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[Ramos]

[Placeholder for future devlog...]

[Placeholder for future comment on the future devblog...]

[oahda]

I keep telling myself "its just a Visual Novel, its not that hard, you should be further along!" but I'm trying to combat that urge and feeling. There is no such thing as a simple game, they all take work and time so I'm trying to be less pessimistic about progress.

Haha, yeah, it might be mechanically simple but making a visual novel involves, well, writing a novel, which itself is no mean feat!

[oldblood]

DEVLOG XXVI - 2022 in Review

Merry Christmas, TIGForums!

Anyone that's followed this devlog the last 16 months probably knows I tend to take a pessimistic outlook on my progression for this project, but I want to look back at this year and review what all was accomplished over the last 12 months, compared to my earlier devlogs in late 2021. Do I wish I was further along? Absolutely. Did I hope to already have a Steam page & teaser trailer live? Yes. Did I hope to have a public alpha by this point? Yes. But, overall, I can't complain about what was accomplished, despite us not being where I'd hoped we'd be at the end of the year.

Private Alpha Demo: I was able to share the alpha demo with a small group of 5 of 6 friends and devs. This is a really small starting group, so I had to take feedback with a grain of salt, but allowed me to get some early thoughts on what things were working (or not) before sharing it with a broader audience. That has proved very helpful as they were able to highlight a variety of fixes or small improvements that I could make and I generally think it has helped increase the quality of the first act before I move forward with a public alpha demo sometime in 2023. So while it wasn’t the public demo I wanted at the end of this year, I’m still pleased we got a demo out into some folks hands.

Environment & Character Art: Last year was the year of struggling to find an environment artist, and were super lucky to bring on Erel Matita in January. We've since gone on to complete a little over 70% of all the core environments this year. Now, as the project has grown, we may end up needing additional assets, but still really pleased with the overall progress. We also added Nora Potwora as a character artist midway through 2022 and that had a BIG impact on how many characters we were able to make. We've completed over 80% of the core character art pieces. Again, we may find that long-term we need to expand the amount of content (and there is a ton I would love to include but cannot for budgetary purposes) but a lot of the "Core" assets I believe we need were completed this year. Which is a big accomplishment.

Meet ‘Bauson’ – A Recruitable Friend

Animation: We’re also now about 70% of the way through both character and environment animations. For the most part we’re completing animations as the art is getting completed so—knock on wood—we haven’t really hit any big bottlenecks on this. Jaang Eimyoung has been leading the way on character animation and Arman Harutyunyan on environmental animations. I’m very lucky to have the two of them on this project as the animation continues to be one of the strongest elements in this project.

LARGE GIF WARNING – A New Environment “Mouth of the Warren”

Meet ‘Oakleaf’ – A Diplomat in Moonbriar

Writing & Development: This is one area where we are probably the most behind. We have the first act fully written and implemented, and have the remaining 3 acts outlined but we’re really only just now getting into fleshing out the 2nd Act with dialogue and prepping to implement it. I’m pretty happy with the quality of the writing, and we were forced to throw out a lot of the early writing in 2022 when we realized the story needed some significant changes. My hope is that we’ll be able to move faster here given that the foundation has been laid—and a year ago—that wasn’t really the case. But, it’s definitely been a lot slower in this regard than I expected. If there is a bottleneck, writing has been it. But, significant strides were made this year and early feedback from the private alpha demo seems to indicate the writing we have done is pretty solid. Hopefully that will remain the case as the broader audience gets exposed to it next year.

Haha, yeah, it might be mechanically simple but making a visual novel involves, well, writing a novel, which itself is no mean feat!

This was actually a great reminder, Prinsessa. I've done a decent amount of writing before so I should have not underestimated the level of effort needed to write the game, but I somehow have.

Music, SFX, & Voice Acting: We’re really only getting into this all now. I began Voice Over tests with maybe the hardest thing to voice: Children. There is a small flashback scene early in the game where we see two characters interacting as children. The best way to voice a child is—surprisingly—with a child. Of course, to make matters complicated, it’s also a fairly dramatic sequence so finding a professional voice acting child who can also act and display emotions proved to be quite the serious challenge for getting my feet wet with Voice Acting. I did end up getting the scenes cast and voiced and they turned out pretty well, but do also present some challenges with the children either not acting enough or occasionally over-acting. I was able to get the voice-acting in game with little issue but definitely found the first tests of casting and recording to be pretty challenging. I do believe that I likely should end up doing Voice Acting in the demo that releases next year. So I’m sort of anticipating this will be an expensive and time-consuming part of my Q1 2023. We shall see.

