[really]

To be honest, I got really hyped scrolling through your research photos, to see how you would accomplish something similar in ASCII. But the result was kind of a letdown--which is extremely understandable, due to the insane restrictions you're working with. I guess the impressiveness of other pieces you've shared just set me up to expect my mind blown.

That's just my reaction, FWIW.

At least he gets to discover what the tentacle is actually attached to! That's... that's a good thing, right?

In a Lovecraftian world, knowledge and discovery are never a good thing. 

That animation is looking pretty great! Wouldn't mind hearing more about how you made it.

A peculiar stone found in the wooded hills of Vermont. Its hieroglyphics don't seem to belong to any human language.  

Yeah, that system is less confusing, and would convey the concept that "3-dimensionality isn't really a thing here."

Also @JobLeonard, I rented and watched The Adventures of Prince Achmed. That animation is fantastic! Thanks for posting.

[Progress Update #40 (July 16-17)]

Progress Update #40 (July 16-17)

I just finished implementing overhauled content for chapters 7 and 8. There are 2 pieces of placeholder art still in there, but it'll take 2 seconds to replace them with Quincy's final work when it's ready. I'm going to declare the game ready to be seen by beta players. For having the game (99.9999%) content-complete, I'm gonna bump the progress up to 80%. It'll be 90% when I have all the bugs and other issues from beta testing sorted out, and 100% after the English version launches on Steam.

Still, there's quite a bit of work left to make sure the beta process will be efficient. I might not actually start the beta tomorrow, if it takes too long for me to implement the QA features that are still missing (log saving, comprehensive error checks, etc). Not to mention I still have to do release builds on all 3 platforms and put them on Steam for testing. So, realistically, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'll gonna start by sending it out to a few friends and family, and then depending on how many problems they find, assess whether I'll need to start seeking more testers. It's just a walking simulator, right?

And because I keep promising pictures, here's one of Quincy's revised pieces:



There's a few others, but I'll spread those out over future updates.

That's looking fantastic.

Is the sword really in the player's left hand, though, or is it in their right hand? We can see the character portrait, but if the portrait is facing us (impossible to tell in this case, but in any other game, they would be) then you have the hands reversed.

I'm super down with the art, the fem protagonist, and the concept of Metroidvanias for mobile. I'll be following!

For me, good horror taps into the truly uncomfortable truths about life, in a way that sticks with you. (I'm making a Lovecraftian game so I'll use Lovecraft as an example.) The scary thing about Lovecraft's fiction isn't the giant tentacled monster that can't be stopped. It's the idea that humans don't and never will fully understand the universe, that our place in it is a random and borrowed one, without any larger significance than that which we create in our own minds. Mythos monsters represent how the giant, terrifying forces at work in the universe (like entropy), don't know or care about humans, and will do what they do, shaping and destroying our lives, like the functioning of an infinitely complex machine that can't be stopped or controlled.

That's probably what scares me the most, and that's one reason why I find The Wire much scarier than a lot of actual horror.

As for Harlequin babies:

The skin normally forms a protective barrier between the body and its surrounding environment. The skin abnormalities associated with harlequin ichthyosis disrupt this barrier, making it more difficult for affected infants to control water loss, regulate their body temperature, and fight infections. Infants with harlequin ichthyosis often experience an excessive loss of fluids (dehydration) and develop life-threatening infections in the first few weeks of life. It used to be very rare for affected infants to survive the newborn period. However, with intensive medical support and improved treatment, people with this disorder now have a better chance of living into childhood and adolescence.

If I were going to use this disorder in a horror game, I would avoid having Harlequin Babies be another scary monster that attacks the player. It'd be kind of disrespectful to turn an unfortunate condition (which might have been a tragedy in one of your players' lives) into part of a horrifying freakshow. Rather, in keeping with how I feel about the world's random meaninglessness, I might include Harlequin Ichthyosis as part of the game's backstory--a more realistic portrayal of parents being shocked and made miserable by the loss of a child to the disorder. That would be more respectful to the condition, while still working it into part of a larger theme of horror in the universe.

A pseudo-medieval world is not a proper frame for truly exploring themes of, for example, sexuality, for it lacks 1) a proper concept of sexuality, 2) an actual idea of societal progress and 3) a clear ideological dominant, which would be the place where values come from. All you can do in a static, societally unstructured world is give out-of-place shoutouts to present day communities for cheap popularity (“this is exactly my sexual orientation, how did they know?!”).

