Branching storylines and learning about puzzles

 Hello LokiCastle here,

It's been another crazy week for me. moving again due to problems with place. So I've been preparing for that. While I haven't been able to do too much. I still got some stuff done. 

Lets discuss it,

Winter Themed Adventure Game

This is the first area fully ready for pre-alpha (berry area)

Little merchant area in main town

Screenshot from interaction * finished prototype area* (berry area)

One of the fun things about making areas is giving the player the ability to interact with the world. This ability to interact can and will create branching. Small changes over time can cause the players viewpoint to change. Creating the town folk and layout of the town was a real fun thing that added to a more lived in feeling to me. Instead of the town just being an objective. I wanted it to feel real in a way by giving a story to each and every one of the town folk. These stories can be found out by simple interaction or played out throughout the main story. the scene above isn't integral to the story but does allow for a deeper look into the lives of the town folk. That's the fun part if you are looking to skip the exploring you can. Does this take away from the experience. No it doesn't but exploring can reveal later aspects of the story that will be important in the long run. I also heavily believe that cause and effect matters. If you do A then B will happen. The story doesn't expect you to explore every little thing but, if you do. You will learn more about the world of  Lavdun. Flushing the toilet gives a achievement.

Puzzles

When I first started working with puzzles. I believed that it was based on the idea. That it should take up time. This was a horrible way to go about making puzzles. While researching I came across some great resources on how to make a proper adventure game. Here is a quick summary. Puzzles shouldn't be tedious. They should advance the story. They should never punish the player. The solution should make sense and a few other tips. In the end the point of the puzzle should a fun way to give the player a challenge but also break from the story allowing for a challenge and reward for the player. With these tips in mind I have decided puzzles will be put into the game once the story and writing is finished to add to the story and create for a fun challenge. 

Final Remarks/Goals

I am in a phase of my project. Where I don't have much to show apart from small snippets. I won't have a good product until I have gotten the project to the alpha phase. which means at least for the berry area it's only one more phase away. If  I were only to focus on it. I could possibly get it to that phase in a few weeks. I plan to weight my options and may commit to trying to get berry area to late pre-alpha phase or just focus on finishing more of the prototype areas. 

Do I see the AG ready for the April release schedule... short answer no with a maybe. Long answer if my personal and professional life chills out. I could see finding the proper time to getting at least half of chapter one ready for release. 

No matter what the AG will release in early access/in development on steam and itch.

Stay tuned for more updates!

If you would like to see sneak peeks please support me here: 

"https://www.patreon.com/SerpentLoki"

Discussing thoughts

LokiCastle here,

Today this post is less about giving updates but rather a more personal dive. If you're looking for updates on my projects. I will be posting my regular update on Sunday as per usual.

The Start 

When I first got into the concept of even considering game development. It was a few months before, a radical change in my life. During this stressful time, I spent the majority of my time getting thrown around in my daily life. The feelings of not accomplishing anything worthwhile crept up. It kept creeping until I finally decided. I would make a game! My greatest fear was that I would become 21 before I made a game and published it. (Spoiler that didn't happen) It had a been few months into 2024 when I realized I needed to double down and push myself to finally write a script for my Visual Novel "A Tale of Two Flowers." I loved the process of writing the script. While I've never been very social. I do enjoy talking. In a way, writing is a great way to talk without talking. The ability to convey ideas and stories is great. I love reading what others write and, I love writing. With that thought process a visual novel made sense. I don't play/read VN very often still I am still very fond of them. It was better that my first game was a visual novel instead of the game I truly wanted to make. which was an RPG. Yes, I am referring to the horror RPG I make updates about often. I had wanted to make a dark RPG for a very long time but felt like my skills weren't where I wanted them to be. Your first game is never your magnum opus. If you were to ask me how I felt about my first game “A Tale of Two Flowers.” I would say "Like May it's a deeply flawed and confusing story that screams first project." Simply put it was my first major undertaking and I knew it would have major flaws. I am proud that it was the first game I published.  

