Fates Weekly Update #36

Hello, folks. Short update this week as things are at a lull as work continues to be done. In addition to all of the development hats I had to wear this week, I also had to wear a couple weird ones. In addition to being a flight engineer, writer, studio head, and a few other random things, I had to put on my NASCAR fry cook hat. Twelve hours of manning a food tent cooking fries and serving burgers and hot dogs. While Fates does take a bit from some of my military adventures, I’ve got a feeling that Natalie won’t be asking the Raltin Empire if they want chili with their ancient superweapons. I mean, that might be a fun spinoff…

Wordcount: 2,122 (Pretty low wordcount this week as I was more focused on coding things out for something special. Coding is probably the most boring part of development. Since the engine for the investigation sections is already done, most of the coding was the more generic character emotions and scene transitions. Most characters have two poses and ten emotions, so I’ve had to design an easy system to use involving spreadsheets and numbers instead of length names. When you’ve got thousands of lines of dialog, it gets pretty tiring over time. If I don’t take time every now and then to do the code work, you’ll see a very braindead man during the last couple weeks of development.)

So as we get closer to release, I have another question for the audience! It’s a pretty big one as well. How should we split the protagonists? We have two protagonists with two stories that are running parallel to each other. Right now, there are four ideas that we have been toying with back and forth.

Idea #1 is the one we’ve been running with so far. At the start, you will pick the character route for each sister. The story will start with Natalie and follow her through Act 1. At the end of Act 1 for Natalie, the game will then switch to Name and go through her Act 1 (which happened storywise at the same time as Natalie).

Idea #2 would be closer to a traditional TV show. You’d still pick the character start. After each scene or couple scenes, you’d go back to the other sister as she continues her story. It’d be very back and forth.

Idea #3 would be a complete run-through of one sister, player’s choice. After you completed Acts 1-3, you’d go back to the start and go through the other sister’s story. At the end of this, you’d then go into Act 4 with the gathered evidence and biases and the story would conclude from there.

Since I don’t like having short weeks with nothing interesting, let’s have a showing of the completed CG illustration from last week. I feel sorry for Yoi. Out of all my characters, she is probably the most abused one. Life and poor choices always seem to land her into a bad situation. This is the worst one she’s been in so far. There’s a death flag in there for poor Yoi, just like there is a very, very bad situation for the universe in this scene as well. There’s five variations for this scene and they progressively get worse for your team if Name can’t solve the situation quickly.

 

That’s all for this week. Please comment on which idea you think would work best for the protagonist swapping! Until next week, Chief out.

 

Since NASCAR is on the mind, the video of the post is my favorite song from NASCAR ’98.

8 thoughts on “Fates Weekly Update #36”

  1. #2 sounds like the best one for me. That way, things would stay level and readers know what both are doing at the same time instead of reading both then trying to piece it together.

  2. I personally prefer 1 as it is more immersive but still allows us to know what is going on at that time. Switching back and forth often tends to make it harder for me to keep track of who did what and breaks the flow of the story. Going through a whole storyline is typical of most visual novels (with Act 4 being something like a true end), but it may be hard to remember what the first protagonist did. Idea 1 is a compromise between these two.

  3. #2 works best for me, since the two stories can stay relevant, and appropriate switching between them can give the reader some sort of anticipation and enthusiasm.

    1. There has been no word from the CG artist. I’m considering what my alternative plan for this is going to be.

      1. Oh no… I hope you’re artist is ok and messages you soon or update you about his/her work. I can’t wait to buy Rising Angels: Hope!

        That ending in Red rose was such a awesome cliff hanger, I can’t wait to see what this remake has to offer

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