The U-Shaped Narrative

OK, a bit of a conundrum.

So the way this game works, the daytime storyline is fairly linear. Day by day specific events unfold. Then, at night, you have freedom of choice of who you want to talk to.

Right now, we have the first week of gameplay finished. Think of that as the left-hand side of the letter U. That's done and polished, with just a few edits to make to accelerate the pace a bit.

For the last few weeks I've been writing all of the daytime scenes while ignoring the nighttime ones. So that's the base of the U. (the nighttime scenes involve incredibly heavy character work which is going to take time, and at this point I want to make sure that the shell around those scenes is solid.)

My next task is going to be to write the ending of the game, because it has so many different permutations and combinations that I want to make sure I understand where the plot is going before I start filling in the middle. As a writer, I find that it helps to construct your story from the outside in. That means figuring out where it starts and figuring out where it ends. That's the right hand side of the U. (another practical upside of that is that all the voice acting takes place during the daytime, so that helps me plan ahead.)

The problem is that this means the game is not actually playable! Without those nighttime scenes, you can't actually test any of the daytime stuff and you certainly can't get to the ending. The U is vertically complete to the left and right but hollow in the middle.

So here's my current thinking, my temporary solution...

I'm going to put placeholders in each of the nighttime scenes, a simple yes/no choice to earn a trust point with that character without actually needing the scene completely written. This way, I can at least test out the daytime scenes and test out the ending.

And that means that you, as someone who is contributing to the Patreon, will be able to play all the way to the ending and see how the story finishes before the middle of the story is even done! That is a little bit wacky, I'll admit that's very wacky, but I think this is the right approach.

I'm going to need a bit of time to get this done because as noted the ending is ridiculously complicated. So the next prototype is probably going to be out later this month. I'm definitely going to make sure something is out in February because you are being charged month-to-month and it wouldn't be fair to leave you completely hanging. Not that I doubt you folks would be happy to just keep contributing to keep this experiment going, but I should uphold the standards anyway.

And if this is a bit too strange for you, if you're not interested in playing the beginning and the ending of the game while the middle is being filled in over the months ahead, that's OK. You're not free QA testers, you're backers, and what you want to do with your money and your time is entirely up to you.

Thanks for your support. Welcome to the sausage factory; game dev can get weird.