More text updates
It's been busy around here so I haven't had a chance every day to work on the code. Now I can get shortcodes into the text file that will be parsed into the game to allow for automatic actions to take place like pauses, sprite location, and narrator name changes.
I know that seems trivial but it did take a while to get working. Pretty soon I'll be able to work on the sprites and background of the thing.
In between waiting for the chance to get on my computer to code I've been mulling over the story idea. This code can be reused for any visual novel so no time is being wasted on that.
I took a moment to play a few of the other visual novels out there. I installed a few simple ones off itch.io and quickly realized that pacing is essential to keep the player interested. Especially when the spites are mainly static. Having dialog be one line per character back and forth with nothing else happening is boring as hell.
Making sure the visual novel keeps the players attention without having to put in a mini game will be a challenge. In Coffee Talk you take breaks from the narration to make drinks. In VA-11 Hall-A the drinks are extremely time consuming to make due to the clicking and dragging of lots of little bits and such which makes the game stressful when they fail.
Without that little break from the story I'll need to supplement attention with more visual changes, sprite animation, and sound when possible. I know that having audible dialogue is wildly out of scope but there are sound assets I can buy to use for other actions.
Speaking of assets, after I get the story outlined properly I can begin drawing the characters up. For now they will be hand drawn. They may still be hand drawn in the game. I've been drawing by hand for so long that doing it with the tablet and apple pencil just isn't up to par for me. Color will be done in Photoshop but for the end production it's going to be pen and ink artwork.