Demo Crunch & Dilemmas

Story vs Player Agency

Hi all,

Increasing workload from my daily job and my desperate efforts to prepare a demo for Steam’s Visual Novel Festival in March prevented me from finishing this week’s issue of GDJ. Still, I didn’t want to let the week go by without posting anything. So today, I’ll shortly tell you about the progress I’ve made with my game and share a few links that might pique your interest. Let’s go!

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Herald of the Mists Dev Log

First of all, yes—I finally got rid of the embarrassing capsule art from before! The new artwork was created by Giovanni Fim, who was incredibly patient and flexible throughout the process. I’m really pleased with how the new visual turned out.

Beyond that, I’ve been thinking more about the game’s visuals. I changed the white background to gray because I was concerned that staring at a bright white screen might put off some players.

But to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure about this visual design. So, I also tested it with a black background:

Since the black-and-white visuals didn’t quite suit the black background, I added a bit of color as well. What do you think works better?

I also asked the same question on Reddit, and most people seem to prefer the black background. Many suggested adding a toggle option, but I want the game to have a single, decisive visual design.

On another note, I updated the game’s save system. I was previously using BinaryFormatter, but I happened to learn that it’s not secure at all. Now, I’m saving data as a JSON file and encrypting it for security.

I’ve polished the camping mechanic. Originally, if you had a certain number of rations, you could just press a button and fully restore your health and mana. Now, you can choose how many rations you want to use, and your health and mana bonuses will scale accordingly. This makes managing your rations more strategic.

I also added a settings window, which currently includes only audio and display options. It needs more work but should be enough for the demo.

Additionally, I made some small tweaks to the character creation screen and am now working on the main menu:

Not the final version.

There’s still a lot to do for the demo. First, I need to polish the combat system, both in terms of visuals and mechanics. The content for the demo is there, but it’s unedited. I’ll need to go through everything, edit it from scratch, and rewrite certain parts—likely around 10-15k words. On top of that, I need to update the Steam page with new descriptions, screenshots, and a trailer. I’m also planning to create an Itch.io page.

In short, there’s way too much to do in just 2.5 months. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I’ll figure it out somehow.

On a positive note, the Steam page is now available in Germany. Previously, it was restricted due to the age-rating survey.

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Interesting Videos

I recently came across Razbuten’s video on How Small Open-World Games Feel Big. He explains how small games use their limited space more efficiently to make them feel big.

In one of his recent videos, Tim Cain talks about storytelling vs player agency. He says that as a developer, you have to decide which one is more important to your game and design accordingly.

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Me

Reading: Finished reading the first book of The Expanse. The second half was more action-oriented than I expected. I really enjoyed how the sci-fi aspect was knowledge-based and grounded. It truly feels like a plausible future. I’ll definitely continue with the series.

Playing: Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Yes still. I only get to play it once or twice a week, but I’ve managed to get pretty close to finishing it. While I enjoy it, I have to admit it feels quite a bit weaker than the first game. It seems like they had a lot of ambitious ideas but didn’t fully commit to them, especially when it comes to the ship mechanics.

Listening:

Thanks for reading!

And that’s it from today’s issue of GameDev’s Journey. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful. If you did, please like and leave a comment. Reach out for suggestions, objections, questions, or just say hi.

But regardless, thank you so much for reading, and have a great game dev journey!