Gas Station Story News

Hi there!

It’s been 3 years of developing Gas Station Story as of today. Thanks for following along with this project, especially to those of you who have been watching for the whole 3 years. We’re so, so, so close to being done!

Today’s devlog is a small one: I’ve updated the demo (for the final time?) to Version 6, which introduces the station bathroom to the overworld! There’s an additional line of dialogue at the mirror every day, plus the functioning reflection which I’m just so dang proud of - make sure to check it out! Beyond that, just a few bug fixes and spell checks, as well as an update for the PC version on Steam that changes the “A Button” graphic to a “Z Button” graphic, and updated text tutorials in game that match the system (shift key instead of select button, etc).

I’d also like to take the time to announce the official launch of my Kickstarter campaign! The campaign will be going live this coming Tuesday, February 25th!


The campaign will be live for the next month, and I hope all who are able and willing to pitch in will do so - I really need the extra funds for music, web hosting, and possibly even cover art. I also have some fun stretch goals that I’ll unveil if/when we get closer to the funding goal. Pledge today to get your name in the credits, a discounted copy of the game, or even to leave a secret message within one of the in-game mini games! I’m not doing any physical rewards for this run, as I don’t have the manpower or logistical experience to attempt manufacturing and shipping, but if the digital launch goes well there’s definitely a chance that a publisher will be interested in at least making some Game Boy Color cartridges.

Thanks so much for reading and supporting me on this journey :) I look forward to sending out Kickstarter updates as the next few months progress, and to finally getting a copy of this game in all of your (digital) hands. It will have been well worth the wait! There is truly no game out there that’s exactly like Gas Station Story, and I’m really excited to see everyone’s reactions to the plot, mechanics, and endings.

Patch Notes are below, I’ll be back soon with an update on the Kickstarter!

Love,
Enzi


Patch Notes (Demo v6):

General
- Button Sprites Changed for MacOS / Windows
- Tutorial Text Changed for MacOS / Windows
- Minor Spelling Fixes

Overworld
- Bathroom Added

Hi!

I’m here with a small Gas Station Story devlog, just in time for the holidays. As of writing, we’ve just moved up to Beta 1.0! The story is playable from start to finish, with about a third of the endings fully implemented so far. It’s looking like there’s just enough space for all my planned content and music, so I’ve added some small, fun features that will enhance the narrative and experience without taking up too much ROM space: Overworld Encounters, the Clerk’s Apartment, and Secret Characters.


Overworld Encounters:
There are a variety of unique characters that players will be able to interact with in the overworld during the free-roam portions of the game. These characters will sell you interesting items, chat with you, and even influence the ending of the game (hint hint).

- VENDO -
VENDO the walking-talking vending machine can be found out back during the day. If you have any spare change around you can spend it on a variety of completely useless items!

- The Tweaker -
The Tweaker can only be found outside a few times at night, and will engage in thrilling "conversation" with you.

- The Dealer -
The Dealer… Well, I’ll let you imagine what he’s doing out back. Don’t be a narc!

- The Cat -
Once per day / night, you can interact with the cat that lives in the back alley. There’s a random chance every time you enter the back alley that the cat will appear, so keep an eye out! The RNG is really easy to manipulate, but I’ll let you figure out how that works when the game is released.


Clerk's Apartment:
This is where the Clerk lives, a small house out in the desert. You’ll start and end most days of the story here - make sure to take a shower before work, you don’t want your coworker to think you’re smelly!

I’m really proud of the bathroom, exclusively because the mirror is actually functional! I also added a bathroom to the gas station itself, I figured if there’s one in the game at all then there better be one in the station too.


Secret Characters:
These characters are mythical, incredibly powerful beings that mortals can’t fully comprehend. The methods to meeting these strange characters are obscure, obscene, and downright obtuse in some ways. Only the bravest and most thorough adventurers will be able to find them!

I wanted to give players of Gas Station Story a chance to meet some of the key players in future stories I plan to tell. The events of GSS don't particularly influence the greater goings-on in the universe, but that doesn't mean it's disconnected entirely. So, if you're thorough, and you explore every option and interaction in the game, you might just come across these characters.

