given it serve the impact you want to have.

But be careful, if you have a good game the style will became a signature, so the most out of generic it is the better it is. Look at minecraft, it had imposed its own style.

Thanks! really like the dialog figting myself, and im pretty pleased of how I managed to implement it. This game was quite premeditated, lots of planing so actually managing to pull it all off feels great. (well I guess it isn't over yet, but at this point im very confident in all of it working out.)
You calling it dialog fighting is interesting though as I was just thinking about changing the term "objection" & "Agree" to "Attack" & "Defend" and how it would still work.

As for art exploration that seems like a great idea, it's what I did and I really liked it, but kind of forgot about it once I settled. Well, now is probably not the time since I want to move the project further, but ill remember that. Im nearing quite certain milestone, and reaching it might be great time to further experiment. Always the little dilema of art investment when theres the chance of having it redone by someone much better though.

As for becoming a signature style, I really don't see that happening (but I guess no one does). Curious what awaits, I know when I started I certainly didn't expect it to look like it does now.

If you are going to be developing dialogue battling....well, it wouldn't quite fit the style, but I hope you are familiar with the old "Monkey Island" games. Still some of the best dialogue I've ever read, and though not at all the same setting or style, you might take an idea or two from it.

just want to reinforce how you are above your inspiration.
-Phoenix write is a simple matching game: understand the situation, find teh correct object to progress.
- you have a dynamic system of clues based on your action with dynamic npc that understand and memorize situations. The trial is based on the dynamic clues and dynamic behavior of npc using a system of credibility and influence.
- you have yandere simulator basic gameplay + the trial system it doesn't.

You have very great hand, pixel noise didn't understand it.

I wasn't familiar with Monkey Island, Looked into it and what I saw was actually impressive. The pirate battles actually reminded me of my "Meltdown mode" although I couldn't really understand what was good and bad answers. The dialogue was really good though, super interesting and full of humour. The voice acting might have heavily helped the delivery though.
Not sure how id fit that in the Trial mode, but it might be interesting in the Everydaylife mode. talking to others was always planned but maybe it could use some more player interaction/response. I'll see where it goes.

Very well put, could totally use that as game pitch. Wouldn't want to put down my inspirations though as they are very good games.
Im sure Pixel Noise knows I'm making something special ;) , I'd argue I owe one to you  guys for letting me know.  :beer:

Monkey island is just a dialog tree, you match the choice with the appropriate follow up
ex: "You fight like a Dairy Farmer!" -> "How appropriate! You fight like a cow!" the follow up properly address the content of the attack you win, it's not different than phoenix wright structurally, you just find the correct item to match to a situation, just less complex.

Oh wow, interesting hadn't notice, but pretty fitting. Seems like there's a thousand ways to make matching games. In a way I guess my game is one of those too. Have to match evidence, memory, witness accounts with other people statements in a supporting or objecting way. Only with all those things being generated in game :( and having competitors able to steal your thunder.


As I expressed before, Agreeing is essentially a reverse objection. You can use it on statements that are true. And it will heal both you and the person you agreed with. Just like objections, you don’t have to be right, you can agree with someone who is lying and if no one knows any better, you will both benefit of a suspiciousness reduction.

If someone else knows the other is lying,  You both get dealt critical damage. A counter-agreement is the scene I showed back in Entry 21.
Its also possible to have someone else agree with you.


But now, normal agreement are functional too. By agreeing you get healed and an icon shows up next to the person as a sign you agreed. It is a lists everyone that agreed, so you can know who backs it up. If ever proven false, everyone on the list gets penalized. (I doupt it would ever happen with a big list)
If you select a general agreement, you MAY be asked to back it up by someone else. Like in objection you can back down (take small damage) or pick the right evidence. Objections will almost always ask to back you general objections; it will happen for Agreements will be much less often.

look at those nice suspicious bars recovering & the cute little icon appearing (placeholder)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/agreeheal3.gif)
also changed the agreement font, better?

Specific agreements will be rejected and hurt you if the reason is bad; Even if the statement is true. You can also agree to anything in general, even most "non-statement" lines. Doing that Might heal you (not sure anymore) but it will build up a "penalty", that will Hurt a lot if unleashed. "Doesn't that guy agree to everything? even stuff that's obvious".

Thats all for now, getting back into "other's" acting on their own, or maybe some art, or experimenting :) or maybe someone points out something to directs my next focus? Things are going well, life is good.

BTW speaking of design, since your game is inspired by Dagonronpa and rely on character, what about a talk about dagonronpa design?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX5mhJm0kXc

Thanks its a really good talk and I found it really interesting. Also Insane to think characters come from such a simple base. You'd think they are made by purely gifted people (well they probably are too) but it's all about that love!
I'll probably use this approach when making characters, or something like it.
Characters I have for now are kind of  blank slates, well they have appearance and I already know their backbones, some events, but I haven't really put much more thought into it. I mean, right now I'm all about getting the gameplay down. But I have some good ideas in mind and characters I have yet to make.
Building characters and the overall narrative seems like it would be really fun, so I'm really looking forward to it.

So we have objections, agreements, Ai needs to be able to do them too!
It wasn’t very hard, Objection/Agreements were fairly “general” giving them to Ai wasn’t much work. They use the same system the player does.
To use they simply check the current statement and check if they have the evidence that backs it up or contradicts it.

Small problem, Lies are (for now) random (50%) so half the time people are saying the truth half the time they are lying and for some reasons, at least one person has evidence to back it up/or contradict it.
Thus, a run that used to be peaceful with only the player being able to agree or object now has everyone else doing it. They heal each other, damage each other with no thought whatsoever. It fun to watch but it doesn’t make sense for the game.

By letting it running, I once saw someone else get accused and found guilty with 0 input from me.

Also, for gif purpose I wanted to make someone suspicious to accuse him, only for the others to Agree away all the damage I had done.  :(

The good news is, this is kind of what I  wanted, this freedom of mind of the others and them having a pretty big impact. Basically the others being their own person that have an influence ALMOST as big as the player’s.

{Fastfowarded} Other Objects followed by same Other agrees. end result: no damage dealt & the guy objecting actually removed his own damage. No input from player.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/aiinterject.gif)


The solution is quite simple, I have to give the others an Ai and the player Handicap.
Im thinking the handicap is what ill play with for the difficulty setting if I have some.
What im thinking of is:
-first 3 replays of a section will have no interventions from the others. (except to counter you)
-This is how things are implemented but it works; other’s Interventions happen at the END of the statement.
~not sure because extreme: Ai have some evidence removed and given to them throughout the trial. That is, the longer the trial, the more evidence others will have available to use.(from their own original pool)

As for AI, im still thinking things through but so far im thinking of giving them “Strategies” that limit their action. “neutral””attack””heal” depending on the situation. Hey look! That’s awfully like an rpg :P .

looking good

HELP Whats a good screen size/resolution?

Checking other game made me realize that maybe my game resolution is small.

Im now wondering if I should change it (again)...
What is a good game size?

my Screenshots are the actual dimension of the game that is
640x360 (16:9) As far as I remembered that was the general ratio... but it seems small.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_49.png)


I made it that size so it could scale x2 perfectly to 1280x720 only to realize my screen is not that size (explaining why it didn't pixel perfect scale)

At this point i'm not sure what resolution to aim for, should I even make it able to go full screen?

My first screen size was 960x480 (2:1) it was more about taking a good portion of the screen
but it was still apparent that it was too big, characters simply couldn't fill the space leading to too much free space:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_26.png)

Im not sure what to do with the game window size, should I keep it at 640x480; should I make it bigger? should it even be able to go full screen. while I think the game looks great as is (smooth pixels, good hud element sizes) when scaled up it doesn't hold up; (weird pixels, and hud seem over sized).

while im being bothered by this resolution problem, im currently working on my "dev tool" so no actual progress but I really hope it will help for future testing and be worth the down time.

Finish the game mechanics first then it will be consideration for the final art style and lay out pass

I guess you're right, worries later. plus it really is something that should be done with final art in mind.
Anyway as I mentionned last time, now is a little down time in terms of progress. Im working on my dev tool to have more "In-game" world altering power.
Its been bothering me a lot throughout testing, lots of little changes had to be done with recompiling or simply couldn't be done.
Well no more!

Ill admit testing has been a real pain so far, I always had to simulate the whole gameplay.
If I wanted someone to take damage, I had to hope theey lied somewhere, seeing the evidence and use it. I couldn’t see a lot of relevant information while in-game. Had no exit way, so if a section bugged, I couldn’t exit and retry to see what went wrong; I had to relaunch the whole game.

These are all things I want to be able to do:

Everyday life

Launch trial<quickly generate (or input) trial precondition and launch it.
-see player basic info (location,action,object possessed,stats,relationships){change those}
--memory {add/remove}
---evidence (once investigation starts) {add/remove}

During trial

-Suspiciousness {add/remove}
-Strategy {change}
-see in trial evidence list
-see biases {change}
-force agree/object
--General
---Turn off third party section launch
---Turn off third party interventions
---Go to menu

hopefully all these abilities make future development easier.

not sure if its worthy of a "entry" but my intentions of the previous entry have been fufilled.
Change my "dev-view" as I called it, from a simple "information observation" to something that can both see and edit the world.

Also quick trial launch that might be the most useful thing ever.
Beforehand if I ever wanted to test something in the trial, I always had to first "create the case", kill someone,clean myself, fast forward time, go through body discovery, skip all investigation. I had become very efficient, almost robot like at performing those task to reach the trial. but that was still lots of wasted time.

