Showing posts with label Progress Update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Progress Update. Show all posts

Friday, November 8, 2013

Progress Report VIII

So, I took a bit of a break this week. And by "break", I mean I didn't fiddle around with the source code like I usually do, but I have still been writing. With the framework pretty much done, the remainder of the work is pretty much is just pounding out the story, events and content. That should take quite a while, so I'm thinking it might be another week before I do some actual coding.

I've been experimenting using Scrivener to plot out AIF. So far, I like it, but I'll blaze this trail a little further before I actually write about it.

No word count estimate this week (most of the writing is in an external document at this point.)

Friday, November 1, 2013

Progress Report VII


Here's a bit of a teaser for the interface. I think it's going to be a lot easier to see what's going on now.

Not much to say really. A few days into the beta and I think it's going very well. I've gotten a lot of useful feedback.

Summary

The slog of game mechanics continues, but the end is in sight. For a break, I wrote some more of the actual story. I'm not going to post the usual percentage because I just don't feel like it this week.


Total Word Count: 80379 (up 9295 this week from 71084)

Friday, October 25, 2013

Progress Report VI

I feel a bit confused. The word count jumped up 10,000 words, and I'm not entirely sure where they all came from, especially since I've been mostly working on Simpler AIF this week. It's especially disturbing since I made a resolution to write only 7,000 words per week. Anyways, this is all probably a sign I should slow development down a bit and concentrate on other aspects of my life.

Luckily, I feel pretty close to finishing the framework of the management component. I put in popularity, merchandise and ticket sales, which, along with finances and training, makes up the core management functions. The more interesting and challenging aspect of management (attending to the needs of your players) is up ahead and is really the core part of the game. Hopefully, sometime next month I could actually write an AIF scene.

This means I am pretty close to needing playtesters. Any potential playtesters should be more interested in the management and soccer component of the game at this point, because there is very little in the way of actual AIF.

Summary

It's nice to be close to finishing the managing component. It feels just like a teensy bit more to go. No milestones this week.

Total Word Count: 71084 (up 10247 this week from 60837)

The Acts

Act 1
Design: 100%
Prose: 100%
Internal Polish 25%
External Playtesting 0%

Act 2
Design: 40%
Prose: 10%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Act 3
Design: 10%
Prose: 0%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Gameplay

Soccer Gameplay
Design 100% Programming 75% Playtesting/Balance 30%

Team Management
Design 100% Programming 65% Playtesting/Balance 0%

In-Game Documentation
Writing 75%

Characters

Recruitable Character 1: Prose 20%Sex Scenes 0%, Romantic Sub-Plot 0%

Recruitable Character 2: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%,

Recruitable Character 3: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 4: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 5: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 6: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 7: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 8: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 9: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 10: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 11: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 12: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Note: all the percentages are estimates.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Progress Report V

Don't be fooled by the massive jump in word count... because of technical reasons, I had to remove the AIF extension I was using and replace it with one of my own design (Actually, Simpler AIF, which can be downloaded from the AIF archive). The bad news is that I'm going to have to revise my word count estimate for Playoffs to be about 100,000 words. The ambivalent news is that there will essentially be only basic layered clothing, which means less complicated (but hopefully not less good) sex scenes with faster development times. The good news is that the game is running much smoother than it was before, since Simpler AIF has, I think, fewer moving parts and better suited for large, complicated projects like Soccer Story.

So, much of the work this week was devoted to getting my AIF extension up to snuff (I'm hoping to release relatively soon). I've rewritten the documentation and extension is much more robust in general. The remainder of the work this week has been devoted to the soccer game play, specifically in information feedback. I was not going to include announcer commentary, but I realized as I was actually playing the game that it was a) difficult to know what was going on b) seemed kind of random because I didn't have a sense of what the margin of success was. Specifically, I had a terrible shooter score against my amazing goalie, and that frustrated me. Now, the commentator will hint by what margin you managed to score or miss, and when I replayed it the game told me it was some crazy fluke I could not have anticipated. In addition, commentators will give an overview of the situation, perhaps hinting gently at what your next action should be, and, if nothing else, provide some color commentary on players and opposing teams.

