Bird Makes Things (Worldbuilding and Devlog)

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by An Actual Bird, Feb 15, 2017.

  1. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    I'm certainly going to regret doing this on my phone, but! This is a thread for talking about things I make!

    Right now I have made two things! Thing number one is a book, called Stowaway. I wrote it when I was supposed to be studying for my final high school exams. It's about pirates! The fact that I was 17 when I wrote it kinda shows, but I'm still pretty proud of it.

    The second thing is called To the Wolves. I entered it in IFComp 2016 and came 11th! It's a fairytale about a girl who makes a deal with a devil. Deals with devils happen a lot in my stories.

    Right now I'm making a third thing, which if you follow the indie horror games thread you'll have heard me talk about! It's a horror game in the tradition of Corpse Party, Misao and IB, but in GM instead of RPG Maker. There will be time shenanigans. I'm gonna use this thread as a devlog and hopefully you guys will enjoy reading it! I'll also be talking about the greater ~world~ everything happens in

    I'll add links when I get home lmao.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2017
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  2. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    Untitled: Devlog
    It's a 2d psychological horror puzzle game! I've got most of the structure/plot mapped out, so this is a record of Me Yelling At Game Maker.

    Started devlog. Probably should’ve been keeping it beforehand. Whoops!

    Today, I took the dialog system I’d been trying to get working and scrapped it in favour of trying to integrate someone else’s one. I think this one will be better, once I customise it the way I want to.

    Currently, the menu is sort-of working, as is the dialog. The logic puzzles are written but not implemented. The basic plot is mapped out.

    The next item on the agenda is getting the dialog system customised. Then I’ll do the inventory, then the menu. After that it’s figuring out how rooms work.

    LATER THAT NIGHT: I was struck with inspiration and fixed part of the dialog that wasn’t working. I still need to customise the dialog-activation script. Still, I’m feeling pretty good about getting it working. I’m a real coder!

    EVEN LATER: I fixed it.


    Implemented the bones of the inventory. I’m going to have to figure out ahead of time how many items I’ll need, which is a pain, but what can you do?


    I immediately broke the dialog and spent most of the day trying to fix that — I couldn’t get the dialog system to run scripts. I’m not sure how I fixed it, but I did. Then, I started working on the save files, and in the process created a very bare-bones start menu. The save is also working, even if it’s only holding two variables. I have no idea how hard carrying variables over to new games is going to be, but a New Game+ option seems doable — just pick and choose which values to overwrite, or pretend to be erasing values when you’re really not. Or, have a script that, if ‘number of times we’ve done this’ is a certain value, secretly changes a bunch of variables. So many options!

    Oh, and I got an interview at F***lb*****r today. Should this go in my devlog? Yes. Yes, it should.


    Created all the rooms (hopefully) that should be needed for the game, and initialised the loop variable, which will be the global variable that persists throughout saves. Currently giving it its own object as a reminder to implement it later. Alternatively it’ll be called in the room creation codes — if loop > 0 initialise save points, stuff like that. Note — there will be no save points in the first loop.


    Totally changed the inventory system, because why not? I like it better now. Started listing out the inventory slots that will be needed — right now it’s just the items for the crow puzzle. Spent ages reworking the inventory object so that it’s on a different object to the notebook sprite, because the item description kept disappearing. Now you can see your item’s description! I also fixed it so that only the amount of items you currently have are displayed (instead of 10 empty slots)


    Figuring out one of the puzzles, specifically the NAME puzzle. The mechanics of the puzzle are working, and after some effort the LILY and OWEN triggers are working (with a placeholder for the cutscene). I think next I’ll work out sentinels.


    I was on holiday for a while there…Anyway, I got a sentinel working. It’s currently a single line; I would prefer a cone, but the line’s working for now and a cone seems complicated, so I’ll leave it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2017
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  3. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    Ya Girl, Matemna

    So, the ~overarching universe~ (god that sounds pretentious) that all this stuff takes place in has a couple of constants. There are two forces, Order and Chaos, that govern the universe. They're constantly checking each other; right now there is an uneasy truce, mostly small skirmishes taking place on minor realms. Today I'm gonna tell you about Chaos, since that comes up more often. Wall 'o text incoming!

    Chaos doesn't have a particular leadership system. Whoever can prove themselves better than anyone else gets to be at the top, for as long as they can hold the position. They tend to clump into groups; these are usually named [Group] [Adjective]. Only the current Top Dog can call themselves [Group] Chaotic. ([Group] here can be anything: tribe, clan, squad, alliance...)

    Matemna is the current leader of Tribe Chaotic. She's a shapeshifter who enjoys meddling and supporting underdogs (or really, anyone who catches her attention.) She's currently collecting a bunch of humans for Reasons. (I'll get into the reasons later.) Her official title is 'Chaotic'.

