2013-11-27

Overload

I recently noticed one of the game developers that I follow made a come back. They were working on a really interesting concept for over perhaps a year, then disappeared for months. It is a fairly popular game and the dev had quite a large number of users eagerly awaiting updates. There were lots of posts on multiple forums and most everyone assumed the dev abandoned the project, if not suffered serious issues in real life.

Then the dev made a post, after months of being away. The dev reassured the masses and commited him/herself to working on the game again, with much more frequent updates. Some rejoiced, others are more skeptical, me among them, just wanting to see an update rather than a promise.

Well if your wondering, that dev isn't me :P

2013-09-14

Midnight Room 1 - 024 .. er 025

Changed a few things in chapter 4; updated how emails are displayed and fixed a few passages that I had excluded somehow. Also I made a change to the way the game will be saved in local storage.

I was having some issues with saves in Firefox but they were solved by moving volume 2 to the same location on my local drive as volume 1. The change I made means that saves from version 023 won't work in volume 2. There have been about 40 downloads of 023 so this won't effect many people. For those whom it will effect, I've heard nothing in terms of feedback so ... well ... shrug.

[update] Also stopped the prompt display from showing every back button hit

Download: The Midnight Room 1 - 025

 

2013-09-01

The Midnight Room - Volume 1





I've decided to release the first part of The Midnight Room. I've had no testers and I am not entirely sure that saving between Volumes of the game will work properly with all the popular browsers, but I've decided to throw the game into the universe and see what happens.

Download The Midnight Room - Volume 1 - 023 Here!

2013-08-14

Testing saves between games

I put together a set of html files to test taking game save information between games. I would really appreciate any help testing out these files.

You can download them here

Basically all that is needed is to open up SaveTestA.html and make a choice that should be saved. You can then check SaveTestB.html to see if the data saved properly. You can post here with the result or send me an email. Thanks

2013-08-12

Midnight Room Dev Update


Hello, thought I'd make an update post about my current project The Midnight Room. I'll keep this post spoiler free, but I will discuss some of the technical stuff about the game. My primary goal is to improve the way I made Next Door Girl April. There were a lot of lessons learned making that game, and hopefully I will be able to make better games because of it.

NDGA stat system


The first thing I thought about improving, was the stat system in NDGA. So stats, or stat, in NDGA was really simple to manage for players and me developing the game. With just one thing to keep track of, there wasn't much difficulty in playing the game. Every choice that you made had a single effect on this stat, raise it, lower it or do nothing to it. The problem with this is it was just too easy, especially since I didn't prevent using the back button to change your mind. In order to add challenge, I put in a few tricks that rewarded following up on 'bad' choices with higher gains than you would have gotten had you made 'good' choices. The tricks worked, but they were only bandages to cover up a structural problem. So for Midnight Room, I knew I would need more stats.

MR stat system


One option is to just break down sex appeal into different stats, like attraction, physical attractiveness, mood, etc. The problem is some of those things are difficult to change with player choices, or just mundane like taking a shower. The addition of taking a shower in NDGA v 035 was kind of a joke, and I don't think it added anything to the overall experience of playing the game. What follows is my new approach, so don't continue reading if you'd rather wait to see it in the game.

2013-07-27

Small victories!

Aside from writing, I've been looking into adding more features to my Twine projects. A while back I stumbled upon a <<replace>> macro, which is a really useful way to display links that turn into more text when clicked. This is something that is really helpful depending on your game, and I can think of a lot of good uses for it. I've already begun using it as a way to compress extra information on the title page for NDGA. The text that is inside the replace macro will only run after the link is clicked, so it can be used for variables BUT one issue is that if the user has the ability to go backwards in your game, variables might not save properly. There is probably some workaround to that, but even so it is a really useful tool.

2013-07-19

I'm thinking up a pen name

I've been thinking of committing to a good old fashioned pen name. prayForPlague is an alright username, but it looks kind of strange generally. I need a good name to use for my writings, something cheesy but not too overboard ... like Vin Diesel. My current brainstorming has lead to this:

2013-06-15

New project

After a lot of work on Next Door Girl April, I have decided to put it on hold.
I honestly thought I could rebuild the story in 3d, but it turns out my assumptions were wrong.
It just wasn't fun to play and building it felt more like a chore than I'd like.
The core of the issue is finding out what the game should actually be.
Displaying all of the text of the original story along side of characters acting it out is just strange.
Removing the descriptive part of the text and leaving only the dialogue felt very empty.
Having the models just act out various sex scenes isn't really a game at all, but more of a simulation.
It is incredibly easy to criticize sex scenes in video games, until you are actually the one trying to create one yourself.

2013-06-03

Version 28 of Next Door Girl: April

Download Here

This is a minor fix of some of the rules towards the end of the story.

What is this exactly?



I forgot to actually talk about the project ... here goes.


Next Door Girl April


Widowed after a loving marriage, Donald Hardeman leads a quiet secluded life in a big empty home. Donald maintains a small electronics import business to fill his otherwise misery filled days. He wakes to a large empty bed, goes to his home office to tend the daily orders and then cries his memories away at night. Donald longs for the feeling of a woman's warm touch, but he hasn't yet recovered from the tragic loss of his wife Nellie and subsequent disappearance of his adult son Raymond. Donald's world turns upside down with the sudden appearance of a familiar face from the past, that of the next door girl April, who has blossomed into a beautiful young woman.


Progress Update

Hello.

The current transition into Unity is taking a while. The major task is getting all of the dialogue into a form Unity can use. I haven't been able to find a way to do this without writing some sort of new code. I am currently working on it, but can't say when I will have something ready for sure. The project is not dead ... just nothing to see this week. Thanks for checking in though.

2013-05-26

Version 27 of Next Door Girl: April

Updated things: DOWNLOAD

So the poll results are pretty clear, art is the winner. Most of the feedback that I have gotten is about making art so I guess that will be my next step. Part two of the story along with other tasks are going on hold for quite a while.

I am likely going to use a lot of freely available resources from various places online. I welcome any artists that would like to contribute to the project, but I don't anticipate lots of interest. There is a lot to be done and I don't want to talk about how long the process will take.

I'll just go step by step. First, the environment. Here is a quick look at what I have mocked up so far. NOTE: you will need the Unity web player to view this demo. I am only posting this because ... well ... not sure, but here it is. As a side note if anyone knows of a place to host the game online, I'd appreciate a tip.

[experimental thing removed]

Thanks!

2013-05-19

NDGA 25 Twine graph

Here is a look at the twine graph of NDGA. You can see part one on the top and part two near the bottom. The story follows a single branch, with lots of options along the way (Especially around the end). Organizing all of the passages is actually kind of fun for me, and it paints an interesting picture.

NGDA graph 1
Twine graph for NDGA