Day 30: SAD!

It’s over. This last day of the challenge I really stuck to my goal, and re-read the entire thing yet again, while making changes and some small corrections here and there. I also wrote a brand new scene last night, thanks to a nocturnal boost in creativity.

DK30 Postmortem

So, to sum up, this particular run was an extreme success for me:

• started with a busted elbow and zero motivation
• worked everyday with a small goal of “just sit down to it”
• my expectation was to do 5-30mins per day, but I ended up having a couple amazing 8+ hour streaks, with the average being probably around 4+ hours
• the goal was to polish up the storyline, but I ended up FINISHING the whole thing

All of the above resulted in the game getting dangerously close to a release state. After 2 previous DK’s, I knew what I was getting into, but this one exceeded my expectations by a gigantic margin. And I’m not even including the insane stuff which happened during this thing, like that RPS mention.

Big thanks to all of you for your support, emojis, and comments on Discord.

Day 29:

Doing me re-reads, and rewrites - but it’s pretty solid overall. I also wrote down some trailer ideas, but I’m terrible at video editing so for now I’m putting it on the “TODO” pile.

Day 28: the end is near

Been adding even more cards today. I kinda noticed that I ended up finishing all the screenwriting I had planned for the base game (even though this DK30 was only supposed to get me started), so I’ll probably devote the last 2 days to re-reading - and maybe doing some minor changes. Once it’s done, I’ll submit all of it for proofreading.

Day 27: what on earth is going on here

I’ve only added a couple new cards, because I was a bit overwhelmed by an email exchange I was having with some kind of artsy festival based in Europe. It’s not a 100% yet, but ‘Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown’ will possibly get either featured or nominated there - I don’t even.

Day 26: Nice

It’s funny how before this DK30 started I was completely overwhelmed by my TODO list, which still included basic rewrites and fixes. A month of seriously driven work got me way farther than I could even dream of.

I’m currently at this nice point where the game feels like a game, and the story is pretty fun, and the balancing is pretty good also… so, it’s definitely time to break it all apart by adding new cards and features! So far today, I improved some of the ending animations, and I’m about to get back to testing/balancing (which is a grind), even though I’m feeling very good about where I’m at already.

^ soon I’ll be shifting my focus onto making new cards, and possibly one pretty big battle-related feature.

Day 25:

As it is Sunday I only did some minor work on my project. Edited some UI text, and took some jabs at producing a MacOS version of the game (and failed by the way). I don’t even own a mac, so it’ll probably be impossible in the end.

I might do some more writing before sleep, but no grind today.

PS. I ended up grinding like hell. 2 new cards added, and hours upon hours of progression tuning, but it actually feels really good now!

Day 24:

Did a bunch of rewrites of small text/messages (about 100) the Player gets throughout the story. This was done pretty quick, so I sat down to work on other things.

I’m currently balancing the difficulty curve of the full game, which isn’t easy; ideally getting even the normal ending should be a struggle, and the ultimate success one should be insane but possible.

PS. Balancing is hard.

Day 23:

I wrote a brand new scene today! This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is to me personally. It’s so much easier to rewrite/trim what you already have than to actually add something that fits in naturally with the rest.

PS. Week 3 was awesome.

(Late Night) PPS. I did even more writing today, big improvements!

Day 22:

Did a little screenwriting, but I got mostly absorbed with UI stuff and making the game more approachable, and easier to understand.

Day 21: Stuff

Done a whole load of stuff today - lot of little UI things, tutorial screen, and some other stuff… it was one of those boosted days where you do more than you can keep track of. Overall, an awesome day, I ate rice and drank coffee.

Day 20: a Milestone

The whole side story thing is now 100% complete (and it’s stupidly big!). This is a pretty big deal for me personally, I was too lazy to even start working on it, let alone finish the whole thing… and then add some more!

PS. The demo on itch has gotten quite a few downloads, thanks!

Day 19:

Some solid screenwriting was done today as well. I’m almost done with an optional side story (sidechain), which wasn’t even supposed to be done before launch - but here it is, solid, sparkly, and 99% release-ready! Will finish it up tomorrow.

^ also, this is my cutting-edge AAA R&D lab - putting an extra ‘backward’ in backward compatibility (spoiler: so far it’s not working at all).

Day 18:

Didn’t have much time today, but I did the thing a bit.

Day 17:

Screenwriting was done today! Had a productive day, and I’m really close to finishing my big side chain, so it’ll probably be included on launch.

Day 16:

Rewriting a big side chain.