Memory and evidence can be deleted, but not the trial evidence.

anyway, now I can look at whatever list i want (evidence, memory etc) and only one shows up instead of all of them.
can also modifiy relationships, deal damage in trial, change the strategy of the people (oh yeah, i did that too!), turn on and off some ai functionalities.

oh and another one of my favorite ability is to move people around. I could do that before using the meeting functionality  but doing it at the click of a button is even better.

anyway:
Before
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_75.png)
After
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/devtool.gif)
and it changes a bit during trial.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_84.png)

But that's enough of stuff that's mostly relevant to me, I'm now working on game over. implementing fail states should be interesting and quite a big deal in terms of full gameplay progress! Looking forward to it!

Is there a variable of "certainty" to facts? Like he is not sure he have seen him (for example didn't stay long enough in a room) so it can be contested if press on and depending on the personality the person might cave or press his certainty (for example he don't like the player or being wrong).

Although it might be overkill and only needed consideration after validation of the current iteration if there is no such mechanics :P

In general, I would make the graphics flexible to fit a wide range of screen resolutions and keep GUI separate. If you only target a single screen resolution then in worst case scenario some devices may not even be able to display the game properly.

There are some screen size discussion for another pixel game, Irkalla:
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35320.msg1068722#msg1068722
There's more info on other pages but that may be more relevant for moving certain parts of the background separately from others and still achieve a good pixel look.

If you want to know what people are using, this post https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35320.msg1089024#msg1089024 has some notes about the Steam hardware survey.

Actually, that was something I wanted to do in the begining, it's an idea that kind of got dropped due to how overkill it was indeed. A Facts is 100% certain, the problem is you don't really know, if someone says he was in the kitchen and you weren't there and you haven't seen him somewhere else, there is no way to know for sure if what he said is true.
Someone else could know, and then relationship/strategy come in; Even if someone does know something is not true, it doesn't mean he will let everyone else know. When lying, and objected too, sometime the person will cave in directly other times press certainty, haven't really worked into the reasoning but both exist.

With that being said, I was actually thinking of perhaps of indroducing the concept, with a new feature I have in mind. Now I don't want to make any promises, but it would involve "observing" outside the current room; "long range detection" or "Awarness" as I plan to call it. these observations would be "weak" and could get thrown out even if factual due to uncertainty. but Again, no promise :)

Thanks a lot, seems like this could be really useful! and also some damn pretty pixel in there, making me all jealous!

Yeah you are right the player wouldn't be able tell the difference anyway

Nothing better than an actual fail state to put up the stakes!
First one I implemented is the CheckMate.

What happens is once you trigger "Cover up" mode, you should be very careful not to be caught in suspicious activities.
Getting caught bloody, with a bloody weapon, moving a body, or even in the act will all trigger HEAVY (read DAMNING) suspicions. Actually, the eventual discovery of the body will only cement their suspicion.
Quite honestly, getting caught should be a game over.
But I thought hey, why not let players try to get out of the bad situation?
At the end of the day, it would he a "He said, she said" with no one able to tell who is right, who is wrong. This would cause trials with someone out to get you. I think it might be interesting.

just cruising around with bloody clothes.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/checkmate.gif)

So Anyway, someone catches you, its no big deal: Check.
You can carry on with your cover up, do expect the person to call for support though, or even attack you.
Now if a second person catches you: Mate.
Check mate is a game over state, where you have to restart the day, week or from chapter start.

The other game overs are
K.O.: remember how you might get attacked? well a defeat would result in a game over.
Disqualified: Lets just say you're not killing other people (if at all) for the fun of it... You gotto play by the rules.
Guilty: of course losing a trial is a big NoNo.
Might be some more.

That's it for today, might work a bit more on the everyday life side before returning to the trial.

Looks good! I like it! My only suggestion, and this is kind of random, would be to display the full "Check mate" when caught the second time. I know it shows the full word eventually but just seeing the word "Mate" seems a little strange imo. That's just my take though!

Haha being with blood can be turn to your adventage too "it's horrible, there was an accident I was trying to reanimate him, go look for help!" but that would be overkill seriously

I always thought Mate was a "short" for checkmate. not a chess player so what would I know. The idea was that it would most likely shortly follow the Check; It being fresh in player mind and on top of the screen. I do agree with Mate alone being weird though, thats why i bothered with the whole animation thing.Ill def check how it looks as a single word. As always, thanks for the feedback it always appreciated! and the random stuff is cool too, its the kind of thing I might not notice myself so all good!


overkill...uh. well can't say its something that I didn't think of before... Hell I was toying with the idea in the shower today. I mean interrogating you Is already one reaction the Ai can have to seeing you suspicious.(not implemented)
(casually holding a knife)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_81.png)
So i'll just say it's already in consideration.

Will see how thing go! Thanks for feedback and support.

I brought them up in the last entry, made them a bit more functional and in gif form!
When others see you in a suspicious situation, (such as carrying a weapon) they can react in many ways.

First of, reaction is not immediate, you could take a weapon and put it in your pocket before someone else notices you. theres a slight variable delay for others to "notice" you. You can use that time to rush in surprise or simply hid it in you pocket and go away.

When the other does notice you, they can react in multiple ways. So far it is random, but im thinking of giving specific characters specific behavior or at least tendencies.

The simplest is to ignore it. (In reality its getting cautious)

They can run away. they leave the room from closest exit as fast as possible. Right now they stay in whichever room they escaped to. Im thinking of making them aim for closest "Locked room" (If I make some) or their own room.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/run%20away.gif)

They can rush and attack you. its 50/50 right now, intend to have stats come in play.
Its another way to get gameover.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/beatup2.gif)

They can call for help. calling for help can go with other behaviors; people close enough to hear the call will rush to your current room. Since being caught by more than one person is dangerous, and each new individual will have their own reaction (potentially attack too), its quite a dangerous reaction.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/callhelp.gif)


They can also question you, your answers would influence the way they react. but since this is more talking stuff, I havent really delved into it.

Any feedback or suggestion would be appreciated.
Getting back to the trial! came to the realization that the statement structure was inappropriate, so will work on changing that. already got my plan and I hope it all goes well!

Just broke 10 follows on tumblr, thought i'd share the artwork I made for it.
Always fun to take a small break and draw something!
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/10followers.png)
Small start but its something, looking foward to next the milestone.
tumblr (http://johgames.tumblr.com/)

Back to work now!

It's good to be back!
Always hard to get back to dev after a "long" hiatus. (funny, because I couldnt wait to get back to this)


Since I was so lost as to what to do next, I just jumped somewhere, Textboxes.
A while ago a buddy helped along with the basics and recently (well, now) I got creative and added a couple features!
I do expect the game to be quite narative heavy so having a flexible textbox system seems handy.
colored text, shaking text,small text
skipping talk (well fastfowarding the typing)
adding/removing people
fading to black, adding background
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/talkbox.gif)

What im looking into is
Flags (giving "stats, info or opening conversations/responses)
Changing rooms, doubt it will be hard
Prompt (like a star poping up, or question marks over a head)
Emotion/reaction; I somehow kind of forgot about that, even though I implemented it in the trial.

maybe smooth entrance and leaving of characters, does that seem worth the effort?
Also is does the one talking stand out enough?

Speaking of textbox and narrative,
I was thinking of building my own story builder for the game.
make whole conversations & path in a more visualizable way. I guess kind of like a visual novel builder
but tailored for the game.
I kind of dread the idea, I do see hardcoding narative or using basic text editors are potentially very inefficient. but building another tool seems like a big task in itself.

Does tool building tend to be worth it?

Tool building is always worth the effort, but you should have the main system down because it became a headless race of
1. updating the game system to see what works,
2. then updating the tools to the update of the game
3. goto 1

Tools are essential if there is an additional programmer and other members that need to integrate their parts.

Alone they are still cool booster to get the integration part but no so much when things need to be tested and in flux.

So the solution is to keep it minimal and unfancy, or/and use tools or editor that are external and make building the tools easy.

For example there is no qualm to using excel to set up stuff and test them there then import the data back by parsing the xls or using a easily read format (csv) ...

Can your story builder fit within excel or twine or renpy etc ???

I feel im a much more visual person so a web like twine is what im looking for but its not quite there.
I like to think what I want to build wont be too hard, at first I was thinking of making a java program, but I lack experience, I dont feel like learning a new language (well, new sides of it).
I think i'll just use game maker, simple powerful i'm quite familiar with it and I made something similar before.
I just hope it doesn't take too long. I'll try do dual dev the game and storybuilder.

For the game, I'm having this little boost of productivity!


Although they don’t have a function yet, I’ve instaured the stats,

• Strength
• Int
• Charm
• Speed

While I was thinking of having them contribute to a gradual relative level (say if your strength is higher than someone else, you can beat them) Im thinking of having levels have flat effects such as strength level1: can lift a body; level 2: equal match to the average person etc.
maybe a some of both.

I'll keep the actual effect/ability of each level secret.

When you get stat “xp” theres a nice little prompt showing your current progress and level!

Now I just need to add the action that give those stats :/

Its my birthday!
and on this very special day...
more coding.

Seems like I really got trapped with the storybuilder,
Its both progressing quite fast and kind of creeping up in investment.

