Keystone Updates 01 Mar 2024

So it's Mar 1st and I'm behind schedule, but things are looking very good.

This is for the fantasy book. The 2 new scene types, which are very important for storytelling, are (1) Quest Scene and (2) Battle Scene. This is a screenshot of the Quest Scene.

In quests you can type keywords to travel around a territory and interact with characters and objects. As you can see on the top left of the scene there is a selection of Action Words. These are commands which allow you to do things to interact with the scene. It's also important to learn that typing the name of any location will move you to that location.

LOOK - will give you a description of the surroundings at any time.

BACK - will go back one place after you've moved further into the scene.

TAKE - is a command to take objects which you find in the scene, it puts the objects in your inventory.

USE - you can use objects, such as "USE KEY" when you are standing in front of a locked door.

PUT - any objects which are movable can be taken and put into various locations.

GIVE - to give objects to a character.

That's about it. And I think that's just enough to make it engaging. You can also interact with characters through text dialogue. So between all the action commands and character interactions, I do believe there is quite enough to keep the story moving.

This scene had to be heavily updated, the previous version was very clunky, this version is actually very satisfying to play.

Another new scene is the Battle Scene. I've been working on that too and I think it's very close to completion. I just have to give it the same TLC which I gave to the quest scene here. Attention to detail on the interface design and functionality. Then testing for bugs and problems.

Most importantly, or maybe just most tedious of all, is the functionality of the content management system. In order for scenes like this to work - and for them to consistently work over the course of many chapters with unique content - I have to make a very organized content system to manage all the different items, inventory, character dialogue, scene backgrounds and effects, etc, etc. And while it has to be uniform, it also needs to have a lot of flexibility so it doesn't feel like the same scene every time. Kinda like how Mario Bros is just moving around and jumping and collecting coins, but done in a way that seems interesting and unique on each stage :)

So that's all I've got done today. I was hoping to have these two scenes 100% complete by the end of last week, and then spend this week working on content. But that was plan A, and plan A failed.

So I guess it will be the rest of this first week of March where I finish all the functionality and the content system for the Quest and Battle scenes. And then next week I can work on the content.

Hm. My deadline of a relaunch on Mar 15 is starting to look out of reach.

We'll see what happens...

That's all for now.