    Zekh was Matemna's first recruit. He's a blind earth elemental who is generally chill. He gets dragged around by Matemna a lot. His official title is 'Lost', because the glowing gems on his body serve as both beacons and will o' wisps to unlucky travellers.

    Kino was Matemna's second recruit (sort of). Originally a nature spirit, he was exiled to earth where Matemna found him. She offered him a place in her tribe, but he initially refused, because he was still sulking. Eventually he took up her offer, because of...

    Ella was Matemna's fourth recruit. We've gotten out of order here, but that's because Ella and Kino are kind of a package deal. Ella's story is told in To the Wolves; obviously that has a few different endings, but canonically, Ella is the last in a long line of human sacrifices made by her village, ostensibly to the wolf god of the forest. She befriends said wolf god, who then offers his service to Matemna in return for saving Ella's life when she's later killed. Ella then also becomes Chaotic, as a sort of vampire dealie. She then sets a bunch of shit on fire. Ella's official title is 'Tainted' (sort of a fuck-you to the village who said her albinism was evidence that she was touched by the devil), and Kino's is 'Forsaken' (for obvious reasons).

    Mika was Matemna's third recruit, and her first human one. She had lost her husband to a war and her unborn child to miscarriage, and filled with sorrow had wandered out into a blizzard. There, she prayed for vengeance, and the strength of her feelings reached through the veil to Matemna, who granted her the power to fulfil her own wish. Riding on the freezing winds, she laid waste to the army that had killed her husband, and only when their blood stained her white kimono red did she return, satisfied, to Matemna's side. Her title is 'Vengeful'.

    Remy was Matemna's fifth recruit. She was the product of someone before her time making a deal with Matemna, which had gone horribly right and turned Remy into a full-fledged Chaotic without Matemna actually realising. Only much later did they actually meet, and they hit it off so well that Matemna offered her a place in her tribe. Her title is 'Candescent'.

    Leon was Matemna's sixth recruit. Much like Mika, it was the strength of his feelings that caused Matemna to manifest herself. Except it was (mostly) a trick; he'd put together data from various incidents around the world and concluded that there was something consistent going on, so he decided to fuck around with summoning demons. The only 'strong feeling' involved was his desire to solve the puzzle and see if he was right. Matemna thought this was hilarious and turned him into a Chaotic on the spot. His title is 'Deceitful'.

    [redacted] will be Matemna's seventh recruit. I am convinced that one day I will write this story, and therefore revealing that person's name is a spoiler. [Their] title will be 'Defiant'.

    All Chaotics have sigils; a group has a sigil, and then each member of the group has one based on it. Matemna's is an eight-pointed star, and each of her tribe members has eight points as a motif. I'll post a sketch when I can be arsed.
     
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  4. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    Today I made a chase AI! It needs some tweaking, but I was really worried about how to make it, so I’m glad the basics are at least working. My method of coding is pretty much “smash a bunch of stuff together and hit ‘run’”, but it’s been successful so far.
     
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  5. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    More writing! I’m tentatively happy with it, but I’m actually going to write out the script to make sure it all flows properly before I move on to the next puzzle (which will probably be the sheep/wolves puzzle, to give my brain a break; I mapped that one out a while ago.)
     
  6. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    i got debug access to fallen london and i'm going mad with power

    jk i'm actually just cleaning out old storylets, but i did give my test character a zubmarine and a shitton of echoes
     
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  7. Wingyl

    Wingyl Allegedly Magic

    someone once went and, near the end of the Mr Eaten's Name quest chain, somehow removed a thing that wasn't supposed to be removable and put something else there.
     
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  8. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    y'all......everyone at FB is so nice........
     
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  9. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    everyone's super busy so I made my own nice neat lore document and then started brainstorming villain ideas for this game because having a compelling villain is pretty important for horror. I'm pretty happy with what I've got so far! my usual go-to is Japanese-style grudge spirits, so trying to get out of that was an interesting creative exercise. I feel happy! :toot: crushing anxietypain aside lol
     
  10. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I need some help. This beast needs a name. I've brainstormed some, and would really appreciate people's thoughts. I want it to sound a little poetic (the kind of phrase that sticks in your head), and it should evoke memory and forgetting, writing/notetaking/recording, the darkness within humanity/one's darkest urges ("who are you in the dark?"), that kind of thing. I keep going back and forth on whether I like any of these...

    What I've got:
    Outer Demons
    Other Demons — this was a typo but I kinda like it
    Written in Ash
    Traced in Ash
    Scrawled in Ash
    Traces of Us
     
  11. a tiny mushroom

    a tiny mushroom the tiniest

    Out of these, I like Written in Ash the most

    Outer Demons is also fun because wordplay!
     
    • Like x 1
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