God(s)! Dev Blog

03.11.2014

I spent about five-six hours writing the CSS rules for the new Twine game last night. I haven’t checked how browser-agnostic they are, but it’s looking pretty fucking sweet on Google Chrome on my mac. I also designed a background for it in Photoshop, which was scary because I don’t know a ton about web backgrounds and it took quite a bit of research to make it happen. Furthermore, I don’t completely understand how to work out all the rules for including images in Twine. I’m figuring it all out, but slowly.

My goal for today is getting at least one of the game’s sex scenes written and finding web safe colors that work with the pink background. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to work with a team so I could outsource some of the programming labor once it starts to make my brain ache.

Ah, well. C’est la vie. Anyway, here’s a little teaser of how everything looks so far:

Voila!

03.12.2014

Started cross-browser testing, which is going well. The game also looks great in Firefox (again, I’ve only tested it on my mac so far, but I’ll test it on smartphones/tablets/windows/etc). I also managed to nail down some color stuff which was bugging me and started tentatively testing how the game runs on my site. Everything has been positive so far!

I didn’t get done with the sex scene that I wanted to yesterday, but I worked on it most of the morning. I can happily say that it’s sexy, dirty, and a little weird. So basically perfect. I’m still not sure about how BIG the game will be, especially since the turn-around is so short, but I really don’t want to drag this out since I have other responsibilities and I have the tendency to lose interests in projects when I don’t feel I have enough forward momentum.

If you’re reading this and want to know more about the game, just leave a question in the comment section and I’ll try to answer it later tonight or in tomorrow’s dev blog entry.

Thanks for reading this.

B.

03.13.2014

Got some early feedback on the game being hard to read because of the background. This set me on a manic fixing spree that wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped. For now I’m just tabling that issue and I’ll sort it out later in production.

Otherwise, there’s not much to say. I’m hoping to push past the first set of scenes sometime today and start introducing new characters.

Again, if you’ve got questions for me just leave ’em in the comments.

-B.

03.18.2014

Pretty sure that the lion’s share of the CSS is finished at this point. There are three core fonts that I’m using for this project, all freely available and with their own particular character. The project is shaping up to be a little bigger than I originally anticipated. So far it’s ~ 7k words and I haven’t even gotten the MC (Main Character) out of his apartment yet!

Since the project is comedic in nature I’ve been working on my “joke writing” which mostly means sharpening the loose, somewhat sarcastic tone of the story’s narrator. I worry that it might not be Funny (with a capital F) but at least, I think, it’ll be amusing, diverting, and fun to masturbate to.

Not that I think you’ll be jerking off to it or anything.    >.>         <.<         >.>

-B.

04.03.2014

MC has officially left his apartment and into the café down the street. Funny story, the font I’m using doesn’t have an e with an accent, so technically I’m misspelling café through the entire game. I could switch fonts I guess, but fuuuuuuuuck. You have no idea how long I spent getting this one down.

I also started introducing the first set of variables to the game which is always fun. Fuck That Guy if I remember correctly didn’t have any variables, so this game is already +1 complexity.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of having a bit of art commissioned for the game, but I feel like having art made is the kiss of death for any project I’m working on. As soon as the art, beautiful gorgeous art, comes in I stop working and start worrying about having someone else’s reputation hitched to my undercooked, sinking ship…

…that metaphor was dead on arrival, wasn’t it?

—B.

04.07.2014

In serious talks to get some illustrations done for the game. Jubell, the artist who I’m talking to, is both seriously talented and super cool. It’s not set in stone just yet, but I’m pretty confident that we’ll work everything out and that God(s)! will be better for it.

04.14.2014

Code. Code. Code. Code. Code!

That’s been my mantra with this game. God(s)! uses sophisticated (for me) css and Twine rules that are 20x more complicated than those used in my previous games. That makes this game a look prettier to look at and drags in some irritating bugs. Luckily I’m squashing them as they come up.

