Developer Blog #2

"Of all the jerkface deceptions. Rosy Kim, I do believe I might be falling in love with you."

-Button (potentially)

I'm currently working on Rosy's route in Chapter 6 and may be enjoying it a bit too much. Curmudgeon teacher is a lot of fun to write, what can I say? In this upcoming chapter, people paying attention to affection meters may be surprised to discover that Rosy's fondness for Button occasionally goes up when challenged (although not always). 

Rosy values evaluative skills in others--they'll respect a Button that looks deeper to figure out people's motives instead of jumping to conclusions. However, Chapter 6 also unveils a less tolerant side of Rosy, and Button's affection level can actually dip if Rosy thinks their attitude is too woe-is-me (Morbid-Resentful Combo Buttons may want to choose K's path instead). I remain convinced that, romance-wise, the most compatible love interest for Resentful Buttons in general is Glitch, but that's beside the point.

Speaking of K's path, I'm still in the process of coding reactions to certain developments that involve everyone's favorite dog aficionado. For those of you who had Sally peer into K's future, you'll soon find out Hemera's identity! I'm also (very, very tentatively) debating whether to lock K's route behind meeting them in Chapter 1. I'll post a poll here on Patreon before making any final decisions, but the romance is just so much better if you meet K in Chapter 1. We'll see how later chapters go, but it's something I'll need to ponder (I welcome any feedback on the topic!).

The biggest challenge I'm dealing with right now isn't K's romance, however. 

It's Nick.

When writing, I use a lot of physical cues to convey character emotions. So much so, that a lot of the lip-twitching, brow-furrowing, and arms-crossing gets deleted when I edit. However, given that Nick is a disembodied voice in your head, it's tricky to subtly show his emotions. It's not an issue I've ever had before, and it presents a unique challenge for me. In my first draft, a lot of the passages with Nick have ended up looking like this:

How is this the logical conclusion that you reach? Nick demands, _________. Did I break your brain when I entered it?

Where the underlined blank is for me to insert an emotional tone description once I figure out how to do so without being repetitive from earlier passages. Who knew that writing about having your brother in your brain could be so tricky!

Thanks to your incredible support, I took additional Saturdays off for the rest of January and now have two days per week to dedicate to writing Mind Blind! Thus, this update will be longer--around 30,000 words, which will bring up the grand total of the demo to 190k (I'm going to try to reach 200k in this next update, but we'll see).

Patreon Demo Update: January 22

Current Word Count: 172k

Goal For Update: 190k (200k stretch)

Final Notes: 

Rosy's interview will be released January 31, so remember to leave any questions you have for Instructor Hardass on either the Sanctum of Spoilers Discord or on the Interview announcement post here.

I also hope you paid attention to descriptions of certain persons and artworks from previous chapters, as in Chapter 6 you'll have a chance to impress Rosy and to begin uncovering Mind Blind's main mystery.