Progress report

Just an update for everyone on how things are progressing with Life is Two Dimensional. I have been steadily working on the game in a fairly specific manner, actually quite similar to how the "leaked" build of "What if?" seemed to have done things.

While I was a little ahead of where the current second demo ends as far as the scripting/programming of the events (conversation branches, etc) and the backgrounds goes, I decided after scripting the Kate/David confrontation scene to go ahead and try to get the "bones" of the game in place. Meaning the path of the game structure in terms of backgrounds. This screen leads to this screen leads to this screen, creating the backgrounds, plus all the collision detection, trigger points for switching between screens - all that stuff nobody should have to think about once playing.

The Price house took a while as the layout is quite intricate and I wanted to get the scale as close as reasonably possible to the ingame house (fun fact - the garage layout inside the house in Life is Strange does not match the exterior images... In the concept art and ingame cutscenes it is set back from the front of the house, but the ingame version actually lines up with the front door.), and making sure it wasn't too awkward to move around and was recognisable to a reasonable degree... I was very pleased that I was able to get the kitchen/dining area/lounge all in as one area rather than separate screens, and still the scale holds up extremely well all things considered. Easier in 3D than when you're drawing pixels in an overhead style view and have to figure out the distances between things and vs the player sprite, trust me! ;)

 ...And the end result? 

The game is now to the point where now I can walk (event free as explained) right through the first episode locations, right up to the end point of episode 1. 

Right now I'm going to just walk through it on an actual Gameboy and make sure nothing is broken or forgotten... but I think that deserves note as a milestone. Yes, there is a LOT of dialogue and event stuff, sprites, sound etc that still needs doing (again - barely touched since the second demo) to go now.

But I can. Rather than having to create an entire "scene", then create the entire next scene background first, and on and on, I can now focus on a screen, script what needs to be done, and have the next screen ready to go into, then the next, then the next. Think of it as something like the map in Link's Awakening on the original Gameboy - I can look at it, see what location leads to what, where, and know where it is going.

So... Yeah. No estimate for any future release right now, as I'm doing this to my own timescale, whenever I want. But it's still going. Still progressing. Still enjoying spending my time on it. It's gotten further than I actually imagined it would. I just hope I'm doing it justice!

Take care!