The SFX has been added throughout the game, both UI/UX as well as general nature ambience. While some of it is placeholder, others I feel have turned out pretty well and SFX as whole goes a long way in making the game feel more complete. Music is something I’m currently exploring some tests with, and hope to get that moving forward early into the new year as well.

***

Thank you to everyone who read and followed and commented on Moonbriar in 2022. Your encouragement, ideas, and support have been invaluable. Looking forward to what 2023 has in store for all of us. Merry Christmas!

[Ramos]

Merry Christmas to you too!

Beautiful entry and solid progress.

The art of creation is fantastic and the trip is almost as good as the destination

 

[oahda]

Happy Christmas to you Nice summary!

Some really pretty new pictures, and nice to get an angle facing the cave opening from the inside this time. The team is doing amazing. Looking forward to hearing some audio too.

I think your pace has seemed good so far anyway Best of luck for 2023!

[Alain]

In my eyes you made amazing progress! It is great to hear the private demo gave you the feedback you needed and I'm especially excited for news on the challenges of voice acting. Love the new art as always

[oldblood]

Thank you Alain, Prinsessa, and Ramos! Appreciate all the encouragement and feedback from each of you. Hope your 2023's are off to a great start.

DEVLOG XXVII - CHANGES TO TRAITS & LEVELS

I kicked off the New Year by replacing the existing system I had in place for Traits & Skills. In the initial build, the game rewards the player's decisions with points in Diplomacy, Strategy, or Willpower based on the style of play they adopt. The more consistent you in an area, the more of that score you will accumulate. This portion of the system I believe works well and helps the player not only feel rewarded with decisions, but also encourages them to keep their decisions consistent. These points could be used periodically with optional "Special Decisions" where the player could choose to spend the skills they've accumulated--much like a Resource--and in return get access to unique outcomes they couldn't otherwise achieve based on the decisions that they've made.

Overall, the system seemed to work and the handful of testers who've played the First Act never really complained about it. However, I've always felt that the system wasn't quite good and that innately developing a skill you have to spend/lose feels like an odd-way to level up a character. It essentially turns skills into a currency (which the game already has). Additionally, I found in the earliest tests that people tended to just save up the Skill points and never spent them. As such, the change I made is relatively simple, it now lets you keep and continue to build the skills you have, and instead presents the player with a special decision where their level in that skill is tested based on:

• How much of that skill you've accumulated.
• How good (or intelligent) the character is at the skill you're trying to leverage against them.
• How difficult the scenario is you're attempting to overcome.

Now, the game will now show you the odds or % of success you will have for each special decision, as well as what you stand to gain or lose by attempting to use this special decision. Essentially, performing a skill check with some RNG. Now, I think that RNG can be a good or a bad thing. It does add a certain element of "gamey-ness" that can be fun, but it can also feel punishing if its not positioned well. My hope is that this new system will never feel punishing because:

• You don't have to make the special decision. It's always an optional path.
• You can never "lose" the game by failing a Skill test. You just may lose something else or upset someone.
• You have a clear understanding of what you stand to Gain or Lose. So the risk you take is on you as the player.
• If you're good enough at any one skill, you may have 100% odds of success depending on the scenario.

New Skills system shows you what you stand to gain or lose on a Special Decision.

TLDR: My hope is that the new system will have a bit more of an 'RPG-Lite' feeling by turning these Skills into Levels that can be built up. But let me know your thoughts: Do you think this change is a good or bad idea?

While on the topic of 'RPG-Lite' narrative games, I have also finally gotten around to starting to replace the placeholder art for the Inventory Items that are in the first act of the game. While it is really just a small thing of replacing out some sprites, its usually the small things that really end up helping a project feel like its starting to come together so that was nice to see.

Profile Screen: Showcasing the new Inventory artwork. The player can also see their skills, maps, and journal.