I like this point. I don't think I've ever thought about that--like how rape in Game of Thrones is used more for shock value than meaningful commentary. Since they're writing in a fantasy world, they can't explore how modern society treats rape, because characters and institutions very seldom react to it in any significant way, which isn't true at all in the real world. Is that kind of what you're getting at?

As for whether pseudo-medieval RPGs are really exploring themes of sexuality, I think it's important to note that maybe they don't need to. As a player with a sexuality outside of the societal norm, I don't want every game or story to be about what sexuality means and how it works. Oftentimes I would just like to see the game allow me to express my sexuality how I want to, devoid of commentary at all. In some cases it's more progressive to just allow those sexualities to exist outside of any reason or deeper theme, if that makes sense.

[Progress Update #39 (July 3-15)]

Progress Update #39 (July 3-15)

So it's July 15, the day I said I wanted the game beta-ready! It's not, but the deadline still worked wonders for my discipline. One of my goals is to treat self-imposed deadlines with as much (or more respect) as I treat the deadlines other people and organizations set for me. To give an example, I still made time this week to hang out and play games with my friends, but I set a specific time for myself to leave and get back to work. When my friend told me to stay longer, and asked "Don't you make your own schedule?" I responded "Yes, and that's exactly why I have to stick to it." Because to me, working for myself isn't the same as working free from structure or obligations. It's hard to stay motivated and productive without a boss, and keeping semi-rigid structure with goals and deadlines, helps me.

So I managed to do a terrifying amount of work since the last progress update. Much of it, I won't discuss in detail because it has to do with overhauling the game's story, and I don't want to spoil much, because the story is the whole point. Plus, there's so much of it that I won't have time to focus on explaining my choices until I'm done crunching on the beta build.

So here's the basic list of things I got done. If any specific part is interesting, let me know, and when things calm down I'll try and come back to these points and discuss the cool intricacies.

• Added the ability for dialogue frames to be defined inside of ASCII art files, such as Wilmarth's open journal encoding the frames for its own pages, and Wilmarth's laptop specifying the frame for text on the screen. This is better than having to carefully change hard-coded coordinates in separate script files if I ever want to change these sprites and the size or position of their frames.
• I went through several iterations trying to make message dialogs' sound effects stop right when their text finishes scrolling, instead of finishing the next loop. So now, when Wilmarth stops writing a paragraph in his journal, the pen scribbling sounds fade out instantly, and it never sounds like he's writing when he's not. I'm happy with the method I settled on for doing this.
• Hid access to the Spanish version. Marc and I agreed it'll be best to support only English at launch, so that we'll have time to work together on Spanish marketing and testing before releasing in Spanish.
• Finished removing (hopefully) all of the outdated/offensive references to gender, race and culture
• Lots of little tweaks and improvements to the dialogue system, solving problems such as accidentally skipping dialogue, allowing for multiple pages of dialogue in newspaper scenes, etc.
• Totally remodeled the last ASCII location in the game. Lots to say about that process, I'll probably make a post for it.
• Added a feature for beta testing: the player can press "Q" at any time to leave a mark in the game log at that moment. So, when trying to explain when and where something went wrong, testers can send me the log and say "I pressed Q during this scene," and I can look at that specific location for a problem. (Kind of like screenshots, but more specific.)
• Removed references to a tape cassette, so the game can now be set in 2016.
• Did the necessary refactoring to let the player open the Options Menu without exiting the current chapter.
• Fully overhauled chapters 2-6, and most of chapter 7.

I'm really proud with how close I came to meeting the deadline completely, but I'm also impressed with a few decisions I made in the way of acknowledging when I needed a break to take care of myself. Theoretically, I probably could have finished the beta build, but it wouldn't have been responsible in the long term, where I would have incurred too much strain on my mental health and overall wellness.

So, as I expected I'd have to, I'm extending the deadline for the beta build until Monday. Then, I'll be sending out beta keys to the first couple of testers. If anyone here wants to help playtest the game, just respond in this thread, or send me an email. And please just link to one of your games, or a blog or devlog that proves you're actually a gamedev.

Thanks for reading!

