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[Joh]

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

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?

[gimymblert]

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?

[wizered67]

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

[Joh]

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

Thanks! Always good to know poeple are still checking in.

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?

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.

-Entry 40-
Talking control

(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.

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!

[Joh]

-Entry 41-
Game Jam & update

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

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.

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.

[gimymblert]

not 5 thks k bye

[Joh]

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.

-Entry 42-
Trial update.

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.


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)

[gimymblert]

I don't know what style you will go with at the end but keep that in the game


Perfect psycho face

[Joh]

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
Hopefully no more problem arise!

[gimymblert]

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.

[Joh]

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!

-Entry 43-
Objection on you!

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.

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)

[gimymblert]

pic don't work

[Joh]

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)

[gimymblert]

Still promising

[Joh]

Thanks! time to pick up the pace!

-Entry 44-
Back to basics… the travelling and memory collecting.

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!

[gimymblert]

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

[Joh]

-Entry 45-
Multi-location and double lying fixed!

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.

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!

[Joh]

Happy New Year everyone!

Let's start with a little update!

-Entry 46-
More Control!

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.


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!

[gimymblert]

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

[Joh]

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

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!