IN OTHER NEWS--I'm finally starting to dabble a bit in music exploration, which is exciting. I've also cast the role of the Narrator for the game and I'm REALLY excited to share that with you all, but it's "hush hush" for now. But, teaser, it will be a pretty big reveal! Between the music, shoring up the first act of the game, and starting to get some narration work in, I'm hoping that a Teaser trailer will be on the horizon in the next month or two. We shall see. Slowly but surely plodding forward and more devlogs to come on each of these topics.

Thanks for reading and following along!

[oahda]

Lovely update! Everything introduced here seems good to me. Inventory screen and icons look good too. Are the white elements going to stay that way or be coloured in? Looking forward to hearing the narrator

[fall_ark]

Now, the game will now show you the odds or % of success you will have for each special decision, as well as what you stand to gain or lose by attempting to use this special decision. Essentially, performing a skill check with some RNG. Now, I think that RNG can be a good or a bad thing. It does add a certain element of "gamey-ness" that can be fun, but it can also feel punishing if its not positioned well. My hope is that this new system will never feel punishing because:

• You don't have to make the special decision. It's always an optional path.
• You can never "lose" the game by failing a Skill test. You just may lose something else or upset someone.
• You have a clear understanding of what you stand to Gain or Lose. So the risk you take is on you as the player.
• If you're good enough at any one skill, you may have 100% odds of success depending on the scenario.

New Skills system shows you what you stand to gain or lose on a Special Decision.

TLDR: My hope is that the new system will have a bit more of an 'RPG-Lite' feeling by turning these Skills into Levels that can be built up. But let me know your thoughts: Do you think this change is a good or bad idea?

Narrative-wise, it's easier to treat skills as tests instead of resources, so I would agree with the change.

The thing with percentage-based skill challenges with clearly laid-out outcomes in RPG games is that players tend to save-scum for the best or at least the good options. Unless you are super committed to a no-savescum style, such options will make basic options almost meaningless. Maybe throwing in some options that are not strictly good or give players extra things to work with? I think one of Disco Elysium's strongest points is that many skill-checks aren't strict "pass and win, fail and lose" situations, and that encourages players to just embrace what they want to do instead of worrying too much about risks and rewards.


On the opposite end, strict all-or-nothing skill checks often lead to needs of walkthroughs and min-maxing especially if the requirements get steadily higher, but decision-wise they would feel more concrete and impactful. Some games will give tiered options based on skill levels, and you don't necessarily gain the best rewards with the toughest options (e.g. maybe you gain more money but lose some relationship points/reputation etc., or even antagonize friendly characters into battles) I think those feel much more meaningful and interesting than simple bonuses.

Of course, all these usually require much more writing and related resources to implement, so in the end you have to decide whether it's worth this level of attention, but as a player that's my feelings towards this issue.

[Alain]

I already said this briefly on your Discord: I am really excited for the RPG elements in Moonbriar. I'll play your game no matter what, of course, but if I didn't know you and stumbled across the game, this would be the reason why I'd consider playing, because visual novels usually are not my genre.

[Ramos]

TLDR: My hope is that the new system will have a bit more of an 'RPG-Lite' feeling by turning these Skills into Levels that can be built up. But let me know your thoughts: Do you think this change is a good or bad idea?

I think this is a good addition to the game, an addition that brings a good depth foundation to the gameplay.

But I also think you must be really careful on your target audience, making too complex RPG mechanics may bring the risk of losing casual players.
But a perfect balance of these mechanics can bring you both casual and hardcore players.




So far from what I read the mechanics are just juicy enough to attract a certain amount of hardcore players and user friendly enough not to lose casual players. The path seems good

[oldblood]

Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone!

Are the white elements going to stay that way or be coloured in? Looking forward to hearing the narrator

A lot of the UI is placeholder--there is a chance it could stay if I dont have the time or resources to get around to re-doing it all, but yes, ideally it'll get replaced. Just farther down the to-do list right now. I assume you don't care for it? And yes, I'm VERY excited to talk about the narrator. 

The thing with percentage-based skill challenges with clearly laid-out outcomes in RPG games is that players tend to save-scum for the best or at least the good options. Unless you are super committed to a no-savescum style, such options will make basic options almost meaningless. Maybe throwing in some options that are not strictly good or give players extra things to work with? I think one of Disco Elysium's strongest points is that many skill-checks aren't strict "pass and win, fail and lose" situations, and that encourages players to just embrace what they want to do instead of worrying too much about risks and rewards.


