dev diary: lessons from the charm studies rerelease (Patreon)

today i've been... sending so many emails... i'm in full producer mode..... (this is not a desirable mode for me)

i'm going to talk about something boring. sorry. but i've been managing the new content for charm studies steam version this past week... you're all getting free steam keys on launch so you have to listen to me complain about it a little bit heheh.

lesson 1: don't try to launch in every language

sooo this was something i knew would be a lot of work because i did it before for BAD END THEATER. for BET it was like, 8-9 translations i launched with (iirc?) and a lot more were added once translators contacted me after the game got popular lol.

for charm studies... there are 15 translations in the currently released version on itchio. and we're adding korean, because i was talking to kyleheren about my other new games and realized i never had her do that one... you see, because i've been doing this for so long i have a collection of reliable translators who want to do all of my games... that's how i got into a situation where there are so many languages for every game to manage in the first place... (it helps that they're all quite short so it's not a lot of work and therefore not too expensive to add!)

now, my process going into this: i had not finished the new content yet, and i was going to add as little text as possible. so first i reached out to everyone via email/discord with just the store page text on... omg, the 19th apparently, i thought it was earlier than that (and probably should've been considering the release date is the 30th haha).

3 translators have not gotten back to me, but the rest did! and i told them i would be adding achievements but the text wasn't finished at the time, so they could expect more work getting thrown at them... like i always feel like i'm bothering people when i ask them do to a thing, but it's just anxiety, and i'm sure everyone would prefer to have the thing be fully translated rather than have me not ask... (like i can at least let them say no if they don't have the time for it...)

some of my translators are good friends of mine, so i'm a lot more comfortable messaging them stuff out of the blue since we talk pretty regularly anyway. so for 3-4 languages, i was sending them new text as it was finished... which resulted in translations being in various states of completion, which was impossible to keep track of in my head.

i DO keep notes, but not the most efficient ones. there are a lot of tiny things to rememeber, like "ok this one line gets generated in common.rpy but i need to move it to the related line in myscreens.rpy and it's just on/off so it's been translated for other games so i can probably just grab the existing translation from a previous thing, and oh uhh which files have new lines again..? better check every file so i can tell people where to look..." just... that kind of thing, x16.

SO... I'M TIRED... but i just sent the last round of emails with a new test build and the finalized translation files to everyone, so hopefully they all get a chance to finish what i sent... and if not, it's only a small amount of text that you only see after completing the main story, so it's not a huge deal if a few lines are left in english and patched later.

i have been tackling most of this stuff a little at a time as it has gotten finished, but i don't prefer working this way since it's hard for me to remember where everything is at and i constantly feel lost. maybe the solution is taking better notes. but for the next steam release, i will just focus on text lock and THEN contact everyone, even if it means only having english available on launch day. (saves me the trouble of taking screenshots in every language, which is also exhasuting hahaha)

lesson 2: don't underestimate the mental energy even a rerelease will take

ok, like... i decided that i wanted to do a new release every month, thinking that realistically it's not as much work as a new game and i could just set aside what is effectively just a few days for it. for the amount of content that is added (which combined took maybe a full day to make), and accounting for steam's deadlines, it's all actually super reasonable on paper.

BUT

in practice, i felt like this release date was hovering over me the whole time so it was harder to truly focus on other things... i'm an anxious person... so if i feel like there's something i SHOULD BE doing then my brain is like "OH GOD, DO I NEED TO BE DOING THAT? AM I RUNNING OUT OF TIME?!" but everything has gone completely smoothly. in my head i just feel a bit frantic.

something funny that happened was i posted the charm studies release trailer to youtube as unlisted way in advance (thank you harriet ford for making that for me!!!), and i automatically added it to my game trailers playlist, but that meant people could find it before it was public. a commenter pointed this out yesterday and i was laughing like HOW DID YOU GET HERE!!! ...anyway this is the kind of small mistake that in my head i'm always trying to account for, but really there were no consequences. i didn't even change it back to private. witness my imperfection, i think it makes me less stressed to just let it be hahaha.

so like... i'm worried that putting myself in this state of deadline mode, while making me feel really productive, is also going to lead to a bunch of random mistakes like this. so it's making me want to back down from the challenge (especially because i am my own boss and make the rules). but........ i also knew it might end up being a struggle, and maybe i like a little struggle!!! i will feel good if i can finish everything... so i'm inclined to keep going for now.

lesson 3: mmm it's all worth it actually

literally even if my steam releases end up being a complete flop, it will feel so nice to have a definitive edition of all my things on steam... for the sake of my cute developer page like i said before...! but also because..... a game being on steam gives it a weird sense of legitimacy. as if any given steam game is more special in comparison to something on itchio. what, just because the developer jumped through more hoops to post it? that's the reason i didn't care so much before... but people really do notice/respect your shit more when it's on steam... (RESPECT ME...!!!! MY GAMES ARE SO GOOD!!!!!!!)

i think that's part of why i was working for serenity forge to make puppergeist and everything, for the sense of legitimacy... but i can--oh my god i'm so sorry for what i'm about to say--i'm going to serenely forge my own path lol. i have the power. i have seen what it's like to have a studio manage things for you and i don't think it's a better option in my case. nothing against them whatsoever, they're all lovely people of course!!! i truly just gotta go at my own pace and operate on whims outside of any studio structure. (will i get in trouble for saying all that... i still like them... i still like u, SF...)

anyway, as of LAST FRIDAY the new content for charm studies is all complete.

i added:

106 new charms (96 of these are special puzzles as mentioned previously)

hard mode (you can fail puzzles now)

an option to not gray out the hint numbers when fulfilled (mothcolada suggested this iirc)

change cassia's outfit (i could even add more characters... i might do it...)

BGM selector and volume sliders since i was annoyed that you can't easily access the normal options menu mid-puzzle

the songs are like, coded into the individual puzzles so... i didn't make it so you can set a single song to always play or anything... personally when i play miku picross i just mute the game and listen to something on youtube. there's not a lot of songs to choose from and songs from my other games don't really fit the vibe so i don't think it'd be wise to make a second nomnomradio within charm studies hahha.......

these are the kinds of things i start thinking about when i sit down and try to improve what came before...! which is really fun for me, tinkering with stuff in small ways... oh but i could never fix the lag with the 15x15 puzzles. i really think it's just a consequence of having 225+ buttons on the screen at once. ren'py was not set up for this... that's why i mostly added 10x10s.........

and honestly?? i enjoy 10x10 puzzles the most, since they're quick to complete without being hard to count where you are in the grid. i prefer them. it's my ideal picross game, getting to test 100 10x10 puzzles to make sure they're completeable. it was a nice afternoon, making all of those back then........

i'm excited to think about what i can add to astra's garden... there are a lot of quality of life things i want to do to make the postgame grind a little less... grindy...? the purpose of it being a bit slow was so you can relax, but it really gets on people's nerves having to wait, so it'll be nice to give an alternative or find a way to make it more fun to play... that's my project for next month...!!!!!

so yeah, as you can tell by my rambling, i'm enjoying doing all this stuff. even if i'm like, a little bit stressed. it's all working out. i'm happy. ARE PEOPLE EXCITED? I DON'T REALLY KNOW, it's not new story stuff which is kinda the main reason to look forward to what i make (imo???), but maybe new fans will show up through this. it's not the best picross game but it is at least a pleasant and memorable one... i worked hard......!

thanks for reading!!!! have a lovely week everyone!!!!!!!