really exciting news! we lost a bit of momentum over the weekend but we're back and working hard to get everything ready by the deadline! just now the dialogue engine was completed (well, at the very least, it works now…) and we want to share!
we've only built the first npc interaction that we have written but with this system done adding new dialogue scenes is relatively simple and doesn't take too long (this first one [43 strings] took around an hour, and as we get the hang of it it'll get faster). other than building the rest of the dialogue, we also have to finish up some art and, most importantly, do a lot of decorating! the world is so boring right now! (we'll definitely be losing that grid soon!) there's still a lot to do, but getting over this dialogue hurdle feels really big for us so we can focus more on the less technical side of things.
you can play the first dialogue tree yourself right now! and you should! we would love if you go though it a few times, see what you think, try to break it (and tell us how you did please so we can fix it!) - right now the dialogue scene will reset after you finish so you can try again, but in the real game choosing a "..." ending or receiving help will result in the npc moving away, and you won't be able to interact with it anymore.
also, some notes on textures: the pink square that appears by the npc is a placeholder, and that will be an animated chat icon that indicates when an interaction is available. but right now, it's just awful and ugly. also, the texture for the npc is an old one, so the colors are wrong. sorry.
we recommend you play through properly at least once to get a hold on the controls, but if you're in a rush you can click the button at the start to skip to near where the npc is. (you can also press f12 and turn up the world speed if you want to get there faster). if you do use the skip, you'll miss the other input hints - you'll need to press space to enter the dialogue scene and then you can use the keys s/k to make dialogue choices and space to continue. (we might add more hints for these, especially within the dialogue scene, since it's unusual.)
go play it! we're really excited about this! ok, finally, here is the link: