Lord of Lies Devlog #3

September 23rd, 2023

Hey hey, it’s Joy! (Flowersforjoy)

Let’s talk about how I plan to tackle this monster of a game.

In 4 major steps.

Step One

You’ve got the planning phase. Or the: ‘figure out what I want to make and how to make it’ stage.

What story would I make for Once Upon A Time VN Jam?

‘Princess Poison’- Now: ‘Lord of Lies’. It’s a super narrative heavy Adventure/Dark Fantasy/Grim Fairytale/Romance RPG Visual Novel.

How much time do I have to complete this? 

3 months.

How much work would need to be done? 

Frankly a lot, but luckily a lot of work has already been done thanks to my past self. 

The best way to describe what I have is this:

Think of a large painting, that was blown into pieces of varying sizes, and some pieces were incinerated in the explosion. 

Then, imagine me putting all the pieces I have together the best I could with what I have. There is one sizeable hole in the center, and other, much smaller holes on the corners of the painting.

That’s what I have currently. A game with lots missing, but also just as much present. 3 months is enough time for me to fill in that gaping hole, and the smaller holes surrounding it.

If I had to construct this entire painting from the ground up, 3 months would not be enough time.

Which is good, because it also means all that work I had done before isn’t going to waste. The only thing that is going to waste are the story cutscenes I made originally. (Granted only ACT 1 and a couple in ACT 2).

But for the better I say, the story was severely broken in lots of places anyway. A rewrite was inevitable. But instead of fixing what was there, I am entirely replacing them with something very, very different. With something that is better in every way.

So the entire story is being rewritten, something close or larger in word count to TNT (not including all the extra stuff- i.e: optional cutscenes, party dialogue (tent dialogue), exploration dialogue, npc dialogue). 

The story structure has a prelude/prologue section, acts 1-3, and an epilogue indicated in the game itself.

Luckily, I write fairly quickly, as long as my outline feels strong enough. (It definitely does). Shoutout to one of my writer’s, working with me for next year’s Otome jam entry, Hazel. And close dev friend Snakkiez for listening to me ramble about the story outline from start to finish to iron out any of the major kinks. 

The story is so much better because of you two <3 

Commissioning character sprites and CG’s.

Working out with my artist Gisselle how much she could do in the timeframe we have. Mainly 10 character sprites, and 3 CG’s. We almost have all characters finalized, and are moving on to expression work/additional outfits?, and lastly the 3 major CG’s for the game.

Balancing Game Dev with working full time.

This is the biggest one, making sure I can do all I want to do in the limited time I have.

Luckily, time management is a strength of mine. I also have a decent amount of experience leading a team, and completing sizeable projects.

The workflow I’m about to show you in this devlog is the main thing that convinced me that- yeah, I really can do this. I don’t know about you, but being able to see how much work is before me visually, is immensely helpful. I have an entire ‘Game Dev Bible’ with all my various to do lists’, pages and pages of notes, and this workflow, etc… in one place.

I obviously cannot share this ‘Game Dev Bible’ as it is rife with spoilers, but just know, I have a central hub to organize this monster of a project outside of the game file itself.

One of my major errors when I worked on this game originally, other than the things we have already discussed in devlog #1, was a severe lack of both organization and planning throughout.

This has already been corrected, but I want to maintain this all throughout. Hence, the devlogs as well. Though it’s mainly for accountability, and documentation.

Basically, the way to succeed in releasing this game the way I want to, by December 31st 2023 is to I stick to the timeframes in place, and make consistent progress.

Step Two

Then the sketch phase. Or the: ‘making it exist’ stage.

This phase includes: making maps for nearly every location/cutscene in the game, and marking down important notes to come back to in other phases. 

The thing that needs to be completed first for the project (especially now that it’s being rewritten) is the story. I am finishing every main cutscene of the game first before working on anything else. As narrative is the major focus of all I create, this remains true for ‘Lord of Lies’.

Combat, exploration, npc’s are all other tools used to boost the narrative anyway. So it’s only natural to start with the story.

The story will be pretty lengthy, probably a 10-40k words more than TNT at 60k, if I had to guess. However, writing mainly dialogue cuts this word count down. So it’s hard to know exactly. 

The prologue/prelude has about 10 cutscenes, and I think the word count is below 5k, so maybe the main story cutscenes will equate to TNT’s total word count, there’s no way to really know.

Regardless, making the story concise and functional is for later down the road. Right now, it just needs to exist. Good or bad.

Story is also the biggest piece missing in my painting in an explosion analogy earlier. So if I can finish this first, by the end I will have a completed painting.

