State of Decay #2 (November 2024): Small Updates + Introduction To The Playable Characters In Toparo ~ the Forgotten Rotting Technology.

Second blog post already huh..? Well, I say “already” despite the fact this month has felt quite long for me, it feels like a real age since I wrote the last one but then again, I *am* only writing twelve of these a year, so it’s a good sign that the last month hasn’t passed me by in a flash. Although, I am writing this on the twentieth rather than the end of the month, so I’m a bit early - but whatever…

Anyway, how’s progress been? Hmm… so-so I’d say, I’ve done a decent bit, but still far less than I really should be doing each month. I made the stage 9 (C/D) background which I’m very happy with (you can find it on Twitter/Bluesky, I’m generally going to avoid posting images on this website where I can, so that I don’t hit the free Neocities file size limit (^^;); it’s very heavily inspired by a certain somewhere of a game that I absolutely love the visuals of. I made some music, alright, it was just a few tracks but I hate making music, so any progress is good progress in my books.

I also did some other small things but nothing else particularly interesting, I doubt you want to hear about how I’m overhauling a lot of pretty fundamental code *again…* I’m just trying to make sure that the base code is expandable, easy to read, easy to edit and somewhat clean before I really sink my teeth into anything that can be described as “a playable video game” so please excuse how long I’m taking to show anything like that off.

I know I’ve vowed to stop putting dates on things, but a “Demo 0” may be not too far in the horizon. Basically it’d be very bare bones with just most of the menus as well as the first stage of each of the four routes, nothing else. I’d really like to release something sooner rather than later (even if it’s only 10 minutes long) to try and drum up some early interest in the game; oh, and so that people could potentially find any major bugs before I get too deep into things, that’d be great.

I’m planning on releasing multiple demos over the course of development: 0 would be exactly what’s described above, 1 would go up to stage 3, 2 to stage 6, 3 to the extra stages and 4 would be a demo specifically for the VS mode featuring a story or two as well as the full PvP experience. But that’s just the plan for now, no guarantees; it’s mostly like this so I can (hopefully) get even just a few pieces of feedback every now and then as the game changes and grows.

Unlike last time, I don’t have a lot of basic stuff to talk about - that means I have to present something of actual substance! Shock and horror..! I can’t just pull the exact same trick I used last time either… Hmm, something low effort but with a little meat on the bones…

How about a short introduction to the playable characters..? That’d do I think; just keep in mind none of this is finalised yet; I doubt there’d be any major shifts, just small changes that wouldn’t cause a whole rewrite of all the dialog I’ve made up to this point.

Morgan (the one with the stupid hair) and Archimedes (the one that looks like a cat) are the protagonists of the A route. After reading an intriguing rumour in a terrible tabloid magazine, they venture into the Ancient Underground in search of someone (or rather, something) that can restore Archimedes to his original form, making both friends(?) and enemies as they venture across the buried world, trying to find out where they should even go to find what they’re looking for; as well as getting caught up in something that they have no business in.

Kenji is the protagonist of the B route. Displeased with his life in the Underground’s Floating City, Kenji runs away from home to the Ancient Underground after hearing about it in school. As much as he wants to settle into life down there, he overhears a conversation between Morgan and Archimedes, and comes to the (very logical) conclusion that his mother has sent people down to the Ancient Underground in order to bring him home, so he sets forth in order to try and avoid the two of them, inadvertently putting himself directly in the path of what he was trying to avoid..

Miho is the protagonist of the C route. After her son, Kenji, ran away from home a week ago, she gets into a conversation (argument) with her familiar about what they should do next to find him. Now thoroughly bored with looking for Kenji, her familiar tells Miho exactly where he would have ran off to, so the two of them immediately decide to head to the Ancient Underground to look for him using an all seeing eye. Unfortunately, the eye isn’t too helpful, so they have to do things the old fashioned way - asking the locals.

Linz is the protagonist of the D route. After a week of searching for Kenji with her master, Miho, Linz becomes bored of looking for someone she knows isn’t there, so she tells Miho where she knew Kenji had ran off to, taking great pleasure in the fact that she knew while Miho didn’t (much to the latter’s annoyance). Linz is dragged along by Miho to the Ancient Underground in search of the missing child; Linz couldn’t care less about actually finding him, she’s much more interested in tormenting Miho at every opportunity.

“Hey! Those were more just brief summaries of the introductions to each route!” Shh… yes, I know; it makes more sense to do it this way; I don’t really have a complete grasp on the individual characters yet, so I just went for a plot summary.

Well there you go, now that I look at it, I realise that wasn't too much of anything… but whatever, next month will be a lot richer in content, although not in the blog post itself… I’ll be uploading seven music tracks for the game over December, just like I did last year; in fact, I’ve already picked them out, made the videos, and written the descriptions..!

I like doing stuff ahead of time if I can (^^;

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This month’s crystal ball grazing: Make peace with the Moon. Wage war with the Sun. It’s best to pick a side at this time of year; you don’t want them *both* laughing at you, do you?