A Peak At Progress #18

This post is going to be a long one, so buckle up.

Chitinous Carnival Redesigns

For the most part, Chitinous Carnival’s gameplay is finalized. However, I need to give dedicated time to the supporting systems. I’ve been trying to work on them while also working on content for CC. However, this is becoming increasingly haphazard to work on long sequences. Therefore, I’m going to work on smaller additions to the game that’ll allow me to refine various background systems in the game. These systems include:

• Automatic awakening of parasites
• Item disposal
• Using morality-based triggers
• Parasite event skipping
• Prize mechanics
• Repositioning choice buttons
• New parasite system

    The first thing on my list is implementing the triggering of parasite prizes automatically. The idea is that, as you explore the carnival, the items you are carrying can trigger on their own. Some will play unique scenes, while others will play a generic ones. The idea is to make holding items risky (or rewarding).

    Additionally, I need to add the ability to dispose of items from your inventory. It wouldn’t make much sense to make items traps if you couldn’t try to get rid of them. However, disposing of items wouldn’t be risk-free. I have plans to have items self-activate or have aggressive NPC return them to you.

    Next, I’m planning on implementing a morality-based system for controlling the story. Currently, event triggers are limited to the options you picked in the funhouse. However, I want to move away from this very restrictive design. It won’t scale well as I add scenes to the game. I’m planning on implementing some additional hidden stats that will help influence the game’s behavior.

    Then, there is the need to allow for you to take a shorter alternative path when you re-encounter parasites. I want to avoid having parasite encounters become overly repetitive. I know this is a personal problem I have with RPG. This option will likely become available after successfully evading once or twice. Since RNG will be at play, I want to have some safeguards against repetition.

    Another improvement I want to add is a chance for the player to receive any prize in the game without “winning” a minigame. Moreover, I plan on adding a system that’ll guaranty the player will receive an item. Furthermore, this will circumvent needing to win everything to see parasite prizes. Additionally, this will provide an extra challenge for players trying to escape with minimal infestations.

    Next, I want to implement some changes to the UI. It is a change based on feedback back during the judging period of the Strawberry Jam. I’m going to move the option buttons to their own place on the screen. I’m feeling the need to give them more space. Moreover, this change will make writing prompts less restrictive.

    Also, I want to dedicate time to redoing the parasite system. I want an approach that enables multiple parasite infestations. While I have an idea of how to do it, I need some time to explore its implementation. I especially want to have a good approach towards saving the player infestation state.

    Finally, there is a variety of other improvements I want to tackle. However, the ones listed here are the issues I regularly felt like I was tripping over while adding encounters to Chitinous Carnival. Additionally, I want to take this opportunity to direct creative energy to other ideas for December.

Side Projects

As previously said, I want to take some time to work on other ideas. I have a painfully long backlog of art ideas I want to flesh out. Additionally, I want to explore ideas for Chitinous Carnival in a smaller format. Experimenting within Chitinous Carnival’s code-base is cumbersome. But, honestly, I need another creative break from Chitinous Carnival. I know most of you follow me for my main project, but I have one last thing to add to the post.

Also, when I say "creative break" that isn't a coded language for "not working on CC". I will be work on things that don't require writing a narrative or drawing scenes. It is very draining have to solve artistic problems while also having to solve logical problems. Furthermore, there is a growing number of workarounds in the code from trying to add content on top of half-baked system. 

Discord Server in Progress

I’m planning on starting a discord server sometime in mid-December. However, I’m still setting things up. It’s also a bit of a messy process since “Test Environment” isn’t in Patreon’s vocabulary. The reason I want to start one is that it would make communication a lot easier. And, you’ll get front row seats to whatever weird tech rants I ended up having.

Fin

I believe that's everything for this devlog. It was quite a long one, so the tl;dr:

• Working on boring stuff again because the cool stuff is becoming difficult to add
• Using that time to take a creative break from CC
• Want to do some other creative projects for December
• Finally, a discord server