This is my third (maybe fourth?) time trying to make this game. Each time I've gotten stuck at different parts. Sometimes it's the art, hitting up against the limitations of Fungus (the visual scripting language plug-in for Unity), or my own limited coding knowledge. I've been able to make almost an entire chapter in a week which feels like a huge accomplishment and have found new solutions to old problems. I guess practice does make progress!
In addition to the sheer number of times I've attempted this game, a big help has been the JollyFrancher video series that wasn't available last time around. Another big difference has been my Illustrator and Photoshop skills in the last few years have significantly improved. I bought the character graphics and been able to McGuyver a few different expressions.
Seriously the head tilt I can't even... In terms of completion, the first chapter is probably about 90% of the way there. All the challenging stuff has been coded and graphics made, it's mostly narrative text and polish. Here's a quick look under the (branching narrative) hood:
One of the most surprising things has been my 6 year old's persistent, insistent demands that I work on "the beagle game." For a kid that never sits still, he loves to sit next to me while I code or do the graphics work. I've started explaining a few basics, like "okay, we want Ellie to talk here so this is the box where we put text" and "if 'move portrait offscreen right to right stage makes Ellie slide in here, what should we do to make her slide out the same way?"
He's even been a playtester! I am incredibly lucky that have a 6 year old in house who wants to playtest and QA. If he can 1) play through and understand while also 2) not being able to break anything, I'll feel pretty good about language accessibility, the design of this first level, and the stability of the build.
Hopefully for the next update I'll have at least a video demo if not a playable demo to share!