Chapter 3 WIP - Weeks 43-50

January 29 - March 25, 2023

It's been almost two months since my last blog post and it's about time I'll put on an update!

The last couple of months were a little slower than usual, after 10 months of intensive work I decided to take a few weeks off and recharge my battery.
I was aiming to release chapter 3 alpha on the 1 year mark, which is April 10th 2023.
I'm still hoping to hit that goal. If I'm being realistic, it's going to be a tall order to fill. But it is possible.

So, where am I with chapter 3?
Chapter 3 is going to play a little differently from the first two. In this chapter the focus is solely on Mikey and Grover and both of them are playable.
On one hand there's less work to do, since there are no new characters to draw and write dialogues for.
But on the other hand I had a lot of systems I needed to rewrite and new systems to add to make Grover fully playable and to enable switching between the two. And of course there are going to be dialogues between the two and all the usual hotspots observations.

My biggest challenge with this chapter is the puzzles. I went back and forth with this for a while, writing and rewriting my ideas on paper before I started drawing and coding anything. Looking for a good balance between fun, challenge and logic and keeping it all connected to the story and vibe of the game.

Aside from the usual inventory and scene manipulation puzzles, I also have a few stand alone logic puzzles planned for this chapter.
I did like 8 different concepts already, all fully coded and tested but not visually designed.
I will only need 3 for this chapter, so far I got 2 which I will use, on the third one I'm still thinking.

In conclusion, I got 40% of the scenes and gameplay done, 50% of the puzzles, 90% of Grover's systems, no sound design, music or cutscenes yet.

For the alpha the plan is to have all scenes, gameplay, puzzles and systems and dialogues done.
I'll probably manage some sound design, new music demos are not guaranteed.
I'm not sure yet if I'll manage to do any of the cutscenes or not, it really depends on the time I have left.

Below is a video showcasing Grover's control and a little sneak peak into some of the scenes in chapter 3.
Updates including:

• Switching characters - When they are in the same scene the camera focus switches to the active character, otherwise a saved scene and character position are being loaded.
• Inventory management per character. Inventory was reduced to 12 items per page, to allow space for additional UI buttons.
• Controlling and moving secondary characters around.
• Interacting with hotspots for secondary characters.
• Different UI color scheme for each character + character portrait.
• Block paths around secondary characters so they won't walk through each other.
• Grover's idle, walking, talking animations.
• A new on screen menu/pause button.

On a different and much more serious note, Grover now wears a rubber ducky float in chapter 2.