#heres a much more updated version of the map i've been working on the past few days

[vault81]

Map of the Commonwealth (25.12.2287)

Featuring all (currently) known factions and their territories

[manonamora-if]

May Check-In

This is a bit late, because I've been debugging the past two days.

So I bought Tropico 6 during the last Steam sale. If you haven't seen me posting for a while, blame by wish to be a benevolent dictator of a fake Caribbean island.

Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

IF Events in the Next Month (I won't do this anymore)

Plan for the next month

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head on over to itch.io as usual!

April Progress

From last month, what did we do:

Play more games: ✅

I started so good, finishing reviewing the SeedComp! entries, as well as the Revival Jam and had started on the Spring Thing... then I got distracted by the TALJ and Tropico... I also need to update @manonamora-if-reviews at some point... It's at least 100 reviews behind.

Finish the Code of Ch5✅ of Harcourt and edit the Ending Chapter ✅

YES! IT IS DONE! I have finally fixed those godamn doors in the maze that were giving me so much trouble. Also MelS has gotten my edits on all the Chapters/files (and was given extra comments because I also fixed some code in previous chapters). He is hard at work dying editing the missing text.

The only thing left for me is to: - add the maze visuals (map, book/letter formatting) - settle on a design for the final maze puzzle (need to so some research) - include the missing chapter/text (waiting for MelS)

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. Or An Eggcellent Preparation. Maybe the other parser too (it just needs a smidge of polish).

LOL... This is the shameful failure that is following me around, ringing that darn bell.

Should i give up on it? Maybe one day...

Complete the TALJ entry. ✅

I have been battling this one the whole morning trying to fix so many bugs. But I'm pretty happy about it. For one: it was actually tested by someone (not like last year). For two: it's actually an easy parser (like you can't lose!).

And the idea had been ringing in my head for so long, I had the prompt submitted to last SeedComp!.

But yeah, this had been happening for a while already. And even though it doesn't have the level of polish I had hopped (future me problem with updates), it is probably one of the better one I've made.

Anyway, play Lysidice and the Minotaur (I'll have an official post tomorrow). (and you can vote for it if you want...)

What else happened this month????

Well, the SeedComp! ended, so I had to deal with all the admin, and making the cool stickers for the different entries. That took quite a bit of time... but worth it! Some really cool entries this year, yet again!

Well, this is more of it's been done last month but released this month: Les lettres du Docteur Jeangille has been translated into English, for the Spring Thing (in the Main Garden, if you feel like voting for games). You can find the post there!

I've been also drafting some post-mortems, one for Jeangille and one for Lysidice. They should come out during the month, at some point.

:/ I have to update my website again now...

I wanted to do an entry in the Dialogue Jam, but my idea didn't pan out on time (too buggy for release). Or eer... cough cough... I had enough will power not to do it? Anyway, also I made the Really Bad IF Jam, which starts today!

What’s happening in May?

As mentioned at the start, I'm dropping this section from my check-in. First, it's buried deep in a wall of text, so no visibility (it should have been a separate post, oh well). If people actually check the events out, I'm sure it would be a miracle.

But mainly... a zine has popped up recently, specifically about IF called What's New in IF? (@if-whats-new), releasing weekly. Since it includes events, like the jams/comps/conferences I used to mention here (and it looks more sleek than a Tumblr post), I'll just leave them do all that hard work instead 😅

So yea... as long as the zine is happening, I'm out 😅 Well, I'll drop them links to my jams and stuff I see, because they seem to be looking for help in finding stuff.

The PLANtm for May

I'm playing Tropico, so I'm getting and will probably going to get less stuff done. Which is not a bad think. Breaks are important. Will I go on a break this month?

Probably should...

But if I don't, where's what I hope to do:

Play more games: On my juicy list I have: the Spring Thing, the newly released Dialogue Jam and TALJ, the Locus Jam and Really BAD IF is happening this month too (so more gameses!), and a few non-comp releases I've had my eye on.

Code Chapter 6/Endings: I need to wait for MelS for this, since he's editing my comments. I'll prob look for visuals for the puzzle in the meantime.

Fixing an older games. Instead of new, do something old.

Write the next Chapter/Scene of a WIP, because it would be good to actually do that. And make some actual progress at seeing stuff being done. (I want to write some Razac snippets....)

Let's have a boring month!

~

The 2024 To-Do List:

LOL, I've only done the website! :D

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match (waiting for Adventuron to get the French language)

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)

[your-local-grubdog]

Guess Who Beat TotK Today!

I just beat Tears of the Kingdom's main story today! And so I wanted to scream about my thoughts here really quickly with a spoiler-free review. Maybe I'll come back some day to give some more thoughts on spoilers.

Overall, the game is really fun and even amazing. Ultrahand is such a fun mechanic to mess around with, I've built a lot of fun stuff using it. Others have really pushed the mechanic to its limits and it genuinely feels a bit like engineering with how much testing and re testing and making updated versions of things you've designed in the past. I genuinely mean it when I say it feels like it teaches players the core skills of engineering. No, most of what you build isn't realistic, but you are learning how to be patient, how to carefully examine problems, how to work with limited resources (in the cases of shrines and when you realize "fuck I'm out of [thing] what else can I use"), and how to accommodate for other limitations like space, material properties, and gravity. None of it is 100% realistic, but it's more about the fact that you get used to such things which can be applied to the real world albeit with different limitations. Think like how working with redstone in Minecraft is sometimes refereed to as redstone engineering. That being said, I think my only issue with Ultrahand is that the furthest distance from which you can grab objects and the furthest distance you can move objects to feels like it's just barely too short. I understand this was a balancing choice, but I can't count the number of times I thought to myself "how can I not reach that" or "how can I not put it there".

Fuse alleviated the issue of monster fights in BotW not being worth it after a certain point. Monsters don't just drop weapons and potion ingredients, but also weapon parts -  meaning that, in general, you'll be getting more resources from fights than you put into them so long as you didn't get in over your head or otherwise messed something up. Granted, as you progress through the game fighting lower-tired enemies will eventually become pointless, but to a far more acceptable degree than in BotW. In that game, I eventually avoided all monster fights unless I really needed a specific drop or they had a weapon I wanted. In TotK, I just ignored weaker monsters with worse drops in favor of stronger monsters with better drops. This system also made the durability mechanic much more bearable, as you could more reliably get good weapons.

The game also tried to make rain less annoying which it... mostly succeeded at. There's now a "slip resistance" stat you can get from armor, food, and potions. By and large, this works, even with the inclusion of surfaces that are always slippery to climb no matter what. But there's one floating sky island that's always slippery due to rain, has really sheer cliffs, and if you fall chances are you're falling out of the sky entirely, and I hate it with every fiber of my being </3

Both the skies and the depths were fun to explore, each providing their own challenges and mechanics. All three "levels" of the map felt super different and expansive, effectively meaning that - even though they did re-use BotW's surface - the map size has been more than doubled, meaning there is so much to explore. I will say that most places in he depths feel very samey and that, besides a few major land marks, I probably couldn't locate where any specific clip or screenshot was taken without the mini map present. Sky islands also suffer from sameness but to a lesser degree. The skies could have also benefited from one or two more islands the same size as the starting one that are also unrelated to story progress. Both for sake of variety and for more places to explore. Regarding the depths again, I understand the desire to make the depths climate-controlled except for the lava area, but I do wish they let the Gerudo Depths be sweltering hot as well and mountain depth be freezing cold, each with their own aesthetic. Still, the extra spaces to explore with their unique challenges and loot are welcome, and I just adore how progressing in your exploration of one aids in the exploration of the others; exploring the surface grants you resources to get through the other two while also granting ways to get to the depths and skies, the skies have resources unique to them that make travel faster for all layers and depths travel safer, and the depths have resources useful for fights in all layers as well as upgrades that make travel faster in all layers. Exploring the depths also helps you find land marks on the surface (and vise-versa).

WE ALSO GOT NEW ENEMIES!!! The enemy variety in BotW was severely lacking, which has been largely rectified. Some enemies are unique to the depths and one enemy type is only found in one area on the surface prior to making story progress (after which it is depths only), but the increase is still greatly welcomed. Excluding color/skeletal/elemental/other variants, we went from 11 basic enemies and 3 "mini boss" enemies to 19 basic enemies and 7 mini boss enemies if I am counting right. More variety is always more fun!