To be fair, I started with a full plan, so im not scared of feature creep (hell im feature cutting), but it's feeling like something that could stand on its own and yet, is of no use to anyone but myself.
Part of me feels like maybe I should have settled for something text based and use some jump system.
as a visual person, im pretty sure a chart system would be a better fit. So I went for something more like twine.

among main features are choices
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/scrsht_5.png)
connecting boxes with lines on which conditions(flag requirements) can be added.
Box themselves can set off flags. (flags are essentially variables)


(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/scrsht_13.png)
You can create persons and flags (still have events & reactions to do)
they come with shortcut, a written string that will auto set current box.
reference a string that will be turned to the flag value/person name.
export: not yet detailed, but how it will be transformed when outputed.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/storyteller.gif)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/scrsht_18.png)

After 2 days on this it feels like its getting somewhere, the core is done. The big thing I have to do is saving and export, so I can start using it. (But there is a lot more stuff for it to feel complete)

While it may seem a bit overboard, I am trying to keep things future proof and independent. (to avoid changing its coding along with the game's)

Since this is a creatively refreshing experience, i'd love to discuss it, so feel free to ask about it.

Switching between game and story builder is pretty hard.
Did saving, couple more detail functionality , but export is really intimidating, expecially in a flexible way. I think I might just Hardcode an exporter specific for my game, and think of "generalising it" later if the needs come.


Well, part 2 wasn’t that far behind, now reaching to appropriate object can prompt an activity.
Said activity will take some time from the day (1/3rd of current day period)
Thus accounting for travel time, its 2 activities per day period, 6 per day.

Do notice the Time spend indicator! Well, even I think its not visible enough... different color or scaled bar?
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/activity.gif)

Im looking into some limitation to prevent just always doing activities, such as energy.
Also some interesting way to encourage variety such as the Others doing their own activities and joining them providing a synergistic effect.

With that I think It's time to revisit the trial side of things and Iron things out. As I started building a story tool, I do think the core gameplay mechanics are coming toghether and a big milestone is close!

This is getting harsh, progress is slow and not very visible and everything super complicated.
I mostly try to tackle one major element a day with a lot of “btw lets fix that”. So yeah snail pace. Which is very frustrating with how I thought I was close to a milestone (again).

Well my Storyteller made quite some progress, I made a better save that now allows saving file wherever you want.
I also made the export that turns the graph into a formatted text file. That actually went really well for the most part.
I did end up going for a semi hardcoded approach. That is the exported file is tailored for my game.
I’m mostly happy with the way it breaks down the graph, obviously “Jumps” are needed for picking a path at a fork, but the way I went about it makes it so only “needed” jumps appear, straight paths are packed into “groups”. Not sure it has any use, but I just wanted to avoid jumping all the time.

meh update I guess. I hope to have something better soon!

I revisited the trial, had been a while.

Made a lie system, still not perfect but, it makes the Others state a location “they were in”(even if they weren’t). It makes use of what the others have said, basically for now it just tries to pick a location no one else was at. But it uses information said, that includes Others lies.

Obviously it won't stay like that, it's just for me to have better idea of what's going on.
'not' is the actual location, while Actually is the lie. (the only one that will be shown)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_95.png)

I plan on making it a bit more complex, accounting for “risk of having been there” from the hypothetical travel path, and some other secret sauce.

Added auto “My statement” as it will be in the game. So when it’s player turn to talk, The answer menu automatically show up. (I still keep it off though)
And I also added the ability to change your statements… Thank god it wasn’t hard.
Will be needed if you get objected to or you want to move the trial in another direction.

Also added 2 more skills, nothing too fancy and still of the “Trial flow control” kind. I should have some more active ones later on.

Next i'll work on text importing and choices. Well, that's what im on right now, so shouldn't be too long.

As always, feedback, suggestion & comments are appreciated!

sounds great

Keep up the great work :)

 :monoclepop: :monoclepop:
Thanks guys!
Actuallly performed better then expected! Must be the power of your cheers!


So I made the exporter a while ago, well, those file better be readable by the game!
Even though the files were made for the game, It was still quite a task. The format was fine and worked, the problem was jumping, which was quite simple and conditional jumping which was quite a pain.
The thing is, it is all text (string) conditional stuff require condition checking, variable versus value. Well string can’t be variables, <>= don’t work as strings so the whole statement has to be converted into ton more of conditionals, string splitting and conversions.
And also erasing all the functions from the text string.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/scrsht_27.png)
I made the choice system, It's pretty cool. Each choice can lead to one next statement. (it doesn't have to) Or trigger a flag. But the choice Itself can be optional! if the Line OUT of that choice has a condition, that condition itself has to be cleared in order for the choice to be available.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_96.png)(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_97.png)
two same point, but one has a choice, while the other doesn't. Difference cause by having 1 str in the second screen.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/scrsht_26.png)
tree from which the above came.

I've also made the event box, event box take in "Events" created like persons & flags. they have two categories, event itself and subchoices those all have their export and shortcut.
For exemple Set background would have for subchoices the different locations.
But you don't need to pick a select any event, text can simply be written too. if a shortcut or a valid entry it will be understood. Otherwise it will be outputed as is.

I made the Titles and chapter work as bookmarks, one problem was while the exporter took care of everything, having a way to specifically start from a point didn't exist. You could always make use of the outputted address of text, but those would vary based on input. Well now title and chapter and title work as fixed string referencing to the variable ouptut adress.
gives the ability to go : start_talk("Title") and it starts from that point.


So that's pretty much done, only a bit more "convenience" stuff left, but the core of the Storyteller is done.
Setting flags, right now its only boolean set to true, check if true. want to be able to set to specific values.
Editing, persons, flag and events. shouldn't be too hard
Deleting… I kind of made the whole thing without deleting ability. I’m sure it will come handy someday though.

After all this, I feel a bit lost, I don't know where to jump next. Most features seem to be there and functional.
Things are looking good!

I started to work on a little narrative in an attempt to get a playable demo (not demo "demo" something like alpha or proof of concept) I want to see all the parts come together (finally) although still in a very early state; not full cast, not all locations, not all items and possibilities, just enough to make sure it all works.

One thing I still need though is more locations because the limited number of locations restrict lies and possibilities too much.

Thus I present (will double as my Screenshot saturday)
The entrance! (still very WIP)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_98.png)
I just changed it, it used to be beige, but I thought it would be a bit weird The whole thing happening in a glowy beautiful villa. I feel gray, is a bit darker (obviously) and should help the tone.

Still WIP have to do brick and floor work and suddenly I miss the old awful artstyle this is soo time consuming!

Hi, It has been a really long time! After more than a year working on this and still not having something complete, I kind of got discouraged and wanted to try something else. I also revisited some of my previous projects, in short I took a break.
It seems to have helped as I'm back feeling motivated!


Fairly harsh return, my storyteller wasn't as "flawless" as I thought, actually had to rework it a bit (bit in term of scale, Lot in terms of time).
Anyway now it seems to be working with a more realistic scenario so things are looking up.

One thing, for main character I'm having a hard time letting him talk, so far all his speech are through choice input. I can see it becoming a drag for me and the player. but at the same time forcing a personality/life on the player might offput players if they can't connect. I'd like input on self-insert vs following a character if anyone has an opinion on it. I'm curious what people think.

Another thing I did realize is the way characters add up in discussions. When more people add up It kind of gets crowded.

So I'm wondering what's the best way to go about talking?
here is the current everyone(that participates) shows up, talker subtly highlighted
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht_99.png)

1 against 1
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht1_0.png)

or simply only show the current talker
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/scrsht1_1.png)

or really any other suggestion would be appreciated.

good to be back! ;D :toastR:

About showing character, I think you need both:
- establishing shot that introduce the player to the participant
- focus shot that only highlight participants in the current "thread"
- establishing shot between thread to manage transition to another speakers
- establishing shot to highlight changes in the composition of overall participants (ie leaving or entering the group.
- use of direction to connect where the attention is and transition to thread.

With:
- establishing shot being teh group shot you showed above
- focus shot being people talking to each other in a thread (1 vs 1 or more)
- character focus shot (current talker) when needed
- inward direction (ie toward center of the screen) for establishing focus on subject of the scene
- outward direction (away from the center) to signal out of scene focus
- direction toward a character to make him a focus in establishing shot (useful before transition)
- distance between character to signal grouping, opposition etc...

Changing those parameter in a script will help make the scene more dynamics and legible, move some writing to the visual, increasing the expressiveness without increasing the actual assets cost. Bonus point if there is a slight bunce animation to signal who talk.

For example here is a scene
- map: character is on the balcony look into the distance scene, player mve to talk to him
- Talking sequence 1 (seq1): Judd character on the right, facing outward, player on the left facing inward (judd is giving him his back)
"Hey! judd how it goes?"
- seq2: judd is now facing inward, face the player character
"mmm ... I don't know, I was thinking about what just happen in the kitchen"
- seq3: no visual change
player say "yeah! that revelation was massively awkward, I think everyone need time to process what happen"
- seq4: no visual change
scream from outside the scene "Oh sh***t, someone's dead!"
- seq5: player is facing outward, judd facing inward (they both look in the same direction to the left)
"wait, WHAT?"

Wow! thanks a lot for the feedback!

It covers some stuff I didn't even think about.

after thinking things through, I think i'll use something similar to the trial talk.
when theres only one person talking, it will be simple focus

when 2 people talk they will be face to face

when theres 3 or more,
everyone would be spread apart and the current talker would get centered, kind of like in trial with everyone moving.

all this with some flexibility for direction and spread for clever dynamic purposes.

So thanks it was quite helpful. It's also always nice to know what others think. :)

Tips, establish a line of "sight" height ie to make it like character look at each other eyes, if the sight connect it feels more natural, some character you have  don't follow that implicit rule.

