This Week in the Forest #155 (Patreon)

YO FOLKS! Late post, my bad!

Here is what we were up to last week.

Starting with a word from Vixel!

4/23 weekly update:

Heya floofs! I worked on bugfixes last week! Playtesting those and then we'll update the builds in the Patreon folder. This week I'll be bringing in new content to continue the main story!

Have a nice week! <3

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Vixel didn't mention, part of the bug fixes was regarding how we will be handling previous saves that may be out of sync with certain updates.

For example, the recent storm scene we have relies on a flag to fire off, which happens after the Melody photo shoot. But the previous build ended after Melody's photo shoot, so the game will do funky stuff since the necessary event didn't happen, yet the player's progress is after that.

Our options were to either:

A) retroactively make a script that deletes the players progress on the main campaign.

(This requires the game to know what specific data it's looking to delete, every build, and for every situation. Not to mention the possible edge cases and headaches related to deleting player progress)

B) notify the player that they must replay certain content to continue, and give them the choice.

(This requires the game to know if the previous save is compatible with whatever newer content, and if it's not, to notify the player, and give them a quick button to push to replay whatever require content)

When designing for situations like this, it's important to keep a few things in mind:

How often will a build require this? - In our case, it is likely only the next few builds will have the situation.

How many players will run into this? - In our case, anyone who has seen the Melody photo shoot will run into this issue. Either for this current build, or the next few builds that will have this situation. So a good amount of people will run into this.

How long will it take to implement? - Both of our options will take a bit of time and finesse. But option A would require time each build from here on out. That is time added up, but also allows for possible variables for bugs and edge cases. Option B is simpler, and faster.

How problematic is each solution to the player? - It's important to consider how this will feel to the player. Option A is more of a specific, "build to build solution." It works behind the scenes, so the player doesn't have to do anything. Option B is a general notification solution. It requires a bit of customization on our part per build, but a lot less than option A, and the player is informed and required to commit to the process themselves.

At the end of the day, we went with option B. When a player has a save that is out of sync, a notification will pop up letting the player choose to chapter select to the appropriate time, or continue to play with what they have access to.

It is the quickest, least error-prone, and player-friendly option that we have. And it's for a unique problem, that won't even exist when the game is released. In the future, all of the content will be small enough to be in a single update, or handled in a way such that the entire thing isn't available, unless it's ready.

Whew! That's a lot, right? Even edge case stuff like this requires a bit of thought, because though we aren't creating the wheel, we are creating the wheel that fits our specific game. We have to consider all angles, and then Vixel has to come up with the system in game.

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Anywho, on my end, I've basically taken an extended rest for my wrist. It has gotten a lot better over the past couple weeks! I think it's made the most improvement than it has in months. This is because I haven't been using it at all. Instead, I've been playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 lmao.

But, I did get this tiny controller, which I've set up to the bare minimum hotkeys for doodling. This way my arm could basically be prone, and I could still work similarly to how I'm used to. I think I have to continue to stay off my left hand for another week or two, before I start utilizing the crazy cyborg hotkey thing that I got before. That thing is THE ABSOLUTE BEST OPTION. But I want to make sure my wrist is in a good spot before going ham with that.

Thus the Zhen doodles above! I watched Kung Fu Panda 4 a bit ago, and of course Awkwafina stole the show xD. So I spent some time studying her, and she has been my comfort doodle character for the past week. :>

Other than that, I've been keeping up with my speech to text option. It is getting more accurate, but I notice it's a lot harder to be as emotive as I usually am through text. But I did recently learn about the commands I can do, so I need to go and flesh them out. It's basically a spoken macro.

OKAY! That's about it for us, this update was late so expect another one very soon.