Jubell, the artist, is totally crushing it and I’m so thrilled to show off some of those goodies in due time. This thing is hopping along, slowly but inexorably like the living dead!

Er…you know what I mean.

-B.

04.24.2014

It’s been ten quiet days on the development blog front, but I assure you, dear reader, that work has been done. Every time I think I have the guts of this thing figure out, I realize that I missed something. But I’d say that 95% of the navigational quirks have been put to bed and now I’m just writing (hopefully) browser-agnostic CSS rules for the in-game images. After that it’s just a matter of finishing the writing, which every writer knows is the easy part. [Har har har…that’s a joke about how difficult it is to finish projects.]

On the art end, Jubell is doing excellent and speedy work. Hopefully we’ll both be done somewhat simultaneously and the beautiful, complete game will be delivered into your patient, loving hands.

Once I have an ETA, you’ll know.

-B.

05.08.2014

I’ve been sick the last week, so I haven’t gotten much done, but I have made the game entirely playable from a single html file. If you’re shaking your head, wonder what the fuck the fuss is about, this means that the game is completely playable offline. So you can download the html from my site (or wherever you get it from). This also means that bundles of twine games are a very real possibility in the future. It’d be neat to be able to offer my entire oeuvre in a relatively small .zip file. Just a thought anyway.

The entire first scene of the game is completely written, offering two very different sex scenes and a fuckton of back story. My next goal is wrapping scene two, which introduces five characters and has sex with at least two of them on the table.

A smut writer’s job is never done.

-B.

05.26.2014

So here we are at the finish-line sprint. My goal is to wrap the game’s writing within the next four days. It’ll be…intense, but I really really really want to get this thing out the door. Especially since I’ve got ideas avalanching on top of ideas, itching to get free into the wild. Admittedly God(s) turned out to be a bigger game than originally intended (feature-bloat and all that) but so far everything has served to make a better game, a tighter narrative, and a nicer looking experience.

Thanks for everyone (anyone?) who’s expressed interest so far and I hope it’ll be even more fun than you think it will be.

-B.

07.22.2014

Remember how naive I was when I thought I could wrap this thing in four days? Ha ha ha. Yeah. That was ambitious to say the least. Anyway, I’m back doing regular work on the game/interactive story/thing and actually pushing past milestones, so hopefully it’ll be done soon; though soon, however, is a nebulous concept in my world. I’ve got some conflicting interests but right now God(s) requires the least oversight, so it’s the fleetest of my children. I really, really hope you guys like it when all is said and done.

Stick around for tomorrow’s update to see an exclusive image from the game (!).

-B.

07.23.2014

Yesterday I banged through an entire storyline, thus wrapping 1/5 of the sexual options the game throws in your direction. Yes, dear reader, the work is coming along. Today I want to talk a little about characters. The game takes place in a world where many of the various gods of myriad pantheons are real. One of said gods is our hero, Cupid, and his mother, Venus. They  have something of a complicated relationship in this game.

This isn’t exactly the the finished artwork, but it’s pretty close. This being my first game with art I’m still trying to figure out how and where to integrate it, but just having it helps fill out the world.

So that’s that for today’s update—after all I’ve got to get back to actually writing  the damn thing!

10.20.2014

Working hard on God(s). So far I have four different endings written and I’m not even half done with the options yet. There’s everything from an end of the world scenario to a brunch date with your mother on offer. The mid-October release date is looking a little nebulous, but I’m burning the candle at both ends getting this out. [Did I say mid-October? I actually meant late October. Way late.]

I have two more major branches to wrap before I can start finishing up the endings and then there are hours of editing and a ton of code-review before the game is ready to post. I’ve been thinking about making a little e-book deal where people can learn more about the characters and the setting, but I’ll have to gauge interest before I commit to that. Even if I do end up writing a companion piece to God(s) it would still end up coming after the game is done. I really don’t have enough time to get everything done and still come anywhere near my (already fucked) deadline.

I’d like to thank everybody who has expressed interest in this project or found it through social media. Your reblogs and shit are really aces.