Is that really a thing? I personally never noticed. Characters sometimes have different heights (as is the case in my game). I guess portrait do tend to be facing forward rather than slightly sideways.

Anyway I tried putting my plan into motion
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/talker1.gif)
not perfect but I like the result, fairly simple to know who is talking, that being the person in the middle.
I like people fading in when they enter.
however while characters feel like they have the right amount of room, only 3 person fitting on screen is a bit unfortunate.
People leaving tend to be hidden because another person will take their "place" while they are doing exit fade out.
oh and I guess they need talking animation and other expressions.

next id'd like to add a bit of functionality for room change while in talking, We can already travel freely between room but being able to do so in talk will probably be very important for proper narrative. I mean even in this placeholder situation, they are leaving how? to where?

Well it's a general audiovisual rules, so it help adding extra quality at little cost when doing it right.

The rapid switching is a bit dramatic and distracting, might fit hectic scene, but it's hard to follow who talk to who, isn't it?

Glad to see this is still in development and coming along nicely :)

Thanks! Always good to know poeple are still checking in.
Rapid switching is mostly because slow switching is slow, it also makes the "translation" more obvious. I do have full control over the speed, might be a good tool for scenes of different intensity.


(high level pun up there.)
So I pretty much worked on ability to control the game from the talking, and start discussion through events.
As I wanted people can be teleported to other locations during talks, (or get their next destination set) this includes the player, which will cause a room change.

Also set it so some "event" can trigger a discussion (quite useful for telling a story)
For exemple, talking to a person, interacting with an item, going to a certain room could trigger next "story" talk.

Heres an exemple with going in the kitchen.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/talktrigger.gif)
With this I think I covered most of my narrative tool, guess theres still emote and talking missing but they shouldn't be too hard. i'll continue building this "alpha", and tackle whatever comes my way. theres always some unforseen detail/features the creep up. Things are looking good!

Busy weeks, Had a game jam, followed by a Con!
I wasn’t going to bring up my jam game here, but since it ended up being in the same vein as this game why not.
If anything because it kind of scares me for this game. Clearly that game was way to intimidating for most. It requires involvement, taking the time to read statements and looking for contradictions, only everything is available.
There are some tricks, such as skipping everything just to find statement where others are seen and figure out if its possible. But you’d still need to think enough to realize that’s a smart way to go.
Jam GAME (Not project killer)More & play here (http://johgames.tumblr.com/post/148317869014/jam-game-devils-mansion)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/neojam1/scrsht_26.png)
Can’t blame the players, this is on me.

Now project killer is kind of the opposite since you are (for the most part) on the defensive. Theres no mystery to uncover(?), it’s about making sure others are more suspicious then you. In a way anything “YOU” figure out is “pushing you toward victory” and the more lie you spot, the more likely you are to win. It’s not about picking a specific person as much as that person not being you.

You still need to read and pay attention a lot. The game is wide, it’s not waiting for you to “point out the contradiction” and making you retry until you do; If you don’t point out the contradiction, someone else MIGHT or it may never come out.
If no one else is ever caught lying, chances are higher you are found guilty.

Well, I tried to explain the core difference but really one was made in 72 hours, the other is still ongoing after a year : ( (not sure why).
Anyway, had a good time working on this, it was a nice break (although I would have preferred something more different and exciting) I learned a couple things so all is good!

Oh, also did this.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/newplayer5.png)
been redesigning the MC, actually most characters got redesigned (although still unchanged in game).I prefer the look 4 but i'm more and more leaning to 5. Seems such simplicity is what's more popular these days.

Look forward to the next update.

not 5 thks k bye

So it's still not simple enough? Maybe ill remove nose,mouth and shading and make the eyes a bit longer.
On a more serious thought, I'm still not sure what i'll go for. I do like to pixel art once in a while, but I'm no pro.


Well at this point both trial and everyday life are functional, Everyday life mostly relies on events (story) so not much more to touch upon. So now the trial is where the big chunk is left.

So far theres the “Other” mode which I’m keeping for last, it’s where I want to add all less “structural, basic” evidence and argumentation. Circumstantial, story context, motive, overall performance in trial etc.
Still mostly need to iron out stuff left and right, make lies a bit more clever. Mostly so AI don’t get all the fun. Make sure theres no bug (god this is long and annoying). Improve sentences, did a round a while ago, seems like I need another one because odd stuff still comes up.

Things that were recently done.
Rounds. The trial used to just cycle through: reach the end(of section) and restart.
Now it stops at the end, forcing you to select whether you want to continue or restart.
With this comes the ability of others to disagree with your judgement. If you are ready to continue, but someone else spotted a contradiction, they will point that out and it will restart nonetheless. (they will point out the contradiction during that round)

this is the end of the section and unlike You (the player) Someone else spotted something odd and cause a round restart.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/anotheround.gif)

One thing I’m debating over is whether when an Other demands the new round, if it should auto fastfoward to the contradiction or stay at normal speed to allow the player to notice other stuff nonetheless.
I'll probably make it more flashy too. This is grand, Non-player Imposing their way!

Comments, feedback and suggestions would be greatly appreciated, things are getting more or less complete so the optimal time for those is nearing it's end. (well, i'm sure I'll always be open to them though)

I don't know what style you will go with at the end but keep that in the game
(http://i58.tinypic.com/2hgg5xi.png) :-*

Perfect psycho face

(https://68.media.tumblr.com/7ee0505403db76ac42613d863dcabcae/tumblr_inline_oghybtiadk1sm1x89_540.png)
Hello It's been a very long time!
I Was thinking of waiting until I had an actual update to show, but thought I'd address this long down time.

The truth is, my computer died. Worst nightmare for any dev really (or people in general). I had some backups but they were manual, I was lucky as I think it was about 1 month old, but that would still be a will killer. Might have killed the project actually.

Fortunately, I did manage to recover everything! I still had no dev (personal) computer though and a mix of shopping for a good deal, Reduction of free time and realizing I could actually go by without a personal computer kind of delayed me getting one. (I actually got one pretty quickly but had hardware problems that made me return it essentially doubling the time)

Anyways now I got a computer again and I got the project where I left off so I'm ready to get back on track!
If you've been following this before hope you're still onboard!
If this is the first you hear of this project, hopefully you find it interesting (let me know  ;) ) and join in!

you can also follow me on tumblr (http://johgames.tumblr.com/)
Hopefully no more problem arise!

use dropbox if you are alone, that's autosave, I don't know much about source control like github and all but that's recommend too.

It's what I did but manually thus I still would have lost data. Now I set it up so its automatic... kinda feel excessive but there isn't much balanced flexibility.
Finally time for update!

Its happening!
It’d be unfair if you were only listening to the others while being outside of reach. It’s been in for awhile and I’ve shown the different type on input/response “my statement” you can give.
Well now just as you can call out others lies, they can call out yours.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/calledout.gif)
still some dev text in

I think they already could through the magic of emergent properties. (always neet)
But now I set it up so they do it and you have to rectify.
You see, let’s say you lied about your location. Someone else could know and if you are called out, you have to give a new location. (well you could give the same one again, you'll just get called out again)

pic don't work :'(

That's odd, was still working for me.
Well I changed the link so hopefully it works now.
Thanks for the heads up!

(ps, was there an image in my post before that? about my dead laptop)

Still promising

Thanks! time to pick up the pace!


Well the last feature kind of gave rise to a problem. You can say that you have been in multiple locations. But if someone saw you somewhere else it contradicts that and they would rightfully object.

Except it is possible for you to have been there and have moved somewhere else. This gives rise to the concept of perfect stay.(I had it pretty early on and dropped it when I tried to simplify things)
That is having been with someone the entire duration of a time period, giving you a solid alibi & in return making it a LIE to say you were anywhere else. Meanwhile any non-perfect stay you can claim to have been somewhere else (TOO) without it being objected to.
To remedy that I had to either:
1)   Look if the person ever left the room
2)   Create a specific evidence for not leaving room (perfect stay)
Unfortunately for that I needed to know about people departures from room, something I had left behind (saw X coming from; saw X going to) So I worked on fixing those.

Really not sure what i'll do with them since, they do add information but all that information stacks up, making it really overwhelming! I might make it so you can only bring a small selection of evidence/memories with you to a trial. because no one wants to scroll through hundreds of facts.

As always, let me know of any question, feedback or suggestion! :)

I have no idea, but that sound awesome, I hope you will figures it out!

Well now if you claim to have been in multiple room, including the one the objecter saw you in, they will accept your new version.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/rectifylie.gif)
I make use of some fastforward in that gif, maybe i should add some effect to it.

Also double lying is fixed, was just a little thing where once you were objected to, no matter what your version changed to, it would be accepted, even if it was a lie. Well it is no longer the case (as seen in gif), lie twice, get called out twice.
Now I am thinking about limiting the number of times you can get called out. Some kind of way to “stand your ground” on a lie, at great penalty.
like after 3 objections, they will no longer object, but will consider your statement shady.

Think i'll take a little break from trial side again and revisit the free time/narrative side. I'll say it's pretty nice to have different parts like that in a project.
Would like to get some "working" story sometime soon. Look forward to it!

Happy New Year everyone!

Let's start with a little update!

As I work on the “new narrative”*, more little control element required surface. Simple stuff, but stuff that needs to be done nonetheless.
Time control: It’s all fine when time flows normally, but if some scripted scenes, some story wait or some discussion in general take a certain time, or leave you at a certain time, I needed something for that too. Now I can timeskip, stop time, start time. I control everything.