(It’s still an ugly, messy painting with little holes surrounding it) but, it will be quicker to restore this painting than it would be to start it all from scratch. 

Besides, what it was before is good, it has a solid foundation, it just needs some tlc (tender love and care).

This phase will last until Oct 31st/Nov 1st where I will need to be mostly done with all main story related aspects. So we can start with the next step, in order to stay on schedule.

Step Three

Next is the lining. Or the: ‘make it functional’ stage.

This is the second biggest part of the game. The RPG namely, exploration and combat. Making every dungeon, every boss, and every skill and ability the main party will use. Making sure I can play through all cutscenes and the parts in between (walking around towns and fighting enemies) without any major bugs or issues.

Shoutout to another writer whose working with me for my otome jam entry next year, Alex, who will be helping me with two major things I struggle with. Worldbuilding, and balancing combat.

With his help, this process will go a million times quicker than what would have been possible, had it just been me working on this.

I plan to keep the combat pretty simple, with minor nuances and complexities since the story comes first and foremost, and 1 month isn’t a super long time to get a really in depth combat system put together. 

I want the difficulty of the game be dependant on how much you engage with the story or not.

For example, exploring and speaking with NPC’s/Party Members is a surefire way to conquer this game and all the combat. 

Exploring brings you to optional dungeons to level up, brings you items/weapons/armor to better face foes for you and your party, and gifts you can find to gain some approval for your party.

And speaking with/gifting your party members will allow you to learn more skills/gain items/ and even special attacks to do with party members in combat.

It’s Persona-eque, in that the more time you spend with your party it strengthens you guys’ bond in combat. Pretty neat huh?

Basically the more you engage with the story and the world, the easier combat will be. 

This will be finished by Nov 31st/Dec 1st.

Step Four

And lastly the the coloring/rendering…

Or the: ‘make it pretty/impactful’ stage.

The fun part honestly. 

Which will start Dec 1st, and since the month of December is a busy month for most people, especially me. I wanted what was left to be things that could be left out if I ran out of time. Things to include with additional updates, patches, etc…

December 4th is my birthday, and then I work at a major grocery store, and the holidays are insanely busy, as well as Christmas being a big deal obviously.

So the work I do I want to be as stress free as possible. And just allow myself to pretty up my game while enjoying my birthday and the holidays leading up to the release on the 31st.

I get to edit my cutscenes, make sure they are paced, and trim the fat, while also beefing up other areas.

Writing all the flavorful dialogue, optional cutscenes, item descriptions, etc…

Adding music, sound effects where necessary.

Adding any additional plugins.

Beta/bug testing- getting feedback and fixing everything I can before release, while adding all this extra shiny stuff where I can to polish this stone of a project into a diamond.

And Then?

And then… I’ll have a finished game?

Will it be perfect? With me working on it? No way.

But it will be done, it will exist.

And I always have to remember that I can update it as much as I want. Hell, the triple A studios do that. 

I can keep touching it up for as long as I feel it necessary. (I want to add voice acting at some point but there is NO WAY, I can during the jam, but it is 1000% on my agenda.)

What’s important is that as long as I keep going, I will inevitably have a finished game by Dec 31st to share.

No matter how rough, it will exist.

And you can’t fix something, that doesn’t exist.

If I hadn’t done all the work I did before, than this work flow would not work.

There will be all the time in the world afterward to fix it and polish it. But even then, at some point I’ll have to know when to stop.

Basically, it doesn’t really matter how I managed to claw my way up Mt. Everest, I climbed it.

I am excited for this journey to embark on, I’ve already started writing the cutscenes, and am in Act 1 already. I wanted to get a head start. If I continue to make the progress I have been making, I may have more time to do all the fun stuff as soon as mid November rather than December.

You’ll know when I do, as I will continue to do these devlogs until the end of this jam.

I hope you stick with me as I tackle this monster, once and for all.

Next Week’s Devlog Sneak Peak

Next Saturday is the official start of OUAT, and I will detail how much work I have gotten complete, and showcase some more workflow stuff. 

I want to do some more detailed character breakdown stuff, showcase combat stuff, maybe a playlist breakdown (without spoilers) etc… 

Mainly these exist to keep me working so that I have something to show. 

Thank you to everyone whose encouraged me to keep going, and has showed even a little interest in this project, I am keeping you guys’ words close to my heart in the hardest parts of development. 

So far it’s been great, and I have my support system (and far more exciting story I rewrote) to thank for that.

Until next week!