Elven Kingdom
Chapter 3 weekly devlog 4
Hi everyone! It's been a month since I started doing these weekly Devlogs, and it's nice to see how far things have come in this time. A lot of it is kind of "behind the scenes" things that are making my life easier, which hopefully means that maintaining a good pace of progress will be easier than it's been in the past (chapter 2 was a slog at times). It should also make the game more interesting in the long run!
The new combat system is now fully implemented, and it cuts a lot of fiddling around for me by consolidating everything into a single place. For those who know a bit of python, every enemy is now finally into a class, which allows for very easy editing and drastically cuts on code repetition. Like I was saying last week, it's my noob-ness coming back to bite me in the behind, but it also shows that I'm learning along te way! The main character now has a spell to use as well, and enemies have elemental weaknesses or strength (an idea that was already there in one instance: when Tyria fight the fire elemental in the library, her fire spell actually heals it!).
So what's new this week? Well, besides finishing up the fighting system, mostly writing, and we are now past 8,600 words of dialogue (so about 45% done). In about 1,200 more, the game will be officially over 60,000! Woohoo! I love stupid milestones like this. Unfortunately, writing is not something that is very easy to show in a devlog, but it is the core of a visual novel, after all. I find that writing for a VN is a very different experience to writing most kinds of prose, as it is nearly all dialogue (in my case, anyway). Hopefully, the characters and backgrounds provide enough additional interest. It does mean that developing character "voices" becomes quite important. As such, one of the new characters that we will meet along the way is a Bard, and that was the perfect occasion to have some more bad poetry and rhymes. Always a favourite! She has a certain quirk or two to how she speaks, as you'll see when you meet her. Hopefully, that'll help make the character memorable in some way. here is how she looks:
Other characters have a slightly older slant to their vocabulary, or a propensity to use flowery language. Dwarves, as is tradition, have more of a Northern English/Scottish slant to them (although I'm not leaning very far into it, and yes, I know these are completely different dialects ^^).
Like I've said in previous devlogs, some past characters are coming back in this chapter. Spoilers ahead, so skip to the next bit if you don't want to know! You've been warned. Of course, Maera is the biggest one, and I'm very happy to have her back at our side, She's a little more mature than in the prologue, but still full of childish wonder and tantrums, hehe. Dúah makes an appearance along the way, and so does Tyria. I haven't written Ly'dell in as of now, but she is also on the cards! I've chosen to focus on the female classmates for now, and will devote some scenes to the boys in the future (if it all goes to plan). There are more scenes to check with Lightbringer Yuna and Sinn the barmaid back in Stonehold. The bullies from the Academy will also return, although in a more surprising way perhaps! All in all, it's quite a cast that's been assembled so far, an I know that different people will have different favourites, so I'm sorry if I haven't gotten to yours quite yet! Hopefully, there will be plenty to entertain you.
In other news, the art for the cards is also coming along nicely. here is a sample of the mages so far:
The card duels are a nice excuse to have some one-off characters that don't need much elaboration as adversaries. It adds variety without needing too much work, and that's a win in my book! I have already added one in the prologue, and one in Stonehold. I'm not sure what I'll do in the Academy yet. Should a teacher challenge the MC to a game of cards? There are some that people want to see more. Let me know!
And there you have it! Not the most exciting devlog, I know, but rest assured that things are progressing well. Hopefully you are as excited as I am for things to come. As always, I'm very open to ideas and suggestions, so don't hesitate to comment or send me a message.
Stay safe and see you next week!
Comments
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Regarding the card game, are there going to be special character cards which feature all of our favourite characters from the game, like a Maera card for example?
Looks great! Can't wait. Loving Bard who MUST be a brat! Different from the privileged princess, of the street urchin type who actually takes fiendish glee in tormenting the crap out of Maera, a perfect foil, with MC caught between! Let the sparks fly!
It is amazing to see how much progress you’ve had in the past few weeks:) The game after this next update will be even more awesome and fun, I’m really looking forward to playing it through again and again!! I would love to see the MC in a different outfit to what she has on in Stonehold, if the story lets her wear something else of course. Maybe a short skirt with some high heels?:P
Thanks! I really want players to be able to change outfits at their leisure, but it does mean having to draw several versions of every spanking scene, and that's the bit that's preventing me from doing it right now... In the code, it's all ready to go (and already works for the character sheet, for instance, where you will see these changes as the game progresses), but it's so much more work that I'm not sure it's feasible in any reasonable timeframe.
Having a different outfit for a one-off scene like the ball is totally doable, though; it's true that there haven't been many skirts in the game so far!
I have a soft spot for Tyria so yay!!!! and wouldn't it be hilarious if Claire has left her previous employer in Stonehold because of all the spankings she kept getting and she's now got a job somewhere else and low and behold in the process of a quest the main character just happens to randomly visit the new place she's working at and Claire ends up getting spanked ha ha.
It would be quite funny, yes ;)
Huge Props for your ambition, with the amount of work you have to put in a new chapter, it's insane that you basically rework portions of the previous one with each update.
Adressing the Fights and the system behind it. I don't know if I'm in the minority with this opinion but I never had a problem with it's "simplicity" it was bascially a replacement for a "I win" or a "I lose" button and I don't have the slightest problem with it, because the outcome of these battles are far more interesting to me than the battle itself.
The Card Game idea fits in really well and is awesome, do you got a fitting name for it in the meantime?
If I get to choose which one in the Academy gets to play it would be Sydhanna or the Dean ;)
These Devlogs are really interesting but, somehow I'm glad you didn't post devlogs earlier , so the wait isn't so unbearable with an end in sight :D
Also are you planning to make a Playthrough after the next update? I seemingly tried everything, but there are still some scenes I'm missing, I hope I'm not the only one. haha
Looking forward to the next one and Happy working!
PS: The Bard is cute, I hope we're gonna be able to make her sing ;)Thanks for the feedback! I still don't have a name for the card game, so suggestions are welcome. A walkthrough is in the works (with a lot of help from players), but it takes time that I don't really have right now, haha. Definitely on the to-do list, though!
I thought something like "Flower Eclipse" or "Twilight Garden".
Great to hear and I bet you currently have better things to do. haha
I’m curious, will the card game be spanking-related in any aspect?
No, I don't think so. I think about having a spanking-battling kind of thing, but it didn't really click. I think it's nice to have some different kind of sexiness here an there ^^ Hopefully CM_Zero will finish up the cards he started a long time ago, hehe.