Devblog #82 (Patreon)

Hey Wizards! Shady Character One here!

This week was long. It almost felt like a month had passed since I last wrote a devblog entry. But it also feels like that about me doing anything for the game. You see, most of last week I was either in or traveling to and from China. A great country — I like it a lot, though it has been many years since I was last there. But I was not prepared for this trip at all. My previous experience from many years ago gave me a false sense of readiness for anything China could throw my way. I was so, oh so wrong. I was not ready for the lack of proper internet access, for barely being able to pay for anything with cash, for so many difficulties of surviving in that country without a constant internet connection. For not being able to use my laptop because I couldn't find a power outlet adapter. I understood how everything should work, but still, making even simple things function properly was a struggle full of trials and errors.

Why am I telling you all this? How does any of it relate to the development of the game aside from the fact that I couldn't do anything productive? I'll tell you how! This trip really made me feel how wizards should feel when thrown into the world of techies. Strange tech that you expect to work but doesn't. Lack of instructions, or instructions so outdated they no longer apply. Apps and services that refused to work, then cooperated again, then suddenly stopped doing what they were clearly doing just minutes before, even though I was doing exactly the same thing. Yes, this is pretty much as close as one can get to feeling exactly how a wizard feels when thrown into a techie city without support or guidance.

I had so many ideas and notes for the storylines of Katelyn and Ciara (since those two touch on the world of normies and techies the most), but I couldn't write them down since my laptop was out of commission. Well, I'll have to play catch-up now. Hopefully the memories of those days will still be vivid enough to turn them into proper words.

I also had a nice idea for another repeating event during exploration that would both be spicy and give you a chance to test your growing skills. I wrote that one as soon as I had my laptop connected to a power line. This one makes the Explore activity the most densely packed with events again. I really should give more attention to Mingle. There are a few event ideas there, but they still aren't coming together completely.

And of course, most of those events need input from Shady Two, so... more waiting until I can get them implemented. But for now, I'll switch to writing the rest of the class events. As well as shifting some of my attention to implementing the Gallery into the game. And working on a demo cut of the game for the soon-to-come Steam page.

I'll tell you how it all goes next week.

While you are waiting, here a sketch of Ciara that perfectly illustrates how I felt when my smartphone started working as expected again.

Shady Character One, out!