Dungeons were also MASSIVELY improved from BotW! They all have unique themes and unique bosses rather than using the same theme/similar bosses. All of them were pretty good as well, still being completely nonlinear. That being said, there are some bosses that I didn't care for. I won't go into detail until the spoilers section, but the TL:DR for them are as follows:

One boss you have to fight using a brand new mechanic that I don't think we were given enough time to really figure out, not helped by the fact that the second phase does that annoying "you must wait a random amount of time for the boss to finally do the one thing that will let you attack" thing. Not a hard fight in the grand scheme of things, but an annoying one

The second phase of one of the Zora temple boss (which is what I'll call it to be as light on spoilers as possible) is so goddamn annoying. It moves faster than you and you have a narrow window of opportunity from which to attack. Not helped by the fact that... the way I'll phrase it here is that you need to be physically close to the thing that makes the boss vulnerable to attack to, well, make the boss vulnerable, but sometimes you're just. Not close! And can't get close enough in time! Just the second phase is bad, though, first is fine.

Two phases of the final boss really rely on you being able to execute flurry rushes with tighter timing than usual or just tank the hits. Prepare to either practice perfect dodges or - if you're like me and just suck ass at timing - get a lot of gloom defense and gloom heals ready. Like a lot a lot of heals, the road to the final boss is designed to drain your resources. Maybe put a travel medallion down occasionally so you can leave, restock, and return while maintaining progress.

All that being said, the Gerudo temple boss is my favorite in the game and maybe even my favorite across the few Zelda games I've played! It's just a lot of fun, there's so much to keep track of yet it never feels completely overwhelming or annoying (though the very final phase of the final boss is very kickass and I love it too). In fact, the Gerudo questline in general was my favorite of them all.

I also liked how the first town (at least, the first one the game tells you to go to) will change over time to reflect story progress. Just a nice touch. And while I won't say a peep about the story I will say that it was fantastic. Nothing ground breaking, of course, but a good time for sure.

Very low context spoilers, you won't know what I'm talking about until you see it yourself, but the Gloom Spawn enemies absolutely should have been named either Dead Hands, Red Hands, or Wall Masters. Just saying.

My over all thoughts is that the game is good, really damn good. Solid 9/10 for me. There's so much to do and see and much fun to be had. It is absolutely worth your time. Your money, however... This is a $70 game instead of a $60 and, honestly, as much as I love it and want to recommend it whole heartedly, I find that it struggles to justify the increased price tag. The world is massive, yes, and the physics engine is still amazing, but it was built using BotW as a base. Had it not done that and still be just as bug and dense, yes, easily worth the extra money. But as a product based on a separate game that was $60, I don't find the extra stuff added to be enough to justify the higher price point. Either snag a used copy or use that voucher thing Nintendo has on offer. Just don't pay the full $70 if you can avoid it.

[paluding]

Hi, folks! Today I have a couple sneak peeks of what's coming up soon here. First of all, damn, you really liked that Tattooer project, huh. Thank you so much for the interest and love, and I have to say, there's more coming soon! So that part of the process that involves removing the alpha channel and then adding it back using some actions in Photoshop? Yeah, forget about that. A really cool simmer here told me about a neat little trick with the most recent version of Blender that preserves the transparencies during the texture baking process, so expect an update on the entire project and tutorial in the coming days.

Obviously I've been working on new stuff to add and update to the Tattooer project while I was there, so here goes a sneak peek under the cut!

I was not happy at all with the first face tattooer thingy version I did, hence why it says it's experimental, so I had to make a new and improved version.

Surely that face does not look impressed, does she? Well, I decided to sit down for a few hours and put into practice what I've learned in this fantastic free masterclass on youtube remapping the Sims 2 face so it matches the Sims 4 face UV mapping. If you want to learn about UV mapping and unwrapping in Blender, I totally recommend watching that video, such a life changer! I've tested texture baking with this new version using a few S4 makeup cc and honestly, I'm quite happy with the results for now!

And finally, as a bonus, I came up with a new way to make our own tattoos from scratch, as easily as possible.

This one is focused on the arms and legs, which usually are the most problematic parts of the body to texture. Unfortunately this project will also require just a little bit more knowledge about how to use Blender, but I think it can still be really useful! It's basically a cylinder that automatically wraps around the arms and legs, kinda like a sleeve, and then you can just bake the texture from the cylinder directly into the Sim body. You could wrap that cylinder around other parts of the body, but don't expect it to look as good as around the arms and legs… So for those cases I will also add a square plane object that also adapts to the shape of the body. It works literally like those tattoos you could find inside those Cheetos chip bags back in the day lol. Want to know the coolest part about this? As you can see on the image, those objects' UV maps are extremely simple. No more messing around with that weird original S2 UV map, trying to stretch and match your texture to fit it in Photoshop. You can just slap your texture in, bake it, and it will mostly look good and seamless, just like that!