I still laugh at myself today when the realization dawned on me. I needed an online presence to even promote the game. Knowing I needed that. I proceeded to make a post on itch.io starting the journey of posting development updates. On the amazing interconnected web or as we call it the internet. 

June 19 2024 was the first ever post I made. 

On the subject of my first game

"I am almost done writing the script for my first visual novel. The actual reveal of the novel will be in about a month or so depending on a few development factors. Its word range is 25 - 30K and has three different endings."

(https://lokicastle.itch.io/a-tale-of-two-flowers/devlog/751842/on-the-subject-on-my-first-game)

For the first few months of the development. It was not a solo project. It had been a team of three. Due to conflicts I took full control and finished it. It had been a crazy journey from a single sketch to the full-fledged game it is today.

Friday Dec 15 2023 (May Gremlin sketch)

Reflecting on the progress

How often do you hear of people giving up when the going gets tough? Maybe very often or rarely depending on perspective. You hear about stories of people making it big but then reality hits. More often than not success doesn't come. Here I am writing about my thoughts of being a game developer in a multi-billion dollar industry. I don't have a team. I'm just one person who spends some of their free time developing games for fun.  Compare me to the thousands of full-time employees with years of coding experience. There is no winning. I'm not looking to compare myself to people. Rather I want to understand where I sit so I can strive to be the best developer I can be. This is a hobby. I want to tell stories and know it's gonna be tough. The reward is the effort I put in. I could list all the negatives about A Tale of Two Flowers. Talking about how it wasn't able to sell or get on steam, no one's playing it, etc. This mentality does raise one question? Would that be a useful way to spend my time? My answer is no. Instead of worrying about why my first game didn't succeed the way I wanted it to. I look back at the game as a great way to start my game dev journey. How often do people give up on their first project and let it collect dust forever? I took the chance and learned about myself and how to make a better game next time. I learned more about an industry I've loved for years. (A game developer who plays games. Who would have guessed?) Here I am in 2025 looking to publish my next game to Steam, connected to the same world as the previous game. This time I go in with better insight, experience, and proper knowledge to make sure this game gets the traction it deserves.

Final Remarks

I started this journey at the beginning of 2024. It's 2025 now and I'm not going to let life stop me from achieving my goals. Who knows what my journey will look like in five or ten years?

Stay tuned for more updates!

If you would like to see sneak peeks please support me here: 

"https://www.patreon.com/SerpentLoki"

Progress update: Name Boxes and Sprites

 Loki Castle here,

The last few days have been pretty productive. I have finally had time to sit down and get settled in, allowing me to get actual work done. I still don't have the best workspace, but it's up to a standard I feel allows for creativity to grow and thrive. 

Enough about real life. Let us talk about what I have done in the past week.

Winter Themed Adventure Game

I have about one month to get the AG(Adventure game) into its pre-alpha phase. which means, I need the game to be...

1. A playable state

2. graphics started 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxN-DfNV2c

I was able to start exactly that. I have begun to add graphics and small touches to iron out the intro and pathway at the start of the game. I have also begun to add graphics for the MC's house. My top goal this week was to make the first placeholder sprite. This sprite will allow for a better understanding of the size of every character and will be what I go off for the rest of the development period. 

Art Challenge?

I will be taking a break from the art challenge every day and focusing on the AG. If I can find time in the day after working on the AG. I will make more art. My reasoning for slowing down the project is to allow for breathing room with my current workload. I still have a plethora of ideas for the challenge and will not stop. For now, I will be focusing on just the AG. I still plan to make a post about what I learned from the challenge when I complete it. 

Final Remarks/Goals

I want to finish a few more major areas of the AG getting the main meat of the game to 25% complete. I would like to create a full sprite for Hazel. The final thing I would like to do is try to finish 2 to 3 images from my art challenge by the end of next week.

Stay tuned for more updates!

If you would like to see sneak peeks please support me here: 

"https://www.patreon.com/SerpentLoki"