Devblog 7- Cutscenes, NPCs, Shops, and Menus
The last few months I’ve been putting my head down to try get as much work done as possible as I work towards creating a demo- there’s been a lot of larger projects to take on -adding 30 in game cutscenes, creating a title screen, options menu, saving and loading system, and creating and writing NPCs to populate the world- as well as smaller implementations, such as adding “placeholder music” so that I can easily implement sound once that’s been created, or fixing small elements about menus and changing some in game stats.
Cutscenes- A Seemingly Endless Task
When I designed and put together the narrative for the initial part of the game, I didn’t imagine there would end up being so many “mini cutscenes”, nor that it would take a month to add! It was important to me that all the cutscenes were in engine and flowed with the exploration of the world, and that none of them were overly long. The player can now press a button to skip to the end of the talking text also, so the story isn’t overly imposed on the player if that’s not an important aspect of the game for them, with the longest cutscene being able to be skipped through in around 10 seconds.
NPCs- Making the World feel “Real”
General feel of exploration is really important to me in games, and I wanted to implement the same feeling as the player is traversing the game’s two towns. The “real” city version of the town has more modern looking NPCs, whileas the “fantasy” dream version has more medieval versions, and the dialogue of each is different but focusing on the same theme, like a mirroring of reality.
Shops- Items added, item stacking and intro dialogue!
Not only have I finally implemented the four shops that will be in the fantasy town into the game- a potion shop, a tailor’s, a blacksmith’s, and a jeweller’s- but I’ve fixed up the menu to look a little nicer and added item stacking to the inventory and shop system. You can also now buy more than one of each item at once, a necessary feature for buying many potions! There is also dialogue introducing each shop employee to the player, to give the shops a little more life.
Saving and Loading!
Saving and loading was a feature I was dreading adding- because a lot of previous games I’ve made are much smaller scale than this, there was really never a need to add it before this project. Fortunately, it turned out to be a much easier task than expecting, and most of the work was put into making the menus as nice as possible!
Options Menu- A Necessary, but boring feature
The options menu was one of my least favourite things to add- I feel like most people hate having to create menus, and this was no different. Being able to exit to the menu and load saves from within the game has made it easier to test the game however, so I really should have added it a long time ago!
Various Other Features
I’ve (mostly) finished up adding controller support for the game, and fixed some menus and changed some of the character stats around. I’ve also added walk animations for the main character’s “real life” self, so they don’t have to walk around the city in a fantasy-like blue cloak! All of the main features that needed to be added prior to the demo have been added now, so it’s just about a lot of testing, debugging and adding music and sound. If you want to be notified about when the demo is coming out- and even gain early access to the demo when it’s in its beta, and the full game once it comes around to beta access- please sign up below!