QUEST DEVBLOG 3/25 - 4/7

3/29 6:00PM - 9:00PM

We are fully in the polish phase at this point, so direct narrative tasks are a bit sparse. I’m spending each of my usual work sessions focusing on a particular region for any obvious problems or shortcomings in a given region. This evening, I returned to the village revisit, as the lead had asked for feedback on potentially adding a last minute side quest to add levity. I tried to add a bit more humor to currently existing dialogue, rather than adding new material at this stage.

3/30 2:00PM - 5:00PM

I’ve now doubled back to the initial village segment, an area I have had little input on over the course of the project, outside of drafting the prologue. Much of this work is the product of the previous semester, and it’s in a good state. I’ve made some dialogue suggestions and cleaned up some lingering typos in the Figjam documents. Village is in good shape at this stage.

3/31 8:30AM - 10:30AM

Reviewed the chat for any new or lingering issues prior to this week’s meeting. Looking pretty clear. Spent most of my morning wrapping my head around GitHub and trying to get Unity working on my computer with little success, as I know we’re going to be focusing on walkthroughs in the meeting.

3/31 11:00AM - 1:00PM

Studio Meeting (via Discord)

I was unable to attend this week’s meeting in person, as I was in Lansing for Easter. This week was focused on Unity playthroughs of the beta (alpha? I’m no programmer). I was mainly relegated to observation of squad playthroughs, as I wasn’t successful in getting things running on my computer. Not a major problem, as narrative can act on feedback received from more experienced play testers.

4/5 3:00PM - 6:00PM

An issue was brought up with the forest region, wherein a certain dialogue object was added to the game file with a misspelling. I didn’t see a satisfactory resolution, so I attempted to seek it out in the shared assets. That wasn’t particularly fruitful, so I opted to trust the consensus that this may be a relic from a previous version. Best I can do with my toolkit is to try and make sure all dialogue within the region’s Figjam is pristine and ready to be imported without futher issue. The forest is in good shape at this stage.

4/6 5:00PM - 7:00PM

Moving on to the Castle for polish. This region is the trickiest to make progress in, as it has remained unsettled geographically until very recently, which has significant narrative consequence. I took an early pass at it, but it has since become the responsibility of another team member. Much has changed since my version, which attempted to incorporate many of the ideas brainstormed by the original team last semester. We’ve now sacrificed a lot of that, which is logical considering the uncertainty. It is wise to keep the focus on the jester at this stage, rather than individualizing the guards. I made some suggestions for dialogue tweaks, but the region was largely clean and ready.

4/7 8:30AM - 10:30AM

There was a note regarding potential changes needed within the prologue and epilogue, so I explored if the newly suggested art assets would work with the existing writing. It all seems totally fine. Had largely wrapped up any pressing work for the week, so I took another stab at Unity before heading out to the meeting. I’m still not having any luck on my Mac, but I was able to launch the prototype on my home PC. Not much time to do anything with it, but it could prove useful as we push forward.

4/7 11:00AM - 1:00PM

Studio Meeting in Bob and Betsy Beyster Building

The major focus of this meeting was the studio’s direction for future semesters, with the introduction of the new studio head taking up the bulk of our time. After we split off, the level squad joined the quest squad, as the level lead was unable to attend. I was also the only narrative team member present, so I mainly observed the second round of playthroughs and took notes when issues arose. No pressing narrative problems cropped up.

4/7 10:00PM - 11:00PM

Last hour this cycle was spent compiling my notes and completing my Devblog for publication