A Discussion of Chapter 4 and Details About an Upcoming Update

What's up? You doing good? I'm doing good. Know what else is good? Long-form devlogs!

What's it going to be about, you ask? Hmm... How about I make it about chapter 4 and my plans for an upcoming update? Sound good? Good.

Chapter 4: Coming sometime within the next year, probably.

I have started writing chapter 4, because I'm just so on-top of things. Specifically I've written the very beginning of chapter 4, some of the actual road trip dialogue, and I have also started writing and planning the Chicago area. It's been pretty fun so far, especially the Chicago area. My hope is that I can make Chicago this big, open area like how I originally planned for the festival.

Bit of an issue with that though; I don't know how much detail and content I want this area to have. There's a lot of potential interactions and scenes I could add as sort of side-content. Stuff that isn't necessary to tell the story.

An example of this; how detailed do I want the transportation to be in this area? Is it just going to be a cut to black and you're there kind of thing? Or should I make it more detailed? And have there be interactions while the characters are traveling through the city? 

They'll be traveling on the L (train, metro, subway, whatever your persuasion) so there's a lot of potential there for some more interesting interactions. Only thing is, adding these interactions is going to bump up the amount of time this area is going to take for you, the player, to complete. And of course it also increases the amount of writing I need to do but that's a much more minor detail.

So really, it's just a question of, how long do I want this Chicago area to be? If this were a standalone game or something I'd go hog wild. Add all the content! But, there's already 1-3 hours worth of content in the game. Chapter 4 will probably add an extra hour or so to that existing number. And there's still 4 more chapters ahead  that will probably all take around an hour to complete, at minimum.

It's a tricky situation. But I feel as though the basic story content will be more than enough content for this area. I'm writing about the Sears Tower right now and just this one location will probably take 10-15 minutes to go through. So I don't think there's really going to be a place for extra content without having Chicago become bloated with stuff to do. But, I shall wait and see what the finished product looks like. If I think Chicago needs some extra fluff, I'll look into adding the extra content. Otherwise, I'll just stick to what I've got. Easy, simple.

Now hold up a minute, we're not done talking about chapter 4 yet. I haven't talked about the role of side characters in this whole mess yet.

Let's see, for starters Jacob will be off visiting friends in Chicago. And Holly/Valery (If you brought them along) will be visiting some family. Now, where does this leave Sasha? Well, she'll be exploring the Chicago area along side you, the player.

Yes, Sasha will be the main side character for this area. She will be tagging along with you while you travel around Chicago, and I'm honestly pretty excited about this. I think it'll be interesting seeing how dialogue between 3+ characters goes as up to this point I've only had scenes with 2 characters max. How boring, right?

This is also how I'm planning on setting up the rest of the road trip stops. There will be one 'main' side character in each area that will accompany the PC. Like a companion of sorts, except they won't get in your way like Skyrim or Fallout companions. For chapter 4 this 'companion' is Sasha, and for chapter 5, I'm planning on it being Jacob. There might be some be exceptions to this. For example, in chapter 6 you might end up checking out the Mall of America by yourself if you don't bring Valery or Holly along. Of course this is not set-in stone, as chapter 6 is still just an outline. Things can and probably will change by the time I actually get around to writing chapter 6.

For Yellowstone, or chapter 7, you'll probably be interacting with every side character you've brought along in some way. As I'm planning on this being the sort of last hurrah where I tie everything up, get the ball rolling for the eventual ending. Stuff like that.

OK, is that it? I think it is. Let's move on to another topic real quick before closing out with some info on the next update.

It's Songs for the Deaf, you can't even hear it!

Eventually I'd like to look into expanding the audio system. Do things such as add in scene specific music, add more music to the general BGM playlist, maybe add some SFX, who knows. Sound is a pretty low priority area for right now though. Mainly because finding the perfect music can be a bit time consuming. Actually adding the scene specific music or SFX probably wouldn't be too difficult, it's just scouring the web, trying to find a track that's just right... it can take some time. And I feel like my efforts are better spend adding onto to the story rather than expanding upon a more minor feature such as the sound.

So, sound update. It's an idea I have floating around. Maybe it appears in the near future, maybe not. Just depends.

Track 14 (of 14): I Didn't Understand

Okay, so when are you going to see some of this chapter 4 content I'm working on?

Well, my current plan is to complete the road trip dialogue and then release an update which contains all of chapter 4 up until Chicago. That means you'll get the very beginning of chapter 4, as well as the small scenes set in the car as the characters travel to Chicago from Iridium City. All together, this update, which I will now impromptu dub "0.2.2", will probably bring around a half an hour's worth of content.

In update 0.2.2 I'm hoping to also include some artwork of Valery. Just gotta commission Kass to draw him sometime. I would've liked to have both Valery and Jacob illustrated by this point but you know how life can be. Sudden expenses and such. You've probably heard the story if you're a real one and follow my Twitter. I've got money now though, time to go blow it all on art and car parts.

When can you expect to see the 0.2.2 update? Hopefully in 2-3 weeks. I feel like that's a realistic time frame. Writing should only take another week at most but then I've gotta add what I wrote to the game, test it, all that jazz. So yes, 2-3 weeks sounds like a very good time frame. Look for it then! Or maybe even sooner! Probably not though!

That's all I've got for now comrades. Until next time.