howdy-folks-its-showtime

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - October 2024 Devlog

Howdy Cobalt here! This is really late I know, that's my bad. Again. I want to say right away this dev log isn't particularly exciting. Mostly because almost everything I did this month was in preparation for future things to be added so while I may not have a lot to show… Hopefully everything I did this month will mean soon I will!

Got Cutscenes mostly working! There is a placeholder cutscene that's an intro and another that activates upon opening a door! You can skip cutscenes by holding E for a bit but I have not yet implemented the code that keeps track of which cutscenes you've seen before to activate it. [I want there to be a system that keeps track of if you have ever seen a given cutscene. Since this game is story-heavy I wouldn't want people accidentally skipping cutscenes that may have been vital. This system will hopefully be able to keep track of this even through save files. So if you decide to replay the game after fully beating it all the cutscenes will be able to be skipped since you already know what's happening and such. Also for speedrunners]

Okay I know there's not a lot here but the cutscene system took. A while and that was cause I wanted it to be as optimized as possible [we'll be having quite a few cutscenes after all~] And that always makes coding take a lot longer. If I coded it in a super messy complicated way it probably would've been done in a way but I wanted the code to be mostly clean and most of all not tank the performance. So it took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Been doing some loose writing here and there. Honestly haven't done any major writing this month, I wanted a break from it. I have since taken that break however and I'm sure I'll come back swinging!

Haven't done much art myself, been doing some tweaks to the props I showed off in the last dev log but nothing more than that. However I have been working relentlessly on Henry's first model [I say first cause I'm sure with time, I will want to update and change it] and I can say confidently it is fairly close to completion.

In terms of 2D art, I've done a few textures and Roddy has been working hard on character designs! We got one of the major characters in their cycle form done and that'll help a lot for establishing the style for the others ones as well. We don't have much that wouldn't be considered spoilers though so for now, you'll just have to trust us.

HUGE progress has been made on figuring out rigging. I have a rig that works really swell, [one that was created by that very person I talked abt helping me in last month's devlog] now I just have to learn how to modify it for my own purposes which shouldn't be too hard since I now know all the little mechanics that make it work. With that I can hopefully start on making a good generic rig for humans and toons alike to act as a base for all of them but still be able to customize for any deviations they have in design. This took. Days. But I think it'll be worth it when you guys get to see these characters start to come to life in their first few animations and such. I think next month, I'll have at least something swell to show off! Thanks for your patience as always!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - September 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, this month was a very busy month for me irl. I've been working on stuff like an Ebay I run with my mom, cleaning up our side yard and generally trying to give our house a deep clean since we want to be able to babysit kids for a source of income. That and a lot of driving practice since hopefully soon, I'll be taking my test. So I haven't been focused on game development, however I did get a ton done!

I've both added quite a few important scripts and cleaned up a few existing ones, to try and keep this simple here's a list:

Changed up how the ProgressManager keeps track of which character you are playing as. Mostly so that it can more accurately detect who you should be playing as currently, but also so I can customize freely the possible options of who you're playing as. With this new system it's very easy to add which points in the current level and/or chapter your character is changing.

ProgressManager script is no longer responsible for placing the right items in your inventory according to who you are playing as, that has been moved to be the function of the PauseManager.

Made a script for checking where the player is looking, I can change how close or far it detects the players gaze as well, which is gonna be super helpful for various things. There is another script called VisionManager that turns that one on and off, to make sure it's not running when not necessary.

Made a script for playing audio upon being interacted with and one for playing audio upon being looked at. These have been added to a few objects already and so Henry now has a few placeholder voice lines implemented in the game. With this I also added a function to the ProgressManager to keep track of which voice lines have been played and to make sure the same voice line isn't activated twice.

Tapes are now almost fully implemented programming wise. Upon picking one up, it plays the tape, shows you the name and description and the audioclip is stored in your tape menu. You can't play them from the menu yet and there's a few other things I'd love to implement, but for now I'm very happy to say they're working well.

