Yet another jam I decided to join.

Giving myself a deadline and a set of objective likely is the only way I can stop putting a "wow cool let's try this out" tag on everything that comes out of my mind and start seriously working on my project (not that I'm not serious when I put the above mentioned label... let's just say I'm not working with the goal of putting something on itch.io in mind!).

About the jam... yeah, it starting in little more than 8 days I thought I might as well start off with a roadmap of sorts.

Main objectives to achieve by the end of ImproveMyGameJam #26:

- Characters sprites' replacement. Difficulty: very easy

Yeah that pretty much sounds like cheating. I have been working on the new sprites for a while now, so i'ts very likely that I'll be able to put everything together by the end of the jam.

- Basic assets for first chunk of chapter 2. Difficulty: medium

This is something I've been... well I'm currently procrastinating the release of chapter 2. Be it the entire chapter or just a part of it. Perhaps I'm a bit scared at the thought of the task at hand (chapter 2 is likely going to be aound 120-130k words itself ie. it's going to increase my visual novel volume by a factor of 4)

- Release of the first chunk of chapter 2. Difficulty: medium

Same as above... apart for the fact that chapter 2 already is present in the latest iteration of the game script (which is currently resting on my PC =P). So that "Difficulty: medium" basically means, "everything's ready but unless I first work on the assets - backgrounds, CGs, etcetera - I'm not going anywhere

- Update of BGs. Difficulty: nearly impossible

I've already made a few scenes in IllusionSoft's CharaStudio. Interiors such as the main character's house or Mika's apartment have been basically defined (yeah I could put some clutter here and there to make the place look inhabited but whatever). Other places such as PoliMi and a couple subway stations have been drafted. Apart for that... well it's a mess. Re-creating key landmarks (ie. locations which are - arguably - make you say "hey, we're in Milan!!!") is a real pain in the ass, you know?

So yeah, getting the first point done will be the bare minimum, with anything less to be marked as "complete failure". Getting to the far end of the game jam with a chunk of chapter 2 available here on itch will make me feel like I "won" the jam (no matter the actual results of course).

Let's see where the path leads...