So yeah, this is what I've been working on these past couple weeks. I can't wait to properly share them all! Can't say exactly when it's going to happen, though. I've been pretty busy lately with my studies, and also got sick, yay. But oh well, let's just say "coming soon", at least for now.

[sgtm]

Astra Hunter Zosma Dev Log #5: Progress Goes On

I made a Torch60 Tumblr but I never use it lol

Anyways, here's the Astra Hunter Zosma Dev Log #5

It's been about three months since the last proper update devlog, so I thought I'd give a quick update on where everything is going.

I don't have too much to cover today, nor do I want to draw things out by embellishing the more mundane aspects of development. But I have hit one or two noticeable milestones over the past few weeks that should give a better idea of where everything stands.

I think we can cut to the chase and pull out the ol' Progress Chart.

It doesn't look like a whole lot has changed - and you'd be right! I'm still working on Chapter 4, and I've simultaneously taken a detour to begin working on some parts of Chapter 5. The short version for that is: cutscenes are pretty exhausting! Realizing that a game does not need to be developed completely linearly has been something of a blessing, and I've taken the time to work on other parts of the game instead of bashing myself against a wall to get the next part of the story implemented. I have also been working on the big optional dungeon, the Expanding Void. The entire dungeon is now mapped and evented, with lots of treasure to find, some light puzzles to solve, and plenty of fearsome enemies to chase you down. Considering this is almost half of the game's content, this is definitely a great thing to get out of the way. In addition, graphics for every non-boss enemy in the game have been completed. Most of the bosses have been made, as well, including most of the ones that use sideview battlers instead of standard battler graphics.

Uh, I don't have too much else to really go over today, but just know things are going pretty well for the most part. It's kind of hard to put a percentage number on how far along the project is as a whole. It's considerably more than halfway at this point, though. All the hard stuff has been done and out of the way for quite some time now. It's just a matter of finishing up the rest of the actual content.

I guess that's it! I'll see you all next time.

Sgt M

[pictureamoebae]

hi hello sorry if you've already answered this before (even though i checked through your faq tag and i thiiink my question hasn't been asked yet??) but for some reason mxao & dof stopped working for me?? it worked before but then for some reason now it doesn't show up?? i checked and even with the box checked nothing shows up. i'm not sure if i did something wrong or what but i don't think i've changed anything from when i first started using reshade so idk what happened

Hi anon, I’m sorry you’re having problems.

First thing to do is check whether Edge Smoothing has accidentally been re-enabled in the game’s graphics options. I don’t think this can happen automatically via a patch, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. It will also be reset if you ever change the overall graphics quality (the main drop-down above the individual graphics options). It’s easy done, without realising, and if Edge Smoothing is on it will stop any depth effects in ReShade (like dof, mxao, adaptive fog etc) from working.

The next thing to check are your preprocessor definitions. Depending on your version of ReShade you’ll either find them in the Settings tab (for v. 3.x) or via a button at the top of the bottom pane in the main Home tab (v. 4.x). Check that the entries for depth being ‘reversed’, ‘upside-down’, and ‘logarithmic’ are all set to 0. If any of them are set to 1, change them to 0 and press Reload at the bottom.

If all of that is in order, the next thing you can check is a little more advanced, but easy to do. 

Depth effects like mxao and dof require ReShade to hook itself into the game’s own depth buffer at the right time. There are lots of different things all happening at roughly the same time when the game uses its own post-processing and rendering, and it will order them so each happens at the correct time, one after another, so they work together properly. Think of it like a series of layers in Photoshop, where the finished image will look different depending on how you order those layers. The developers have arranged all those ‘layers’ so that they all work together optimally, both for performance and for aesthetics.

ReShade has to inject itself into the game at the correct time for it to look right. Usually this is at the end, so it layers its effects over the top of the game’s own effects. For depth effects, however, in order to get access to the depth buffer it has to inject itself in earlier, at just the right time. It doesn’t always get this right, because it’s fighting against the game. You can manually override this though, which can help solve some issues.

In the ReShade menu at the top the very last tab will say dx9 (or dx11 if you’re playing a dx11 game – this is the same process for all games). Click on that tab and you’ll see a few boxes with long strings of numbers and weird incomprehensible stuff, and some of them may have numbers that are rapidly calculating and changing. These are the depth buffers. While you’ve got one of your depth effects enabled, tick one of these boxes in the dx9 tab, and see what happens. If nothing happens, move down to the next one, and so on. Eventually, hopefully, you’ll find the correct one that hooks into the depth buffer properly. You may have to go into this tab and do it every time you load the game or if you use SRWE for hotsampling after every time you render a new resolution. Sometimes the box you need to tick may change depending on the map you’re loaded into, so be prepared for some trial and error.

