Paths, Progression and Polish

Hello my MODDERS and MODIFIERS!!

In this post, I want to talk a explain the plans for the paths and progression of MODIFICATION APP - as well as some QoL improvements that I'm working on for version 0.3.0 to better show the paths.

What are paths?

So paths are basically just a sequence of events that relate to a specific MODIFICATION.

As you might have seen, when you select the first Mind Control or the Breast Expansion MODIFICATION option, the app will then show that you are currently on a specific path.

However, will this mean that all paths will start from the Default state?

The answer is no! From these paths we will then start branching!

What is branching?

So when asked how the game will play out, I normally answered with "I want it to branch out, kind like a tree" - and I always feel like that isn't very clear, so I made a very simple diagram to explain it better.

As you can see, we start with the two branches you're familiar with, and from there we branch out to more and more paths!

If you all ever played The Stanley Parable - the way it does diverging paths is similar to the idea I have for MODIFICATION APP.

The game starts with two choices, they then branch out into more and more paths - each with they own unique content!

I want the player to explore around and try to find out the different paths available.

That being said, the paths will not always be as simple as selecting a modification from the app at a specific time.
I plan to have some paths that will only unlock after the player explores the house, solves some puzzles or simply interacts with Mia (as well as the already existing minigames) - so don't expect this to just become a walking simulator!

How to keep track of the paths?

As the number of branches increase, this is definitely a concern.
Even on version 0.2.0, a few people were expecting to find the Mind Control path at the end of the Breast Expansion path.

If this is a issue with only two paths, these questions will just get worse as time goes on.

And that's why, a new app will be added to the phone on version 0.3.0 - the Path App!

This will allow the player to see where they currently are, where paths diverge, and at which points they should explore to find more options!

Hopefully this will make exploration more intuitive and fun!

Now, the final question I wanted to answer is:

Why paths?

A few people have wondered why do paths instead of allowing the player to freely mix-and-match whatever modification they want.

The short answer is:

Having paths allows me to have more unique MODIFICATIONS with specific scenes for them.
Having free mix-and-matching would instead force the scenes to be extremely generic as they needed to accommodate any changes the player might choose (it would also make development a lot slower and harder)

The long answer is:

When I initially had the idea for a transformation game where you use your phone, the idea was indeed to have the free mix-and-match options.
And I mean why wouldn't it be - let the player have complete freedom!

... That version was scrapped a long time ago.

What happened was that, development quickly become very very hard.
Every time I wanted to add a new piece of content - be it body changes, outfits, accessories - it had to be compatible with every other modification and artwork I had already done - and at the same time!
This made adding things take very long, but worst of all the game was just... kinda boring.

Since everything had to be compatible, all scenes had to be very generic - where the only changes would be some dialogue based on what was enabled.
I didn't like this. I think the interesting part of MODIFICATIONS is seeing the specific interactions that are possible from it.
If everything looks and plays the same - the only difference is the character now has cat ears or something. Nothing unique was done with what I think is a idea that allows for so many possibilities!

I hope this update was able to clarify some of your questions!
If you have anything else you'd like to know about, or some thoughts about what I talked here, please be sure to comment!

Either way, I finished Deltarune Ch3 and 4, so it's time to go back to work in the dungeon.

Ⓣ