I've rewritten how both objects that do something upon being interacted with and objects that do something upon being seen work. This method has removed the need for two scripts that made everything more complicated than it had to be and now if I want to add the ability to be interacted with, all I need is to add a word to it's inherited methods and a line of code saying what it does when it's interacted with/in sight. This makes the code much more readable and more simple.

Made the ProgressManager easier to access across different scripts due to how often it has to be accessed. Once again this makes the code more simple and easy to read.

simple door function for closing and opening a door, the animations are acting strangely but currently it is nothing more than a big placeholder rectangle so it works for now.

There's now an AudioManager script that makes sure voice lines and tapes won't play at the same time, it just makes all the objects that would normally play audio pause to let the current audio clip finish. So no overlapping voice lines or Henry speaking over the tapes.

Not a lot here to note honestly, just more drafts of important dialogue to put together and more progress on getting chapter 1 fully written. I've been focused on 3D art and programming way more than writing this month. I'm sure I'll get back to it next month.

A lot of the basic more generic 3D assets are being made currently, here's how a few of them for the first floor are looking;

And here's some for the Music Department.

2D Wise mostly just more Character Designs have been done, hence why most of these assets aren't textured. But soon the studio should be looking a lot more swell and full of props.

Made a really exciting development in terms of figuring out character rigging. Got in contact with someone who has a really swell system for 2D facial animation and if we can work together to figure it out, I'm sure soon I'll have some of the major characters first models done. I've told them a lot of features that would help me if they could figure them out and what I'd like the rig to be capable of and they said they are fairly sure it should be possible and they'd look into it. They have been very kind and helpful for this entire project and I would love if any of you gave them support on their YT Channel and the videos showing off this awesome rig. If they could make a general rig for this sort of thing I'm sure it'd be super helpful to so so many people who make stylized characters in Blender for games. https://youtu.be/0hcZfr4f5cA?si=gb6VYNXi7G12a5iI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_knSIhLEGlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2rMoFWwYTc

For now, that's all, lots of exciting stuff going on! See you guys next month!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

The Ink Demonth - Day Nine Record

Been hard at work on modelling assets for It's Showtime. I have lots to show but by far the one I'm happiest with so far is this Gramophone I made for Ink Demonth Day Nine "Record". I also created this super fun animation for it. In case anyone is wondering, I've already fully programmed it into the game~ But you guys will have to see that later! For now admire all my hard work at making this thing.

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - August 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here! I didn't actually do a lot game related this month, but I do still have some updates and things to talk about here! Sorry this is a tad late!

In general on the game, progress is good, but I've ran into an issue you can see right on the little doodle we've provided… Which is that there's so much to be done for the game, I've run into decision paralysis. When you have a million little things that would probably only take a few minutes to complete, program, model, draw, etc… It's hard to decide what you should prioritize. Which was a big cause of my struggle to be productive this month.

Programming wise, I didn't do much of anything, the struggle to decide what I should do this month hit me hardest in terms of programming. But soon there will be much more to show, promise! In terms of writing I made a lot of progress. Chapter 2's summary is almost done, so is a lot of its in-depth writing and I've done more work on finishing the in depth writing for Chapter 1. I've been almost non-stop writing this month, in between doing a lot of housework and planning for my future. Art wise, we've been doing concept art, putting together inspiration boards, speaking more and more about the art of the game and such. A lot of progress has been made art-wise, particularly in terms of 3D as well as I've only gotten better and better with blender. To the point where soon, I will be teaching my partner a lot more about the program and also making tons of the more simple props for the game. There's not much to say about what I did this month, that's my bad. It was mostly due to having to help my family, preparing for my future, and trying to figure out stuff like income and such. I'm still trying to find a good balance to where I can be an aid to my parents around the house, head towards my future and work on the game at a steady pace. It's not easy, but I wouldn't have taken on this project if I thought it would be. In the meantime, consider sending asks our way if you'd like about the project and such. I promise this project is my priority, it's just also hard to balance other important things in my life with it sometimes. This month was just one where I was particularly focused on helping around the house as opposed to game development. So that's all, Cobalt out!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - July 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, and wow, July really went by quick for me. Luckily, I also got a good amount of things done! In fact, I did a lot of things I've been holding off on for a while. Sorry the dev log is late,despite knowing I should, I didn't make notes on what I did this month nor did I start it earlier… Then I had a really bad time with my body (just cramps, dw!) the last few days of the month which made it hard to write. I swear I'll develop better habits for this as it goes on.

