No update today.
Deadline for next update: 27th of October(Friday) (maybe)
Unusual schedule today, so no work. Hard to say whether it’ll be ready tomorrow. Probably not, but maybe.
6 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This Sunday.
Finally learned how to use CSIDE(program to write and code ChoiceScript faster) to do stuff. It’s convenient for many things, and I still have many of the fine details to learn, but it will definitely speed up progress for the rest of the project.
The final scene of the segment is a bit tricky, so it’ll take two more days, I’m guessing. Not necessarily code-wise, but I have to make some important story decisions which means I’ll have to consider the potential repercussions on it. If it seems I’m getting stuck, I’ll just do the old “you don’t know yet” kinda thing and not really reveal all that much new stuff. 
Partially the result of the scene not as such belonging here timeline-wise, as mentioned earlier. 
8 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This Sunday?
Unfortunately I was more lazy than not today, so I didn’t get terribly much work or thinking done. It happens.
Hopefully it won’t affect the deadline. Although, as usual, I haven’t tested anything yet, and that sometimes takes a day, so…
7 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Wednesday
Got the thinking done, plus some of the work. Still, I have to finish the scene and do the testing etc.
I’m quite busy tomorrow, so I’m setting the deadline on Wednesday. Would’ve loved to get it out this month, but I doubt I can get it all done on Tuesday.
5 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Wednesday
As mentioned earlier, was very busy so no work done today.
6 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Maybe tomorrow
Didn’t get an awful lot done today. Just plain laziness I’m afraid(and too many temptations, like abundant Halloween youtube content). Seems to be more of that around recently. 
5 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: Maybe tomorrow
Yeah, unfortunately I’m currently in a huge lazy streak it seems. Will be done once I get out of it, I guess. 
(I don’t have the best life management skills, as you can see. Really should’ve done even just a bit on Monday, since my routine gets broken stupidly easily)
5 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This Sunday?
I’ll postpone the deadline since I doubt I can get a grip tomorrow. Usually the weekend is better for that.
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No update today.
Deadline for next update: This Sunday?
Will try to get my working routine back tomorrow.
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No update today.
Deadline for next update: ???
Still struggling with my personal weakness.
I’m so jealous of people who can just work when they want to, at whatever they want.
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No update today.
Deadline for next update: ???
Finally managed to force myself to work a little. Far less than I should have given that it was a Sunday, but it’s always very painful to start the engine again. Progress will likely be very slow for a while until I get back to a good routine, despite there being very little left to do for the current update. At least I’m no longer stalling(provided I can continue the flow tomorrow).
11 Likes
I am rather curious about what exactly you plan on doing with our character’s background. The background of your character and the reason they got sent there changes the entire mood of the story so much. It’d be a shame if it didn’t affect more about the investigation as time went on. To be more than just set-dressing for the social interactions y’know?
I guess I just want a tiny little spoiler to confirm whether or not “who” you are actually changes the circumstances of the case and it’s potential repercussions.
Like, being unremarkable means you end up with attempts to bribe you.
Being a veteran, someone tries to poison you to stop the investigation and blame it on natural causes or just get you to retire/stop working earlier.
Being a loose cannon and having the threat of suddenly being transferred back because the department you worked in had an emergency that needed you.
Anti-corruption agent? Obstructed by corrupt bureaucracy being commited by the people that sent you.
Things like that. Where, although the case is the same. Your obstacles differed depending on why you’re there, and what remarkable, or entirely unremarkable mark you’ve left before you came here.
Especially the “bureaucracy” one. Lots of potential there.
5 Likes
The plan is to have a number of scenes that are based on the backgrounds. For instance, anti-corruption agent has exclusive scenes where they get to gather some evidence, present it to the people in charge, etc. (which might have post-game consequences for characters too!)
For some of them it’s clearly far easier than for others, so it might be hard to make each of them equally interesting.
As for whether they change the case itself and so on… hard to say. It would be easier if there was a unique, “strong” character related to each background, but that’d be too much work.
Having obstacles like you mentioned could be nice, but implementing them in a reasonable way may be way harder than you’d think(at least for me). Like, if it’s an obstacle, then by definition it should hinder you in some way, depending on how you solve it. But what effects would it have, if you failed to do anything about the obstacle? Etc. They have to have some meaning or they’ll just be there to fool the player, which I’m not a huge fan of. And for them to have meaning, it means consequences and a lot of work on my end, especially if the consequences are farther reaching than just the immediate scene. (or I suppose I could insert the biggest obstacle right before the end, where the consequences aren’t that impactful since there’s not too much game left! The traditional way to write a story, where the cop is fired just when they’re about to catch the main bad guy)
In any case, I do want to do something with them that’ll make the choice feel immersive to each playthrough. And that means at least a few minor scenes for each. Worst case scenario I’ll have to trim some of them out if I can’t think of anything interesting to do with them(or signal to the player that some background is “lighter” than the others).
Still, for the most part they’re intended to just change the context of the case, and thus bring flavor, rather than be game-changing choices. I’ll definitely do something with them, but the scope will likely be rather small since there’s so darn much to do in the project, and I can’t bloat everything or I’ll never get it done. 
