DevBlog - 7-25-11

Had a good week, everyone?

I know it's only been a week, but I had a few more things to point out that didn't make it into the last post. I figured it'd be kinda gaudy to make two posts about nothing within the span of a week, so I waited til today. Before I get started, though, just let me say that from now on DevBlog posts will only be on the first of the month starting on August 1st. Sure, it's only another week-long span, but I'd like to get the pattern started. Though, naturally, there will be another post for when the demo comes out.

I've got a few points to make, so I'll begin each one with its own section.

Development
The game is coming along just fine. I've got the apartment fairly much done, sans some textures and animations. I feel that Netsuki's sprite is ready, as well. So for sprite work, all I really have left for the demo will be the nexus. My nexus is much more geometrical and solid than others, and I really think it will turn out atmospheric. Haven't played with sprites since back in high school; used to use Mega Man and Fire Emblem stuff. Fun to be doing that again. Sprites should be done within the week.

When the sprites are finished, I'll be moving on to Flash. I have a fairly solid understanding of the coding that needs to be done to get the game working, sans a few small points which I'll have to look up. I don't foresee any snafus in the immediate future regarding it. I will also take some time to do some alpha testing before release. In all, I'm still hopeful that the Demo Version 0.07 will be out by mid-August. After that, well, there will mostly only be the DevBlog to keep everyone informed.

Plot
After reading back the last post, I realized that I was pretty vague and off base with the section on the story. So I'd like to make a note here: '''Is there a story? Of course there is.''' What I meant to say was that while there is a story to Netsui's predicament that I've drafted, I plan on keeping it very vague and open to interpretation.

A Yume Nikki game that holds your hand and strings you along with the plot just seems to counteract the whole point of this type of game: exploration and wild mass guessing. Which isn't to say I won't make the story more obvious if there is enough demand to make it more straightforward, but as for now, the experience will be much like the original: all you know is that you're playing as Netsuki, you're in his dreams, and there's something wrong.

The Wiki
Over the course of the week, I tried to get the wiki here up on its feet. Nothing much, just a but of styling, categorizing and hype. I will release a good deal of content for it when the demo is released. But what I really want to focus on here is the future of the wiki. How much information on the game will I divulge? While making known every last little secret in the game would take a lot of fun out of, it just seems kind of half-assed to create the pages with limited helpful information.

I think what I will do for now is release pages for the various worlds, the effects and where to find them, and some of the technical information like customization and how to get each separate ending (oh, by the way, there are multiple endings). After that, well, it's all up to whether there's any demand for the more specific stuff. Really, I have no qualms about recording every little detail about the game into the wiki if asked.

That's about all I wanted to get out. I understand that there's probably no one reading this right now. I mostly madfe it with future readings in mind. Made myself a nifty little logo as well. While I could have just opened up Illustrator and thrown something like that together in 10 minutes, I decided to draft it 8-bit style instead. Really forgot how much fun it is to play with pixels instead of vectors. Though those are fun too. I'll stop wasting time here and get back to development.

Zakuu Soft may be reached at ZakuuSoft@gmail.com

- Zakuu Soft's Anonymous