🔧 Devlog 24 - A giant one, Comments and Commissions (Patreon)

We're back

We're back with more devlogs, I missed these xD. But first I'm going to talk about a topic: the comments.

Comments

At the beginning of TrueClash, one of the things I wanted most was to see an active community talking about the game. It didn't need to be many people, just a few in a forum, on Patreon, or somewhere else. Basically, I really wanted to see a community forming where people talk about the game, their experience and their opinions.

Nowadays we have that and more. I look at the feedback post and we have over 50 comments! And that to me is crazy and leaves me with a permanent smile on my face.

But it raises another problem… I can't respond to everything, nor do I think I should. Because I want this to be more of a community thing and not with my finger in it. But above all, I can't respond to everything without dedicating a good few hours to it. I'll keep doing it, and responding to things that need my direct response or intervention. Because I love talking about Trueclash as well xD. But I'm really going to try to distance myself a bit and let you do you.

To everyone who steps out of their comfort zone to comment… I read everything, and these comments, these opinions, these shares... They're memories that stay with me. Thank you.

There are a topic or two I want to address that I saw in the comments, so let's go with those first.

Comments influencing the writing (and Harry)

The short answer would be: yes. The full answer would be: it depends xD.

I read or try to read everything you write and absorb the information. And sometimes I think about what you write and whether it would be something cool. But sometimes it's hard to implement.

When I introduce or write a character, I create a character sheet, like a Word document where I have quirks, likes, goals, backstory, etc. And then when I write, I roleplay that character and I feel that it usually leads to a more organic experience that way (at least it's easier for me to write withat that in mind). But this is a process, and I can indeed add or remove details about them depending on the feeling I'm having as long as their essence remains and central core remains the same. I also think about the person's emotional states when I write. How is she feeling? How do they react when they're like this?

So, when it comes to the characters' motives for acting or doing something in X, Y, or Z way, I hardly see myself changing that because it would be very difficult to adapt considering everything that was written so far.

Quick example (SPOILER for 0.6):

When I read you talking about whether you thought Diego had done what he did, most of you thought yes, which made me give a little grin because I kinda wanted you to believe that. The writing was done to leave you divided or even leaning towards that feeling.

But I knew Diego's past and even though I loved the idea of having someone who was in prison before, things wouldn't make as much sense if I changed them or implemented that on Diego.

As it currently is, you understand why he's so attached to Harry, why he loses it at the beginning of the game… Kinda everything makes sense, much more in my view than if I changed it to the idea of him actually having been in prison… It kinda wouldn't fit the same.

However, this idea has been noted and I might do something about it. Because I found it interesting.

--End of spoilers--

Decisions and branching

And now an example that has been influencing me and making me think about what I should or shouldn't do:

You're going to enter the fight part and the post-fight part, where you imagine you'll talk to Matt about what happened. And here I've been reading comments saying they hope Matt loses, others saying he could win, others saying they want him to redeem himself and others saying they want him out of the team. And this has made me think a lot because I need to carefully consider not only the tone of the story we are telling, but also where we dedicate our resources, since using them in one place means sacrificing others. So things have changed in how I was going to approach this. But let me elaborate.

Win or lose

Matt winning or losing. That's 2 possibilities. Which means 2 distinct scenes + adaptability of different scenes in the future.

Matt in the team or out. Another 2 possibilities, which means more distinct scenes + adaptability of different scenes in the future.

And since these are interconnected scenes, we have combos. Matt wins and is out, Matt wins and is in, Matt loses and is out, Matt loses and is in. Get how easily complex that can get? And then I have the habit of thinking about the consequences of actions, so yes, we'd have 2 different Matts regarding some matters depending on these actions.

The way I planned this season (Matt vs Diego) and season 2 (beach), I feel like I could pull this off relatively well, especially regarding who's in the team or not. The problem is what I want to do for season 2… At minimum, in season 2 I want to introduce 5 to 6 new characters who could become romantic interests depending on whether they vibe with you or not. This means screen time will have to be well divided between them. I want to believe I can pull it off due to my experience DMing large DnD groups and making sure all characters continue to have relevance. But we're talking about double the participants and I still need to make sure everyone gets their attention.

