Some casual diary logs.
(I find it quite unbelievable that it took 7 weeks to finish this tiny project…)
Week 1
3.13 Mon
Project resume—
Working on basic functionality feels like cultivating wilderness…
3.14 Tue
Keep working on the basic functions—setting options, localization, glossary, and other features (glossary was not used in the end)
Made the menu, add the icons
Decided on making A Halloween Afternoon instead of a new game
3.15 Wed
Dug some artwork from 2016.2.11, made the title screen
Set the character portraits and outfit-changing system
Lighting setup
Amelia’s character sprites and portraits—previously had 32 expressions and 2 sets of clothes…It was too many. Photoshop even started to show a disk space error (emergency hard drive cleanup, and reduced the expressions to 16)
3.16 Thu
Made the tile sets and drew maps
Decided music tracks
3.17 Fri
Finished the two main maps!
3.18 Sat
Continued working on maps
Menu icons
3.19 SUN
Rest! (collage on my mini junk journal with new stickers)
Week 2
3.20 Mon
Resolved plugin issues, thanks to Aileck
Game start!
3.21 Tue
Worked on the beginning and several events
(Very tired…)
3.22 Wed
Rest day
Slight stomach ache, mental self-care
3.23 Thu
Completed the basic gameplay
Drew a pixel well
Made a garden map
Adjusted character sprites (why do I always forget if the clothes are long or short-sleeved!…)
3.24 Fri
Adjusted character portraits, made the third pink outfit
3.25 Sat
Fixed the parallel events for the time system… (The problem was solved but I began to feel exhausted and discouraged😂)
Run the second playthrough
British Summer Time!…It shattered my circadian rhythm :’)
3.26 Sun
Achievement icons x 24
Finished the achievement system and its interface
Fixed the parallel events in the menu (Very frustrated again!)
Week 3
3.27 Mon
Feeling a decrease in patience and intelligence…took a day off
3.28 Thu
Completed the inspiration system, happy with the effects
Testing
Completed Think and Item, wrote the beginning
Ready for the story and texts!
3.29 Wed
Kitchen dialogues
Translating them and build them into the game
Testing
3.30 Tur
Finished writing Endings x7
Writing, translation, building into the game, testing
Charlotte’s character portraits and sprites
Testing
3.31 Fri
Real-time system
Daily Divination system
4.1 Sat
April Fools!
Player avatars and sprites x10
Built a time machine!
4.2 Sun
Further adjustments to the Daily Divination system
Decide how the text was shown in the game
Wrote 30+ lines of divination, feeling confident, just keep writing!
Week 4
4.3 Mon
Made good progress, wrote up to 88 lines
John, Rich, and Marilyn pixel sprites + face icons
4.4 Thu
Attempted to rest, but didn’t rest much (.
4.5 Wed
Rest day, collage on my diary, and finished reading “Junkyard Planet” (by Adam Minter)
4.6 Tue
Slept for two days, feeling a disconnect in my thoughts…
Implemented common and SSR divinations, not entirely satisfied with the art, but it’ll have to do (.
4.7 Fri
Feeling drained, finished reading “Between the Acts” (by Virginia Woolf) Added 100 fortune draws to the game
4.8 Sat
Worked in the garden…
4.9 Sun
Easter Sunday, took a break
Week 5
4.10 Mon
Added 120 book recommendations to the game
4.11 Tue
Struggled all day, drew a PC… but really liked it
4.12 Wed
Made the tile set and drew the hidden room map
4.13 Thu
Rest day, watched a Japanese drama
4.14 Fri
Translating the divination text into English, got to Rich’s part
4.15 Sat
Continued translating and finished the work
Completed the English version of the book recommendations
4.16 Sun
Organized and revised the fortune texts
Testing required manually triggering 100 variables…The entire system wasn’t difficult to make, but it was quite laborious…
Results looked okay, panic reduced a bit :’)
Week 6
4.7 Mon
Continued with the hard and repeated work
Thinking about Dr. Lee and Ryan the CEO, hilarious (I‘ll talk about them later!)
4.18 Tue
Spent two hours on Amelia’s chatting, surprisingly I couldn’t complete a single section…
Continued writing Charlotte’s dialogue, spent the whole afternoon and evening…
Seriously thinking about removing John and Rich’s parts.
4.19 Wed
…But how could I bear to leave them behind😂(.
Finished John’s dialogues
Finished Rich’s dialogues
Organized their portraits, tested, saw the light of completion!
4.20 Thu
Tested by Lithium. Had some discussion and continued to fix the game Finished the hidden room
A very efficient day, working at full speed!
4.21 Fri
Forced myself to take a break
4.22 Sat
Wrote localization codes for the four characters’ dialogues (collapsed
Option icons, drew several small avatars but they didn’t look good
4.23 Sun
Wrote over 400 lines of codes for the localizations
Finished translating Amelia and Charl’s parts, the dawn of completion!
Week 7
4.24 Mon
John EN
Rich EN
Testing, fixing some details
4.25 Tue
Received the 7th anniversary art!
Wrote credits and Read me
4.26 Wed
Release! Thank you for playing!
Looking back at the logs, perhaps it would have been better to share progress updates during the development…It’s getting harder and harder to share as time goes on, and it takes some time and effort to organize them into a post_(:з」∠)
I even considered making a log in the hidden room, where future updates could be added there too… but oh well, it would be too much work/trouble and no one would want to read it anyway😂
It feels like the game isn’t much work, but before I knew it, seven weeks have passed. And upon reviewing, I can’t seem to find any parts where I could save time…I even marked the rest days, because resting is important! Seriously! Very important!!
Progress on a small project is relatively fast, and I always feel like I can do a little more. As soon as one thing is done, the next thing must be started so that I won’t forget what’s next… And again, before I knew it, I was caught in a never-ending cycle…It’s necessary to take a break sometimes, or else one’s intelligence will decline and collapse. 😂
The log may feel like a bit mentally exhausting to read (), and it was actually true that this time the development has also been a bit exhausting. I don’t know if that’s the reason above (Usually a large project doesn’t feel as too pressing because you know it takes time…and every bit you make feel more like an achievement).
Another reason could be that this project isn’t “something new,” so it lacks a bit of freshness, and only the laborious work feels particularly strong…Maybe, hopefully the next project will be a bit more enjoyable (tho not easier).
Hope drawing can make me happy again ;v;
That’s it! See you again in the haunted house!