when it comes to programming, I've gotten a few minor things going on. I have a cut scene manager script now that keeps track of various things, including which cut scenes have already played but also which cut scenes you've seen between save files and stuff. This way it can make any cut scene you've already seen in any of your playthroughs skippable. I haven't actually gotten the skipping script to work yet nor stuff like triggering the cut scenes, but I'll need more placeholder sort of things to work on that stuff. The inventory also reorganizes itself after you use an item to make sure empty slots are at the bottom and filled ones are on the top. A lot, I mean a lot, of writing has been done this month. On Focuswriter [the program I use for all my writing] I hit the longest writing streak I ever had, 63 days in a row of meeting my daily goal [which is 500 words]! My in-depth/in-game writing doc has 16,783 words right now and my game design document [which contains the story summary] 20,764 words. [It actually shrank a bit because I made the story summary of chapter 1 like an actual summary, instead of being far too in-depth on a lot of parts. But that's still an improvement even if it seems weird on the word counts.] I've done a lot of writing out the story beats I've had in my head for a while but haven’t inserted it into my documents yet. I wanna focus on doing stuff like writing out the ending and more general story beats since I don't really want to go too far into development without way more of the story taken out of my mind and actually written down somewhere. Despite how excited I am to show more to the public. Since we will not be releasing It's Showtime through the chapters, I'm gonna try to make development less chapter focused, I don’t know how we’ll be releasing it, complete or in some other parts… But we’re not really far enough into development to be thinking of that yet. Luckily, I can say confidently I'm delighted with the speed of development so far. It's not much by most standards but for two queers making their first game of this scale while also balancing learning adult stuff, we've done way more than I thought we would so far! In terms of art, there's been both a lot done and not a lot. We've been doing a bit of concept art, getting references done, and speculating on things. But the place where the most progress has been made technically wasn't actually for the project itself… See, this month I think I finally started to really get the hang of blender. I finished a model for a friend of mine of their version of Evan from the Bendy Novels. It's fully rigged and I'm really happy with it. I'm also almost done with two other big models I'm making of someone's Bendy au designs and I'm sure when you guys see them, it'll make you excited for what the models in Showtime will look like. In general, I think I've finally found a workflow I'm happy with, and that allows me to make models both quickly but also to a quality I'm very happy with. I imagine very soon I'll be doing the first true collections of models for Showtime, whether they'll be the ones seen in the final release I don't know. But the practice alone will surely teach me a lot more about Blender.

As for other things… Ink Demonth is happening again and this time, I would love to create something for each prompt. They probably won't be posted daily, or in order, but still, I'd love for me and my partner to make something for each prompt within the month. Specifically related to Encore! and such. It'd be a good way to keep the blog alive and to stir up more attention on It's Showtime! This isn't a promise we will, but I thought I'd mention our hopes for Ink Demonth. Overall, I'd just advise all of you to be on the lookout for things going on with this game. I've got a lot of little plans for it that are almost ready to be put into motion and I'm super excited to show you guys more as things go on. Once again sorry it was late, but I hope this update was exciting! See you guys next month!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - June 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, for another devlog over It's Showtime. This month was actually really swell, especially since I got more of my adhd meds recently. So I should be getting way more done in the coming months, yippee!

Programming wise, not a lot was done this month I've mostly spent it changing a few things about the way the map is built. Particularly I'm gonna need to rebuild most of the first floor. However in the long run it should be for the better, for stuff like performance and making it easier to add more to it. I also just needed a break after all I did last month. I have created things like the base for the main menu, a proper testing room and a lot of coding for the cut scene system though!

