Hello! It's another relatively short post today, mostly about writing, and recent plans I've had regarding the game's release.

Script-writing and a Potential 'Episodic' Release

There's not much new and exciting to show this time, unfortunately. I've been busy working on the game's script as always, which is sadly still not very screenshot-able work. On a positive note, however, I've finally finished drafting the game's fifth chapter, concluding what I've been internally calling "Act 2" of the story.

On that note, after giving it some thought over the past few days, I think I've decided the best way to release SBH will be somewhat episodically, or at least in two or three separate updates.

Given the game's (admittedly overambitious) large scope and long story, the main benefit of this would be allowing me to create a sort of 'demo' version of the full game, that accurately shows off the gameplay structure and writing without needing me to actually make the entire story first. This will hopefully allowing me to see how the game actually works in practice, as well as receive and intergrade feedback into the following parts and eventual full game.

I also think the story itself may fit nicely into a semi-'episodic' structure. I've always mentally broken up the story into 5~ 'Acts' with their own focuses and mini-arcs, and deliberately leaning into that more may lead to a potentially better story overall.

As an additional bonus, I'm hoping it might also help me to stop fussing about the story as much. I have a bad habit of overthinking and perfectionism while writing, and keeping the game's entire storyline and script to myself until the moment it's fully released may drive me to madness. By releasing and 'committing to it' in chunks, I think it could take some of the pressure off and keep me from wanting to constantly tweak with the early parts, and let me focus on making individual sections of the good, rather than the entire thing at once. (Not to say I won't still potentially make writing changes to released parts down the line, but it will hopefully keep me from doing anything drastic...!)

At the moment, my current, loose plan is to release Act 1 and Act 2 as the combined 'Disc 1' of the game, with 3 - 5 being 'Disc 2'. With that plan in mind, Act 2's first draft being finished means I can finally be done with script writing for a while, and take a surprisingly welcome return to coding and spriting.

Whether 'Disc 1' and 'Disc 2' will be separate games or not is undecided (and may depend on GMS2's limitations as an engine...), but given many of the game's 'RPG' elements, I would strongly prefer Acts 3 - 5 to be added as an update instead.

Conclusion

With that, I don't actually have much else to say in this post. As a bonus(?), here's some more screenshots of the overworld in it's amusing unfinished placeholder state. Hopefully it'll make for some good before and after comparisons down the line. Thanks for reading!

(And check out Iris' new character page if you haven't...!)