On the opposite end, strict all-or-nothing skill checks often lead to needs of walkthroughs and min-maxing especially if the requirements get steadily higher, but decision-wise they would feel more concrete and impactful. Some games will give tiered options based on skill levels, and you don't necessarily gain the best rewards with the toughest options (e.g. maybe you gain more money but lose some relationship points/reputation etc., or even antagonize friendly characters into battles) I think those feel much more meaningful and interesting than simple bonuses.

Of course, all these usually require much more writing and related resources to implement, so in the end you have to decide whether it's worth this level of attention, but as a player that's my feelings towards this issue.

You always give such detailed and thoughtful responses, fall_ark. Thank you. Save scumming is an issue thats difficult to prevent if the player is really committed to never failing at anything. The game does auto-save at the end of every conversation. So you can't save pre-decision and then make your choice and re-load. But, you can hypothetically load to the last completed conversation and try again with a loss of progress (needing to travel back to where you were, have that same conversation again, and hope you pass it on the next go, etc). So its not like you can't save scum, its just that it wont be very fun to do it.

Disco Elysium is probably the pinnacle of a skill check fail being interesting and the player finding that failure interesting. Not sure I can compete with it, but I do try to ensure that the special decisions with skill checks don't really make or break your story. They allow you to maybe overcome something your previous decisions prevented you from doing--in which case you wouldnt have been able to go down that path anyways--or they present opportunities to gain or lose something while still continuing on the path you're on. Whether or not thats a good enough balance remains to be seen, but its how I'm trying to approach the special decisions.

I already said this briefly on your Discord: I am really excited for the RPG elements in Moonbriar. I'll play your game no matter what, of course, but if I didn't know you and stumbled across the game, this would be the reason why I'd consider playing, because visual novels usually are not my genre.

I appreciate the kinds words as always! Glad to see some of these other elements making it more interesting to you. They're definitely very rudimentary versions of these features in an "actual" RPG but my hope is that they're inclusion does spice it up a little bit. Honestly, these types of things are all becoming par for the course on narrative games. These days they all seem to require more than just reading and decisions.

But I also think you must be really careful on your target audience, making too complex RPG mechanics may bring the risk of losing casual players. But a perfect balance of these mechanics can bring you both casual and hardcore players.

Glad you're liking it! Agree its a tricky balance to strike, although these "RPG-Lite" features are really pretty rudimentary so I don't think there is any real risk of scaring off casual players as they're just too simple as-is. i.e. there may be like 12-20 total inventory pieces in the whole game, you're never juggling hundreds of inventory items or needing to get rid of items to store more, etc. and the Skills are all simple and just grow based on your decisions. You dont even pick which skills to grow, its decided as your decisions play out. But as you said, its a balance. Hopefully what I'm doing is working. Mostly, I'm more worried honestly about people wanting "more" RPG features but maybe I'm good as-is?

[oahda]

For what it's worth, personally I really appreciate it when a game allows me to play it my way, especially on repeat playthrus Savestates or the like really help encourage me to try more different paths when I don't have to replay so much just to experiment a bit, while being optional~

[oldblood]

DEVLOG XXVIII - CASTING FILM ACTORS

It's evident by now that this is really just a monthly devlog, as I haven't been doing a great job of consistently posting, but hopefully I'll be able to continue the monthly trend if nothing else. I'm slowly but surely making progress on a variety of fronts. I hinted in the last Devlog that we may have some exciting casting news so I figured I'd go ahead and start there this month. While we haven't officially announced this via Twitter, I'm beyond excited to share that Ralph Ineson will be cast in Moonbriar as the 'Narrator'.

You may know Ralph from some of his many film and television appearances. Recently, he played the titular character in A24's "The Green Knight", but he has also appeared in many films that I personally rank among my favorites of the last ten years, including "The Northman", "The Witch", as well as major television programs like "Game of Thrones", and "The Office" (UK) and too many other major franchises to name here. Besides from being an incredible film actor, Ralph has one of the most distinctive voices in the film world. He has been on my "wish list/dream casting" for this project from day one. Transparently, I didn't even know if he did voice work outside of film and television, or if he would be interested in the project. But, it turns out he does do stand-alone voice work, so late last year I reached out to the agency that represents Ralph and we were able to come to terms. The timing worked out well for him to already do some recording for the demo as he was between film shoots in January. We'll do more sessions later this year when the game and story are further along.

