12/22/17: Pros and Cons of Rewriting CaH's Code

Recently I've been thinking over how the coding and writing of the game and how it'll effect the people playing this. Now, this isn't a post addressing the actual contents of the game, but the mechanics of them. The function of having a custom name and being directly referred to by the characters, as well as the perspective of some of the backgrounds is the barest amount of player immersion.

After discussing the game with another friend and Roman, we've agreed on deeper player immersion, which involves a sprite as to not give too much away. They've helped me decide it would be best to do this to make the player feel less awkward about the backstory.

Because the game that was released is only a demo, there are sounds, music, and art that won't be used in the final game. I've recently acquired a free music program, which should help me engineer some sounds and compose new music.

I've also started making new art, starting with the backgrounds for each game. This will not only help the immersive aspect of the game but also help me practice drawing backgrounds from a certain perspective. Some of the CGs, however, might not be set from the same perspective just for dramatic effect. Some of the current sprites also need to be fixed and I need to make more sprites for more major and minor characters.

The game would benefit from a code overhaul, as I have new assets to make and be put in and I could fix some of the writing. It would also make me feel better to put Act II of the game onto something nice and new. But, as I said in a previous post, it took me about a month to redo all the code that I lost. What I didn't say was that "about a month" was spread out over two months. 30 days, working here and there for about an hour and a half. If I am re-coding the game with new dialogue, art, sound effects, and music I don't want to take away from time developing these new assets and Act II. And I also attend school full-time.

To set things into simple terms, here are lists of the pros and cons:

Pros to overhauling the code:

• Increasing player immersion

• Having more room to improve the current story

• Having more room to improve the current code

• Having a clean slate to code Act II on 

• Having a clean slate to fix and implement assets on

Cons to overhauling the code:

• Needing to take a lot more time out of my schedule to re-code something that already exists

Final Statements

Even though there is only one con, it is an extremely important one. This game has about ten months to get developed before it's intended release date (which is sometime in October 2018). Setting a deadline for myself feels dangerous, but I want a date to look forward to. I want to give myself motivation to really work on this game. And I want this game to be the best it can be.

It might be a little while before I really commit to the idea of overhauling the code, so this winter break might be spent just completing assets. However I want to assure you that whatever comes out of this break will be quality. Signing off for the night,

                                                                                         -GGDev