Devlog #39: Skip Intro

In spite of a stressful week (of which I spent a significant amount of time sleeping off the medication for the giant throbbing spider bite on my forehead), I’ve managed to make some progress.

If you didn’t catch the announcement last week, my first public trailer will be a part of this year's Mother Direct on July 27th, check here for more details.

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Skip Intro

I'm hoping that the trailer will get some more people to try the demo, and unlike previous demos which were more about getting feedback, I want the latest demo to convince players to wishlist and get excited for the full game. It's still going to be the same demo, just with a few tweaks and a lot of polish.

My game is a bit front-loaded with tutorial, which is unavoidable, but for a demo especially it can be a bit of a turn off. So to try and counter this, the first major change I decided on is adding a skip intro option-
 

Skipping the intro will skip straight to the part of the game that’s open world; the third day. Story-wise, I do this by saying the player had a botched transition into the dream that caused temporary foggy memory. All the events happened, you just don’t remember them right now. 

I still make sure to teach the player how to move and talk with NPCs. After a short cutscene that quickly brings these players up to speed, introducing the world and characters, the skip-intro route rejoins the mainline in time for the cutscene that teaches the player about tools, menus and ghosts ambushes. Then from there, the game plays out identically.

 The things that are skipped entirely are the tutorials for battle and level up/ skill trees, which could make it confusing to play but I think the type of player that would skip the intro would be willing to figure it out themselves, and likely played similar games before that would help them intuit what to do. I’m planning to add controls on screen for every attack to help with this, which is helpful to have anyway.

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School Front

Now that Yusuke can be recruited, I’ve been phasing out Jiu’s inclusion in the demo because it makes much more sense for Yusuke to be the fourth party member. This week I did the ground work for Jiu’s area, a dream of a school that's east of Momo’s dream. The school gates will be locked for the demo, but I like having it there to tease demo players.

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Schematics

I finally implemented the schematic building system! Basically, hitting certain objects you find around the overworld will send a schematic back to basecamp that you can then build with materials to liven up the place and raise stability.

I added the first schematic this week- a traffic light. I recently added these around Momo's dream to add some more weird to it, and they flash to the beat of the bg music.

The base-building isn't about designing something unique, it's about seeing your base slowly build up with memories of the places you've been. The places where things are built are predetermined, but as the player you can choose which design of the object to build if there are variations like with the traffic lights. Hitting a different pole with the hammer will replace the schematics with the new style, and building it will lock it in. 

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Goals for the next two weeks

The trailer is done and now I move onto my next major goal- once again, the (hopefully final) demo. My plan is to refurbish the current demo and upload it to the game's steam page in time for the direct. I want it to be as polished as possible, and if I can figure out how to do it- have some sort of progressed carried over to the full version.

The direct is in about 3 weeks, so leaving a week aside for vigorous playtesting, I’m gonna set myself 2 weeks to get it ready. This devlog I’m setting all the goals I want done in two weeks-

-Fully add Yusuke (skill tree, heart scene and skills, polish HIT)
-Overworld Big Cob NPC
-Finish school front area
-Rework Hood boss (new attack, polish animations)
-Rework Highway Falls area
-Add 2 new ghost enemies.
-Escape menu working during cutscenes/battles
-Full controller support
-Add more profile variations for all characters

Also, I really need to spruce up the steam page a bit (and add the trailer after the direct)

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Up until now I’ve been nervous thinking about the direct, but I’ve finally started getting excited for it. I’m quietly confident in my trailer, and everyone I’ve shown so far has been impressed, including my family who I may have finally convinced that this game-making thing may just be worth all the time I’ve put into it.

Thanks for reading!