Saturday Update! (Patreon)

CG Completion: Still 88/181

Hello again! I hope you guys are doing all right!

I'm pleased to announce that I'm doing better and that I actually got some work done last week. I wasn't quite up to the task of jumping back into CGs, but I did quite a few little bucket-list type tasks instead.

I was fairly productive all week except for Tuesday. Tuesday I kinda relapsed and spent the day crying and sleeping >_>;; The crying was because the vet sent me a beautiful card filled with ink paw prints to remember Aeris by [ and a whole bunch of staff members wrote out really kind and thoughtful messages!?!? ] and the sleeping was because... I actually don't know x'D I am usually absolutely incapable of napping and only get ~6hrs sleep a night but early last week I couldn't stop sleeping. Maybe it's my allergy meds or maybe I was exhausted from everything, I dunno.

But I'm still on the up-and-up and my mood and sleep habits are evening out. I'm finding it easier and easier to work. I think I'll be ready to get back into CGs next week!

Anyway, enough about me, lets get into what I did:

• I updated the menu screen system to add little color splashes to the main screens. This is to help the player know which screen they're on better [ mostly to help differentiate the saving and loading screens, which were essentially identical ] This was a surprisingly hard task x'D I had to research code for a couple hours because Renpy 7.3.5 removed the ability to assign different screen backgrounds [ I found a workaround heh ]

It's not too much, just the slight blue and green there.

• I updated the save/load system to include a visible and usable button for players to delete individual saves. This was a surprisingly easy task! The functionality was already built in, but could only be accessed by hovering over the save and pressing the 'delete' key on a keyboard. I'm still kind of confused why Renpy base-kit does that, but hey- there's buttons now!

• I also expanded the number of included save pages on the bottom menu [ from 9 to 15 ]. This was as simple as editing a single number in the code. There's room for them so I figured why not!

• I added a little note at the bottom of the main game overlay to tell people that they can hide the UI any time they want [ to view art better ] The functionality was always there, but like the delete thing, there was nothing to tell players about it.

• I added flavour text to the events of using several items on Mason's path. [ his path has by far the most possible inventory items ] Now, using the paper, trail mix, berries, and fish items will actually give the player a bit of dialogue instead of just consuming the item and affecting stats with no description of what's happening.

• I added a player choice during a scene in Mason's path where the player can catch a fish to eat. Now the player has the option to spare the fish's life. I realized that there might be vegetarians or people who don't want to kill animals playing and the event didn't even give you a choice before [ nor was it clear that the action would lead you to fish killing ].

• I added in a couple 'subtle scares' to Mason's path. [ I'll be adding some to the other two paths as well later ]. They're generally little visual events that can easily go unnoticed that only happen if the player's sanity is getting quite low. I won't spoil by posting pics but they're things like a little shadow moving in the trees at night, or a character sprite displaying with pitch black eyes for 0.5 seconds.

• I re-exported the River and Tall Tree area backgrounds [ tweaked to include less bloom and less vibrant colours to match my other updated bgs better ]

• I completed re-drew the Thicket area background because I HAAAATED it. It was one of the first backgrounds I drew before I got better at drawing forest scenes. It also had this foreground foliage that really messed up the perspective with sprites and made Mason look small [ the exact opposite of what I want!!! ]

^ This is the old background. See those plants in the front? They were a huge mistake! They look fine when the image is by itself, but they mess with perspective super bad when a sprite is added. I learned a very valuable lesson- VN backgrounds don't have the same rule as comic pages. You shouldn't include a foreground at all- because your sprites will act as the foreground.

This is the new background. I think I've come a long way! x'D It's now my favourite background on Mason's path.

I especially enjoy the morning and evening variants:

I've also implanted another one of my little scares to the background :)

Peekaboo! 

And I thiiiiink that's all I did? I'm pretty sure that's everything I did last week. OH and I fixed some minor code problems with a tree climbing event. Nothing major.

I'm a bit nervous to jump back in with the CGs next week, but I gotta take the leap. Not just for the project, but for myself too. I think returning to my regular work will be healthy for me at this point. 

Don't worry! I'm doing hella self care. I'm doing yoga and eating and sleeping- and I'm very much enjoying my new Dune book 'Dune Messiah' since I finished the first one. Reading's been really good for regulating my mood.

Anywho! I think it's time to close this long boy off! 

Thank you so, so much everyone for all your support. We've been through quite a few mental breakdowns together by now eh? Your patience and understanding with me means so much and has saved me from dark places quite a few times. I don't take that lightly- I'll always be grateful as long as I live. So, thank you.

See you next week! <3