But in short, my doubt here is… Do I take the risk and let players decide who wins or loses + whether Matt stays on the team or not? Or do I do something I also like, which is "You control a lot of things, but not everything—just like in real life, some things are beyond our control"—but it actually has to be something beyond Ren's control, otherwise it will feel like cheating.

So yeah, long story short, your comments and ideas mess with a lot of planning, but it has to be parts that can be changed because they haven't been defined yet or shown through the characters' behaviors. It has to have some logic behind it and give me the feeling of "it's just right."

Now regarding the importance of where I put my resources and why I'm worried about it:

What I've been doing

To give you some initial context, my real-life work situation has been a bit shaken. I won't go into details because this isn't the right place for that. But let's just say I've been able to dedicate 6 to 8 hours a day to TrueClash. (I still take 1 or 2 days off from TrueClash to reset and avoid burnout.) But yeah, I'm almost doing this as a full-time job. And where this leads me:

In the last few weeks, I've divided my creative energy into 2 development parts.

Making extra stuff for version 0.6

The holiday menu, reviewing 0.6content, improving the tablet through sound engineering (a term I learned from your comments <.<), animations, adding extra options and changing other details. (Maybe details that don't matter much, like the custom game cursors, but I think they're cool in case you want to change them to match the colour of your love interest <.<)

But I've also been going crazy working on the story part of the combat between Matt and Diego for 0.7.

Just like you can experience in the training scenes, when a fighter reaches 0HP, a critical moment happens that has a training or combat interaction - almost like a story bit. I've been learning and applying things like:

Camera movements, transition sounds, sound effects, visual transition effects, lights like imitating a flashlight or glows, animating parts of an image, etc. - Many of these are both exciting and new to me, so I'm kinda of addicted to it for now.

Diego Critical (When Diego reaches 0HP): I was working on this before version 0.6 was even released. It was hours and hours, easily more than 25-30 hours on this, making animations, transitions, sound effects, images, working on images, etc. And the problem is... I really love this xDDD. I get a boost in dopamine when things feel just right our awesome from my point of view. When I finished, I thought "wow… this turned out really good! Now I won't be able to do something this good for Matt and it's going to feel lacking…" Well then—

Matt Critical:

It took a bit less time because I already had some things done from making Diego's, but still 20+ hours again. But it turned out… even better and more complete. So I was like: "ohhh… this is unfair… Let's go improve Diego's." So I went back and added some things to Diego's. And then I thought "Dammm… It's even better now… But Matt's is still slightly better in my opinion." ,"Now I have to make the end of the fight and I won't be able to make it this good…" and well… I went to make the ending.

End of match: I started making an ending, I must be getting close to 20 hours and I still haven't finished. But curiously… I like how it's turning out even more than the previous parts of the fight. And that's good because it's the culmination of this conflict and having it feel just right is something really good and positive for me.

But the investment of so many ours on these leads to 2 things:

Increase in production quality. I think the presentation, cinematic, and sound quality is much higher for these scenes. I'm biased, but I genuinely think so.

Low Written contentI've been working on this for weeks and I only have 2500 words so far. Which is extremely low xD

And I feel the pressure increasing and I realize that… I can't do this always… I really love it, but I simply can't. I have so much left to do. The post-fight, the tablet, the logs, the team interface, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! And I still need to have a patch ahead, that's at least 15k words in reserve. And why? Because when the beach saga arrives, I'm going to need a lot of time to finalize the visual design of the characters + the character psychological and traits development + the more detailed planning of season 2 at the beach - if I don't have that reserve, I won't be able to release anything for 1 month and I didn't want that gap.

Panic aside, this makes me realise that I should try to have this dedication to detail only for more impactful scenes like this final fight of the chapter or for more emotionally significant moments. Otherwise, each update will be really small and I don't want that.

