Devblog #84 (Patreon)

Hey Wizards! Shady Character One here!

In these past seven days I finally picked up some of the slack that last week's me left behind. I managed to write three events (and a bit more), and with that I finished the "You were bad, you got good" cycle of events. Now every class has a pair of events that show your character's progress.

Some of those were pretty easy to write, while others were relatively difficult to tame. But now players will have a bit better insight into what each class is really about, what the professors are like, and how your character progresses as he dedicates more time to each of the disciplines.

With these added, the total number of non-plot events has now grown to 90. That means — if my estimations are correct — it is impossible (or at the very least incredibly difficult) to see all the events in a single playthrough. Given that we now have about half of all events written and about half of the academic year available for playing, the current event density should be more or less indicative of how things will feel in the final game.

Overall, I really enjoyed writing this particular cycle of events. It made me think hard about how to express all the magical classes in just two short scenes each. How can a student be bad at a class without turning into slapstick comedy? How can someone be good at it without coming across as an unnatural genius? How would different professors react to both kinds of students? And how do you make seven professors feel distinct in similar situations when quite a few of them share overlapping character traits?

But now that this is done, I can turn back to other events. Aisling's "date" is still not completely written, and I also have a couple of ideas for nice saucy events that might make it into the upcoming updates. One of those is a recurring event in the library that will help you train your imagination with a pretty revealing book. We chose several of Shady Two's spiciest sketches for that one, so you will see it some day soon.

Until then, I'll see you in the next devblog entry.

Shady Character One, out!