This is what I’m having to do in The Outer Worlds. It forgets the depth buffer and keeps rendering it in the wrong part of the rendering pipeline, meaning in this case it blurs the whole image rather than using the depth. So I have to go into the dx11 tab and click one of the boxes to get it to work again. And because I hotsample, I have to bring up the menu while I’m hotsampled and do it there too, which is really painful because I use big resolutions that knock me down to 1fps. But it gets the job done.

If none of these things are working, I’d go and check all the usual sorts of things like turning off Origin In-Game, running the game (and Origin) as administrator, making sure you don’t have any other programs running (even as background processes) that use any kind of overlay, make sure you are up-to-date with your graphics drivers and Windows updates, etc. And then, when all else fails, uninstall ReShade and reinstall it from scratch (make a backup of your current installation so you can paste it back in if you need to). And if that doesn’t work, try a different version of ReShade.

Hopefully, somewhere in all of that, is a solution for you. I tested the game a week or so ago, having not picked it up since before Moschino came out, because someone else was noticing weird behaviour with mxao. I got that same weird behaviour, so I think a recent patch to the game has altered the behaviour of the game’s depth buffer in some way. It’s entirely possible this is causing other problems (our problem was mxao fading or disappearing when you move the camera up). There is, unfortunately, only so much we can do our end if Maxis have changed something to how they render the game. ReShade is a nifty little tool that tries to take into consideration all the weird ways developers set up their games, but they can’t account for everything. But hopefully this isn’t the case here and it is something we can fix for you. Please let me know if any of the steps above helped.

[manonamora-if]

Retrospective 2024 (4)

Last one!

As teased in the infographic, My resolution this year stays unchanged from last year's:

Get things off my desk and shelf it for good.

I want to continue completing and fixing older projects, so I can shelf it for good (like I did Goncharov Escapes! this year, and DOL-OS). But, since I added a bunch of title on my itch page, there are a few more to the pile compared to last year that needs fixing (or finishing) - at least DOL-OS is done :D The goal: Harcourt (MelS want to finish it, but it's still him dependent), The Roads not Taken (I dropped the ball on that one at the end of last year), An Eggcellent Preparation (samesies), and Exquisite Cadaver or P-Rix - Space Trucker.

I won't even try to promise I won't make new games (large or tiny), because last year made it obvious there is no stopping me. I planned last year to participate in a few comps... and ended up doing two dozens. So... At least, I won't participate in the big comps (IFComp/SpringThing) because the ideas I have for them need at least another year to make it happen... I do want to try to make it to one parser-focused comp again (either TALJ or ParserComp) and try out Moiki or DonjonFI. I'm only 7-9 games away to have 1 title/year alive...

Below the cut has more detailed expectations for some titles. Like last year, no real timeline on what will be done when - this year has shown me that life likes to throw stones at schedules... Announcements will also be whenever, because I make things on a whim :P I will try to have a better announcement schedule for updates however.

Oh! one more resolution: continue to do word crimes ~ obviously!

The trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt

While I've been working on the final edits of Chapter 5, MelS promised to be hard at work on Chapter 6 this following semester, which is the final chapter. From mid-January onward, he should have a clearer schedule IRL to set himself some time to write.

We hope to be done with the edits and coding of Ch6 this year.

When Ch6 is cleared, we will do one final sweep at the earlier chapters to ensure the writing style is consistent, rebalance variables and puzzles, as well as making it compatible with as many screens as possible (especially for maps). Solutions for puzzles (mazes and such) will get a special log on itch too.

La Petite Mort

The game is "technically" complete already, but I spotted a few typos here and there that could be taken out, one theme is eh... really not as pretty as I had wanted it (the "PJ theme"), and I've been wondering if I could add a few more rooms or interactions (with the animals especially).

I'm aiming for a March-April update. Though it should have been done last November already...

The Roads not Taken

I've mentioned my plan for this project the past few months (before I got distracted with other projects), which is to fix the parser mechanic (to follow a bit more the conventions and fix the frictions of the game), include the missing content from the SpringThing version (Codex and Endings), and potentially have a hypertext version (links to click) for accessibility.

I would like to be done with this before summer at the latest - by March at the earliest.

Entre-d'oeufs coquilles - An Eggscellent Preparation

A bug or two needs fixing in this game (the AEP version) - how the box is used/eggs are handled -> for the ending - as well as a bunch of typos (a small re-write may be needed).