Writing wise, a ton of progress was made. Most of the major writing for Chapter 1 is done! Or at least on a great first draft. So very soon Chapter 1 will be done writing wise. [For the record currently the in depth writing for Chapter 1 is 7,122 words long] Chapter 2 also had a significant amount of its in depth writing done, almost all of the 'intro' is written out but obviously I'm trying to focus more on Chapter 1 right now. Speaking of the other chapters and such. Chapter 2's summary is almost done, with some things just needing some elaborating or bridging with other parts of it. Chapter 3 has 3 thousand words written in its summary currently, so a lot of what goes on in that chapter has been written out. I recently had a ton of revelations about what is going to happen in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 has also had a lot added to its summary. Sadly, writing wise, I simply cannot reveal much more without getting into spoilers.

I've also been learning Blender a lot lately. I'm working on a few models, none of them for It's Showtime quite yet. [well besides the walls and floors for the first floor] However soon I'm gonna be trying to make Henry's first model and animations for the game. Probably won't be the final one used for the project, or even the one you'll see upon chapter 1's release, but we'll see. Sadly, a lot of this process is simply tutorials and looking things up, then double checking those things to make sure they can be used in Unity, aren't performance heavy and will work with the systems I've already got in place. Art wise, me and my partner have gotten a lot of fun concept art done.

We've also started a sketchbook purely for Encore! related drawings. We've got so much fun stuff to show you guys when more is done, but for now, I'd love to show off a proper look at Henry's design.

Here we have Henry's reference, specifically for his in-game appearance.

The sketchy reference made for modeling him out. Yes, he is tastefully nude in this appearance. That's just the way it has to be.

Then finally a rough run cycle I animated to show off his character and as practice for when the proper 3D gets made. I'm really proud of how this came out and I hope it gives you guys a good idea for what to expect from him character-wise. As always, feel free to ask any questions about this project and its story if you'd like. I'll do my best to answer them without giving too much away! See you next month!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - May 2024 Devlog

Howdy! Cobalt here, if this devlog seems a little strange or not as well formatted as any of the others, it is because it is May 30th [for me who is writing this before publishing it] and I am sick with a fever. Out of the past three days I've been sick, today I by far feel the best but yeah I'm gonna blame any mistakes or lack of comprehensiveness on that.

Also luckily it only took one devlog for me to realize I should probably date and title these.

To start, we're almost done blocking out the first floor, it lacks a roof right now but the layout, the placement of stuff like interactables and some aesthetic things are all planned out. Once the roof textures are done I will share screenshots of it, but for now my focus is far more on programming than aesthetics for the first floor.

And in terms of programming, we have made a ton of progress! I now have a Progress Manager, it doesn't have a script of its own but manages three other script: Objectives Manager - Keeps track of which part of the game you are in for activating event and cut scene triggers. It also tells the game which character you should be playing as currently and does stuff like adjust what is in your inventory n such accordingly. Cut Scene Manager - Technically doesn't do much of anything right now because we're not yet at the stage where any cut scenes are being played. This will be working with the Objectives Manager and Event Manager to play cut scenes and manage them so it's not disorganized. Event Manager - Passes information from the Objectives Manager to things like triggers for events, such as cut scenes and animations to activate them. Has a list of all the events to make managing them easier.

These combined with the other scripts I have means adding things like animation events, cut scenes and objectives is really easy. So we will make progress on those things a lot faster.

Other important scripts I have made are: Interact - Just a script that makes an object interactable and then executes the script it's told to upon being interacted with, then deletes itself. Item Pickup - Stores an items' title, description and icon to send to the inventory manager upon being interacted with. Also destroys the item since it's no longer needed. Item Use - Upon being interacted with, searches your inventory to see if you have the object you want to use and if you do removes it from your inventory and tells the progress manager you've completed that objective. Other Use - Right now just for one use items like valves you need to turn or levers you pull when interacting. Then tells the progress manager you made progress.

I have also programmed an entire inventory system to keep track of the items you have picked up and the ones you have used. It has names, icons and descriptions. I should be able to use this same system for the tapes with some simple modifications too.

The screenshot is super rough, but don't worry, we'll use our own assets in the final product. Everything here is just placeholder stuff. Titles and descriptions may change later on too.