It’s pretty weird to look at your own writing from half a year ago, but, surprisingly, it’s not entirely awful. I’m not even sure if this path will be in the game on day 0 (it’s stupidly long and convoluted), but I might as well try while my DK30 productivity is in high spirits.

Day 15:

Hardly an update: I basically spent my “productive” time on playtesting the game and thinking about the story and stuff. I seem to have hit this weird point where a lot is already done, and anything new should either be a side chain or a branching path.

PS. I just got a brainwave for something cool, but I’ll get to it tomorrow! PPS. After I wrote this update I ended up working on actual screenwriting \o/

Day 14: Week 2 was super good

I’m back on track, committed a good amount of screenwriting today! Looking back, I had a giant productivity boost during week 2. ^ inception

Day 13:

Screenwriting-wise I’m a bit stuck today, so I’ve added a new card type (execute style), since there’s still a lot to be done in terms of deck building potential.

Day 12: It’s a Raid!

My cheating spree continues as I ended up spending all day on adding a new feature: Raids. Raids are random events which can happen during your stream, suddenly boosting your viewership (and sometimes disrupting your plans). The names themselves will either be totally random, or possibly of real channels (but only with permission of course).

^ the above is just a screenshot of a pretty agile animation.

Day 11:

Super lazy today, but I did the stuff. I spent most of my day messing around with outro animations, which are fairly simple but it still takes a load of time to get somewhat right.

Day 10:

Drawings arrived already, so I finished up one of my major endings, and expanded it by a lot (most players will probably never see this one, but I’d rather make it as good as possible anyway).

Tomorrow I’ll probably deal with the main ending, once that’s done the game will be getting pretty close to beta status.

Day 9:

While I’m waiting for the drawings to wrap the main story arcs up, I ended up working on some side chain rewrites/sfx stuff. I’m also cooking up some card game ideas, will probably end up implementing a card upgrade system - something that I was considering for a while now, but wasn’t sure I needed it. It’s not mind-blowing, but it certainly adds another layer of complexity to the experience (for those who like more depth).

PS. My artist is already working on the stuff!

Day 8:

Had a great day today writing my stuff, my main endings are almost done and looking better than ever. Once I get my commissioned drawings, the entire storyline will be more or less playable from start to finish (but I will still need to do a ton of rewrites). There’s still a massive side-quest behemoth to tackle, but this can wait (might even add those post release to keep the game fresh).

PS. The more I do it, the more I realize that writing concise, movie-like dialogues is just hard - but I’m enjoying it more and more.

Day 7:

Still working on the major endings, their flow, and their vibe. Saying too much would probably be a spoiler for those who are interested in the story.

Day 6:

Big cheating day, I was completely absorbed by working on everything but the story. I’m about to sit down to it for a couple of minutes, but I have no regrets!

PS. Endings are hard to work with, but I’m doing some stuff bit by bit, and it kinda takes shape.

Day 5:

Didn’t have much time today, but I’ve sat down to it (as promised).

My head was empty to the point where I spent about half an hour just trying to get into it… but I did do a couple dialogue changes in the final scene (which is really hard to tackle). I also contacted my artist, since I’ve finally decided what I need to wrap things up!

PS. My artist is available and up for it (I’m saved).

Day 4:

Sunday is my cheat day - I messed around with some ideas. I’m thinking about visualizing choices that are currently unavailable to the Player (when requirements are not met). Before, people would be totally unaware that different outcomes are possible.

PS. I actually did a little story work today. The main path is 99% done.

Day 3:

Day 3 was a continuation of working on the game’s most important, core scenes (by the end). This productivity boost is very valuable to me, considering that I’ve done my best avoiding those for ages. Pochi has to deal with a lot of stuff, and there are many options to choose from, but I need to polish the main path as much as possible, since this is what most players will likely experience (although there will be a load of secret content for those who persist).

PS. I’m doing so many sound/flow/dialogue changes that I might as well rename this DK30 to something like “Game Screenwriting + Everything Else Under the Sun”.

Day 2:

I need a better chair. Tackling one of the most important scenes in the game, added a bunch of sound effects, trying to make it as compelling as possible, while dodging the urge to buy a bunch of art I can’t afford (it’s a good creative writing exercise). I’m trying to keep 3rd person narration to a minimum, but in this particular scene it’s pretty much impossible. Anyway, the scene looks better than it did yesterday, but I probably will be coming back to it again and again.

On a side note, I bought some nice coffee beans, but I miss my hazelnut americanos from the previous DK30’s :(

Day 1:

I successfully sat down in front of my laptop and opened up the project. Rewrote a major turning-point scene (again), while adding sounds/ambients/music. Spent half an hour looking for a ‘mobile call waiting’ sound that would loop.