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Santa Lucia Writing Structure (revised)
🕑 Added 2021-11-14 03:31:38 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
This might be a weird post to see at this stage in Santa Lucia's development, but I think it helps give insight to how things can change during the development process.
I recently sat down and had a good long look at how I have the game structured. This was largely in response to how I'm still struggling to find an update pattern that pleases as many players as possible while still being digestible for me to write. Carefully examining the peaks and valleys of the game's pacing (of both events that have happened and events that are yet to come), I made an interesting discovery in that Santa Lucia is actually divided into FOUR acts instead of three. As such, I have updated the old structure chart to reflect this (hopefully in a less meme-worthy format, hehe...)
What this means for you the players is the point where I can comfortably switch to another route to write is surprisingly close! We have a major shared event on October 3rd that divides the route content into two almost even halves. Once we have finished writing Bryan's route up to this point, we're planning to switch to Carlos's route (who was the runner up in the route focus poll).
Writing for the other two routes shouldn't take as long as Bryan's since all the shared content in Act 2 will have already been written. Each act of the route content takes place in a 3 to 4 week period. With the pace Dev and I are writing Bryan's route, we've found we're able to write one shared event and one Bryan event per update. On average, we've found that we have two route events per in-game week, and each in-game weekend we fill with two shared events that will be seen on all three routes.
By my estimation, going at a pace of two route events per month of development, Carlos Act 2 and Nate Act 2 should take four months each to write. I anticipate being done with Bryan's Act 2 by the end of January or February. Once the other two have caught up with Bryan, we will move onto Act 3 which I expect will take a similar amount of time to complete for all three routes.
Lastly, you'll notice the game becomes more focused again in Act 4. This is the point where we focus on closing out the game, but since there aren't as many branches I'll need to juggle at that point I don't anticipate it taking longer to write than however long it takes me to write Bryan's Act 2. I should also state that everything I've outlined in this post is to demonstrate how I have the game organized on my side. It doesn't change anything about how the plot is already planned. I'm not planning to rewrite the whole game from scratch!
Hope this settles any lingering questions about where we're going, and I hope the news that we're going to switch characters soon helps reassure some of our patrons we've unfortunately managed to alienate due to how I have to structure updates!
Cheers!
~Dzahn
Comments
ConvexedSkye
I totally understand why you're doing what you are with the dev cycle. I can understand why switching back and forth between routes every update could be tough. I'm still gonna be following development! Just, I don't really connect with the characters other than Nate (and some side characters). I need my Nate content haha, but I'll be around waiting for sure! Plus am still keeping an eye on (stalking) the updates for Homecoming~
Stormsinger Studios
We do have plans for the additional routes, but the support we got made us consider bigger plans we have yet to unveil. Please be patient, but we can definitely say they'll come after the routes are done!
Stormsinger Studios
Hey, thanks for the feedback! We're sorry the route structure hasn't been quite to everyone's liking, though the new acts does mean the others' routes will be there sooner. We understand completely why people have removed their pledge until it's their preferred character's turn, even if it always stings a bit: we do appreciate every single bit of support, even past support, hehe.
ConvexedSkye
I really appreciate the updates and I love the game. However, I really only want to play the Nate route... I understand the path you're taking with development but I just don't think I'm willing to wait 6 more months ($90 for me) to get to the content I'm looking for. I hope it's alright but I think I'm going to stop my subscription until then. Sorry...
TheFirstBeliever
This is really cool! You do a great job mapping all this out. I'm sure you've answered questions to this effect already, but how would the additional routes fit into this structure? I know they're slated for after the main routes are done, at least - will they share content at all as well?
