nonDiurnal Productions

Now let’s reserve a few thoughts for the things that went wrong, fell short, or demand further explanation.

Deployment

Difficulty with XNA prerequisites and downloads. I would’ve been well served with a little bit more time on this before hand. I tried to set up everything I felt necessary.

More than anything else, this validated my reasoning. I got this out of the way in a largely unseen release. Now I can worry about other things.

Audio

If you noticed the dearth of audio options in the game, you were not alone. I hadn’t finished SFX to the point that I was comfortable with releasing them. Honestly, they’re not a priority for the text versions. The style of the sound effects has to match the style of the art, at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself.

To balance out that shortcoming, we’re adding to the soundtrack in V0.02. The overall soundtrack is well ahead of schedule and will be a definite strength in the final version.

Writing

Pacing is the most challenging task of writing a video game story. You have to contend not only with the pace of the story, but the pace of gameplay. In most Audio/Visual arts, the story flows at the creator’s pace. With exceptions for commercial breaks and intermissions, the audience is always moving forward and the creator has total control. Games share a similarity with written media in that both move at a mixed pace. In mixed-pace environments, user skill, proficiency, and knowledge drastically impact the flow of the story.

Strangely, in creating a written game, that similarity is a much larger source of trouble than anticipated. As of V0.01, the game plays as an evolved choose-your-own-adventure novel, yet our future plans present a challenge to the story. Novels are better equipped to execute a slow-burning brooding plot, while a games demand of interaction forces the creator towards more dramatic story-telling.

Whenever faced with a decision between optimizing the story for a novel or a game, I chose game. This leads to fast pacing and reduced description at some points. V0.01 lacks higher gameplay systems, which also causes its pacing to speed up. There aren’t any roadblocks. Luckily, the novel elements in the plot aren’t completely subdued, which will lead to an interesting atmosphere in the final version.

As an additional issue, Intro and Level 1 don’t get into much of the branching. You do make a lot of decisions, but I liken it to preparing a meal. Right now, players are just making a shopping list. Everything is slowly coming together, even if the causal lines have yet to branch out drastically. V0.02 will take you closer to the payoff. Of all the writing-related worries, this is the least worrisome. You’ll be impressed.

Gameplay systems

I would’ve preferred to have more systems as completed prototypes. I’m satisfied with how the dialogue control wound up. As mentioned, it comes across a bit under-powered as the story is still in its early stages. However, there’s a lot of good on the way. There’ll be different forms of conversation and a revised dialogue engine.

Outlook

V0.02 will focus on the backend. I want to set things out internally in a manner that makes future features easier to implement. Even still, we’ll take some time to polish the interface and make things more utile.

There’s a long road ahead, but we’re well past the point of no return.