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[gimymblert]

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.

[Joh]

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.

[gimymblert]

Snap!

[Joh]

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

-Entry 54-
New Skill Amnesia

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.


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.

[Joh]

Been quite a while, here a small update.

-Entry 55-
Le Fast forward

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.



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

[gimymblert]

I still can't adapt to the wrap around lol

[wizered67]

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.

[Joh]

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.

-Entry 56-
New text box

very little thing i did a while ago:

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.

[Joh]

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:

-Entry 57-
Cast choice

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.



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.
 

[Joh]

-Entry 58-
In Story Semi control

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.



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

[Joh]

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.

-Entry 59-
Second floor

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.

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.


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.

Time passing?!?

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.

[wizered67]

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

[gimymblert]

I'm cool with the game as long this exact pixel art graphic stay somewhere:

Don't want any artist fucking it up 

[Joh]

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

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.

I'm cool with the game as long this exact pixel art graphic stay somewhere:

Don't want any artist fucking it up 

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!

[gimymblert]

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!

[Joh]

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?!

[gimymblert]

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!

[Smerik]

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?!

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!

[Joh]

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?!

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.

[rj]

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.