I can't believe I hadn't seen this one already. It looks absolutely incredible, exactly the kind of game I want to play/make/read about! The dev log is awesome--I really enjoyed seeing the evolution of the concept art, although the techniques used went right over my head as a programmer. And as I also write my own games, the post on your writing process was excellent as well. Keep up the good work! I want to see this succeed so badly. 

The aesthetics are pretty stunning.

Wow. I agree with Ashton. Some Devlogs really shine! I personally love the camera focus element. Having the blurred distance = 

I'm not really a graphics person and I wouldn't have noticed that for myself, but now that I see it, I can tell that it adds a lot to the feel of things! Little details like that are awesome.

As for the gameplay, I'm interested to see how you design the puzzles! My one issue with Monument Valley (although it's been a long time, so maybe I'm mis-remembering) is that the puzzles were too focused on trial and error, and that by the end of it, it was starting to get boring. That would be something you should look out for, and avoid.

I read the story in Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Volume 2. Which I actually picked up from a free library box (take a book, leave a book) in my neighborhood.

For me, Google turns up a document containing the story here (published by some university and just available for download, maybe with questionable legality).

Checking this out because of our conversation over here. Looks weird and totally awesome. Hopefully I can find time to play the demo when I get back to my Windows PC. 

IMO if I'm going to portray violence against realistic living beings I'm going to portray it as ugly and frightening, regardless of why the story says it's happening. Like, in Lonely Star, if you want to kill and eat an animal, you have to bleed and skin and clean and dismember it. I hope that it'll make people consider what they're doing, but maybe it'll just become routine to them. Although even that would be true to life, I guess.

That's really awesome. Do you have a devlog?

This might be obvious but I think Undertale is a fantastic example of a recent game to subvert player expectations about violence and treat it with the honest gravity it deserves.

There's one more interesting thing I forgot to mention in the last post. While thinking about how to include the possible 9th planet in my game, I realized there would be a contradiction in the game's timeline if I try to reference the actual papers.

The problem is that I've placed the game somewhere vaguely in the early 2000's. So, at the time the story takes place in, scientists would likely still consider Pluto a full-fledged planet, and the possibility of a different 9th planet wouldn't be put forward for another 16 years or so. Part of the original story is that the main character is frightened when he reads about Pluto's discovery, because he knows this was part of a plan by the Mi-Go. In my version, if I want the same thing to happen, I would have to re-position the events of the story in 2016. This might not be such a bad idea, but it will have other consequences I need to consider--for instance, that one major object in the story is a tape cassette, and this would be very out of place in our year.

I might go through with this big change, because I love the idea of making direct reference to the real study. One of Lovecraft's signature techniques is referencing real books and authors at the same time as fake ones, confusing readers and blurring the line between fact and fiction. This could be a cool instance of that.

I just read a short story that made me think of your game: "Blind Alley" by Isaac Asimov. Have you read it? If not, you should! I think it would make for some good inspiration.

[Progress Update #38 (June 30-July 2)]

Thanks, Jordan! Comments like that are great to hear.

Progress Update #38 (June 30-July 2)

Marc showed Chapter 1 to his professors and got his final grade on the translation project. YUSS. Since Marc's project only covered an in-progress version of the revised game dialogue, he'll still have to translate the revisions I make until I'm satisfied with the story and writing as a final product. Luckily, he's still happy to stick with the project and help out with that. Thanks, Marc!

I started outlining exactly which plot changes and other modifications I'm going to make to each chapter before I call things good. This is extremely helpful in terms of contextualizing how much work is really left. Which brings me to the next order of business:

So far in the project, it's been good for me to set concrete expectations for when work needs to get done on the game. If I'm going to release on Lovecraft's birthday (August 20th), It's time for a new deadline. In order to leave time for sufficient playtesting and proofreading, as well as the Steam certification and release process, plus writing a massive amount of press emails, I need to have a beta build done really soon. For now, I'm saying July 15. This deadline is probably a bit unrealistic--although honestly, it feels doable with the right amount of crunch--which is why it still leaves a bit of wiggle room as far of the rest of the release process.

The fact that I'm close enough to finishing the game to be actually planning for beta testing, feels amazing. I've been holding off on marking 70% completion on this thread for quite a while, because I would rather overestimate the amount of work left than underestimate. But now it feels like time.