And I'm going to have to look for external help as well:

Memory Logs

I wanted to do the design of the logs and the programming/animation/sound effects for them… But I can't without sacrificing other parts… So I'm going to hire someone else to do and implement these. But allow me first to share with you what we've done so far.

Sterki Original Design:

I liked the design, it fit with tablet design itself. But I wanted it to be able to contain more information and make it easier to read. So I tried to explain a bit more what I had in mind and it became this:

You would click up on an unlocked knowledge and it would give you more details about it, like a popup. And Sterki finished her design there.

When I started implementing it a few weeks later (coding and stuff), I felt something was off... I felt maybe it would be neat to look more like a totally new app on your tablet instead of being part of the same menu. I also wanted to give it more life. So I kinda started working on it to achieve that and I got this as a first mockup:

II liked it because it conveys the character's information better. Their essence, you know. Changing the colors, having a background image with the character's image in the corner makes it more personal and truly theirs. And I think that's the essence of what I want to achieve now.

Then I kept working on this, made a basic GUI map and the functionalities I was going for. Then later I asked Mark for help and he gave neat ideas and some assets. And finally we managed to get something like this:

Which is more in line with what we'd like to have. (Just missing the affinity and romance arrow, which I don't have in this image for some reason xD). But basically that's it. I have to find other people to finalize and program it because I don't see myself being able to with everything else I got to do already.

My concern is...

Commissioning

I've tried to hire several people throughout TrueClash's development, but it's harder than you'd think. Not because of a lack of people, but because of finding people who fit the team's vision and that feel conected to the project itself.

Before TrueClash even existed, about 3 or 4 years ago, I tried commissioning artists to make characters. And even though I had one or two acceptable examples… I think I was unlucky with a lot of the people I found. In short:

I got ghosted after having already paid

I'd ask for something and get a style totally different from the art people had on their page

I'd ask for something, request a change, and they wouldn't accept because it would end up cheaper even though they hadn't started the commission yet

Basically, a lot of stuff I don't feel like talking about.

But then I ended up being able to start the game on my own and here we are now. Since this project started, I've hired more help besides those of my friends.

As you know, the first was Mark. I really like him, talking to him is always nice and he's still with us but doesn't have the availability to dedicate himself to this…

Then there was a programmer. But I ended up having to fix a lot of things myself, from positioning to other scenes.

Then there was Sterki, who was someone I loved working with. We exchanged a lot of ideas, a super mega impeccable person! But I wanted something different now, a different design.

Then I went looking for someone to make music and I approached an artist whose covers and original songs I really liked. But I was baffled because yes, he would make the music, but it had to be kept secret because we use AI (in other words, "I'm against it but I'll accept the money and being part of the project in secret"). But it made me think a lot and I get why the person was like that. But also thought why am I looking for this when I already have artists and studios that support us? Better to turn to them.

And finally, I didn't tell anyone but I've been looking for background animators… I wanted to animate certain backgrounds to create more impact, as well as some backgrounds with lights, etc. And once again, I spent TrueClash money somewhat in vain because either they'd do the first job and then nothing. Or they'd end up being rude, or their PC would break and they'd be without power for weeks.

Ahh and there's also the NSFW artist I hired who also ghosted me.

In short, getting people who want the project and want to be part of it is hard, not only because they have to fit with the existing team but for the reasons and past experienced described above. And I don't even know if I should be venting like this, but I felt like I needed to.

But anyway, I'm going to risk the money again and try to find a coder and a designer to help us. Because I really need to take some weight off myself so I can focus on writing and developing the narrative. But due to what I said above, I'm not gonna lie, I am a bit afraid to waste the money you entrusted the project and see none of it come to frutition. But I really am at I point I need help on it.

Let's see how it goes.

End Note

I don't know if you guys like seeing this detail of how things develop like I did for the memory logs. If you do, I'll try to show you more next time.

Sorry for the mega devlog and for the venting. I'm really glad to have you all here in a way or another and I hope we can keep on making this game something you enjoy.

Cheers,

Zak