Progress Report Time (Patreon)

Newman here, with a brand-new, astounding Progress Report! Oh, the joy!

Modern and elegant in fashion FUNNY PERSON. Development Own Elephant Space indeed!

I bought the excellent "Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames" book, and I'm having a blast. If you ever want to write for games, I can't recommend it enough. Sure, there are things I may disagree with when it deals with structure (it does talk extensively about indie or artsy games, but it talks from a life of experience with the restrictions on big-budget games, and it kinda shows at times), but as with anything, you have to learn what works so that you can toss what you don't want to the bin and do your own thing. "First learn the rules, then break them" is one of the greatest, most helpful quotes for a video game dev, and one that I always keep present.

I'm not changing the way I do things, but the book helped me realize I can reinforce some of the dialog with what I think the player (that's you, sugar buns) needs to know at that point. There is an important event happening in 0.06 (two actually, but one has way more impact) that will basically mean this for Albedo: "You already know what's what. Now start getting serious and untangle this mess" And I can't wait for it :)

In other news, Akanoes is going to try to port Ben X to Ren'py's 7.4 update. If it breaks anything important, he'll roll the changes back, but it seems there are some neat features we would really benefit from (like new commands that'll make his life easier when trying to make the complex stuff I'm always asking him to try), so we have to at least try.

Also, I'm designing a website! It was something we had on our minds for some time, so when we hit the $2,500 mark I already had a clear idea of what I wanted, but still, I want the thing to be simple but cool-looking, with a nice gallery with no content restrictions, Build links, Discord links... I'll write a more detailed post when I have a nice mockup to show.

Aaand... we are considering getting some of our more active and trustworthy fans on Discord to become Server Moderatrors. I'm putting together a good questionnaire to make sure the CHOSEN ONES are the living embodiment of fairness, patience, pun-mastery and debauchery the Ben X server deserves. We'll contact those of you who would like to be mods when I have the questions, through Discord.

Nothing else for now, stay safe, everyone. Talk soon,
Newman.