I can also free people from their schedule. People have a general, flexible schedule they usually adhere too. That can unfortunately conflict with any scripted scene. Wouldn’t want people suddenly ditching a scene simply because we reached the afternoon and they have a show to watch.

I had already set it up that I can tell them to go (or appear) anywhere, but preventing them from going back on schedule was something I overlooked and caused odd moments.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/newnarrative.gif)
Here, we both head to the kitchen, I like little moments like that when you see others "do their stuff". With hindsight it's really stupid, should have just made people teleport like most game do. Notice no time passing, since this is a "story" sequence.

Oh and text skipping... Before it fastfowarded the text, but that was still too slow (lots of repeats for testing) So now it will automatically display all text.(if attempts to skip)

Guess, ill keep working on the narrative for a while.

*It’s not really new, it’s just a reference to Westworld, wonderful stuff!

You should have an achievement for keeping the black guy till the end lol

Oh god... What an  Idea :P
So true though, I do wonder if people would make a fuss about it.  :shrug2:

Needless to say, that guy is not happy to be in the game. Well, no one is I guess? hope?
Well that's for me to know, and you to find out! :lol:

The concept sounds like a lot of fun, and its great reading over the progress you have made. Coming up with all the branches of story must be quite the work.


Will you make it clear for the user what his contradiction was? How does this work?



Westworld is awesome :)! "These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends"

Thanks a lot!
It's been a long road for sure, seeing the initial progress progress is kind of staggering, then it kind of slowed down. (well more like, most progress is not visual/visible in screens.) The narrative is and certainly will only keep getting more complex (I regret everything!). I've made a tool to help me with it and while for now it feels a bit useless (since everything is more or less linear) I'm hoping it comes in handy as the branches and conditions spread out.

Sorry I didn't make it clear.
What happens is the Other1 will say there is "something wrong", and demand for the discussion to restart.
When the discussion restart it is the same as always (everyone says what they have to say) but once the contradiction(Other1 knew about) is reached, the Other1 will automatically call it out. Thus Other1 will call an objection on Other2 (or you).
Since the discussion restarts and AI objections happen at the end of a statement, it also means you could beat Other1 to the objection. When someone else demands the discussion to restart, Be doubly attentive because it means there is an objectable statement somewhere.


After watching that, I just felt the need to add "working on the new narrative" in my vocabulary  :lol: Would have put it in my title If I didn't feel it might be misinformation. (I don't have a "new narrative" :( )
Nice to see other people know about it.

Yeah i saw it here (https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=47933.msg1249947#msg1249947).
it looks really impressive and technically advanced, make sure to indeed backup the **** out of the complex branches.


Curious to see how this plays out. I will probably have to see it to fully grasp it.

Funny you brought up that post about my editor; worked on it some more!


I felt full of energy and decided to further improve my “story editor”. I was using it to expand the narrative and was just scared of it breaking down, so Although it was functional, I decided it needed a new visit.
Lot’s of convenience features were added.
Added selection, so I can select multiple boxes and move them at the same time.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/boxselection.gif)
Made a serialization system to have the objects easier to manipulate.
Case in point, added copy paste with it.
Also added an auto organizer, not sure If it will be of any use, but I was obsessed with making one.
Basically I can have all the boxes position themselves to “save” space. At the very least it looks organized.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/autoarrange.gif)
Man that is cool.

Oh free form of the editor windows too. As I recently brought up I went through a computer change. On my new computer the window was really small and Instead of deciding to make the window bigger, I made it so It can be resized freely.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/storyteller/scrsht_36.png)
and made the section on the side now show the text in the boxes. Since its now resizable it can allow a more easiliy readable overview of the text contained in the boxes.
To be quite honest, I was impressed with my own past self. Program still held up and was quite easy to expand.

Guess it will become my new best friend as I keep expanding the narrative! Might even reach a point where I use it more than I code! Still got a bit more to fix on the coding side, but I like jumping from sub-parts of the project to another. Free-time to trial and now narrative! :)

Got quite a decent part of the narrative for what id call an alpha. I’ve been working on getting a full sequence of the game (not final) running for a while now.
Most of the updates on the narrative side have been fixing and creating features to get it running. With the lastest one expanding control, it’s starting to feel like a true story is going on.
Time is fixed, when it needs to be, people are in the location they need to be, conversations start when they should.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/e8e9af2469bf3be33b7384bcc674c2df/tumblr_okigk9dxPV1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

(https://68.media.tumblr.com/8a47b1eae00c065cd2fd910bce10e9fe/tumblr_okigk9dxPV1tjsbp3o2_1280.gif)
Using fast forward on time, but you'd normally wait an actual while or talk to someone to make time pass.

Also made transitions in and out of talking smoother. Not sure if noticeable or worth it, but saw it in other games and couldn’t help but feel, I need that too!

Some more stuff needs to be ironed out, I’m using a lot of placeholder locations and I should be using more images but things are looking good!

Back to trial! As I presented in the beginning, I wanted the trials to have a bit of RPG to it. It is after all a battle for the truth or Alternative facts depending on if you are involved yourself.

Ive previously shown “Hold it”: which stops time for 10 seconds. Allowing to read, think or find the appropriate objection.
There’s “Wait wut”: which rewinds to the previous statement. You could of course go through the whole run and wait for that statement to come on the next re-run but you shouldn’t forget that “free” re-runs are limited. So it might come in handy.

Now I finally added a skill that isn’t a “flow control”.
Hype: “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!” it hypes up your next statement making it do double damage(subject to change)!!! It’s also a double edge sword! While hyped, being wrong will deal double damage  to you too. Also doubles healings.  You stay “hyped” the end of a run.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/125823316/projectkiller/hypeskill.gif)
No, this is not super saiyan

Right now only the player has skills, but in the name of fairness, I want the others to also have some. (oh and do note I don’t intend on giving all skills to the player from the start; Hype is an art hard to master :( )

Let me know what you think! feedback, suggestion, comment always appreciated!

That smug face when he launch hype is on point, I really hope you find someone who can uphold the graphical flair you use in this.

However the whole wrapping around of the scrolling is disorienting, character are both on the left and the right, it break all frame of reference.

Thanks a lot, fairly fond of the smug myself! Been on a passive lookout for artist, just to already have people in  mind for when I'm ready. Also been practicing drawing myself for worse case scenario.

As for the wrapping, I never noticed that. This happens because there's only 4 person, shouldn't be a problem when I add more people. The why, is because it's supposed to simulate a round table (bar). The back and forth is a bug I got so used to I forgot (well the objection one where it spins to get back on the same character).
After a good second look, I think I see what you mean. After using the skill, camera goes from player to "guy in black" by going 2 left instead of 1 right. I'll have to look into that as it should always pick shortest direction. (exactly to prevent noticing character being on left & right)

So wow, thanks! added stuff on my to do list!

We made it.
More than a year of progress and updates, now reaching quite a milestone!
Wasn’t sure what would be worthy, So I just went with expanding the thing that got the most “likes”… The stats!
Not sure why, seems like people like to see bars fill up! I do too, don’t worry.
I added some slick pop up for stat level up!

Here’s a pretty meta demo!

(https://68.media.tumblr.com/8354724c6379bc3137530a8524bf4c4d/tumblr_ol4wrgRtal1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

So yeah, stats get experience by doing related actions. I decided to go with levels granting some new ability to the character. (although the level of the stat itself might also have some use)
I previously said I’d keep the stat effects secrets but I guess the above spoils one! Still subject to change though but it’s something I always wanted.

I want the action of “reading” to actually provide a short (very short & mostly snipped) of a story. Some of which being relevant to your situation. A smart player reading a story involving a certain poison might wonder if such a thing is possible. With the ability to receive tips, the player would have “introspection moment” after reading essentially a huge WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE ;) to the player that: Hey! this might be doable.

We will see how that goes, it’s still in conceptual stage.

With this, thanks to everyone who has been following (or lurking, I see you). Hopefully, this has been interesting and continues to be! I’m sure I still have some cool things in store but the core is kind of there.

I hope I don’t have another 50 to go (like seriously this should have been done 20 updates ago!!) but If I do yay 100.

Oh and to change things up: If you are interested into how I did stuff, please ask. Been seeing some implementation of other game and found it really interesting! So I’d like to do the same.

So as always, feedback and suggestion appreciated.

(http://i64.tinypic.com/23ixnxx.gif)

Congrats on 50 devlog entries! I've been following for a while and seeing all the progress you've made really impresses and motivates me to work harder on my projects! A while ago I mentioned the game to a friend of mine who is also a big Ace Attorney fan and he thought the idea was great. Every once in a while he'll ask me if this game is still being worked on. I think both of us really want to see this get better and better and are excited for a (distant future) release! On behalf of both of us, keep up the great work!

Cool concept and congrats on the 50th devlog entry!
Watching games grow is very inspiring, keep the updates coming, hit that 100 mark man :nono:

Oh boy... guess its time to change signature again :/
cheers!
Thanks!

Thanks a lot. A two for 1 ! always nice to know people are (still!) interested! I'll keep up to good work and I'm looking forward to an hopefully not too distant release.

50 is a lot, never thought I'd get so far (mostly because I didn't think it would take so long) And I guess I'm making the same mistake hoping I don't make it to 100  :shrug2:
Still got quite some growth to go through!

Again thanks all :monoclepop:
Been making a lot of progress lately (motivation boost!) hopefully I got some more update soon.

