This Old Haunted House — 21 of 21

Volume II - Miscellaneous Notes

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Preliminary notes before commencing on the project itself (i.e. 12/24/18):

This game is essentially my "what color combination are you" quiz, rendered into playable form: ten primary questions contributing points toward a total of 32 possible endings. (Because we're using the framing story of a ruler's decisions during moments of crisis to present these alternatives, we can finally dodge the problem I'd been having in which folks of some color combinations are less likely to even respond to the quiz in the first place.) The ten questions are presented as a series of rooms named for the seasons in which they take place; the room descriptions will explain the scenario, and present two "paths" for the player to choose between. A secret third option will permit the player to take NEITHER path; choosing this option too much will land the player with the "Colorless" ending.

The 32 endings are objects which the player can actually see in the prototype version of the game. We should be able to set "amusing" or "deluxe" flags to permit players to switch this sort of feature and descriptive text on or off. I want to use scenes to control the flow of questions, probably?

What are the seasons?

VERNAL - Spring

ESTIVAL - Summer

AUTUMNAL - Fall

FESTAL - Early Winter

HIBERNAL - Late Winter

It's a little awkward to throw a distinctly calendrical season in the middle of a bunch of terms primarily used for ecological seasons, but it's my game and I'll make it as awkward as I feel like.

A NOTE FROM THE HALF-WAY POINT (probably around 01/01/19):

This section was literally the first thing I wrote when I started this project on Christmas Eve, 2018. I then hammered out the engines governing the selection of paths and the resulting endings over the subsequent hours, and now that the game is playable and works the way I envisioned (a mere two days later!), I've added some post hoc organization and additional notes wherever I could be bothered to, and the notes below are now a little redundant and unnecessary. Ah well!

ADDENDUM FROM 1/5/19:

I can't believe it took me this long to come up with the frame story with Han administering the quiz. The tone up to this point had been super generic vague alt-history fantastic environment. That makes so much more sense when that flavor is coming from the Oubliette magazine rather than being the tone of the game you yourself the player are playing.

ADDENDUM FROM 12/16/20:

I stalled out half-way through writing up the different crises. I think I was planning on finishing this game in the mid-2019 game-making event at Select Button, but I never got around to it then. Eventually I realized I’d rather use the structure of making these choices for a ten-protagonist encounterless RPG in Valdara itself, but after bouncing off GameMaker, RPGMaker XP, and Ren’Py in rapid succession, I realized I could come back to the original project and just finish it first instead.

ADDENDUM FROM 12/20/20:

What is it about the holiday season that makes me want to make progress on this game? Still working on endings. I've been adding polish to as much of the text as I can, fixing awkward line-breaks and making Han's conversation feel a bit more natural. I haven't added any of the physical scenery yet, and I seem to have added some endgame rules at some point despite not yet having any way of causing the game to end. I guess I should get that done.

ADDENDUM FROM 01/11/21:

Of COURSE there was an actual Oubliette Magazine. I'm renaming the periodical to "Parapet Monthly".

A CHANGE OF FOCUS FROM 1/17/21:

This is the point when I'm finally getting serious about changing this from a "toy" into a "game" by further developing the frame story. The plan was that Han would be "bored" until you get around 20 endings witnessed, but the text variations I've included so far would settle into predictable repetition by the time you're working on ending # 3. In order to make playthroughs # 3 through 33 less repetitive, I'm adding a "talking time" scene in which Han comments on the article, on Valdara, on roleplaying, etc. To space this out, I'm adding a dynamic music generator and other environmental background activity. The is also a good moment to clean up and relabel the source so it's more descriptive.

ADDENDUM FROM 07/21/21:

Polishing the text, finishing the last couple of endings, and then actually implementing Han are the three aspects I'm still working on before this will be finished. I'm hoping to complete this before August so that I can have people test it before the competition cut-off date at the beginning of September. Progress is slow yet steady. Earlier in the year I was really focused on adding a lot of flavor text the basement environment—randomized songs on the radio, sounds from outside the house, etc. I think that was mostly finished in January, but writing up all the endings was so monotonous that I lost all my inertia. It's good to be moving again.

ADDENDUM FROM 08/10/21:

Looks like the way I distributed the game to Select Button folks in February technically qualifies as "releasing" such that this would be disqualified from the competition, so I'm not pursuing that any more. In the interim, I figured out how to better intersperse crisis-specific comments further through the game, so I can put that in, now!

ADDENDUM FROM 02/19/22:

The game has been "officially" released for about six months, and while the SB folks and Zaratrustra were very gracious, it hasn't gotten much other attention. I played it at work yesterday and there were some clear opportunities for improvement: removal of most of the adverbs, additional transitional text after each outcome, some extra scenery, etc. Should have release 2 ready this weekend.

ADDENDUM FROM 03/17/23:

Late last year (September and October 2022) I replaced all the game text of "THE EXIGENT SEASONS" to make an ECTOCOMP game, "This Old Haunted House". I refrained from making any new remarks when I did so. I did a find-and-replace operation to change Trev's name to Han's, so even the other remarks make no mention of Trev. To improve the game flow, I standardized the order of the crises (now recast as rooms of the house to be renovated), and I changed the "winning" ending from one in which you get all possible outcomes to a much lower completion ratio. Now I'm going to release this with a website for Source Code Amnesty Day on 4/1/23.

ADDENDUM FROM 03/18/23:

I think I should make SOME attempt to explain the parts of the game that I still remember, so I've been going through and adding comments with % signs at the front for that purpose.

ADDENDUM FROM 04/02/23:

Whoops, I missed the Source Code Amnesty date because I was futzing with my laptop's failing fans! At least I got the code off, so I can upload it now...

ADDENDUM FROM 04/08/23:

Computer's fixed, so I am replacing the interim files with the correctly formatted version of the source code.

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