- The Blue Lady -
The Blue Lady is a benevolent force in the universe, dedicated to combatting the forces of chaos. Some say she dates back to the early 1300s. Some say she is older than time itself. If you manage to find her, be sure to bring something to ease her mourning, otherwise you may not escape with your life intact.
Hint: Desert

- The Wizard -
The Wizard will visit the station during the Finale if 3 out of 5 of his triggers are met. These triggers are placed across all 5 days of the story in random interactions, some with other NPCs, and some with random items or locations. See if you can get him to visit you in your playthrough!
Hint: Coffee

- The Nameless One -
[Information Not Found]
Hint: Psychedelic


And that’s it for this devlog! I’m all set to run the Kickstarter (pre-save link here) in mid-February, so the next you'll hear from me again should be a little before then. Thanks so much for reading, as always, and Happy Holidays to those that celebrate!

- Enzi

​log 7 - Demo V5.1 Changelog & Updated Statistics

Hello!

I'm back with a small update to the Demo, as well as updated statistics. Preparation for the Kickstarter is well underway, though I'm thinking I'll launch it later rather than sooner (holidays are coming up soon, and all the advice I've received says to avoid the back 3 months of the year when it comes to Kickstarters). More info about that soon, but if you'd like to pre-save the page so you can be notified when it goes live, here's a link!​


- Beta 0.4.1 Statistics -

Models - 26 Humans, 1 Cat, 1 Mannequin Head, and 1 Vending Machine
Characters - 44
Portraits - 171
Non-Portrait Photographs - 24
Endings Implemented - 6 / 26
Songs - 5 Finished, 2 Underway
Word Count - 32,636


- Demo Changelog -

General:
- Music placement tweaks
- First Customer now purchases a candy bar instead of 20 bits of gas (many players were confused by the "..." emote)

POS:
- Pump Pointer now corrects itself to nearest Pump Number when reloading screen after asking customers which pump they were at (instead of getting stuck in between pumps)

And that’s it for now! Time for me to go back to programming, and maybe sleeping if I get lucky…

Much Love,
Enzi​

Hi there!

So, it’s Summer of 2024… and Gas Station Story still isn’t out. Why is that?
A lot of new features have been making their way into the game: another POS overhaul, more portraits, a new demo, secrets galore, and so on. I really want this game to come out in its best possible state, and so I’ve pushed release back a bit (again). I don’t have an official release date or window yet, but I’ll talk about that more down below.

Let’s start with the good news:

(also, to anybody reading this on Steam: hello! there are 5 other devlogs that you can find at the official website)


The Good:

- Beta Build -
Gas Station Story is officially in the Beta phase of development! I’m still not up to Beta 1.0 as of yet, but we’re getting close. All the major systems have been implemented and the game is almost playable from start to finish. I’m only a few boss encounters and cutscenes away from a full 1.0 build, and then it’s on to the ending cutscenes and final polishes. The first four levels have been polished to hell and back, so once these fights and cutscenes are finished all that’s really left is polishing the final level, balancing out the variables that influence the ending, and finishing up all the music and sound effects commissions.

Alongside this beta version of the game, we have some small improvements to the visuals and gameplay:



Text boxes now have a simple little border around them so they can pop out more, as well as arrows to show that dialogue is continuing. This is a small change, but has required a lot of going back and editing dialogue placement so as not to clip the border (and adding every individual arrow to every text box 0.o).




The advanced functions on your Q Boy now live all together under one menu activated by the Select Button - including an option to re-run the tutorial in case you’ve forgotten how it works!




You can now ask your customers how much gas they were wanting to purchase, as well as what pump they’re parked at. This function lives on the B Button! This little pop-up is the main reason text-boxes have a border now - they draw from the same UI file and I needed to make sure this was distinguishable from the rest of the Q Boy’s dialogue boxes.




Both the Clerk’s internal thoughts and conversations with customers during checkout scenes now print from the top of the screen. This is to help differentiate the overworld dialogue from the Q Boy dialogue prompts.



- Demo V5 -
I've updated the demo to reflect the new features added, and shuffled some scenes around.
The demo runs a little shorter now due to this. I’ve also made the decision to officially cut DMG support. There are certain segments in the late game where performance on the DMG is severely impacted, and I’ve been able to add in more Game Boy Camera photos due to the increased tile limits of the Game Boy Color. I’d like to possibly go back and fix these performance issues before release so Gas Station Story can run on all Game Boy hardware, but my primary targets are Game Boy Color and Steam so that’s low on my priority list.