NO!!! it's meant to say this project is a killer, aka great

Don't worry, I took it as a positive comment!
I thought It was more of a display of cheer and happiness (like the character in the image)
Was joking about changing it since all that joy suddenly crashes down (wouldnt want that to happen!)

Project being a killer is much simpler, just as positive although a bit more hidden of an interpretation to me  :lol:
I'll take it!


PS. wouldn't have change the signature, these thing take time! It is a bit misleading though (no cute stuff here) so i'll change it again someday :shrug2:

Best kind of progress Is stealth progress! Or maybe I just didn't want to go beyond 50  :lol:

Just thought I'd share my lastest piece of Art:

My boy went to Space!
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/7604528f6b580d2b59aaf532a02d64a6/tumblr_olppq1WBcU1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)
Now he obviously didn't, but its not like I know where he actually was, so I can't really object either.
A wise man once said:
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/e0d950946a7bce499fbca8effbb9ae6d/tumblr_olppq1WBcU1tjsbp3o2_1280.png)
thats the piece of Art

I do like to do some art sometimes, wish I was better but I think this one came out alright.

I like your art, they have some flair

Thank you!

Funny thing to realize! While I did make a system to take in stat (or flag) values a long time ago. I had actually not made a system to change/set the flag & stat (Guess I forgot)
So now I did, allowing some branching narrative based on your stats or flags activated.
Here's a little test of it.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/e9587c4f0dfda78a226f528329b831a5/tumblr_olwpag5spW1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

In this case, talking to Tyson triggers a flag that is checked when talking to Jason. It's not like I actually changed what Jason says. It's just that a certain "If statement" in what Jason should say makes him say something different when the flag was triggered.

I expect it to be quite useful for when it comes to acknoledging some little moments, like your answers, or the things you did personally that don't really affect the whole story, but might make some later interaction make no sense.

With this, 51. Good to be back!

No better way to give the game a bit more life! If the character sprite expression doesn’t cut it, a little animation could help! Not sure how exactly i'll use them but seemed like a sweet useful feature.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/944a3d9011be6920c99433d7706af212/tumblr_om7oexcykh1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

They also work during dialogue.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/32f8048996ffe6884278c4330ce086ca/tumblr_om7oexcykh1tjsbp3o2_1280.gif)

Thats it for today!

There was already the location clash, when you can set the murder location assuming you have the evidence to back it up.
Now you can do the same with weapons!(Always nice to be able to make partial reuse)
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/82ebf5d5d376edc3ce26945fcd853246/tumblr_omn7vwoPzb1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)


Changing the murder weapon should reset the Weapon access. So if you change the weapon, you should go through the weapon access again to see and know who had access to it.
(Location doesn’t have that because the game can automatically cross-link who has been in the scene of the crime based on whatever was said.)
From a logical point of view, no point of discussing access to weapons unless they are relevant to the case.
Oh and now you can't suggest the status quo. (well you can but it will count as a cancellation).

Fun little story: When I was testing the clash, I tried claiming the knife did it. (which it did) Backed it up with evidence (which was valid) and the group still rejected my proposition! Turns out I had gattered a lot of suspicion. Reset my suspicion and the same proposition passed just fine. I had totally forgotten That I set it up so Others do let their suspicion guide their judgements! (relationship too)!

With this I believe I’m fairly advanced in the trial mode.
Still have:
-Other section. (keeping it for later)
-Integration of meltdown. (they exist, but nothing triggers them yet)
-More skills (yay!)
-Intro! Just a section that sets up the status quo (default location, weapon, time of death & potentially other stuff) at the start.
Outside of gameplay
-Variance. The Trial is created based on the facts of the game, but it still fits a template. It Has to. I want to have multiple switchable templates for varied presentations.
-Balancing. It’s really hard to generate situations you can win without Others lying for NO REASON! I mean, if they are all innocent, without lying they should be able to stay safe from OBJECTION. At the same time, If the one Person that could be made quite suspicious happens to get healed a lot, Your way to victory kind of gets cut out. Balancing how much lying, how much thruth, how supporting of each other the cast is will be interesting.

As always, feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

Minor stuff but that count in a highly dramatized game like yours:
When the opponent says: sorry the majority disagree with you, why he is not looking at the player

Overkill suggestion because:
- I have seen that the opponent is adjusting his glass with glee in the clash, that's such a nice touch! I was wondering if this could be extended to some sort of emotional management, basically this would be a tell of your opponent mental state, here he would be cocky and confident (and effectively turn around people against you), but he could also be troubled, upset, or enraged, which lead them to make mistake like trying absolutely to prove the player wrong without any evidence, which will destroy his credibility and can work as a nice dramatic climax to the player's lead and gameplay reward after a difficult confrontation.

The opponent is on a "different" plane of existence (afterall, he his also still present to the right)
I haven't even considered the idea of people looking at who they are talking. they are kinda talking to the "player" they are simply centered and their direction depends on which side the camera came from. I guess it mostly worked since it makes the person always look toward the previous talker, which makes sense. (since the table is round, everyone is technically on both sides)

As for your suggestion, It is somewhat what I had in mind when it comes Meltdowns. characters don't have mental states per say. They do have strategies. The strategy depends on their current situation compared to everyone else. They might play defensive and avoid doing anything. Or be aggressive and call out everything off they spot. or attempt to recover by helping out others (supporting true claims).
Meltdown is a game mode where a character snaps, as I mentioned, they aren't trigger-able yet. I'd want them to happen when a specific person has called out another "too often" and/or brought them to "dangerously suspicious" zone.
In meltdown you get spammed with stupid statements and have to react quickly to deflect them. Fail to do it appropriately and you'll face a lot of damage. But if you defend yourself properly, the opponent will take even more damage dooming them.

Snap!

(https://cdn.meme.am/instances/53718439.jpg)

Feels like its been forever! Dropbox stopped supporting images, and pretty much killed the devlog :/
Will try to repopulate the images over time. Really unfortunate.

Anyways small Update

Introducing Amnesia!
It’s like the opposite of hype! When you aren’t sure of your next move, use hazy memory! Increases your resistance to objections and wrong claims making you get let suspicion even if you are wrong or get called out.

(https://68.media.tumblr.com/5ce76c0de9df9a5b34cbe8368fe89234/tumblr_ont4cpOznT1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)
It’s essentially a Def up skill.

Note that Skills now can only be used in certain circumtances. A big Cross shows up on unavailable skills.
you cant be hyped and unsure at the same time!(or stack either)

Also introduced particles, here we have some little shields but hype looks even more HYPE now.

Been quite a while, here a small update.


Pretty much all the gif I made made some use of fast forward. In trial especially. For the sake of proper play, it is necessary for the text to stay long enough for it to be read and understood. Most of the time however, I only wanted to show a specific feature so skipping it all made sense.

However there was nothing to show it. After some little shader observation (thx Cake) I came up with something to be a sign of fast forward.

(https://68.media.tumblr.com/228a0834e2d65242586342e05abc91a7/tumblr_op36mn08vL1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

I'm hoping to be more active for a while, so stick around! As always, feel free to share your thoughts.

I still can't adapt to the wrap around lol

I feel like part of the wraparound problem is that there are so few people. It seems like with a table of that size it should take longer for the player to wraparound like that.

Yes the table is made for much more people, not sure if ill ever actually reach that small of a cast size in the actual game. Will consider not having wraparound when cast size is small. At the same time maybe ill just leave empty seats also solving that problem.

very little thing i did a while ago:
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/e24b36e0d28f286821c86679cd0758da/tumblr_op780umG0y1tjsbp3o1_1280.png)
Felt the text box were taking too much space so I resized them.
Also made it a bit more in line with games in general. I think it looks much better now, but i might change it again.

Ok, Updated the first two pages, so images should be back, hopefully welcoming new folks! Always interesting to go back to the beginings. The progress seemed to go so fast and was so much more visible and significant. Now its all invisible progress or little new features.

Speaking of which:


Instead of having a very long, and scrollable choice list of names, I though I might as well make a unique choice option when it comes to a cast members. This way you can see an avatar icon and the name. So if you don’t know the cast name (for shame) you can be sure to pick the right person.

(http://68.media.tumblr.com/173091460c465efa926a649cf229f613/tumblr_opo8s6ogeZ1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

Also, made it so not all choices are being spoken after being selected. At first they weren’t but the player was often meant to say his choice, felt dumb to have to rewrite it. Now many choices are off, some are even action, saying it just doenst work.
Essentially added a tag to signify whether a choice is spoken or not.
 

Been continuing to progress on the story (still very early and not final), I have this moment that has you having free time, during that time you can go anywhere but you can also talk to anyone. Since you can’t talk to everyone though (time limitation), this would be a first case of “Story forking” for players.
Its not a real fork, but more of a “buffet” where you pick info snippets. Are some better than others? Maybe. But this is where all the flag elements I previously mentioned will come in handy.

(http://68.media.tumblr.com/7117adada378862ef46aff4611327833/tumblr_opv7viYblW1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

I'm personally fond of the people just travelling to their destinations. could still use a bit of work though.

Had a little break as I participated in a Jam. Was fun and I think the game has a decent shot. Very unrelated to this game though so I won't go further into it.


