{"author_link":"\/users\/oter","author_name":"oter","author_uid":"oter","comments":[],"epoch":1700261696,"event":"LD54","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":382728,"likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"204215","p_author":"oter","p_authorkey":"1321333","p_urlkey":"438825","p_title":"Postcards Latest Update","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD54","p_time":"1700261696","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1321333","us_name":"LDJam user 321333","us_username":"321333","event_start":"1695945600","event_key":"117","event_name":"Ludum Dare 54"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD54","removed_author":false},"_superparent":371459,"_trust":1,"author":321333,"body":"### The second major update to Postcards is now live on itch.io: https:\/\/otergen.itch.io\/postcards\n\nPostcards was my LD54 compo entry that did way better than I could have hoped and got a lot of good and helpful feedback besides. Because of that, I was originally inspired to continue developing the game, so almost a month after the first update (which was a lot of post jam polish), the second update is now ready.\n\nPostcards is a text-based interactive fiction game in which you backpack across Europe, sending postcards to your pen pal Paul along the way. In this update, I've expanded the final city, Venice, considerably - the game's overall content has more than doubled. Venice used to be a very brief place to see either of the two endings to the game. Now those two endings are entire versions of Venice, each with a lot of different options to explore. And there is a third, somewhat hidden ending I added too :)\n\nTo help balance the fact that the game starts pretty linear and then becomes much more branched, I also added the ability to replay from any of the major cities when you reach the end of the game.\n\n#### Besides plugging my little game, I'm also here with a bit of postmortem thoughts after working on this last update.\n\n**1. Making a branched game was much harder than expected.** I'll spare you my groaning and skip to something I'm currently wondering about though: I did my best to allow players to make choices that feel right to them and true to the narrative. But doing so also makes it harder for a player to see everything in the game, requiring multiple full playthroughs to see all possible choices and outcomes. Having just realized this at the end of update 2, I'm starting to wonder what an optimal middle path might look like: how to provide choices that matter (to both the player and the direction of the story) without making it a chore to see 100% of the game.\n\nIf you've worked on a branched narrative game in the past, I'd love to hear your thoughts while I continue to mull it over.\n\n**2. The game lacked (lacks?) art direction.** I've had to go back and try to provide some love to the graphics, but only because I didn't properly consider the art direction (and my level of skill) ahead of time. But, in struggling with the art, I stumbled upon something I'm rather fond of: creating line art in Blender. As someone with better 3D skills than 2D, I ended up reproducing a bad 2D drawing of mine in 3D (with the help of Google Earth and reference photos), then having Blender trace over the line art for me. With some more polish in Krita and Inkscape, it turned out much better looking:\n\n![Update 2 Lux Before After.png](\/\/\/raw\/537\/e4\/z\/608e7.png)\n(and if you're wondering, I was so excited to figure out this process and see it work well that I forgot to add the train to the reproduction!)\n\nIt's been a lot of work, but in all this continued development has been a great learning experience and has kept me excited about making games and writing stories. Thanks to everyone for such a great jam - even while I've continued work I've been looking forward to the next LD many months away. Big thanks to Mike for doing so much for the community, it's really great.","comments":5,"comments-timestamp":"2023-12-21T12:14:27Z","created":"2023-11-17T20:45:37Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":382728,"love":4,"love-timestamp":"2023-11-24T18:24:52Z","meta":[],"modified":"2023-12-21T12:14:27Z","name":"Postcards Latest Update","node-timestamp":"2023-11-17T22:54:56Z","parent":374611,"parents":[1,5,9,371459,374611],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/54\/postcards\/postcards-latest-update","published":"2023-11-17T22:54:56Z","scope":"public","slug":"postcards-latest-update","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":1192862},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"382728","n_urlkey":"438825","n_parent":"374611","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/54\/postcards\/postcards-latest-update","n_slug":"postcards-latest-update","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"321333","n_created":"1700253937","n_modified":"1703160867","n_version":"1192862","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/54\/postcards\/postcards-latest-update","text":"### The second major update to Postcards is now live on itch.io: https:\/\/otergen.itch.io\/postcards\n\nPostcards was my LD54 compo entry that did way better than I could have hoped and got a lot of good and helpful feedback besides. Because of that, I was originally inspired to continue developing the game, so almost a month after the first update (which was a lot of post jam polish), the second update is now ready.\n\nPostcards is a text-based interactive fiction game in which you backpack across Europe, sending postcards to your pen pal Paul along the way. In this update, I've expanded the final city, Venice, considerably - the game's overall content has more than doubled. Venice used to be a very brief place to see either of the two endings to the game. Now those two endings are entire versions of Venice, each with a lot of different options to explore. And there is a third, somewhat hidden ending I added too :)\n\nTo help balance the fact that the game starts pretty linear and then becomes much more branched, I also added the ability to replay from any of the major cities when you reach the end of the game.\n\n#### Besides plugging my little game, I'm also here with a bit of postmortem thoughts after working on this last update.\n\n**1. Making a branched game was much harder than expected.** I'll spare you my groaning and skip to something I'm currently wondering about though: I did my best to allow players to make choices that feel right to them and true to the narrative. But doing so also makes it harder for a player to see everything in the game, requiring multiple full playthroughs to see all possible choices and outcomes. Having just realized this at the end of update 2, I'm starting to wonder what an optimal middle path might look like: how to provide choices that matter (to both the player and the direction of the story) without making it a chore to see 100% of the game.\n\nIf you've worked on a branched narrative game in the past, I'd love to hear your thoughts while I continue to mull it over.\n\n**2. The game lacked (lacks?) art direction.** I've had to go back and try to provide some love to the graphics, but only because I didn't properly consider the art direction (and my level of skill) ahead of time. But, in struggling with the art, I stumbled upon something I'm rather fond of: creating line art in Blender. As someone with better 3D skills than 2D, I ended up reproducing a bad 2D drawing of mine in 3D (with the help of Google Earth and reference photos), then having Blender trace over the line art for me. With some more polish in Krita and Inkscape, it turned out much better looking:\n\n![Update 2 Lux Before After.png](\/\/\/raw\/537\/e4\/z\/608e7.png)\n(and if you're wondering, I was so excited to figure out this process and see it work well that I forgot to add the train to the reproduction!)\n\nIt's been a lot of work, but in all this continued development has been a great learning experience and has kept me excited about making games and writing stories. Thanks to everyone for such a great jam - even while I've continued work I've been looking forward to the next LD many months away. Big thanks to Mike for doing so much for the community, it's really great.","title":"Postcards Latest Update","wayback_source":[]}