That's right. New game. My game.

If you're wondering what this new game is about, here's a vague screenshot. Let your imagination run wild.

If you want the actual details of the game, read on.

In short, it's a visual novel about a fading Texas town. Not a whole lot goes on here, except for the occasional tornado.

I'm inspired by a lot of things, and those inspirations tend to have a heavy influence on what I make and write. I'll just be honest and say that I re-watched The Last Picture Show recently and committed then and there to making a game set in a small Texas town.  Hell, I even planned on making the whole game black and white. Anyway, my point is that if you want to understand the general vibe I'm aiming for, go watch The Last Picture Show.

Is there an overarching narrative? Not yet. I'm working on it, but it's very early days, so I won't commit to anything too soon. Maybe there's a mystery, maybe nothing interesting happens at all. All I know is I want it to be grounded. Aggressively so. No guns (in Texas, I know). No death. No supernatural phenomena. It's all about the dialogue.

The person you play as is a chronic smart ass who hates himself. The majority of your time in this story will be spent having meaningless conversations with characters who never got what they wanted from life. It will be sad, grim, bleak, all those descriptors, but also very funny (hopefully). If you played Trail of the Wretched, imagine the general tone of that, but with the humour turned up a few notches.

Speaking of Trail of the Wretched, this game will be very similar. By that I mean the bulk of the narrative will be delivered through lengthy text-based conversations. I'd show you a picture of what that looks like, but it's literally the exact same as Trail of the Wretched (for now) since I just copy-pasted the UI from there to save some time. Honestly, just go look at the screenshots for Trail of the Wretched and imagine that UI overlaid on the screenshot above. That's what this game will be like.

Outside of the conversations you'll be walking around the town (first-person) and looking at stuff. Very simple, but quite open ended since you can choose the order you speak to most people. Here's one of the people you'll talk to.

Now, when does it release? Good question! Currently I'm the only person working on the game, and there's a LOT that needs to be done. So many 3D models... So many textures... I made Trail of the Wretched in 3 months, and that was with two other people, so I have a feeling this game may take a little longer. I'm aiming for something roughly finished by the end of February next year, but there's a lot that could happen between now and then, so don't take my word as the absolute truth.

If you're wondering why I haven't told you the title of the game, that is because there is no title. Yet. Right now I'm calling it Goin' Out West (after the Tom Waits song), but that's just there since I needed to name the Unity project. Honestly, I don't want to give it a title until I've done the majority of the writing. Is that bad practice? Maybe, but I am cool and I do not care.

That's all I have to say for the time being. I'll post more updates in the coming weeks.

Oh, by the way, Trail of the Wretched releases on Steam on the 5th of January. It's free, so you have no excuse not to wishlist it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2728990/Trail_of_the_Wretched/

BYE!