Development for HIS LAST MACHINATION has officially reached the one-month mark! Updates for this week include neat script and coding milestones, some light session-wrangling, itch page configuration, and a bit of musical tinkering.

March 22nd

• Both scene 2.4A and 2.4B were drafted in full today, thus connecting Day 2 to Day 3 and integrating Day 2 with Ending 2 (especially pertinent as, from a code-implementation standpoint, the endings are contained within a .rpy file separate from the rest of the script).
  • This separation actually isn't necessary, but it provides further clarity/very firm delineation for me (along with ensuring in-game days will only jump to one of the endings when specifically directed to do so, since the game can't reach them simply by running through scenes in sequence within the main script file).
• Drafting began on scene 3.1, also including conditionals for its trio of outcomes.
• More progress was made on programmatic implementation for Day 2 materials, and initial testing was done on the D2 flashback sequences.
  • Flashback-Abram was temporarily stuck as a giant before I realized I'd trapped him in that state purely through user error; calling his sprite as "yabram" rather than "yab [expression]" won't apply the zoom properly. (I could have circumvented/"Jett-proofed" that by adding a declaration for "yabram" as well, but the sprites are used infrequently enough that I don't foresee it being a problem in the future.)

March 23rd

• Drafting on 3.1 concluded, and the scene was integrated into the dialogue spreadsheet.
• Day 3 was restructured slightly within the script to accommodate a third scene (3.3, intended to lead into Ending 1) rather than a branched 3.2A/3.2B (3.2B was functionally consolidated into Ending 3).
• The majority of Ending 3 was drafted. (It hurts! Hooray!)

March 24th

• MAJOR MILESTONE: The initial draft of the script was completed and fully implemented into the dialogue spreadsheet!
• Scene 3.2 was drafted in full.
• Drafting for scene 3.3 and the very last bit of Ending 3 was completed.
• The initial calculations done for the script at the beginning of the day ended up being slightly off due to adding a bit of material for Valeria at the top of 1.1, leading to a slightly silly amendment of the "quick stats" image I had made earlier in the ;day.

(Amusingly, the page-count didn't change, even with giving Valeria slightly more things to say.)

March 25th

• MAJOR MILESTONE: All script content has been implemented into code and runs without immediate error!
  
• Today was a code-implementation day for scenes 2.3, 2.4A, 2.4B, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, Ending 1, and Ending 3.
• Fundamentally, the focus for today's burst of implementation was transferring over the core structure from the script and ensuring that proper menu indentation was present throughout. (Python and Ren'Py's lack of curly brackets/necessity of precise menu-indentation to avoid errors has oft been a source of "When will my curly brackets return from war?!" in coming mainly from a Java/JavaScript/C++ background.)
• Additionally, all voice lines now have in-code identifiers/designations.
• In-code calls to display sprites, backgrounds, or play music/SFX are presently absent (in part due to those assets not existing in full yet).
• For ease-of-use on both my end and Kylie's (depending on if/how we delegate the splitting of character dialogue in editing), I created text files containing just the filenames for voiced dialogue.

(I wasn't expecting my sporadically less-than-serious code comments to be preserved in the filename .txt bits, but I'm not mad about it.)

March 26th

• Drafting for the itch.io page for HIS LAST MACHINATION began, including a fair bit of font and layout testing...and the realization that custom CSS is not enabled by default.
  • I honestly don't foresee a great need for custom CSS, but knowing that it can be made accessible by simple request of the admin team is useful nonetheless.
• Initial "sketches" of potential session times were drafted and posted internally to the team. I typically do this as a sanity-check before posting them/@-ing actors with their session times, especially when using Discord's dynamic timestamps feature.

(Potential times by US Pacific reckoning.)
(A major reason why the initial sketches aren't 1:1 with what's provided to the actors is because I tend to ramble at myself in them.)

March 27th

• More progress was made on the itch.io page, thus determining its very approximate/preliminary layout.
• The script was distributed for review/comment-flinging to a few friends, and initial feedback was received + implemented where applicable.
• Actors were presented with potential session times; 2 of 3 have been confirmed, meaning that sessions are slated to start on the 30th!

(Although this text is formatted much more cleanly than the sketch and generally seems more professional, or at the very least coherent... The practice of calling extremely late/early times of day "Goblin Hours" persists all the same.)

March 28th

• Lyrics and a rough initial melody for Pietro's vocal piece were drafted today.
• Missing sound effect calls (i.e. "indicated as a #TODO in the script and pseudo-code") were named and implemented into the code.
• Logistics re: the use of SFX versus music for certain effects were confirmed with Kylie.
• Rose is slated to begin working on music later this week!

All in all, I'm incredibly thankful to this team for everything we've accomplished in the past four weeks—and I'm very much looking forward to working with folks in the cast within the next couple of days!