There are multiple locations in the game but they are limited by the map grid size. It was always planned to have the building have 2 floors with the second hosting most people rooms. I’ve been trying to minimize the number of locations I made use for testing reasons, but I need Rooms for story reasons and thus the second floor was built.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/12ad16a0e632cf4ad73ec20f24266966/tumblr_or0cbpjHWw1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)
It's still pretty barren, but I just wanted to be sure it worked correctly. I can travel to it through both map and directly. The Ai also can (which surprised me, I barely did anything) It was all about incorporating a 3rd dimension to locations. It was a pain (because I hadn't future proof my code and thus had to add it everywhere) but once added, most systems just naturally worked. Always nice.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/77f3167c50ffc3b6bd3c4328808b7c07/tumblr_or0cbpjHWw1tjsbp3o2_1280.gif)

Things are really starting to slow down though, I guess most features have been done now and its mostly polish, story and Trials. As it  gets more and more playable it also calls into question some of my design choices and I may have to change how some game elements work.


I have such a point in mind right now. Right now the time passes by naturally. If you afk for a while, your whole "time period" will have passed and you will have to go to the meeting for the next "time" to start.
As I had explained early on, a time period is seperated in 3 "early,mid,late" and there are 3 time period "morning,afternoon,night". Anyway, I'm thinking of having time stay fixed. You would stay in early morning until you did an action. The action would send you to mid-morning and so on. This is how most games do it (free time/ bonding/social links etc) and it makes a lot of sense. Live time made sense with the idea of murder, being quick about it and time passing by making it possible for other people to move and catch you. But there's nothing stopping it from going live time when a murder happens. Which is what i'm leaning toward. Also considering changing the number of "time" as 9 periods is a lot, but that's probably for another time.

I'm interested in what others think as I might be missing something and well second opinions are always nice.
Feedback, suggestion always appreciated.

Nice update! I'm curious about how prevalent the two floor feature will be in the game. I imagined it would just be a couple staircases connecting rooms, but you mentioned that you incorporated a third dimension to locations. Does that mean most rooms on the top floor has a corresponding room below it? Is this something that can be used to the player's advantage somehow, like climbing through a hidden passage to the room below or something?

As for time passing, I'd lean towards what you were saying about making it stay fixed until you take an action but possibly doing real time during a murder. Although with something like the time system it could be a little hard to say without seeing it in action and how it affects the player (demo soon? :D). My concern with real time would be that especially at the beginning the player will waste time just wandering around and figuring out where everything is.

Keep up the updates :)

I'm cool with the game as long this exact pixel art graphic stay somewhere:
(http://i58.tinypic.com/2hgg5xi.png)
Don't want any artist fucking it up  >:(

Well I needed the third dimension to have blank space (a new set of 6x6 rooms). For now there's only the second floor which will mostly contain the characters room. but it could also be used for any other location (which may or may not exist  ;) )
Rooms also serve a great purpose  adding locations for people to be in and more importantly, people to be alone. One of the main issue in my testing is now that i made it so the Others try to be smart; They never lie. Afterall they are innocent, no reason to Lie. Also they tend to be in the same room as others so they couldn't lie even if they wanted. So I'm hoping with more rooms they will see each other less often and lie more. (also there will eventually be more people, even more reason for that.)

Not sure about demo though, its what i'm working on (or maybe beta would be more accurate) but its taking forever and super slow. Making me notice tons of little things i need to add even if overall all the main pieces are there. But even without it it seems my devlog is quite informative (or you are quite perceptive) as your concern is exactly right. Theres just a lot of wandering around aimlessly and with time passing by most of it is wasted. Also, even though there is technically 3 time slots per time period, travel times makes it so at most 2 event can be done. (even if you did the same thing 3 time in a row, the ~1 second to retrigger it would make you unable to do it 3 time.

I am thinking about making events take the full time period reducing the number of events to 3 per day.



Oh... Hadn't realized I hadn't changed my avatar... SOON.
I definitely don't think it will remain in the game though. I still dont know how it will end but i'm hoping it looks nice catches the eyes of people. Unique would be nice too but better than what I can deliver (which is quite a low bar  :( ) Is what I'll be looking for.
Everyone likes good looking things!(and games) I want in!

That's not true, there is enough proof of this, people also like quirky funny stuff, I mean troll face and pepe was dominating internet for a reason. This face is on that level, it express the pure shameful like sentiment of screwing someone, adding too much details don't work, it need that immediate stupid look to work, contrasting with the serious outlook of the current sprite works well, it reveal the true nature of the main character he is so trying to hide and makes us in the confidence with him, it really connect the audience to the concept.

It works much less in the version in the animated gif below, because the thing aren't push enough and the smile is just awkward there, instead of looking dumb like a troll face (and visceral) it just look half done, it can also work that way with "good art™" because it might be too well done to keep the viscerality of the expression, being counter productive. Think phoenix wrights when the culprit start loosing his shit and break down mentally, it's kind of the same effect. THIS was just spot on! It's actually good art!

I'm sure people like quirky stuff, including my original style, I liked it, you seem to like it, I also heard other positive comments but also some quite negative impressions.(no its not exclusive to this thread or even game) You could actually carry the game on being odd, I can think of aviary attorney (to be fair, the art is good) or hatoful boyfriend (what were they smoking!). But its hard, you wouldn't want to turn off more people than you attract, its probably why most play it safe.

Reminds me of the forever dilemma I have with the full models. The game is heavily based on visual novels & Jrpg, and they all have Anime art (or anthropomorphic characters), I personally like it but I'm also conscious there a non-negligible amount of people who wouldn't touch "anime-shit" with a 10ft pole. At the same time, go too western and the VN enthusiasts might not like what they see.This is something I see in Ace attorney for example, to me its Anime but subtle enough to fool someone. But Danganronpa, is too far out there. Not sure if its in the art or its some kind of black magic Nintendo does (like somehow Pokemon isnt anime to a lot of people, or even an rpg -_- ). Anyway i'm just rambling, all this to say i want my cake and eat it too.
If anyone has anything to say on the subject, that'd be interesting, example of artstyles too. That still remains to be determined but shouldn't be anytime soon. I already changed some designs but I have no intention of changing them(again) in game as it would be a waste of time.

Quite honestly I should have went with Rpg maker look. As generic and overused as it is, it got a cleanness to it that makes it look better than what I have. It also seems to work fine when backed by a decent story. What the hell am I doing?!

Dont be too hard on yourself, there is many thing to balance in art and you have nail one aspect, I'm just saying it would be bad to lose that aspect in the translation, and I'm just saying one image in particular, not the whole style. In fact the contrast of character icon in the menue with maybe upgrade art can be a good direction to go.

Anyway, it's too early to think about that, you have very functional art that does the job right now, and focusing on the gameplay should be 1st priority, everything else should be done when it's done in the polish phase. So don't think about it too much yet :D

You are doing great, keep the nitpicj for later, the game is shaping to be awesome!

A project is subject to change and influenced by others, all you have to do is create the game you want to make. Thats it. Dont give a rats ass about everyone's opinion. Else would have never had an italian plumber eating mushrooms fighting off little owls to save a princess from a giant spiked turtle nor would we have bioshock infinite - fuck water worlds, lets build an air world because yolo. Keep at it and finish that project!

@bolded ?? ??
But thanks. I'll keep working on this. it wasnt so much the game than the art that was/is troubling me. since I'm pretty far in on the gameplay side, I have to start doing more art for new material and I dread it. Mostly because due to my low skill the time/effort to result ratio is just awful. It does look alright I think, or functional as gimymblert put it. But when I think of all the time put to get something on par with rpg maker(lots of freely available assets) its kinda depressing. but who knows, maybe it will be fun. I really liked the move from starting art to this one.

I see its been quite a while since my last update, i'll prepare an update to cover whats been going on.

i’m into it but i def think the look is currently a turnoff. it’s like...just polished enough that not being more polished feels iffy. ironically it’d look better to me if it was slightly worse, lmao

basically i’d def focus on upping the quality of presentation if possible. i think as a concept for a game this is pretty great though. it’s basically a very long drawn out last of us level meets a game of mafia. i love it.

This is pretty much how I feel about it, like not bad enough to be "eww, this better be placeholder" but not good enough to be "this looks awesome", just somewhere weird in the middle that's like "this is ok, yet not right". I'd see it as effort & time can't cover for lack of formal training/technique; it just kinda shows. But that's alright, I'll have to revisit this at some point.
Any specific feedback?(pixelart?full model?backgrounds?colors?) No guarantee, but if it's something I feel I can fix, i'll go for it; dont want to turnoff anyone. Everyone is welcome in here! :)

Interesting take on the idea of a downgrade, I might actually go for that :lol:

and thanks for the kind words on the concept, it's such a pain to work on, being reminded its great (I mean, I think so too) is always nice!

Yeah the concept is great, can't overstate it enough

Thanks!
Heres a long overdue update. since it was all small, didnt post about those but they stack up.


Have spent a lot of time on presentation. Not actual new spritework but accessibility element, convenience of life as well as some special effects & polish.
Just making sure information is better conveyed to the player. If theres one thing I am very scared of, it is how daunting the game might be to anyone who… isn’t me I guess.