In short, I'm beyond thrilled it worked out. For budgetary reasons, I won't be able to cast many "Hollywood" actors or actresses in the game. But, in an attempt to lean into the "AAA Visual Novel" I've set out to make, I do think it would be great if I could privately cast 2-3 important roles in the game to lead the charge on voice-overs and then do open casting calls with the talented video game voice over community to fill the other 20+ roles that I'll eventually need to voice. Voice work is going to be a huge undertaking and budget concern for this project, but the more I've thought about it, the more I realize I will likely need voices in-game for this project.

Ralph Ineson as the 'Narrator'.

Remote recording for the Moonbriar demo.

More to come on private casting. I've got a call with another opportunity next week. In other news...

PUBLISHER REJECTION

Thus far, I've only met with a singular potential publisher for Moonbriar. We started talking in January and they were nice enough to review the pitchdeck and asked to play the demo. Earlier this week they passed on the project. While rejection from anyone is always a bit of a gut-punch, I wasn't holding too high of expectations for this particular publisher. They were incredible to work with and as part of the rejection they provided me a lot of excellent feedback on the project--both the good as well as areas that were points of concern. All-in-all, it was excellent to get some experience having these conversations and walk away with some things to consider or adjust.

Now, while I am interested in talking to a handful of publishers, this project isn't reliant on getting one. It will be made with or without a publisher. Adding a partner will alleviate a LOT of the personal risk I'm taking on with the project and will help ensure that the game is marketed to its fullest potential. They might also allow me to explore other parts of gamedev that just arent in my budget like cutscenes, localization, etc. So, I consider getting a publisher a "nice to have" rather than a necessity, which is great. It alleviates me feeling pressured to take any deals or feeling too low with rejection. The larger question (which I asked waaaay back in Devlog II) is the consideration of just how "niche" this game will be and whether that will prevent any potential partners from wanting to invest in the project. Mature, "AAA" Visual Novels aren't exactly cracking any Steam best seller lists. It will be interesting to see as I eventually reach out to a few other potential partners, though I likely won't do that for a little bit so I can make some adjustments to the demo.

Long-term, I'm not expecting any publisher deals will be made. I think the "niche" aspect of Moonbriar may prevent that. But either way, I'll keep you all posted as I talk to others.

BUYING AND SELLING

Another minor feature I've had on my radar for the last few months is implementing the ability to buy or sell items from your inventory with the local peddler, Mull. I felt that this would help enhance a few elements of the game. Adding in a little more of that "RPG-Lite" feeling, enhancing the use of currency in the game by allowing you to gain more or spend it, and potentially opening up new narrative paths in the story.

The largest challenge with this feature, as I soon discovered, is that while it may seem relatively straight-forward to implement, it can quickly create a lot of narrative holes. As I can now no longer assume that if the player has unlocked "X Inventory Item" that they still actually have it in their inventory. As they could have hypothetically sold it. Similarly, I can't assume that because they didnt do Y that they dont have a specific inventory item. As they could have potentially bought it from Mull before they even needed it. As you can imagine, that quickly broke a few story elements in the demo and forced me to have to adjust the story in different ways to accommodate the player (maybe) getting items early or losing items that they should have. Long-term, this feature may REALLY come back to bite me in the ass. And its going to add some narrative-complexity. A lot of complexity, honestly. However, I think it also adds something interesting in that it can give the player a "Get out of jail" card for their narrative choices. I.E. perhaps they need to acquire X item from Y character and then during that conversation, the player either makes poor choices or fails their skill checks and cannot get that item. Instead of being S.O.L. they could now hypothetically buy that item to keep that storyline open, but at a literal cost. This could also force them to have to sell other items to afford to pay for the item they need, etc. which could limit them from other narrative paths.

TLDR: I think while this will give me serious heart-burn long term, the narrative opportunities and choices it will open up for the player on what they do with their items will create some interesting and unique re-playability. We'll see if I come back to regret trying to implement this. And I just might.

Added functionality to support buying & selling of your inventory. WIP.

