#4 – Easter
During the easter break my project partner was still distracted with other commitments so progress was still slow from the technical side of things. However, I was able to focus on my writing fully and continued to work on my drafts.
Unfortunately, I hit a bit of a block. I was having trouble getting my footing with my drafts as I found myself constantly dissatisfied with every opening I created. I struggled when it came to establishing the rules of my story and integrating world building elements that felt interesting and unique. It was all starting to get away from me and keeping track of my ideas and the plot in my mind felt overwhelming.
So I stepped away from my drafts for a few days to focus on other things. I tidied up some writing on other projects, did some more research and edited my blog. When I finally returned to my FMP I didn’t jump back into the writing right away. Instead I reigned in the scope a bit, reorganised my notes and started creating pseudo-storyboards for myself so that I had a clearer idea as to where my story is going. I also started creating small profiles for some of the characters, creatures and concepts in my story to help with this issue too.
While I am only aiming to include part of this story in the final production (with plans to finish the rest in my own time), I felt that having some more thorough notes like this was a necessary foundation for me to push off. After doing this, I was able to finally write an opening I was satisfied with and soon began writing the rest of the story.
#3 – 28/03/22
Unfortunately, at the start of this week I became sick and my friend had to focus on some of their other responsibilities, so progress on the project slowed significantly. That being said however, I was still able to make a start on my first draft, or at least I was able to compile my notes on characters, plot points and themes into a sort of plan for my writing. I also started making sketches on the illustrations that, as long as we achieve our baseline goals, may be able to be included in the final product – getting a feel for the visual style we want to go for.
Towards the end of the week I was able to present my pitch to my course leader too. While my pitch was full of information that outlined what this game is and how and why we’re going to make it, I feel that my delivery of this plan could have been much better. On some slides there was far too much text, leading me to frequently fumble over my words, and my interaction with the people I was pitching was limited to say the least. This in tandem with the fact I was still struggling with my sickness, led to a pitch that I am disappointed with.
#2 – 21/03/22
The following week I spent some time creating a pitch for this project, compiling all of my ideas into a powerpoint and outlining some of the points my friend I discussed during our talk.
Once this was complete I returned to my research, branching out from videos and articles to also get notes straight from the source. I began playing certain games that fall under the same genre as ours ( Coffee Talk, Disco Elysium, Divinity Original Sin 2 ) so that I could gather notes on their narrative and how they interact with the gameplay mechanics. I also started rereading some of novels that feature rich world building (such as Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive) in the hopes that I could learn from the writing techniques put to use in them.
During that week I also figured out a system to format my writing in a way that was readable and easily transferable to the game’s flowchart (a diagram that clearly outlines what line of text should go where and when) and its code. By labelling and partitioning my writing into nodes, we can store each in line in an array that can then be pulled from when needed.
#1 – 14/03/22
After writing up my notes from Jam week I immediately began work on my FMP. Coming up with a concept for the project was a very quick stage of the project as I had already been brainstorming over the prior weeks. I was originally going to create a short story collection set in the world I used for my comic book. But after realising I wanted to work in a different medium this idea soon evolved into a video game.
I spent the majority of the week outlining the plot, themes and messages of my story and how they could react with certain game mechanics that come with visual novel RPGs (the video game genre I am working in). Since I am no programmer I also had to reach out to a friend who has experience in the industry so that they could help me with the technical side of the project.
We spoke, shared ideas, assigned responsibilities and came up with a plan for the next two months. During this talk we also established a baseline for what we want to achieve as some of my ideas were a bit too ambitious for the amount of time we have to work on the game.
I also began my research for the project this week by watching, and collecting notes on, various videos created by professionals in the industry where they provided advice and discussed how writing for the medium differs greatly from others and provided.
Witchers and Witches 