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[Canned Turkey]

Posting here to show some progress being made, still writing the story and stuff.
I changed the color scheme and added new trees, and the state system is finally done.
The buildings in town central are finished, I will add outdoor decorations though.
what's left of the exteriors is town south, the manor, the plum farm, and the woods.

[Canned Turkey]

Well.

I can't fracking believe that it actually took me two months
(actually like a week but I spent a lot of days being too busy/tired and not working on my lovely game),
but the exterior of the town is finished.
(Besides some moving feature in town central in that empty bit to make it not so static of a scene, maybe a fountain or something idk yet but that's literally the last thing to add outside.)
Here is the whole town!

MANOR ~ TOWN CENTRAL ~ TOWN SOUTH




THE FARM ~ FARM FIELD



THE WOODS



As an update, I now have a character artist for because I am not super good at drawing expressive faces.
There will be updates on the characters bios and portraits when those are done being converted to pixel art.

Have a good month and a half *kidding*
I will try and update more often. Keep care in the meantime...

[flex$]

suuuuuper clean! love the UI work and world you're building, i can tell how much personality and soul is here. keep it up

[utkiupe]

Nice job ! Happy to see some progress.

just a quick note about the names on the boards:
boulangerie de cerisier doesn't seem very correct
I would better write Boulangerie du cerisier, or boulangerie des cerisiers (plural)
café de boisson should rather be café de la boisson maybe
or maybe something more fancy

Another note on the art itself: I am not sure about the perspective of some buildings. If the manor is the reference perspective then there is some inconstancy between buildings that creates something weird. Maybe it's intentional. Just saying

[Canned Turkey]

@flex$
Thank you for your appreciation, I am proud of the work so far.

@utkiupe
Right now, the french is only placeholder. I will make sure to correct any errors in the grammar and spelling before publishing!
About the perspective, the manor was drawn before the other buildings and I had only established consistency a bit afterwards, so it does look slightly odd, but I will leave it for now since it looks fine when the screen is focused in that room. During the game you won't see that building next to the others on the same screen.

Today has been 366 days since starting this devlog, and I have to say I am surprised at how busy I have been with other things and how little work I have done compared to my plans. Since the last post, I have added more to the actual story script, updated portraits with emotions (Hand drawn by the beautiful and smart Isabella Liddle), added the final piece to the over-world (the fountain), and drawn some backgrounds.

Sitting at a comfortable 10% finished means at this pace I will be done with this game in around 7-10 years. I am aiming to be finished by the end of this year, which means that around july 3rd I will be graduated from culinary school and grinding every day at this. Until then, the updates will stay mostly small so you all at least know I am alive and well!

[Zaphos]

wow, this looks lovely

[nathy after dark]

Oh my God, I can totally relate to that moment where you realize a whole year has gone by and the project has moved almost not at all. I so hope I'm not working on my game for the next 7-10 years but I easily could be. 

[rj]

lovin it

[utkiupe]

nice, keep it up

[Canned Turkey]

Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Yikes.
Well finishing school alongside getting a full time job really kept me away from this.
I procrastinated and put it off which sucks because being an 'indie dev' means a lot to me.
But I'm back on this now and making progress.
I've contacted a writer in the hopes of either a more professional eye finishing my story, or starting their own,
so the story is still up in the air right now. Don't worry though, I have something to show.





Pierre's portraits are done, that makes 2/13 characters finalized, but Isabella has drawn more for me to scan and trace for the next update.

Also, the options menu and saving and control systems are completely done!
All the technical stuff is totally completed, whats left is writing, drawing, and implementing both.
Still a ton of work, but I am done with the strictly programming side of things now, which has been a lot of progress.

I hope you all can understand that although the going is slow, it's more because of outside issues than with the game.
This game is my commitment to a new development work ethic, no more idea projects or setting the goal past my ability.
I love this game and no matter what it takes I am going to finish this one, I know I have the ability to do it;
I haven't planned myself into any corners with mechanics I can't implement, or worked on the wrong parts first.

Stay tuned for more progress more often that before, I am going to work on interior art and music in the following months.

[Zaphos]

this continues to look great -- good luck!

[Canned Turkey]

Hello all. I know it's been a couple years. Life has been difficult to balance with gamedev for a while, and for my own sake I had dropped it. Now, I have come back to start making progress. Here's some interiors.

Inspectors office


Cafe


Cafe Upstairs


Bakery


Pierre & Jean-Luc's House


Farm House


Enzo's House


Town Hall (Courtroom scene possible, ace attorney reference imminent)


Tech wise, I have redesigned the clue system to work with flags for each clue having been found instead of a state for the whole game, allowing for multiple branches of investigation at once. Literally all the programming (besides a cut-scene system if I end up wanting one, idk) is done. Saving, loading, inventory, story progression, etc.) I need to keep drawing, once the props and characters are done, it's on to writing the dialogue and conversations.

[oahda]

Welcome back! I'm new to this devlog, but I love the look and premise of it. Best of luck progressing from here on out.

[Canned Turkey]

Good lord above I am getting somewhere. The whole town, exterior and interior, including the manor, is finished.
The rest of the drawing left is the characters, of which I still have 11 to do but that won't be too long.

Video of walking through whole town. Gif too large to insert.

Also, I implemented a very easy to use cutscene system that lets me move characters around between dialog, I will show that off in the next update along with the first few characters and the beginnings of the story. I noticed I never gave a story update. The story is written and finished, I had hired Lee Williams last year and he wrote a really wonderful outline for me, my best guess right now is the game will be 2-3 hours long but I will try and flesh it out as much as possible.

Pierre's brother, Jean-Luc

[ProgramGamer]

Oh hey, this game has a devlog! Posting to follow, obviously

[JobLeonard]

Welcome back! I'm new to this devlog, but I love the look and premise of it. Best of luck progressing from here on out.

Prinsessa said! Following

[Canned Turkey]

@ProgramGamer @JobLeonard @Prinsessa
Thank you all for your support <3

I made a preview cutscene to show how the flow of conversations will look.

[michaelplzno]

Here's my feedback video of an early prototype. This game seems great so far!

(SPOILER ALERT!)

[Canned Turkey]

Thanks for the comments Michael. I am glad to see that everything was legible and fun to play. I will be fixing the few UI issues you had because of course user experience can always be made easier. You mentioned it seemed very polished and guessed correctly that there is a point where the playable part just stops. There is about 10-15 minutes more after where the video cuts off, and some optional stuff in the town as well. I think that intro will be the first act roughly. Which means I have the rising action and then the finale to implement.

I have it written as a beat by beat synopsis so I know what will happen, I just need to actually script the cutscenes and write the dialogue. So fingers crossed I will be working on it all as the pandemic fades (fingers crossed) and my life exits this gross in-between stage of not really knowing my purpose. I have flip flopped for years on "being an indie dev" and this game has helped me see that sometimes it's more about what you learn making the game than anything else.

I'm glad you brought up it being a chill experience because that is definitely what I'm going for, I want to challenge myself to make the conflict very normal and based on the drama of the town. As the mystery unfolds you'll learn a bit more about the history of the Duveteux family and the other townspeople. There's no way I don't finish it by the end of next year but my goal was to try and get it done this year. So we will see. Most likely it will come out in the spring or early summer after I get adjusted to some sort of schedule with my new job.

[michaelplzno]

I do think that the music makes it even more lighthearted, I really like the way its scored, and the notes for the dialogue are soothing too. Again: Great work!