I really wanted this to be a boring month.
Then I could focus on all the messing around in FL Studio I did. About how "oooh I found the help text and WOW THIS IS WHAT THEY MEAN BY MASTERING AND PRODUCTION AND oops I made it sound worse." Maybe a bit about how I'm kind of figuring out how I think and about making songs and sounds.
But no, I think what's on my mind is how I want the tone of Peddlers between Pulsars to go now.
Art style wise, I know it looks like an asset pack some silly cozy game. Gameplay wise, I didn't want it to be much harder, nor contain any violence. But I wasn't 100% sure where I wanted to take the tone of the story and writing.
Originally, the protoype felt WAY lonelier than it is now. To sum up the original mood in a screenshot:
(You're the only one on your ship.)
That was a bit depressing when it was in text format and the world was plain black on grey. But when the players got sprites, that just got way more depressing. So I when I wrote non-cutscene text for the godot version, I went for lighter and goofier, which I wanted to pull off in the text version but had trouble doing so.
There were still some conflicts, which surfaced when I did a concept doodle for the inter-pulsar travel menu weeks ago:
and I thought "this is exactly how I want the world in my game to feel."
The worldbuilding has gone all out in that direction. I defined Peddlers in this world as a unfun job with fairly high requirements. It's not something most would get into if they didn't have strong motivation for doing so, and a lot of those motivations were strong because they came from serious issues.
I've been hesitant about making that the player experience that heavy though. Writing that seriously also means getting in that serious and slightly helpless of a headspace, which... I wasn't sure I wanted to do.
Well! I can't see myself getting OUT of that headspace the next four years! Decision made for me!
I'm not changing the art direction, though. I'm a fan of "looks cute, sounds happy, lyrics/context is the total opposite." I do think there will be moments where I want the contrast to be that notable as well.
Tags: Peddlers Between Pulsars