Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Another short day and short progress update. I was hoping to get all the story stuff done by the end of today (technically yesterday now?), but realized pretty quickly that wasn't going to happen. I think I am on track to have most of the story stuff- basically everything that isn't tightly integrated with the gameplay parts- finished up tomorrow. There are five chapters (plus an epilogue that may or may not make it in) and I'm halfway through Chapter 4.

I guess I might as well reveal the chapter titles, or the quick temporary ones I came up with anyway:

  1. The Promise
  2. Stardust
  3. Unleashed
  4. The Art Of War
  5. Let's Dance
  6. We Are The Others (epilogue)

Each is named for a song, but most of them don't really reflect the chapter well, at least not anymore. The story is pretty locked down now but that basically only happened yesterday. The writing is pretty rough in places, to be honest, and I'll try to clean it up at the end if I have time.

Some more screenshots. I have no idea how much of the plot you can guess from these and am too tired to care all that much at this moment.

A badly drawn map! It's supposed to be rough, so I think it turned out fairly well.

A guy saying the words "magical girl" makes it a magical girl game, right? I realized the House Garrick crest looks like a "no" symbol halfway through drawing it. It's supposed to be a stylized spear and shield, and is inspired by a misremembered version of Pyrrha's symbol from RWBY.


This choice will make a difference in the subsequent gameplay section. Probably.

So, I still have no idea what the actual gameplay will be. Yes, I've been building half the game without figuring out the other half. Suggestions are welcome. But really, that's tomorrow XCVG's problem.

When I first considered joining this jam, I wanted to make a platformer, but only had the setting but not the gameplay itself or the accompanying mechanics. I thought having no gameplay idea might be dangerous so I instead decided to use a genre with which I'll have more clarity. Hope you figure out the gameplay soon!

(+1)

So, at first, I was going to do a pure visual novel. That's easy from a gameplay design point of view, albeit still quite a bit of work. I've kept that, partly, for the narrative sections of the game (although again it probably doesn't strictly fit the definition of a visual novel). But early on in the planning process I starting thinking that creating a protagonist with all these magical powers and then not letting the player really use them feels like a lot of wasted potential. I want some sections where the player can actually use these powers in action and feel totally badass doing it, just like our protagonist does.