MR Visual Novels

[Coryn]

Well y'know, we started this thing years and years ago. I declared then that we would not let it die, and so far we haven't. There's something about this one. Even if it falls dormant, there's always someone who gets interested and wants it to continue on.

[Suuper-san]

well since I mentioned it to myself I had a look back at the script and did a bit of cleaning up of the code. I've basically got all the way to the portal where the Henshin story splits into 2 paths.

I had a flick through the A and B routes, and they seem pretty similar, could anyone briefly give me the differences?

I have one suggestion though, and that's to remove the second route (either A or B) to make this a singular route all the way through, with the exception of a couple of bad ends here and there. So which route should I keep, that being the case? And also need to rewrite the initial choice script where the story was meant to split into 3 massive stories but we only ever got one done.

I'm thinking I'm going to try gunning it to the finish line regardless of quality, to have "a finished thing", and then we can consider adding extra sprites for expressions and so on, and fixing any minor things.

[Coryn]

The basic difference between the two routes is who turns out to be the bad guy, and who turns out to be the transforming hero. The whole idea behind that was going to be that if you complete all three stories, you could unlock a "true ending" where everyone gets to live. Since each of the three branches were supposed to have a similar A/B ending, where the mysterious persons in question were swapped.

It honestly doesn't matter to me which ending we take, if the only goal is to be done and playable. I still like having the two branches being playable somehow though. Can we do a special features section of the menu where we stick the unused branches?

But more power to you for jumping back in Suuper! Let's rock and roll!

[Suuper-san]

Ahhh I get it that makes sense. Well I doubt we'll get a true ending on top of a third route tbh but we'll see.
So there's still a third route to be written for the Henshin? I thought that was all done :/

it's not so much putting the other route somewhere else, it's just the fact that it has to be coded up and debugged etc, which doubles the remaining work.

I'll go ahead and make route A the default for now just to get one route done to the end and then see how long it takes. If I'm lucky I might be able to copy and paste a fair amount as the B route is so similar.

[Coryn]

Well, the three routes would be the three stories we branch off at the beginning, Henshin being the first. Each story would have an A and B (in theory). But obviously those are out of the picture now. That's all I meant as the original plan. Six regular endings, with a secret 7th for playing all three scenarios.

[Suuper-san]

Ah right I missed that, makes more sense now.
We'll see about adding the other routes once we've got the Henshin one down. Coding productivity can be super hit and miss so it'll either be super easy or take forever :P

[Coryn]

Yeah, I'm going to be happy as long as one route is playable. Like I said, this is an interesting medium to work in, but it has taught me the value of starting small, lol.

[Suuper-san]

I've uploaded a new version! For the first time in nearly 4 years!!!!
Hopefully it's actually playable.

I've coded up to Henshin Scene 32 (all the way up to the route split)
And also Scene 33B past the split (I'm taking the portal route)
So there should be quite a few new scenes since the last version.
So far it's not taking too much time per scene but a lot of time is spent on the unique effects and transitions. Plain dialogue itself is super fast since I've got the entire script already done for me.

The game is quite massive in terms of time spent to find faults so I'm kinda just blasting through it and hoping it works. Probably a lot of faults to find but meh.
I'm thinking to change the way bugs are recorded (using an Excel sheet perhaps makes more sense?), but for now, just post them either here or on the Bug sheet on the google drive folder.

I'm making executive decisions when I'm unsure of how something should look or feel, with the hope that if it's hopelessly wrong someone will correct me, otherwise hopefully I got it right without spending time and effort getting approval from everyone and their dog. Easier to guess wrong quickly and be corrected than to spend ages on everything. A bit of Cunningham's Law going on there I think.

The biggest "not sure" I'm having is about characters appearing and disappearing on screen and how it looks. So far I've gone with sliding them in and out from the sides, that method was sort of approved a while back on the discord, but I would like confirmation on how that looks. If you use the "Debug Skip" on the menu it'll take you to the last scene where I use it all the way through (not sure at what point I started doing it tbh)

[Coryn]

Sliding works for me. I think before they just kinda faded in and out? But as long as it's snappy I think slides will work just fine.

[Suuper-san]

It's partly an issue with swapping characters where there are 3+ in the scene, but there's only space for 2 at any one time. So I have to swap out with one of the characters who won't be speaking for a while. So the swap ala sliding implies they are still around, whereas disappearing implies they have gone away. Dunno just my interpretation.

In really awkward situations I don't have the character reappear, I just have their line come up.

[Coryn]

Eh, I'm fine with that. That gives the impression of someone speaking from just off screen. So it's not a deal breaker by any means.