Devlog #17 - The Current Status

Hey there, after a brief hiatus we're back with another devlog!

As you might know if you read our last status update, we're currently trying to handle two projects at once since we started work on our thesis project in October. And we've been hard at work since then! ...but over the last two weeks our focus has mainly shifted to our new project (that we'll probably announce soonish!).

We don't want to completely pause development for //TODO: today but since it's not the main priority right now progress has been fairly slow.
A first pass of the writing is almost done, so the main thing that's still missing in that regard are revisions and editing.
As for art, backgrounds, CGs, and additional artworks still make up the bulk of the workload.

Unfortunately there isn't much we can show of this since it's all pretty deep in spoiler territory. We would like to keep the development transparent but now that we are so late into the production cycle, it mainly comes down to work that is already planned and only takes time for the execution (which isn't exactly exciting to show or write about either...).

So... how will we handle the devlogs from now on? Well, when we have something to write about for //TODO: today we will do just that!
It might not be weekly anymore but even if we'd like to keep posting updates regularly it probably doesn't make sense when there isn't much substance to it.

After our next project is properly announced we will also most likely switch over to writing devlogs about that. With //TODO: today we started these devlogs after a lot of the things we were writing about had already happened, so we think it will probably be interesting to see a project shape up from almost the very beginning!

That said, we'll try to include some information about the //TODO: today status even in devlogs focusing on our other project.
We're still extremely happy and excited that //TODO: today has been consistently in the first few pages of the most popular visual novels on itch.io since April! All your feedback and responses (and even fanart :D) are much appreciated and are still one of our main motivations to finish this project.
I've been saying this for a while now and I don't want it to come off as shallow or fake because of this. There have been times (especially recently) where finishing //TODO: today has felt pretty difficult and like it's been long overdue, but seeing people enjoy the game really makes us forget those worries.

And this is pretty much the gist of the situation. We would have liked to be done with //TODO: today already, but as people have already suggested a while ago, we don't have much of a choice but to focus on the project that's directly connected to our graduation right now.
But as we already said a few weeks ago, finishing //TODO: today is still high on our list of priorities. It might take a bit longer still but it will happen!

Now, to close things off I'll briefly talk some more about something that I mentioned back in Devlog #1!
The second half of that devlog was about how we customized the choice screen to visualize route deciding choices. Well, we kinda did the same thing with achievement notifications.

They make use of the regular Notification screen that is also called when you take a screenshot for example. We first customized the appearance to fit our needs and since we also wanted to include the corresponding icon whenever an achievement notification appears, we also customized the code of the notification screen itself.

In the script, the line that makes the notification appear looks like this:

$renpy.notify("_2Pro Gamer")

Once again the underscore is the identifier that this isn't a regular notification. The number is the identifier for the image that will be used and the following text is the name of the achievement.

There aren't any spaces because the text is sliced up anyway.
"Achievement Unlocked:" will always be displayed so it's hard-coded into the screen.

The code handling all that looks like this:

if message[0] == "_":
    if message[1] == "0":
        add "achievement ailoveyou"
    elif message[1] == "1":
        add "achievement artisintheair"
    elif message[1] == "2":
        add "achievement progamer"
    elif message[1] == "3":
        add "achievement workerbee"
    elif message[1] == "4":
        add "achievement youown"
    elif message[1] == "5":
        add "achievement juniorartist"
    elif message[1] == "6":
        add "achievement totherescue"
    elif message[1] == "7":
        add "achievement coldhearted"
    elif message[1] == "8":
        add "achievement goingforward"
    elif message[1] == "9":
        add "achievement homeless"
    elif message[1] == "c":
        add "achievement competionist"
    vbox:
        spacing -7
        yalign 0.5
        text "Achievement Unlocked:"
        text message[2:64]

Thanks to the initial if-statement this doesn't affect regular calls of the screen but with the help of accessing the sub-strings it makes for a fairly easy way to include nicer achievement notifications with pretty little writing work!

Anyway, that's it for this week. We'll try to be back soon with more news and insights but until then, thanks for reading and being interested in our games!