Hello everybody! That’s right, it’s time for the first May Update! Let’s jump right in with last update’s goals:
Sketch all 7 primary backgrounds left for Area 4: Done! They’re alllll sketched. Yay!
Add planned objekts into Area 3: Done!
Write Objekt Reactions for Munya and Sharma in Area 4: Done!
Maybe actually get those progress bars sorted out?: Done! And, here, let’s take a look at those right away!
Character Conversations: 10/590. These are the conversations between Ame, his allies, and other characters as experienced when choosing the dialogue option ‘Let’s Talk’. 590 may seem like a big number, but the ally conversations are counted twice- A convo between Ame, Bea, and Greta is listed once in Bea’s list and once in Greta’s list, it was just easier for tracking purposes to count them in both places than to weed out the duplicates.
Zones: 0/44. I haven’t made any strides in this regard yet. There are twenty-two zones total, each with separate tasks for the visual assets and the minigame implementation.
Backgrounds: 25/67. These are all the planned backgrounds for areas one through seven! What’s left includes most of Area 4, all of Areas 5 to 7, and a few secondary backgrounds for Area 1 and Area 2. Area 8 is excluded from the count, and will probably have its own progress bar down the line- While the majority of Pine Creek has some grounding in its map layout, Area 8’s necessary backgrounds will reveal themselves in the writing process.
Death Methods: 2/26. Have I even mentioned this mechanic before? There are thirteen ways Ame can die in the course of the game, and each one has an entry for its visual assets and for its code- The visual assets mainly being ‘achievement badges’ for a collection screen, though some will also include a CG! The two completed entries are for the code implementation of the two deaths in the demo: The bus crash, and provoking Veno.
Memory Segments: 14/20. I wrote a majority of these back in November! There’s a few left, some of which are already partially written. The rest of them aren’t a very high priority just yet, since we haven’t made it to the unlock conditions for most of them anyhow.
And to be perfectly clear- These bars only reflect specific factors with numbers I know so far- More bars will eventually be added, and I won’t include these progress bars during updates in which they have not changed. They don’t fully represent what’s been worked on up to now OR what will be included in the full game- For instance, not a single one of those ‘character conversations’ were included in the demo, conversation branches are a different and less-countable category. But they should give an idea of some part of progress and what’s being worked on at a given time moving forward!
And, when it comes to those progress bars- That’s what I’ll be focusing on very soon! The initial instances of running into each character are established for all but Area 4, and even those are coded in without assets yet. So, I’m in a very good position to shift focus to writing rather than asset creation for a while. And that’s exactly what I will be doing in…
~An Update Hiatus~
I know, I just switched from once-monthly to twice-monthly updates. And when I come back in either September or October (Depending on whether I decide to participate in the Spooktober Gamejam), that will resume. But truth be told, there’s a LOT happening this summer, including but not at all limited to tabling and paneling at conventions, moving to a different apartment, helping somebody ELSE move to a different apartment, and artfight of course. My attention… Is demanded in a lot of other places.
So, while I’ll 100% still be making progress on EF2 during this time, I’ve made the difficult decision for my sanity to let myself off the hooks involved in setting specific targets for specific timeframes. I’ll need to have the freedom to go two weeks without even looking in the direction of EF2 if I’m going to balance everything in the upcoming months. Official updates will be paused, though I’ll still be posting in the discord!
I’ll be back with plenty of good news when I do return from this break from structure- And the goals for the rest of May are still in effect. Let’s review those!
Finish at least 3 of those Area 4 Backgrounds
Sketch some subprimary backgrounds for the areas already done
I’ll be back on the 31st to let you know how that goes and say one more “goodbye for now”. Thank you, as always, for reading!
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