Hi all! Happy New Year!! December feels like it flew by and so many things happened. I’ve had a lot of friends and family visiting over the past couple of weeks which definitely slowed my work progress on WMU, so I had to make up for it with a couple of all-nighters to catch up. My introverted sensibilities simply cannot handle my new hosting responsibilities! But now, my apartment is blissfully silent, and I’m determined to reach my publishing deadline. Alright, let’s get into the update, shall we?
Highs: You’ll be pleased to know that the demo is essentially done! I've still got some editing and playtesting to do, though to make sure I didn't miss anything. I wanted to avoid putting an official release date in case I couldn’t honor it, but of course I have my own deadline in mind that I’ve been working toward. It happens to be the exact date that Warm Me Up starts filming. I’m still not telling you when that is though lol patience my friends! Just know that it is muuuuuch sooner than you think 😉 I shared a test file with one of my friends who's an interactive fiction newbie and always gives it to me straight, and she really liked it! She gave me some great feedback too, so I was able to edit a couple of things based on that.
This past month, I was finally able to fix the mobile version! When I tell you it was driving me INSANE! The back button wasn’t showing up, then it was peeking out from behind the passage, unclickable and taunting me 😒 then the setting buttons were overlapping and too small. It was a headache, but if I did everything correctly, you should be able to comfortably play on mobile (I hope) I also introduced a TON of new widgets that’ll help me update things easily as the story grows. They do increase the outcomes/branching by a lot, but ultimately, it'll give you more personalized story beats based on your stats and choices!
And the lows: You know, I mentioned last time that this is a variable-heavy game and that I have two trackers to stay organized. I think what’s most concerning is my own human error? My process is this: simultaneously write and code, and then, after I’ve finished a chapter, log all the variables, choices, and stat changes in my trackers and use the totals to determine/review stat thresholds. But I make mistakes! So when I’m trying to account for conditional statements and their thresholds, I find that at that point in the story, you might not see the flavor text because you haven’t hit those stat thresholds. Then I realize, oh wait, maybe you actually did, I just accidentally typed in a 1 instead of 2 or something in my tracker. Then I gotta go back and review it to make sure I’ve got it right. I either need to take my time and pay better attention or stop working into the wee hours of the morning…or both. Both is good lol
And that’s it! As always, if you’ve got questions, I’m happy to answer 💗
BYYYYYYEEEEE~
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