TEASER TRAILER & MUSIC

Starting to lay the groundwork for music in the game. At this stage, we've mostly just been exploring what sort of sound and musical style the game should have which can be a bit of a trial-and-error. It's always tricky as music is so subjective: what I enjoy, what the musician thinks will work, and what potential players may expect, are not always in alignment. To add additional complexity, music in Moonbriar will be tricky as we will need to find a balance between:

• Voice Over
• Ambient Environment SFX
• Background Music

This is easier said than done. You dont want to drown out or distract any element from another. But it will be a challenge for us to sort out as we go. Inline with exploring the music, we're also starting to explore a really simple teaser trailer. Trailers are REALLY HARD for Visual Novels. There is no catchy or exciting gameplay loop to showcase. To make it even harder, I also dont have the budget to make any art specific to selling a dramatic trailer right now. So I can only pull from some of the general visuals and characters that are in-game which means there isn't a lot of exciting visuals to show. In short, the teaser has to be more narrative focused around lore and the world, which is never as "exciting" of a trailer as a gameplay trailer, but its the best we can do at this time.

At the moment, we're trying to play around with some clips, some voice-over, and nail-down music that will match the clips and accent the voice work in the teaser. That's been a process, and I suspect it will take a good chunk of the next month for us to chip away at that. Long-term, getting a teaser trailer done is really about opening up the doors for me to get a Steam page live. A steam page means I can finally start directing people somewhere who are interested in the game and we can begin the very slow process of trying to build Wishlists. So while I don't feel all that ready to make a teaser right now, it feels like something that needs to happen. Ready or not.

THANKS FOR READING THIS LONG-ASS POST.

[oahda]

Hey, it's Jarl from the Merlin TV series! He's certainly got quite the voice. Well done! That'll surely help the trailer grab attention, despite your other worries. Hope you can put something cool together

Sorry about the publisher tho, but I'm glad they were constructive and that you don't feel reliant on one anyway.

Very interested in seeing what ends up happening with the problems surrounding the shop mechanic… Sounds very difficult

[Alain]

PUBLISHER REJECTION

Thus far, I've only met with a singular potential publisher for Moonbriar. We started talking in January and they were nice enough to review the pitchdeck and asked to play the demo. Earlier this week they passed on the project. While rejection from anyone is always a bit of a gut-punch, I wasn't holding too high of expectations for this particular publisher. They were incredible to work with and as part of the rejection they provided me a lot of excellent feedback on the project--both the good as well as areas that were points of concern. All-in-all, it was excellent to get some experience having these conversations and walk away with some things to consider or adjust.

Don't be discouraged, the rejection just means the game is not for them. It has to fit their budget, portfolio and timelines and you also need a bit of luck for everything to line up. As you say, the least you take away from these talks is always feedback. A handful of people who usually know what they are talking about play your game and provide you valuable input, so that is a win for you and the game

[oldblood]

Hey, it's Jarl from the Merlin TV series! He's certainly got quite the voice. Well done! That'll surely help the trailer grab attention, despite your other worries. Hope you can put something cool together

Sorry about the publisher tho, but I'm glad they were constructive and that you don't feel reliant on one anyway.

Very interested in seeing what ends up happening with the problems surrounding the shop mechanic… Sounds very difficult

Haha, the funny thing is every time someone recognizes Ralph is I hear something different. "He is from Merlin!" "Thats the guy from Harry Potter!" "I remember him in Game of Thrones..." "Pretty sure he was in Guardians of the Galaxy right?" etc. He's just one of those smaller B actors that does an incredible job and manages to end up in everything and we all think of him from different things.

Appreciate the sympathy on the rejection. Honestly, it was still a good experience. I had to spend some time on a pitch deck really considering the business aspects, they gave great feedback, etc. Hard to complain about that.

Don't be discouraged, the rejection just means the game is not for them. It has to fit their budget, portfolio and timelines and you also need a bit of luck for everything to line up. As you say, the least you take away from these talks is always feedback. A handful of people who usually know what they are talking about play your game and provide you valuable input, so that is a win for you and the game

That's very true, Alain. There is certainly an aspect of "Right place, right time" that plays into things aligning with their schedule, budget, portfolio, etc. They mentioned as much. Their largest concern was adding another "heavy on narrative, light on mechanics" game and cited two other games they're publishing that are similar and the importance of diversifying their portfolio of projects. All-in-all, it was definitely a win for the project.

