Weekly Report (Aug. 26th)

Hello.

This is, for the most part, a bug fix/systems refinement update. I spent the biggest chunk of the week working on texts, and the remaining time on code and playtesting. Unfortunately, the texts are neither translated nor implemented into the game yet. On the bright side, all the remaining dialogues for the demo are ready for implementation and scripting.

I haven't really written down the changes, so the following points are entirely off the top of my head:

- Properly revised remaining dialogue texts - I know I wrote last week that I had revised them, but it was a quick revision without making many changes to the overall structure of the texts. The current changes are more substantial;

- Prepared two new sprites for two new characters and a background - I need one more character sprite, and this one is the trickiest to pull off. I will probably have to compromise to get something even remotely satisfactory;

- Improved the quest processing logic, journal and craft windows - the journal now has an opening comment with the quest's description, the craft mode code is now more neat, and I also located and fixed a bug that made inventory slots in the craft mode acquire white backgrounds if the player previously discarded an item through inventory;

- Speaking of discarding, I introduced and applied checks for quest-related items that would prevent the player from consuming or discarding those items - previously it was possible to either soft lock the playthrough (discarding the belt Gaspar gives you before playing the relevant dialogue branch/discarding ingredients needed by Keirah before bringing them to her) or break the intended event sequence (eating the stew before you are told to - it didn't soft lock the game, you would still trigger the dialogue on closing the inventory window, but it broke immersion);

- Confirmed that the bug that breaks the skip button persists, and just like the previous time, it happened when fighting the bear - I doubt the problem lies with anything bear-related. I noticed that it happened roughly when a character stunned someone or critically hit someone, thus provoking a stun. I'm not sure if the bug is related to applying stuns, but it's worth looking into;

- Confirmed that traversal would need further improvement - the movement is a bit jittery in the build as opposed to playing the game in the editor, plus it is possible to start moving when the player should remain motionless. I will have to look into it;

- Made various small-scale changes to the game code.

This week, I'll start implementing and translating the dialogues, look into the bugs and issues, and try to prepare the body sprite for the remaining character.

Later.