As AEP is the most recent version, with more content, I will need to translate the updated/fixed version back to French (EdOC).

I would also like to include more pixel art for each "room". I do not know yet I would manage that, but we will see!

I think there isn't much to fix that an update before the summer could be doable.

Exquisite Cadaver

That ball-n-chain project that's been dragged around for the past year, poor game... At least, I've given up on a French version.

The same amount of rounds is missing from the playable version (21), with no real progress made last year. All rounds are at least drafted in some fashion, though not all the endings are.

A sane planning for this would be to do an update every 3-4 rounds until the game is complete. I will try to achieve this.

If I could reach the half-way mark by the summer and complete the game by the end of the year, this would be great!

P-Rix - Space Trucker

This game can't stay in this current state! I have a rough draft of the mechanic and enough bits of writing to make a coherent update with some touch-up. I know how to end the game (the "good" ending), with even an option for further "storylines" after that first delivery is complete. I even have the "stops" on planets or ships all clear in my head (RNG babyyy).

I will probably focus on this project in the second half of 2024.

Crimson Rose & White Lily

With the hiatus getting closer to a two-year one... an update is long overdue. I may break an update in multiple ones:

fixing the main story code

adding Scene 5 (needs to be written properly)

adding Scene 2 variation

fixing the Codex

including Bonus content (may be a separate "game")

I would like to have the first point done in the first half of the year, and the second... well in the second half. If the Muse is in my corner it might happen sooner, but she hasn't been here all last year, so who knows at this point...

I miss writing Razac y'all...

SugarCube Templates

Even if I've done all the "coding" templates I had wanted to do for a while, I have a handful more visual templates in my drafts (different shapes!).

Having tried all "main" Twine formats, I've been itching at making templates for Harlowe and Chapbook. Either doing a Harlowe/Chapbook version of the template already done, or just making completely new one.

Expect some to be added to itch (when I get bored/frustrated with my projects).

Other projects

If there is time/energy left in me, I would like to take a crack at:

Finishing The Dinner, with all the remaining courses and the planned final choice. Also styling it in Harlowe properly.

Finishing the OG planned story for In the Blink of an Eye, which was supposed to last "a week" in the story (instead of 2 days) and have more consequences/endings.

Finishing The Rye in the Dark City, which is missing 2 acts: the interrogation of the different peeps and the "closing" the case. A bit of re-write in the first act might be needed.

Finishing Don't Press the Button (not really IF). I want to make it work in both keyboard and mouse... If I can manage it, then it's just a matter of moving the element around the page, changing colour, and randomise whether to click or not. JavaScript/jQuery is required however ;-;

Fixing The Thick Table Tavern: first the bar (group bottles, add new ones + new recipes), then the Arcade Mode (there's a bug I've been meaning to fix for one mode + add difficulty), then the Story Mode (essentially do a re-haul + add more storylets + the main client(s) of the run).

Remastering SPS Iron Hammer - a.k.a. re-writing it, adding the whole escape mechanic, re-coding the whole thing...

I don't think I would be able to do ALL of this - with the amount of time/effort some of these projects would required, it would probably be impossible by myself. And I should probably focus on CRWL instead if I have time/effort left 😂

Other... other

I'm going to continue organising small comps and jams this year, both with @seedcomp-if (which will run all year now - 8 months of Planting, 3 months of Sprouting, 1 month of voting), and @neointeractives (8-10 jams/year).

I will probably participate in a handful of the jams I've either organised, or small program-focused jams (like with ink/bitsy), but avoid the "big" ones this year (even if the SpringThing was fun!). There are also a handful of other jams I've had my eyes on, so we will see if I can manage... Expect more short silliness on this side.

A thing I will continue doing will be playing IF games still. I have 15 games left in the IFComp (with one being an absolute beast) and want to take a crack at old comp entries (IFComp, SpringThing, and the others), especially the French ones. Reviewing takes a while, but it's a good practice to think about the positives and negative of games - and take these lessons for my own projects. Expect more at @manonamora-if-reviews (or on the IFDB).

Aaaaannnnd that's it!

That's more than enough to keep me entertained for this year. ... which may potentially be the last one in a while where I will have any free time. I am certain of one thing for next year (2025): there will be a lot of change happening IRL, which will for sure mean less time to do any fun thing (not just making IF). Probably long periods of time where I will be completely offline too. This year might be the last where I have a consistent presence online. I really want to make the most of it!