#15: Massive Progress

Hey everyone! It's been a great year for God's Disdain as development has been going very smoothly! I'm going to just talk about what I've been doing this year, what I have left to do, and some additional information.

If you have read some of the previous updates, you might know that it has been increasingly hard for me to stay motivated on the game, especially recently. Well, that's what I would have said then, but I am happy to report that is no longer the case! I had a huge increase in my drive and motivation for this project around April or May of this year, and I've been going strong ever since. It all started by watching a video from Masahiro Sakurai's YouTube channel called "Just Do It Already! [Work Ethic]" that really kicked me into gear. If you're struggling on finding motivation on anything, I'd highly recommend it! It was recommended to me by an online friend of mine, so I have him to thank as well (he knows who he is I'm sure).

Anyway, I started working on my game every single day. It didn't matter how long I worked on it or what else I had going on that day, just as long as I forced myself to do something. I'd make sure to limit it to only an hour max to make sure I didn't burn out, which has happened many times in the past when I've become a little too motivated. I worked like this for about 3 months, just doing a little bit on the game every day. Eventually, I found that I had enough lasting motivation to be able to take days off and shift the time around so I could be working on it say, 4 or 5 days a week but for longer periods of time each day, which is where I'm at now!

I had set a goal to finish all of the side quests before the end of the year, and guess what? I totally smashed that goal. Just after the 8 year mark of this game's development in October, all 50 side quests were completed and in the game! Now, they have not been rigorously tested in conjunction with each other, as that is something being saved for beta, but they are all in there alongside all of the relevant NPCs to those quests. I had to make a bunch of new systems and even change around some old ones to make sure everything was just how I wanted it, and I did have to cut some quests too in order to both meet that comfortable deadline and the overall feeling I wanted for the game. Some of them were just a little too dark, some were a little too convoluted and would require pretty drastic overhauls. What is there, though, I hope you will love experiencing!

Speaking of beta, my realistic goal to get that up and running is the end of 2024. I have no doubt in my mind that, given my current pace, this is completely attainable, minus any serious snags in life. I have no idea how I'm going to execute the beta quite yet, for instance I'm not sure if I want it to be an open beta or a closed one, or somewhere in between. My basic idea right now is to test the game myself first, then slowly trickle it out to people like other RPG Maker game developers who can give me some good insight on the technical side of things. As much as I would love to do some serious focus testing on normal players and be willing to overhaul systems to better fit their needs, I just don't think that is realistic for the time frame I want to finish this game in. It's already been 8 years, so I need to finish it up and move on to other projects. There are plenty of things I've learned from this game's development, and I'm sure I will learn even more after the game is released that will help make the next projects even better!

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. Let's talk about what's currently in the works and what I have left to do for next year! Currently, I am adding the rest of the NPCs into the game. They don't have any direct relation to the aforementioned side quests, but serve to fill out the world a bit and offer some fun world building. Many of them will still react to quests you have completed or the choices you have made in your adventures, and there are certainly some that have their own mysteries to solve too! I think you'll enjoy talking to them just as much as I've enjoyed creating them. As far as numbers go, there were 99 of these NPCs left to develop and I am already at 30 after just two weeks. My initial goal was to get them done in five months, but I've been going ham, to say the least! I came up with a nice little incentive chart for myself and that's definitely been helping me get things done, so that's another thing I'd recommend trying out.

After those NPCs are done, here's a list of what I have left to do. It isn't super exhaustive or detailed, but it's the overarching plan and in order of what I hope to accomplish next year:

1. Lore writings. My main lore writer for the game, Brianna Corinne, wrote lore for pretty much every town in the game many years ago. They come in the form of personal journals kept my townsfolk, legends passed down that are told over drinks, and historical books in libraries. This won't take very long to implement into the game proper as I already have the exact writing and locations of these little lore pieces completely planned out.
2. Specific cutscenes. I can't give too many details on this one because it includes spoilers, but after the initial draft of the story I went back and added these in to the writing and they are fully voiced. They haven't been developed yet within the game itself, so that's what needs to be done! This won't take very long either, as there are only a handful of them and they're quite simple, just some dialogue between characters.
3. Adding the voice acting. All of the voice lines have been recorded (minus one character, but those will be done shortly, don't worry!) and now need to be mastered and implemented into the game. This is going to be quite time consuming to be honest, as the level of implementation is basically non-existent and some poor choices earlier in development are going to make it a little convoluted for me to actually develop.
4. Change tileset graphics. This has actually been in the works in the background alongside making the quests for a few months now. Whenever I got a little bored of making quests I'd start working on this. Currently, the game uses the default RPG Maker tileset graphics but scaled down to 50% to become 24x24 tiles instead of 48x48 ones to give it a bit more of a retro look. Every time I've shown the game to someone, they have immediately pointed out that these are in fact the default assets. Everything, and I mean everything else in the game isn't default. At first, I was willing to sacrifice just this one part of the game in order to save both time and money, but I do know there is a stigma around using default assets and I would rather not have people immediately think the game looks like every other RPG Maker game out there. Because of that, I've purchased a lot of different asset packs that I feel compliment each other and have begun reworking the tilesets into something new. I'm not entirely sure it will even work or look good yet as I haven't tested them in game, it's kind of hard to until they're finished, but I think it will turn out decently enough. This one is going to take some time too, as you can tell by the paragraph size it's probably the most complicated as I have to go into each and every tileset and dissect them piece-by-piece to change everything around. All of the maps are done, so I unfortunately can't just swap out the tilesets wholesale. It's a very intricate and slow process, but one that I think will help give the game more of a unique identity. It needs to happen!
5. Tying up loose ends. I have a growing list of things I've noticed during the development of the quests and NPCs that need to be fixed or implemented. This includes stuff from the tiniest of bugs and inconsistencies to entire systems that need to be implemented. I don't think this will take very long, to be honest. It is the beginning of what the beta test will bring to light and will likely be an ongoing thing during the beta itself as more things are uncovered.

After the beta, I'll be cleaning up as much as possible and then determining whether I need a second beta or not. If that's the case, I'll run a second one, but if not, then it'll be full steam ahead! I fully plan and am committing to releasing this game in 2025, before the 10 year development mark at the latest. I have no doubt in my mind that this goal is fully attainable and will be reached. I am excited about that and can't wait for it to get into everyone's hands, and I do mean everyone! The game is going to be free, after all.

Thanks to all of those who have stuck around, and hello to any new people around here! I'm sorry it has taken so long to get this thing finished, but rest assured that I have a much better outlook on it now and am a "new man" of sorts when it comes to this game's development. We're at an 11/10 now, so let's get this thing done!

You may have also noticed that this account's name has changed from Useless Torch to After Midnight Games. I felt like the change was necessary for a few reasons, and I think it fits my vibe a lot better. I began to think that having "useless" in the company name was underselling myself, it was a name I didn't even come up with, and as I am the sole proprietor and the main dev/director, I wanted to go with something that was really my own and resembled me. I'm often working on things past midnight, and I may or may not like that Blink 182 song. Perhaps. Anyway, this will be my dev name going forward for the rest of my projects.

I hope you all have a happy holiday season and I look forward to what 2024 has to offer with God's Disdain! I hope you do as well.

-Carter Prescott.