[Alain]

That's very true, Alain. There is certainly an aspect of "Right place, right time" that plays into things aligning with their schedule, budget, portfolio, etc. They mentioned as much. Their largest concern was adding another "heavy on narrative, light on mechanics" game and cited two other games they're publishing that are similar and the importance of diversifying their portfolio of projects. All-in-all, it was definitely a win for the project.

I also once heard something like "this is a potential fit for us, but we have a game with a very similar style and would not want to bet on it twice, because we want all our games to be told apart easily". This is very understandable, but of course it does not matter to all publishers, because some build their whole identity on a single art style or, what matters more in your case, genre / mechanic.

[oldblood]

DEVLOG XXIX - ALPHA TESTING & STEAM SETUP

Another month, another Devlog. February wrapped up with more prep-work to the Alpha demo and beginning to share it out with other testers on a slightly broader scale (released out to around 10-12 testers from the 3-5 in the first round). This has proven to be pretty invaluable. While the demo build was fairly stable, I've been able to gather a lot of great feedback around:

• A decent number of bugs to squash.
• Feedback on what elements of the gameplay worked or were confusing.
• Some validation that the story is on the right track.

This last point in particular has been good to hear. Granted, this is for a relatively limited test audience, so we have to take any feedback with a grain of salt. But while some testers didn't care for certain features, or wanted to see other elements, we have gotten pretty unanimous feedback that the story was solid. In a Visual Novel, that really is the primary objective. When you've been writing for months, you can feel a little close to the work and it can be hard to know if you're on the right track anymore. So that was a nice boost of confidence that we're heading in a good direction.

Long-term: I am hoping by mid-Summer to launch a public demo. Meaning available via Steam (maybe initially via a small Festival) and also getting builds onto Itch.io and (maybe) Gamejolt. I had good success with my last game, Masochisia, having a public demo. Allowed me to get a lot of great feedback and gave the project some nice traction. Always scary. Especially as I've never done a demo on Steam so always nerve-wracking to think of your unfinished game becoming suddenly available to so many potential people and accidentally turning folks off to the project.

I am planning on moving forward with Voice Casting for the demo. While it's a risky move, I think it will really help elevate the eventual public demo for Act 1 and will hopefully drive some Wishlists and interest in the project. This will get pretty time-consuming for me over the next few months.

STEAM SETUP

I've made progress on getting the Steam page for Moonbriar built (still not live yet) but is getting closer to something resembling an actual store page. When will that be completed? TBD. Hopefully in the next month or so. Making progress with the teaser trailer, though that has been slower moving than I would have liked. But I'm hoping that this will be done by the end of March. That is one of the key items left on my To-Do checklist for a Steam page. As part of the setup process, I've also gone ahead and pushed the game builds pushed to Steam, and while that is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, it does always feel great to see your game playable from your Steam library. Somehow makes the whole project feel a bit more "real".

Playable via Steam.

Currently, I'm sending .exe builds out to testers but this will allow me to shift tests to Steam keys in the future, which will be easier for me and safer for any testers. I was also able to get Steamworks achievements connected to the Dialogue system I'm using so that custom commands (where parts of conversation or decisions can trigger achievements within Steam). Another small item, but something that also somehow feels more exciting than it probably should to actually get working.

Now to build some ACTUAL achievements.

Needs controller support. But playable on the SteamDeck.

IN OTHER NEWS
While adjusting and tweaking Act One of the game has been a huge focus, we are still chipping away at the rest of the game and story. Made some significant headway on writing prep and writing, as well as creating the artwork and animations for characters and environments beyond Act 1. Looking ahead to April, hoping that we will have made big strides in getting the majority of environments created and shifting over to alternates of some of those locations. There's a handful of characters left to create as well and animate, but we're in a pretty solid place on "core" art assets at this point. Plenty of others I would like to do (and anticipating that as the story and writing gets fleshed out and implemented we'll find out we need more art). But trying to cognizant of the costs associated with this work.

As mentioned, I'll also be shifting a lot of focus in April to prepping VO scripts for Act One, casting calls, and trying to get some portions recorded. That and getting the Steam page ready to be published (or just outright published). Still a long ways from launch, but it'll be great to be able to start directing folks somewhere to follow or wishlist if they're interested in the project.

As always, thanks for reading my Diary.

[Alain]

Awesome, this is some great progress! I am excited for the Steam page to launch and see your artwork for it, I'm sure it is going to be great