Summary

(Edit) An important milestone this week -- Soccer Story is now longer than Bad Sister, which was 55,000 words long.

Because everything I did this week was stuff I had not anticipated working on, nothing is getting ticked up. That said, I'm still feeling pretty good about the project and things are still humming along nicely.

Total Word Count: 60837 (up 8932 this week from 51905)

The Acts

Act 1
Design: 100%
Prose: 100%
Internal Polish 20%
External Playtesting 0%

Act 2
Design: 40%
Prose: 10%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Act 3
Design: 10%
Prose: 0%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Gameplay

Soccer Gameplay
Design 100% Programming 75% Playtesting/Balance 30%

Team Management
Design 70% Programming 25% Playtesting/Balance 0%

Characters

Recruitable Character 1: Prose 20%Sex Scenes 0%, Romantic Sub-Plot 0%

Recruitable Character 2: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%,

Recruitable Character 3: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 4: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 5: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 6: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 7: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 8: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 9: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 10: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 11: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 12: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Note: all the percentages are estimates.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Progress Report IV

A Title, An Estimate, and Future Plans

I've finally decided on a title: Soccer Story. I know I've changed the name several times during development, but I think I'm settling on this because a) it hasn't been used by a more notable project that I know of, b) it fits in well with visual novel naming conventions, c) it's pretty descriptive of what you'll get in the game. At this point, the other alternative is "Football Story" if I decide to use the British nomenclature. I know it rubs at least one person the wrong way but for right now it makes sense (ironically, while researching for the game I found out that the name "Soccer" originally came from the British, so technically both are British terms).

Secondly, I think I've come to an estimate to how long the final source code will be, and that the final game's source code will be between 130,000~160,000 words long, if I don't cut major planned features. That puts me between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way done with the raw draft, which is quite exciting to think about. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be able to keep the same pace I have been at for the past few weeks. Much of the word count has been inflated because I've needed to copy-paste the same code with minor variations, so who knows when the game will actually be finished. Not any time soon, likely.

What will be done sooner, however, is the demo, which shall be entitled Soccer Story: Playoffs and encompass the first half of the game. I believe that will be approximately 80,000~90,000 words long and will be relatively raw when released. Like the tech demo I released earlier this year it might not have much in the way of AIF, but it will have plenty of teasing. Since it's extremely unlikely I'll have fully interactive scenes with all 12 characters, I'll be using the feedback from the demo to decide which players get those sex scenes. Right now, I know of only 3 characters that absolutely will get interactive scenes, and I think I'll add two more. But don't worry, in the final game every female character will get at least a partially interactive scene.

Another thing, I'm not crazy about one of my characters and I'm considering replacing her, but I am truly tapped out of ideas. If you submit to me a character idea and I use it, in thanks you will not only be added to the credits but also your avatar will be added during one of the game's very elaborate hidden Easter eggs. Don't worry, it won't be embarrassing. It's just a little cameo. In particular, I'm looking for a girl who might be a good comic-relief character, someone perhaps a little out of touch with reality, but in a charming kind of way. If you have a suggestion, email me at AnotherWannabe93 a t gmail d o t com.

Summary

No notable milestones this week. Last week, I put in equipment and sponsorships. This week, I fully implemented it into the game. The other thing I implemented is training. Training turned out to be extremely complicated, in fact, the second most complicated thing except the AI, and that really took up the remainder of the work time. I began fleshing out the paths for one of the characters.

I added a framework for random and triggered events. In a minor miracle there wasn't any obvious bugs and it worked exactly as intended. So far, the only events you'll get are players quitting.

