New Features and Ch. 3 Progress Update!

It's hard to believe it's been nearly 6 months since the Chapter 2 release, but here we are! I've been thrilled to see people's reactions and wonderfully kind words concerning the game recently, I can always see room for improvement in the game, but it's reassuring to know that people are still enjoying the new content regardless. I am floored at the amount of people who have played the game so far! A BIG thank you to everyone who has played, streamed, shared with friends, and reached out to me about the game. It's your encouragement and support that helps me push myself to keep improving the game and press onward as we all share in Deirdre's journey together!

There's plenty to discuss, so let's get cracking!! :)

[h2]
"Expanding Horizons"[/h2]
This is something I've admittedly been ignoring for a while, but I've gotten this question numerous times from players...."Why isn't the game in 16:9 (widescreen)?" I stuck to this decision for two reasons:

- My aesthetic rationale was that the 4:3 aspect ratio made the game feel more like an older RPG, appropriate to the SNES/Genesis era. While in principal that's true, most of us aren't playing on 4:3 monitors or CRTs. With the rise of retro games found on various platforms, it could be argued this isn't a big deal...but I doubt I'd receive complaints that the game ISN'T in 4:3 from many players.
- The game will not scroll/run as smoothly, was my other reasoning. RPG Maker creates games in a very oddball resolution of 816x624, plugins have to be used to manipulate this. Kedemara currently runs in 941x720, the way to get a vertical resolution of 720p while maintaining the same aspect ratio/proportions. While framerates always game back great on a variety of systems, when bumping this up to a more standard 1280x720 resolution, I saw the game ran basically the same. There will always be some stutter with scrolling since the nature of Javascript and the engine may cause this. Tl;dr = I wanted the game to run smoother, but in 1280x720 it runs just as well.


From here forward, I'll be designing Chapter 3 to run in a widescreen aspect ratio. By the next patch I release, Chapters 1+2 WILL have this applied, which will be before Chapter 3 is finished or released. A few sidenotes to keep in mind on the shift for Chapters 1 and 2:

- This will only affect the viewable area of the game, so graphical assets like tiles, sprites, and animations should be largely unaffected. The placement of some enemies in combat will need adjusting, but that is very quick and easy to fix. On the whole, you'll just see more of the map. If that particular map is smaller than 1280x720 you'll still see a black area, this is just how the game handles "blank space", but for larger areas you'll notice a big difference...Amie pun slightly intended ;-)
- When you change resolutions or use various formatting "tags", Word Wrap can do some funky things in RPG Maker text boxes...so spacing and such is all done manually when I make them. Because of this, a great majority of the dialogue text in Chapters 1+2 (and the earlier part of Chapter 3) will have dialogue text that is very left-aligned. It will all be visible, but there will be some extra space to the right as increasing the game's resolution also increases the text space in dialogue boxes.
- Changing this will be a methodical process, but I'll start with title screens, center-aligned text announcements, and cutscene dialogue that is more straightforward without branching options. With how much time I'll need to be sinking into Chapter 3's development...it may be some time before I can get 100% of the text filled-out for 16:9 text boxes. Just know it probably bothers me far more than it bothers any of you lol.

I have one of my trusted Alpha-testers scouring through the game for events/cutscenes that would be obviously affected by this change. I can think of a few but wanted to have someone check for anything I may have forgotten. These will take precedence as "popouts" and such can be a little jarring to the player. I won't push it out until it has been combed-through adequately. All in all, she's told me it's quite enjoyable playing in the new widescreen layout and feels the change is worthwhile. I hope all of you like the change as well!


[h2]Chapter 3 News[/h2]
In these past 6 months, I can honestly say things haven't been smooth sailing in regards to everyday life and local circumstances for me. I always say it, but I'm not as far along as I'd like for this current chapter. However, just like with Ch.2, I didn't realize how much content I already had. My main Alpha-tester has run through what I have for Chapter 3 so far and I'm sitting at about 3-3.5 hours so far. Not great, but I'm going to be pushing myself harder to get progress sped up.

- The cities are going to be MUCH larger in this Chapter, so a place like Clachandun will be more common to see than Corning. Some of these cities will span several maps that you'll transition between, so the scale is much more grand in this chapter.
- There will be some flexibility in how you experience the story later in the Chapter, essentially you won't HAVE to do some of the story in a set order, but this will introduce the overworld map and a few other things I'd like to see happen in this chapter.
- ANOTHER new character will be joining your party in Chapter 3! I've run this character by a few of my Testers and friends, and she's been a big hit thus far. Definitely larger than life, with plenty of personality to spare, I hope you'll grow to love her just as much as the rest of Deirdre's friends!
- Cutscenes! Cutscenes everywhere!! I can get a little trigger-happy with cutscenes, but I am working on getting a better balance between large text-only conversations and describing past events and such with "cutscenes". The large amounts of text can get tiring, so finding the right groove for both is something I'm still working on. When I have some more content completed, I'll eventually be posting a teaser trailer for Chapter 3 to show some of the progress. I'm very happy with how things are transpiring, I certainly hope everyone else will be too!



Sorry for the super long, WAY overdue post! I'm very excited to show everyone what is in store for Chapter 3, and I hope you guys are excited to experience it as well!
- Andrew (Creator)