Friday Update 2024-03-29

Happy Friday! Work on Evertrue Chronicle has been a bit slow in the last couple weeks for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I’ve spent much of the last week recovering from a cold; it’s hard to get much done when it’s hard to even get out of bed! The second reason is because I’m convinced the game needs some serious reworking.

This notion has come from feedback I’ve gotten from the demo, as well as time I’ve spent with the game. Three weeks ago I talked about reworking the dialogue so it’s not so laborious, especially early in the game, there are things to address beyond character dialogue. For example, the game starts with a lengthy dialogue sequence which does an adequate job of introducing the story, but keeps the player from feeling like they’re in control until several minutes into the experience. Perhaps the game should begin with the player arriving in town so they can take control almost immediately?

There are other major problems too. Maps are littered with scenery, making them difficult to parse. Some mechanics aren’t as clear as I’d like them to be, leaving the player unsure of how to proceed. There are story beats later in the game that don’t carry enough weight, and/or don’t engage the player enough. All of those are elements of the game that need to be removed, redesigned, and then reinserted in a way that blends in with the rest of the experience.

So I’m asking you to bear with me a little longer while I go back and patch up weak spots in the game. That also means a big update to the demo is probably in this game’s future, before the final release. In the meantime, I’ll have a shiny new feature or a rewritten scene to show off in a week or two, so stay tuned for that! See you then~