You. Made. My. Day. Week. Year. Life.
Oh dear. I think I'm going to be overwhelming you pretty soon. I'm trying to post updates to the thread semi-regularly, at least for the next couple of weeks.
eri0, it's pretty easy with the system I've set up. I just set the character's mood before and after a speech line. I have the same 6 speech frames for each mood, so it's seamless and works really well.
selmiak, it's laborious, but a labour of love. Almost all of it's done now.
CaptainD, Cassie and Stupot+, thanks for the encouragement. Mandle, it's going to be a fair while longer. I might even need another month after this, and I'm not sure when I'm going to get the time :|
Puzzle SurgeryThe last few days have been spent tidying up imports. After my warmup a few days ago, I felt ready to tackle something that had been bothering me for a while. It all centres around the first puzzle in the game.
This is the foyer of the residence hall on campus. When the girls attempt to get the keys to their room, they get asked for some paperwork -- namely, a contract signed by their guarantor.
Depending on how you navigate the conversation, it can be in either girl's suitcase. The puzzle involves working out that the contract hasn't been signed and forging a signature.
Now here's where the surgery started. Originally, I thought there wasn't enough puzzle going on, so I added another layer of complexity. You needed a pen to forge a signature, that pen was chained to the desk, and when each girl searched her suitcase, a cutting device would fall out. Kate's was a rusty pair of scissors and Shelly's was a manicure set.
At the time, I thought it was rather clever. The item would pop out behind the suitcase, so you wouldn't see the item until you moved. The idea was that you could use this item to cut away a pen that was chained to the desk.
Today's task was to remove that part of the puzzle. There are several reasons why I wanted to remove it:
- It's supposed to be the first puzzle in the game. I'm very aware of difficulty ramp, and I want to keep it straightforward
- The manicure set was a bit too one-dimensional for Shelly for my taste
- Cutting a chain doesn't really WORK anyway. I mean, it's nonsense. A pair of scissors to cut a metal chain?
The solution? I just removed the chain. There's now just a pen sitting on the desk, which you can take. And the whole flow of the puzzle is so much better.
The steps to solve the puzzle are:
- Talk to the clerk
- Talk to Shelly or Kate about the contract (and decide whose suitcase it's in)
- Take the pen
- Leave the area and get Kate to forge a signature
- Give the signed contract to the clerk
There are still 5 steps to solving the puzzle, but it doesn't feel awkward now. I really like the idea of stuff falling out of their suitcases and I'm still hoping I find a good place to use it. In the Jimi Hendrix Case, there was something similar when the fish scales were revealed, and I saw that it connected well with players when I watched let's plays.
Bit of a side note: each puzzle (quest) in Kate and Shelly Stick Together has a name. Whenever you get a point, you get a little Law-and-Order ding and an indicator of how far through the quest you are:
I took inspiration from games like Skyrim. There's also a Progress window that you can bring up from the inventory bar that shows you which quests you've completed, grey silhouettes for stuff you haven't encountered yet and a total score. The total number of available points is just the total point count from all quests.
It's pretty late as I'm writing this, so apologies if anything I've written here is jumbled. The next few days are going to be spent working on what happens to girl B while girl A is out dating. Note: I have to phrase it that way because the game is set up so that either one can go on dates while the other has to stay back and take care of things at the university. It all works out, I promise.
