Conviction Chronicles

 Took a little longer than I thought, but it's implemented now. First Trial This is a change to the cast meeting each other overall with Bianca introducing the game. Before it's more of an introduction, but I've decided that it needs more tension. So this has it where someone is going to die right at the start. Why did I do this? 1. Gives a new opportunity for tension. 2. More player interaction during the scene. 3. Adds more replayability, as they cannot do everything with everyone in a single playthrough. This uses one person from each group. If nobody in that group is in the current game, they are removed as an option. If only one group exists, then the vote turns into voting to kill whoever is nominated or to spare them. Mainly since by that point the cast is extremely small, and thinning further isn't needed. The mole votes twice and they can split their vote for more manipulation.  At the start under default settings, Agatha and Nova will always be two of the nomi...

 Link: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/michaelrichardlannon/come-close What is this? I realized there was a flaw that the Assistant doesn't have a song of her own that will further elevate her and the cafe events. So I ultimately decided that it would be best to contact the producer again, especially since they gave me another discount.  The idea of the song is to have it play as something more consistent when the assistant is interacting with the cast. This song ultimately has a double meaning. 1. The assistant is trying to manipulate the cast into making the game more fun. She is more open with her emotions, which this song also showcases her more openness. 2. The planned cafe events will attempt to bring everybody more together, this song is a reminder that everybody is fighting for their own survival. 3. The Assistant will be the one carrying out executions, so it adds a darker touch to this track with certain parts of the track, which falls in line with the multi-...

 Link: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/michaelrichardlannon/what-remains Why do this now? So this is going to be the secondary intro song for the game. The main reason I got it now instead of waiting a couple of months is since I was given a discount to do it. Inspirations So the song has to be important due to the context. The player is going to get to a certain point of the story where the impact has to be special for a bit. The main idea is that most people are either going to jump right into a new run or actively stop playing for the day. So when they do jump right back in, they are hit with something new that definitely marks the moment of no return. The song, symbolically, follows the instrumentation of "I'd never be" of being more real sounding as the synths are removed. As it's made to be Indie/Alternative rock. The lyrics have multiple meanings, but it's made to be a rejection of the past self. "Her Eclipse" is Bianca's theme where she is ...

 Merging the two escape rooms into 1 blog post to make it easier. --Escape Room 2-- I wanted every escape room in the intro to feel unique with how it's completed. The first one is simple/comfy where it's very friendly. With the second I wanted to subvert it with it being in a submarine and being claustrophobic.  It has a red light where it makes everybody under the same light.  The way forward is to 1. Vote for someone using a crate which restores power. 2. Play some minigames on the now working PCs to get pieces of a passcode. 3. Read some logs to find the clue that the longest code goes in the middle. 4. Enter the code while trying to piece it together and leave. Lily has the least amount of dialogue when not playing as her to keep her mysterious mystique. I'll probably go back to add more to the content here so it's not all based on one minigame to make it more diverse. The logs do have some lore implications as well. A big thing is most of the cast is more divisive...

Link: https://youtu.be/furcpJI6L5c Youtube shorts version: https://youtube.com/shorts/M8wYYSRdpYY   Why make an animated intro? Part of it is marketing reasons, since it's a short showcase. But also to hype the player up before selecting to play. It also makes the game feel more "premium" as an experience as a whole. It's going to add a lot to people's perception when they first play to make people more invested. Animated Segments So I got an artist a couple of months ago to start making 2D Drawn content. Mainly since 3D content might not look the best, 2D animation can be much more stylized/premium feeling. Getting a full minute long intro that is purely animated would have a very strong cost behind it. Doing it the way I did was a lot cheaper, but had some cons to not be as unified as a normal animated trailer, where the risk was making it unified with the editor. Not every character is represented in the intro to allow for some surprises, but also since it woul...

 I decided to upgrade the game settings and other things before doing the pre-cafe dialogue system. I'm also updating the public demos as well, since it has been a little bit since I have done that. It should all be updated and live once this post goes up. (the update happened a bit ago, but doesn't have escape room 1) A big reason why I'm revamping the intro of the game is to make it better for playtime pacing, and to keep people invested for longer. Mainly since the first 2 hours are very important, and ironing every aspect of those first two hours is really needed. Randomize settings Settings can be randomized instead of loading the defaults. Keeps things fresh if someone wants to do something random.  Save/load The player has access to save slots, which ended up being a little annoying to implement with it functioning correctly. But they can save/load setting presets and name them whatever they want. This was 100% required to make it easier for people to get into new ru...

 Basically this is the first part of adding to the cafe, and this is mostly with the "hallway to the cafe" area where the player can sometimes see another character there and interact with them. Doing any option prevents the player from being in the cafe, and ultimately becomes a massive risk vs reward. Anybody from the cast, Bianca/Cuddles, and the assistant can be talked to in a hallway event. Risk The main risk is that you cannot view the rest of the cafe events and see what happens. It also means if the kitchen is spiked, anybody not in the cafe will be viewed with more suspicion automatically. Evidence Sharing Evidence sharing can happen here and it's one of the only places where it can happen before an investigation can start. Adds more opportunities for it to happen. This is actually the most important of the options due to how strong evidence sharing can be at the right moment, along with blackmail. Purchasing The player has an option to pay for the chance of an i...