Today I spent a good few hours hacking away at the script for Chapter 2, and I can say that I'm very proud of how improved it looks. I got into a groove where writing and coming up with ideas felt amazingly fun. One of the best feelings in a project.

I'm not going to share any of the new dialogue just yet, because I'm not sure if I want to spoil it for those who might play. Maybe some snippets later on.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not officially announcing an August 20 release date. That's just a target I'd like to hit.

[Progress Update #37 (June 29)]

Progress Update #37 (June 29)

In my post yesterday, I forgot to mention some of the research I've been doing. After reading a fair bit of Burleson's H.P. Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe, I decided that his method of textual analysis was too abstract and convoluted to be useful to me as inspiration, so I returned it to the library.

After writing yesterday's update, I had a really long chunk of time sitting in a car, which I took advantage of by forcing myself to read the rest of the dissertation I first mentioned when I started doing serious research ("H.P. Lovecraft and the Modernist Grotesque" by Sean Elliot Martin). It was full of inspiring connections and observations, especially one section that analyzed the characters in "The Whisperer in Darkness," helping me realize what my adapted writing lacks in terms of characterization. Plus, the dissertation mentioned a few stories I haven't read yet, making me add them to my research reading list.

I finished with the anthology of comic adaptations. At least one of them really impressed me with the art style they took--I think it was Shane Ivan Oakley's art for "The Haunter of the Dark" but my memory is fuzzy for some reason.

I think that sums it up. The rest of my reading/research list looks like this now:

• "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (Lovecraft)
• "The Shadow out of Time" (Lovecraft)
• Supernatural Horror in Literature (Lovecraft's own thoughts and analysis on supernatural horror!)
• H.P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West (S.T. Joshi)
• Research camera disruption technology
• Research nanotechnology
• Research the possible (new) 9th planet of the solar system

The purpose of the first four research items is to keep strengthening my understanding of Lovecraft's style, themes and ideals. The last 3 are for finding ways to adapt Lovecraft's sci-fi concepts into current scientific knowledge. Specifically, "The Whisperer in Darkness" features aliens that cannot be photographed (originally because of the "vibration rate" of the electrons composing their matter (total bogus)). The solution I'm currently considering is that they've actually incorporated nanotechnology (or some advanced mechanism) into their skin, which detects humans' cameras when they shoot a picture, and employs a burst of electromagnetism or somesuch to prevent any kind of photographic evidence.

I'm researching the ninth planet because in the original story, Lovecraft's alien Mi-Go visit earth from the planet Yuggoth (a.k.a. Pluto, and not actually a planet--which violates scientific believability because we have images of Pluto's surface, which is not, in fact, composed of remarkable black stone, magnificent spires and alien architecture). To make this adaptation more believable, I need a location for Yuggoth that scientists haven't actually explored enough to disprove the possibility. The possible existence of another ninth planet is almost too good to be true, because the original story was published at a time when Pluto had just recently been discovered, playing off scientific curiosity and fear of the unknown. To have almost the exact same scientific occurrence happening right as I release the game, playing off it just like Lovecraft did, would be an incredible coincidence. So, fingers crossed on that one. (I haven't done really any research at all yet as to whether the 9th planet would make a plausible homeworld for the Mi-Go. Could still turn out to be totally unworkable.)

[Progress Update #36 (June 17-28)]

Progress Update #36 (June 17-28)

I implemented some fixes and new features to handle Marc's translated text for chapter 1 requiring more space than the English version in some places. After that, the only things needed for the demo were to disable save files (to avoid issues with file permissions on the school computer he'd be presenting on) and to fix a few last bugs and typos.

Marc should be presenting the demo today, so we'll see how that goes!

I also added a few more error checks and log print-outs, along with finally finishing implementing the blinking text cursor that appears in scenes where the player is typing on a laptop. Quincy started working on art revisions after her classes ended, and I made it possible in release mode for the player to speed up dialogue by holding down any button.

That's all for now! I've been taking a break since Thursday when I had college orientation, and following that, vacation in Monterey to celebrate my grandparents' 50th anniversary. I've got a bit more time to work today, and hopefully tomorrow I can jump back into my daily schedule.

Thanks for reading! (Sorry for the total lack of screenshots lately... next time I promise some pictures!)