Total Word Count: 51905 (up 10607 this week from 41298)

The Acts

Act 1
Design: 100%
Prose: 100%
Internal Polish 20%
External Playtesting 0%

Act 2
Design: 40%
Prose: 10%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Act 3
Design: 10%
Prose: 0%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Gameplay

Soccer Gameplay
Design 100% Programming 75% Playtesting/Balance 30%

Team Management
Design 70% Programming 25% Playtesting/Balance 0%

Characters

Recruitable Character 1: Prose 20%Sex Scenes 0%, Romantic Sub-Plot 0%

Recruitable Character 2: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%,

Recruitable Character 3: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 4: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 5: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 6: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 7: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 8: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 9: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 10: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 11: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 12: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Note: all the percentages are estimates.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Progress Report III

Summary
Most of the work this week was focusing on the macro team management component. You can now buy equipment and choose a sponsor. A couple of milestones were reached. First, it is now possible to play through Act 1 into Act 2. Also, the word count is now higher than the standard rules but not quite as high as all of the extensions I've used. All of the Act 2 teams are implemented but not refined, and the skeleton of the tournament system has been implemented so you can technically get to the end of Act 2 although it's very bare-bones.

I've added a ton of admittedly lame humor. You've got to excuse me for that.

Total Word Count: 41298 (up 6338 from 34960)

The Acts

Act 1
Design: 100%
Prose: 100%
Internal Polish 0%
External Playtesting 0%

Act 2
Design: 35%
Prose: 5%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Act 3
Design: 10%
Prose: 0%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Gameplay

Soccer Gameplay
Design 95% Programming 75% Playtesting/Balance 25%

Team Management
Design 50% Programming 20% Playtesting/Balance 0%

Characters

Recruitable Character 1: Prose 20%Sex Scenes 0%, Romantic Sub-Plot 0%

Recruitable Character 2: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 3: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 4: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 5: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 6: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 7: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 8: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 9: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 10: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 11: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 12: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Note: all the percentages are estimates.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Progress Report II

I'm a bit too drugged up on allergy medicine to work, too sick to go out and so forth, so now's a good time to release a progress report.

Summary
I'm still trying to make up for lost ground after the big delete, but I feel I'm much closer to being in the core of the game. Also, I hit my first real milestone yesterday: I broke Inform's default memory limits. Luckily, you can always allocate more, but ideally you don't want to do that too many times.

Total Word Count: 34960

The Acts

Act 1
Design: 100%
Prose: 85%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Act 2
Design: 25%
Prose: 2%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Act 3
Design: 10%
Prose: 0%
Playtesting/Polish: 0%

Gameplay

Soccer Gameplay
Design 95% Programming 75% Playtesting/Balance 25%

Team Management
Design 50% Programming 10% Playtesting/Balance 0%

Characters

Recruitable Character 1: Prose 20%, Sex Scenes 0%, Romantic Sub-Plot 0%

Recruitable Character 2: Prose 10%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 3: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 4: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 5: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 6: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 7: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 8: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 9: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 10: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 11: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Recruitable Character 12: Prose 1%, Sex Scenes 0%

Note: all the percentages are estimates.


Sunday, September 1, 2013

Erin's Letter: Progress Update I

ACT STATUS


ACT I: 100% design, 90% written, 0% play-tested.

ACT II: 75% design, 25% written, 0% play-tested.

ACT III: 10% design, 0% written, 0% play-tested.

ACT IV: 10% design, 0% written, 0% play-tested.

CHARACTER STATUS

Major Character I: Path 10%, Sex Scenes 50%

Major Character II: Path 5%, Sex Scenes 0%

Major Character III: Path 5%, Sex Scenes 0%

Minor Character I: Path 75%, Sex Scenes 10%

SEX SCENES

Fully Interactive as Female
Completed: 1 Partial: 0

Partially Interactive as Female
Completed: 0 Partial: 1

Fully Interactive as Male:
Completed: 0 Partial: 2

Partially Interactive as Male
Completed: 0 Partial: 0

SOCCER GAMEPLAY

Tutorial: 90% Complete

Play-offs: 0% Complete

Tournament: 0% Complete