#indievisualnovel

Hello everyone!

I am nearing the end of outlining part 2 of the game.

This means that most of the variation code and the narrative re-outline has been done for part 2, and I am a lot happier with the pacing this time around. The original outline was far too fast-paced. This one should be more tight while still having breathing room.

Though I am now facing a new dilemma with the game.

For anyone wondering how much of a nightmare Pario is to both write and code:

This is how many variations currently exist at the end of part 2.

Originally, part 3 (The finale) was just one path with all of the variations. Technically easier because it's only one route, but far more difficult because of the sheer amount of variation counting to do.

However, I have had a small epiphany that I'm going to utilize. Instead of trying to force all 18 paths to walk the same road, I'm just going to make different roads to put the variations on. Think of it like parts 1 & 2 lead to different resolution paths. This will help for two big reasons:

Reduces the headache of making all of the variations loop back together in a way that makes sense. This makes it a lot easier to keep the tone consistent, and it should reduce the chances of VV having random mood swings that don't feel natural. This is a major concern for me any time I'm outline the scenes. I don't want VV to be too nice out of the blue or too mean and so on.

Each new "finale" path will only have a set number of possible variations in it. This means I don't have to break my brain writing all the variations each and every time, since each path should only have 3 to 6 variations in them.

I'm still trying to figure out how I want to path the variations, so that is what I am tackling today. Once I have that hammered out, I can then get the outlines done for the finale before throwing myself into the writing proper.

Thankfully, once the writing is done (that's like 70% of my labor), it gets a lot easier since sprite and sound coding is just mind-numbingly tedious rather than difficult. I just flip through assets for about 30 hours.

Once the game is in a playable state, I'll ask around to see if anyone is interested in a closed beta of sorts to get feedback on the writing and any possible bugs that have appeared. I want to try and iron the game out before tossing it into the void.

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