Devlog #2
Bloody Detective Progress Intro
Yo! It's been a little since my last update, but I am happy to say that after looking into some tutorials for Godot and Dialogic 2.0, I got some working dialogue branches that work. All I gotta do is tighten up character interactions and continue at the pace I am at. However, I ran into a slight problem that I will mention later in this post.
Spritework Placeholders and Dialogic
Right now, I finished the placeholder sprites and currently am trying to wrap my head around the dialogic events, but today I had to take a day long break both for my own sanity and just to have fun playing Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. Though, making Belamy's (the drab-looking guy in the screenie) sprites was a pain cause I am stuck using Medibang for my art, and in it, there is no proper symmetry ruler. They have a symmetry pen, but I absolutely hate it so much... I am used to drawing on my phone with Ibis Paint X, but months back, I switched to drawing on my computer, and it had been an adjustment. I am glad that most of my art is of higher quality and outside Ibis, but dealing with the limitations of making sprite work on Medibang was a trip.
As mentioned, I am currently cleaning up dialogue and trying to tidy things up because there is a possibility I may get a small demo out to get feedback and to show my friends and potential players the game concept. Of course, there is a lot to change, like the backgrounds and textbox design. I also want to include cutscenes for certain interactions you do, as well as the use of certain paths affecting others. I don't know how to explain it well, but just know that if you ask a character a certain question, new choices may crop up for other characters. I just know it will require a lot of variables and potential signals that need to be in place, but I hope this potential demo will be good enough. I am trying to take it easy as I make the game, so I will update you all when the demo release date is.
The problem
Ever since developing, my brain has been running with ideas for other cool games. Maybe after I finish Bloody Detective, I could do these projects when I do have time. I just don't want feature creep to kick my butt right now, so I will only be focusing on making Bloody Detective, so I will just list these ideas to come back to later if I do look at this devlog after finishing it. BD is supposed to be a one-and-done deal that is easy to consume and enjoy, and these projects in my noggin are too expansive for me to tackle right now as a baby developer.
Random ideas
Castlevania fan game with original characters- Lately, I have been binge-consuming Castlevania content, and I sorta blame the fact I watched the Netflix adaption when it was released years ago. Now I am about to turn twenty thanks to my birthday coming up in like two weeks and now I managed to watch video essays on the games, played Symphony of the Night on an online emulator, and I got Harmony of Dissonance for my gameboy advance as an early birthday gift. I had to see what the source material was about and I don't regret this sudden fixation I have cause it at least is inspiring me to make a fan game to try to sorta capture the vibes in my own way. My only exposure to Metroidvanias at the time was Hollow Knight, which I adore to bits and pieces, so playing the games it was inspired by felt super enlightening. Heck, I already have concepts of this game even before Bloody Detective and I chose to make this VN as a bite sized project to get a feel for game deving, but of course a VN is way different to a Metroidvania. We'll just have to see and maybe when asked I could share the story and art I made of it so far cause I already even make a mock-up poster that wasn't even finished. The image shown below is just me brainrotting and trying to emulate Symphony of the Night's pixel art style, but it could only go so far when your oc is a mage who wears a cloak.
Identity V fangame for silly oc x canon cringe- This is WAYYYYY too long of a story, and despite IDV having millions of players, it's still sorta that one game people either don't know or heard of out the blue due to their insane collaborations. I have this fanfic-y oc x canon thing based on one of the game's limited essence story [basically, they're gachas with special theming that is connected to each character], and the Man in Red essence is stuck in my brain. I can't tell if it's the fact I fell in love with the design of Naib's limited S tier, or the story being so interesting with an eldritch cult leader in some sort of purgatory world, but either way, I ate that up, and I made an oc to kiss him. I hate to admit I wrote about it and posted it on my Tumblr, but hey, I am cringe and free, and I don't mind it at all. The story ain't finished, so when I do finish I might turn it into a game.
Black Butler mixed with Ace Attorney, Danganronpa(?), and Horror- On the topic of cringe, I still love Black Butler despite the glaring flaws, and I mainly follow the current Manga rather than care about the anime (We do not talk about season 2). I don't know how to explain it, but when I was 15, Sebastian scared the hell out of me when I first watched the anime when I had Netflix on my phone. It could be cause I grew up in a religious household, or because he looked uncanny with his long chin cause of how they drew him years ago, but I can't lie about the fact that he still gives me the creeps. There always was something uncanny about him, even in updated art, recent volumes, and chapters. It's actually really cool to see the author tap into that to make some cool scenes. The idea for a game for the series just came into my head in a dear where my Oc had to navigate the Victorian high society, cause people be frickin' lying, and put up so many facades that the idea of doing investigations, whether you are a demon or a noble just sounds really cool to me. I can't stop thinking of mixing some Ace Attorney and some Danganronpa mechanics of finding the truth in each testimony! Maybe a dash of horror would tie it all together because even though Sebastian scared me, I am still a fan of horror and I wanna see how far I could push the scare factor of something as Black Butler. Also, within this game, I am just gonna have my oc simp and treat Grell right cause I will never forgive the author for constantly letting Grell be misgendered and demeaned for being a transwoman bruh. That is something I always hated about BB, where she gets constantly misgendered along with many things in the series, so I am just gonna use my liberties as a game dev to rewrite certain things, both for the sake of the game to fit and for the characters.
Bullet hell with an old story from high school- There is an old story that I had where a guy turned into a cybernetically enhanced human after getting into an accident and accepting a deal to join this society that fights against huge monsters. I forgot how it went because this is back in high school in my public speaking class where my awesome teacher let me do a storybook assignment. I made a pretty poorly drawn comic for it with the two main characters involved, the cybernetic guy and his maintainer, I remember somehow getting an A cause the teacher liked how I had to narrate the comic at the time. I know I wanted the two characters to kiss at some point, but I forgot most of the plot points, and my teacher kept the comic, so I unfortunately don't have much to say about the story. I know it's supposed to be inspired off Evangelion and would deal with overcoming stuff, but again I mostly forgot. Maybe it would have gameplay like those classic games like Galaga or something? I dunno, I'll think more about it.
Conclusion
That's enough of me rambling anyway. To summarize, progress is coming in, but I had to take a tiny break. Baby steps are being taken, and I will do my best to bring a small demo out soon. I'll even work on some menus needed for the game and get some placeholder music soon. Right now, I could say progress has bumped up to like 22%. Also, compared to my first post, I decided to write informally cause A) this is my devlog, B) pretending to be professional is hardly something I could do, and C) In the end, I am making casual games and stuff I personally find fun.
Stay Bright ! - - Neon (˙∀˙)🎮