The full changelog is down at the bottom of the page. I hope you enjoy the new demo!


- Seattle Indies Expo -
Gas Station Story recently made an appearance at Seattle Indies Expo, with a public test for the v5 Demo and new POS features. Huge thanks to Seattle Indies for the opportunity and support, and to everybody that played and watched others play! :) The turnout this year was bonkers! It honestly felt like there was always somebody at the booth, I don't think the chair was empty for more than 5 minutes at any point.



- The “Spiritual Prequel” Official Release -
In case you missed it, Gas Station Story’s weird(er) little brother, Pierrot à la Mode, is now on Steam! This updated version has a lot of bugfixes, a new secret ending, and increased difficulty >:) I’ve also slowed the flashing colors down, just to be safe. You can snag that on Steam for MacOS and Windows — or on itch.io for Game Boy Color — for just $1.99. I’m planning on launching a Steam bundle with both PàlM and GSS when the latter is finished, so if you buy PàlM now you’ll be able to snag a discount on GSS when it’s released!
I originally made this as a fun 2-week project for the Big Mode Game Jam last year, as a quick and dirty little project using the style I’ve developed for Gas Station Story, but cleaned up the code to pop on Steam a few months ago so I could learn how SteamPipe works and prototype a wrapper for the MacOS and Windows release of GSS. I still need to figure out why saves aren’t loading before GSS releases on Steam, but I’m going to actually finish the game first lol— thankfully PàlM has a runtime of 30 minutes and is designed to play in one sitting.
(btw: this “spiritual prequel” is not at all important to the narrative of Gas Station Story, but it is cute and shows a very small glimpse of what’s going on in Divinity City before the events of the Upgrade Virus. Winona, the model for the main character of GSS, appears in PàlM, and a character from PàlM may appear in a secret scene in GSS if you make the right decisions *wink wink nudge nudge*)


- Crowd Funding -
I’m going to be running a modest Kickstarter for the project here pretty soon, just to raise enough money to finish out the commissions for music and pay for some other expensive development costs. If there’s sufficient interest, though, I have some stretch goals in mind as well that will enhance the project without pushing release out any further. You can pre-save the kickstarter here, but I’ll make sure to post another update on all channels when it goes live. Backers can get their name in the credits, snag a copy of the game at a discount, and even possibly get their hands on my testing cartridge!


The Bad:

So. I’ve run my mouth a bit about release dates. “Summer 2024”, “Q4 2024”… But I’m not sure when this game is going to come out, to be completely honest. At the earliest, it’s done by the end of the year. At the latest, I’m thinking it could be midway through next year. I want to do this story justice, and can’t justify releasing the project before any and all kinks are ironed out. I want to make sure the project is free of major issues, as the Game Boy architecture will make updating the project and keeping older saves compatible very difficult.
(maybe once this is released I won’t have to work so many hours at the job and I can focus on storytelling and gamedev — I have a looot of plans for and notes about my next project)

So, for now, there’s no official release date or window. I’m going to wait until the project is just about ready to push out the door before I announce when it’s coming. I gotta get this one right, y’know? I don’t want to make another promise I can’t keep by setting a date I know I’ll likely kick down the road anyways. Until then… “Coming Soon”.



Thanks as always for reading this far! I definitely see a light at the end of this tunnel, even if there’s still a good bit left to do. We’re getting close!

- enzi



- Changelog (Demo V5) -

General:
- Some scenes removed for a quicker demo experience
- Additional free-roam segment added
- SFX updated
- Music placement tweaked
- DMG support removed
- text box borders added
- text box arrows added

POS:
- Q Boy Advanced Functions reworked to a drop-down menu
- cleartotal.exe moved to advanced functions
- tutorial.exe added to advanced functions
- B Button now lets you ask customer how much gas they wanted / on what pump
- Clerk Monologue / Dialogue now prints from the top of the screen


post-script:


this is Oliver: Winona’s cat and my close friend.
He doesn’t have a portrait in the game, cause the mf won’t sit still long enough for me to photograph, but if you get the right endings you might see a sprite of he in a certain someone’s apartment ;3