Hope that answers your question. I really do need to start thinking about the details since the time to implement this stuff is almost upon us.
15 Likes
Yeah, that does. Thanks for your time!
The examples I gave are quite extreme. But ultimately I think these types of obstacles would indeed pop up basically right at the end, considering it is quite likely the case will be solved in a week or so. (Slightly more than that probably.)
There is, after all, a limit to the speed at which a person can plan or bureaucracy (even corrupt) can progress. As for the meaningfulness of the obstacles themselves, I think their consequences being limited in-scope to the next part of the investigation can help. The obstacle need not stop the investigation so much as just mislead or delay them after all.
For example, perhaps the poisoning, even if it succeeds, doesn’t kill or hurt the player character majorly. After all, they are under the care of a highly advanced organization with medical tech that makes ours look downright primitive.
But I can totally see the player character not having fully recovered by the time they need to continue the next part of the investigation, and clues they normally could’ve found or situations that should’ve been more forgiving aren’t like so anymore.
Of course, that could end up backfiring if a player decides they made a wrong choice at some later point in time but have to reset the game to go all the way back to when they first tried to deal with that obstacle. Though it’s a thing that happens frequently anyways since normal Choicescript doesn’t support a back button.
I get the difficulty of implementing such features, so I personally am not too picky about it, they don’t really need to be game-changing, and indeed flavor is what I like them for. Perhaps other people have a different opinion, but I do like having small little speed bumps more than big split paths.
In fact, I am quite satisfied with your idea of side-scenes with some post-game consequences. So I guess this is all just a potential idea you can store in the back for whatever game or narrative work comes after this. (If any.)
Which, hopefully there will be, as I enjoy your work quite a bit, and wouldn’t mind seeing your writing style in a few different settings too. Probably best to focus on this current work first though I guess.
2 Likes
Thanks for the suggestions and feedback. Always good to hear opinions on stuff since I’m just one person so my view is quite limited.
Interesting idea about the poisoning, would work better if I had a number based system for the skills and all that, but it’s a bit harder since I don’t. But I could always use counters like I usually do(you need X amount of clue counters to find something, but if you’re poisoned you need a few more, etc).
It’s my hope that when the final version is being played, no player will want to backtrack their choices. I have(and will) put in a fair deal of effort for the “wrong” and “failed” choices, after all. I do get the impulse to change your decisions(and admittedly in some scenes the outcome can be different than what you aim for, as in the recent assault-command-infiltrate stuff), but in something as big as Cyberpolice it’d be a huge drag to replay anything(although I guess I could put some sort of “chapter” based save system in the final form, no idea how that’d work).
Funny thing about the back button, I’ve had a game-story in mind where the whole point is that the player CAN travel to an earlier part of the game to replay it, within the context of the story itself! In-game time-travel, and you’d be able to use the information you’ve gained later on to replay the scene again, and choose different things if you know stuff you didn’t when you went through it the last time. Like “I know that guy’s a traitor, so I’m gonna take care of them right now”, etc. Probably too much work to ever actually make, though.
I’d love to do more projects after this one, but as you said, best focus on this until it’s done.
The most important thing for later projects is that I’ll have to learn how to do them more efficiently without having them bloat too much. Something like 500,000 words for the entire thing, absolute maximum, seems good. I have ideas for pretty much every setting possible, whether it’s fantasy adventure or 1800s politics or an alternate Earth race into space, or a zillion other things. I love coming up with stuff and details way more than actually writing it in a more practical manner, unfortunately. (I have 4 or 5 projects already planned up to the characters, plot, scene details, etc. Eventually, once this is done, and I feel ready to start a new one, I’ll probably make small demos on each and see what people think about them in order to choose the one to focus on)
9 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Okay amount done all things considered, although most of the work wasn’t really related to the current scene(rather the next one with the one night stands). Still, better to do something than nothing, since the idea is to remake the routine again(a third day in a row usually forms it, so tomorrow is pretty important too).
It’s so bizarre how hard it is to work on this at times. I always have a decent motivation to WANT to work on it, but when I open the files and see the concrete work I need to do, it can be daunting since it’s never the fun stuff that’s left last in the update.
11 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Third day in a row, so the routine is more or less established. Mostly worked on the other update again.
7 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Again, mostly the other update. So much easier since it’s so self-contained so no need to worry about incoming or outgoing choice-consequence stuff.
Will probably be the weekend until I take a look at the current update again, I’m guessing. I’d prefer to use the weekdays for “easy” stuff since comparatively speaking I have much less time than on the weekend. Plus, better that way to keep the routine strong.
6 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Mostly(well, entirely) the other update once more. Fortunately it’ll be worked on properly after this anyway, so any time I spend now is time I don’t have to spend later, so it balances out. Honestly, way easier than I expected. No idea if the scenes will be good from a ‘romantic’ perspective, but they work as character moments anyway, so it should be fine.
11 Likes
No update today.
Deadline for next update: This week.
Earlier schedule today since I have stuff to do later on, worked pretty well. I should probably do it more often. Do stuff as soon as possible and the rest of the evening is stress free.
I’ll finish the current update during the weekend. (or try to anyway)
13 Likes