Accusation change. Now sides are clearly defined, the bar split is better defined and the player display takes the time to disappear during the voting. Much closer to my final vision. Remains to see if I add some character representing icons on the side they support.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/a0e33f910adb76f2658274f1ce195a78/tumblr_os3afiFvlT1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

Clash change. Nothing changed really, except I made it feel like Clash in… everything I guess, good vs evil, anime protag vs anime rival, Pheonix wright vs incompetent prosecutor. Definitly more alive now. Also shows Cancels I mentioned a while back. By selecting the current Consensus, the clash gets canceled.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/c6b07e98e51cab77d7f627e601351cb1/tumblr_osr5m7OAIr1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

New Section intro. Phase has been moved up, to make place for a display of all evidence available during the current phase. It’s a lot like danganronpa, I felt it might be useful to know what evidences are available to you before everyone starts talking.
(http://68.media.tumblr.com/a4fe2b074696e93542b9e80444e38dad/tumblr_ot48y1QSbs1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)
there is A LOT of evidence being generated. since its all generated from whatever happened instead of predetermined, theres a lot of “evidence” (event witnessing) most of which are completely irrelevant.
Only a select few are taken, and extra useless ones as redhering. but those change from section to section.
It can be a bit long when there’s more evidence but it can be skipped (sped up to be exact)

New evidence formats:
Another thing is I’ve shortened the evidence titles. used color code to convey part of the evidence hoping for them to be shorter and more easy grasped.
The color actually represents from whom the evidence comes from. It’s all green here since its all been witnessed by myself. If I learned the info from someone else, it would bear his color. There’s also an implied “seen”, thus an evidence is read: [color_person] [saw] evidence_title. still wish they were all 1 line, so maybe I’ll reduce the font size.

I hope it conveys the meaning just as well, with less reading.

So yeah, lots of little polish and improvements to try to make things look better without actually redoing major artwork. I'll get there eventually. I'm running out of "little things" to fix/add.

Looks solid!

Thanks!

Been quite a while! Working more on narrative/story side so not much to show.
Here is a return to the basics! Added Hud element for the “Inventory”.

(https://68.media.tumblr.com/29b76c5f0a15ca41bfdecd6db8890e18/tumblr_ovmy19odfP1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

Might have went over this very early on, but you can hold 2 “hiddable” items at a time. A hiddable item is something you can hide in your pocket.

Although unsafe, a Knife could fit in your pocket… a sword not so much.(this is not a statement of sword existence in the game)

Anyway, if an Item is hiddable, it can go in your pocket and be invisible to others. Items in Hand are visible and may trigger... reactions.

You can freely switch items from pocket to hand. If one item is in pocket but the other is “unhiddable”  then you cant.

Now if only I could think of innocent ways to use items!

Mark brown released a GMTK (gamedesign toolkits) video that match your game a bit lol. It's about detective mechanics in game. Also All I see in your GIF is a non existent Resident evil prompt to combine knife + towel to hide knife LMAO.

Interesting, i'll look into that. Not sure how to better convey "inventory" though. I can see what you mean though.
Time really flew by, hadnt noticed it had been so long since my last entry. Most of my progress went into my story editor though.

If it wasn’t that its not even V1 yet, this would totally be V2 worthy. Already started to face situations where I wanted to duplicate text & events. I already had copy paste but only for text and one at a time. Made it so everything can be copied and multiple elements in a group can be copied.
Also added Helper. Since I kept forgetting how each Event works in terms of
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/3f7865825ee7b1d8ed96636c0b2a6265/tumblr_inline_oxeylzBp2O1sm1x89_540.gif)

Characters now have colors associated with them. Originally was meant to be loadable  images, but colors are clean. Currently based on which element their index, I intend on allowing color selection.(not priority).

Iv’e added a cast predictor. According to text & events path it shows which characters are present in the talking group. I can manually set the cast, but for the most part it is done automatically. (just add everyone that will talk) However sometimes du the forks or addition & removal of people the present cast is not what would be wanted. In those cases the predictor can come in handy and allow me to manually fix it.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/2ce575da117b3d008636f2169d9d07d6/tumblr_inline_oxeyo8cOnd1sm1x89_540.png)

Added 2 new categories of Ressources: Backgrounds and locations.

Backgrounds are backdrops and CG, They can be added with an image. The image only serves as a preview though.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/a97ffaff45d234ed398bd608454fcce7/tumblr_inline_oxeys34G7q1sm1x89_540.png)

Locations are in reality a room equivalent. They store the size of the room as well as its background. This is only a story editor so theres no character or moving around involved. What it can do is give a visual representation of where I’m placing characters.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/98b28ee5c46156a64a0c5c59209a885b/tumblr_inline_oxeyv349H61sm1x89_540.png)

Using a screenshot of the room as background, I can accurately obtain the coordinates I wish to place the characters at.(instead of going in the game editor, finding the x,y go back to the editor and write them in.) This easily outputs a string that can be parsed by the game. (that was already there, but I had to write it manually and it quickly got annoying.)
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/030020b4a4bbee695879ee13825337d3/tumblr_inline_oxeyz1GhKz1sm1x89_540.gif)

Finally added Link flags. I had already implemented forking with flags (essentially variables) but I’d need to create each flag manually.  This is fine when speaking of flags that are recurrent, like the stats. Or even major event say “Witnessed Something”. But for say, having a simple acknowledgement of a previous statement that may or may not be encountered. Id need to set a flag “viewed_text_x=true” and check it in the other statement.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/bff52efe17186eb36c8a193be8cfb321/tumblr_inline_oxf05nzE2m1sm1x89_540.gif)

That’s what Link flags do, but they do it automatically. They create a flag, set it to true and checks it in the other statement. Since they are one time events I really don’t need to have them clutter the more important flags, or even know their names. Only the game does.

With this I hope to be able to make a much more personal choices sensitive narrative.

That looks complex, I'm not much of a programmer, programming interfaces scares me the most

Its actually quite refreshing to me, decent challenge, makes good use of theory I've learn and has quite concrete effect. It started that way but now I kind of want it to stay that way for challenge/aesthetic reasons but I made use of 0 sprite its all native shapes.

Project killer has been stale for a while, most features were implemented and now its mostly refining, polishing, fixing, improving already existing things. Not much to show but today I do!



The forgotten feature. Although Ive been working on this for a very long time now, I actually haven’t really gone through feature creep. You can go back to the first posts and everything was more or less already laid out. The  execution was just much harder and longer than expected.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/855c7c6df56dfd5422ad2f83b0117599/tumblr_oy6nvtVI1F1tjsbp3o1_1280.png)

Backlog was something that was always meant to be in, and kind of just got pushed back to later all the time. Hell, there was already a menu option (Journal) just waiting for it.
Well, I finally got around to do it. Fairly simple but Might be useful to players. I have it store the last 100 viewed texts.

(https://78.media.tumblr.com/9b87dad27ee75291f3d2e1da6384ef96/tumblr_oy6nvtVI1F1tjsbp3o2_1280.png)

Was supposed to to only be a menu option, but I added a “in-game” version for quick checks.

As a side note took this opportunity to create a “text seen” record for the ability to skip text in extra playthrough.

yay!

(https://78.media.tumblr.com/7b2fee612af12d90c070a3dc4c823671/tumblr_oyjxr6mmra1tjsbp3o2_1280.png)(https://78.media.tumblr.com/4b1cb98df2bbf4427920bacc9431aa1e/tumblr_oyjxr6mmra1tjsbp3o3_1280.png)
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/9455a5be374758499bddaa3c3cb5a872/tumblr_oyjxr6mmra1tjsbp3o4_1280.png)(https://78.media.tumblr.com/d1941706df1ea4e214893e32a5b1b1f2/tumblr_oyjxr6mmra1tjsbp3o5_1280.png)
Thought I’d show some mockups I’ve made, quite obviously not final. But i’ve been hating my current menus (last 2 pics) for a while and they have to go! They date from… Day 1? back before the first graphic overhaul.

Been a while, mostly working on story, so not much to show. Trying to make everything come together for a demo. (that you can expect in about a decade)

But it does require revisiting lots of features that were made a long time ago, and those are always a pain to work with. I also have to add features every time I realize, “I can’t do X” needed in the story, but that’s for another time.
Anyways

Got some evidence prompt
When you discover evidence, These tend to be representative of whatever text got dumped on you before-hand. They are used in Trials.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/7a5c960185cc51d1eddacec4febb1000/tumblr_p1fmmyfcsP1tjsbp3o2_1280.gif)

Observation notification
Another thing I rarely ever encounter are Observation notification. When using fast travel, If you see someone or something, It still gets logged in your notes. Used to show an ugly bubble with what was seen next to your head. Made it simpler and a little prompt let’s you know it happened.
Pressing P (pause) while it there will jump straight to the notes that were added.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/333ecac1e84ba8862bc5c9f33deb1c81/tumblr_p1fmmyfcsP1tjsbp3o1_1280.gif)

Happy murder arguing christmas!

The game is very interesting, at the moment I can't think of an another game were you are the murder and need to cover your tracks.  :)

posting to follow. looks great  :handknifeR:

Happy New year to all. 2018 lets GO!
I am very happy I did not have a murder arguing christmas, but thank you for the kind wish. It's been great.
Thank you! Covering up murder track is not too uncommon, stealth games tend to have that, although its more be discret & hide the bodies. But that still in the same line. Now mixing that with detective story/gameplay is probably much more uncommon. And I can say it is a pain. Very complex, very hard and thats mostly because generating text from player made action, is very hard. Doable with templates, but doesn't feel right.
And that's without considering AI, where you want the AI to notice stuff, figure stuff out, but If you make them too smart, they would always figure everything out.
Also you want the player to be active. It's quite possible that the "others" know stuff (that you also know), but if they always say it... they can auto-play the trial for you. (which used to happen)
Working all that out is my burden, and I hope it will be worth it  :)

Much appreciated, new following is always welcomed!

I've really been slowing down on updates, have had most features I planned done for a while so those update no longer occur, been working on story and that's spoiler land so nope.
So I just tought, If you have any aspect you are interested in learning about, just let me know. I certainly put a lot of time working on this game, I wouldn't mind sharing some of the thought that went behind it.

It's almost a decade, where is the demo?