Hi, how’s it going? Long time no barks.

Been busy with personal-life stuff. Sorry for not checking in.

can now easily recognize when the next day starts

At Present

The current plan is implementing the chapter-specific game play details piece by piece for the first 4 chapters. 12 Chapters total. The first four encompass most every game element. Getting there.

Design Updates

Had to change a lot of the code foundation for House of Tail recently, namely for how it parses what to do when you click ‘start’. This is so we’ll have better control over timing and speed, but mainly for the code ‘hooks’. Hooks as in where skills are triggered, side quests checked, scenes that can happen on any day with given conditions.

Changes:

• 6 streamlined stats
• No more hustle or sex stats
• Skills: 1 active, 3 passive
• Characters can have different health point totals
• Icons display info when you hover over them
• Options menu getting populated with… options, to toggle
• other minor things, like updated menu graphics

Super excited about the game, but not so much about leaving everyone (outside of the development team) in the dark about it. It’s going to feel strange putting out the next update where a lot of elements are ‘in there’ but not quite. I’m trying to stay in a frame of mind where there has been no public release, meaning: it’s not a chapter-by-chapter installment or showing updates for attention kind of deal. It’s very OK and encouraged to ignore it all until the game’s finished. Might be interesting for those who like to compare builds. The whole thing has been such a learning experience.

About the Stats

Recover, Ability, Charm, Service, Smarts, Power

All jobs use 1 or 2 of the last four above. ‘Recover’ is how much health a character recovers when on the bench or elsewhere. ‘Ability’ is used for how powerful certain skills are. ‘Sex’ has been changed to ‘service’ to make it fit more with what job it ties to and because it overlaps too much with the idea of ‘charm’. ‘Toughness’ has been changed to POWER.

While I liked the idea of hustle influencing everything a little, it just needlessly complicates everything with the conceptual overlap. The idea of hustle as not being lazy and doing what you assign them to do is built into the idea of stats. Someone with a stat of 10 will have more hustle (get more done) at a task than someone with a stat of 1. The old idea in using a hustle stat was someone with a 1 in something could do better than someone with 10 if their hustle was high enough–think someone with a lot of drive but inexperience, most any main character at the start of a story. The reality is, it’s annoying to have to factor in a fraction of hustle into every job’s equation when deciding who to use for what. Now it’s never more complicated than adding two stats to see who’s more effective.

The big picture is you should be aware of the math the game uses. This has been a pretty big design goal. Like how Common Grounds will tell you what stats you’re missing to advance with a character. You’ll be able to click a job and see the math it uses. When you have to make choices during scenes, the game will tell you the result beforehand. It might seem counter-intuitive or easy-mode, but it should translate into being aware of what choices mean, giving them more weight, and having more control–not feeling like it’s hiding information from you or using cheap tricks to mess with you. It has to be this way to tie in with the story’s theme~