So what does all this mean? Well, it means upon starting up the game you are simply spawned right onto the first floor/level. You can check your inventory and see the item you start the game with. You can pick up all the items you need to turn on the ink machine [plus some bonus ones], put them on the podiums, flip the levers for the machine, see some animations and soon you'll be able to fall through the floor right in front of the entrance and we'll get started on the next section. The best part of all of this is going to be how much easier and faster it makes future progress. Now all I have to do to add a lot of things is drag the same script onto objects and modifying the scripts I have written to suit my needs as we go along. We have built the base and now it's time to build upon it, but the first step is always the hardest and now we're done with that! Thanks for all your patience with this project as always and I sincerely believe I should have way more to share by next month! For now, that's all. Thanks for reading!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

Shhhhh, Mod Cobalt doesn't know I'm posting this ;)

Happy 8 years, my Luv! Every moment with you has been a dream and I'm so grateful you're mine <3 Here's to more years to come!!

-Mod Roddy

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

April Update!

Howdy! Cobalt here, as many of your guys know It’s Showtime and its characters/story are gonna be turned into a horror game by the same title. So for both Gamejolt and this blog I am gonna start trying to do monthly updates on development. I think it’ll be a good way to put into perspective how much progress is being made each month and keep you guys in the know about how things are going. These are gonna be formatted with work made that month going first and then afterwards any other small announcements or thoughts we’d like to share on development. That or things that weren’t created that month that I basically keep stored in case we have months where progress is slow or I can’t show much behind the scenes stuff. These logs will likely contain personal stuff too, since with me and my partner being the main heads of the project. Our well-being or IRL goals are relevant to how much work is being done. Also while developing Showtime I intend to create other games similar to it, to sort of learn and test the waters + Since those ones aren’t tied to an IP I can actually make money off of them. Something I can’t [or at least not without Mike n Meatly’s permission I suppose] with Showtime or its characters.

April was sadly, not my month, I found out I was vitamin D deficient and got a slight fever. So I spent a lot of days tired and recovering from that. Progress has still been made though, mostly on learning 3D modeling more, I’m almost done with a model I’m making for someone else actually and while it is not perfect by any means… I think it looks really awesome for being my maybe fourth or third model and it’ll be my first truly finished model as well. I also have made good progress on writing both dialogue and summaries of Showtime’s story. I did particularly get ideas for a good chunk of Showy's campaign however, which involves a character I was on the fence about including in Encore!... Until very recently... Art wise not too much has been done specifically this month besides some concept art for cycle designs and some progress on textures for the studio. But that’s okay cause we’re not really at a spot where major progress can be made art wise yet. There’s so much more I want to share but I’ll be doing my best to space out those things out between updates. So no update is too long or too short with nothing interesting in there. Also sorry this is all so vague and non-specific I’m gonna try and get in the habit of actually documenting what work is being done on Showtime monthly from now on, so I’ll be able to be more specific about what parts are being chipped away at.

So onto something that didn’t happen this month but is important we have decided to switch to Unity instead of Unreal Engine 4. I’d like to take some time to explain why and also make sure nobodies too anxious over the change. For one thing, not a lot of progress was made on Unreal Engine, you could hear footsteps as you walked, use a buggy animation to enter a miracle station and the map was just a room full of lights. This is due to the fact while working in Unreal Engine was interesting and I learned quite a bit, I found myself often feeling it was not a good fit for Showtime and that trying to make it so was fighting against the engine as opposed to working with it. Unreal Engine seems to be built for realistic, open world or multiplayer FPS type games. That’s not to say you can’t make anything else with it, but finding tutorials for things I wanted to do was. Basically a nightmare because youtube was flooded with videos on how to make those games specifically. Another big aspect however was the general style. Unreal Engine is great if you want very realistic lighting and have a computer that can tank the sort of weight of that too. Neither is true for me however, Showtime’s characters are all very stylized, our humans are cartoony have clear shapes and most of all, I just want Showtime’s overall style to pay loving homage to 1930’s and general 2D Animation. I think both are really underappreciated and god do I love them. Also I’m making this on literally a laptop, a new one and not a janky one by any means, but still not a desktop. Unreal Engine works great for those who know how to use it and want to create the games it was optimized for, but it’s not ideal for my purposes, Godot seems promising but Unity is just great at specifically doing what I want to do with Showtime. It’s great for beginners to Game Development, has plenty of tutorials for all kinds of games and is very flexible in style. Sadly nothing is better at being Unity than Unity right now. I’m still mad about what the CEO did, and I’m glad for those who were able to switch engines to those with better management but it’s not really an option for us currently. Of course, this will put things back a bit but I’ve already been learning how to build a basic map in Unity and so far have only run into a few issues. Still I would love any advice on how to do this, esp from those who had made games similar to BATIM and other mascot horrors. [I have been thinking of building the maps inside Blender first and then importing them into Unity, to see if that’s easier or practical, but mostly I would love to hear what others commonly do to build such intricate interior design in Unity.] Either way while this month wasn’t terribly exciting by no means was no work done, just nothing too fun to show off yet.

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

The lovers cried and the poets dreamed But not a word was spoken The church bells all were broken

Happy birthday to Sammy and the chapter that introduced him!

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

Happy 414 Bendy Fans!

We're uh, late again... Aren't we?

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

Hey dudes and dudettes, Mod Roddy here!

I didn’t want to make this post, however, with the release of the preview pages of the DCTL Graphic Novel, Cobalt broke into my house demanding the staff be redesigned to be more “canon complicit.” They feared with our current designs the Bendy devs would be afraid of interacting with us; “I mean, imagine the horror Mike would feel seeing our Norman!” They muttered, body shaking with either excitement or fear. Of course, my response was- “What? The loosely bendy-based story where Henry is Joey’s brother, Joey and Sammy are married gay lovers and Bertrum x Jack is a thing needs to be closer to canon now?” Their response, as moving as it was mocking, was “Do it or I won’t let you ride the ink demon this summer.”

I am currently pressing charges, but before I had it arrested, it created these edits for me to base the redesigns off of. After they’re done serving their sentence, posting will continue as normal <3

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

The banner for It's Showtime's Gamejolt page is finally done. I absolutely love how it turned out, simple and yet so detailed isn't it? Roddy did such a swell job of sketching out our vision for it ❤

Why not go check it out on the page itself too?~

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

Happy Seven Years Everyone!!

They grow up so fast don't they? Joey must be very proud.

What do you mean we're late?

[Happy Birthday Bendy! Thank you for bringing us the inspiration to make this world and being our gateway to falling in love with Mascot Horror ❤]

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

Martha and Zack were missing their wedding rings! They're Joey and Henry's parents and despite Zack being dead, we thought neither of them would put away their rings until they're both gone from this world...

Irena and Dot both needed wedding rings as well! They might both be widowed, but neither of them wants to forget the good times they had with their husbands. Even if it stings to know they won't come back anytime soon...

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

I'm sure many of you are thinking, Cobalt, and Roddy, you guys have posted these designs before! And you're right! We have, but recently Roddy and I decided a few designs required a tweak. Most ended up really simple, one in particular changed a lot and that is Susie! So we're posting these to tell you all the changes made. Patch note style!

Susie had her lineart adjusted to make her chubbier, she also had her colors adjusted, mostly darkening her hair. Roddy felt she deserved to be more obviously plus-sized and the colors were something they'd been vocal about for a while. They also changed Susie's hair to be fluffier and easier to draw! They're super happy with how they've changed them and so am I!

Sammy and Joey, despite being married had no wedding rings! So they've been added now~ This is the most common change the refs needed We're also posting the ones with hats hatless, just so you guys can see them and this gave us an excuse to!

Bertie was missing his glasses! He has now been given them, though we're both doubtful he wears them very often, despite how blind he is without them.

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime now has a Gamejolt page!

Everything related to game development and such will be posted here! With exclusive peaks into how the game is coming along and work-in-progress content!

Give it a follow if you'd like to keep up with how the project is coming along! Hope to see you all there!