Last week, we released Syntherapy out into the world for all of you to play! We've been very happy to see how receptive the community has been so far. Releasing any game is a daunting task, but putting out a game that dealt with such a difficult topic as mental health that drew from our personal experiences was especially scary. We're relieved to see that the game has been well received by those who have played it regarding our exploration of this topic!
Like all games, there was a lot we wanted to do with Syntherapy that had to be cut in order to make sure we launched in as best a state as possible. Two of those features were a skip dialogue button and an ability to read through the flowchart of Syntherapy's dialogue choices. After reading through the reviews and discussions of Syntherapy after our launch, it is clear these two features are very important to our community.
As of yesterday's update, 1.0.03, the skip dialogue button has been put back into the game! We have designed it so that it skips to the next choice or next line of dialogue that triggers a stat check. This way players will be able to freely skip over dialogue without worrying about potentially missing out on new dialogue that might result from their different choices!
Flowchart
This leaves the flowchart as the next scrapped feature that our community would like to see included in the game. This is a feature that we wanted to include in the game, but knew we would not have the time to get into the game in time for launch. The main problem was finding a way to make the flowchart easily legible, since the sheer volume of choices makes a normal flowchart hard to navigate.
For reference, here's a picture of a flowchart of the first session in Syntherapy that we made in Twine during Syntherapy's preproduction:
And that's only the first session. Many other parts of the game are FAR more complicated, so we needed to make sure whatever flowchart method we used was more easily readable.
We have an idea for a flowchart that would show major choices, and then give players the option to click on those major choices to open a side-window to see the other decisions made afterward.
There would be two versions of these flowcharts. The first would be available from the computer hub and show all of the choices made in that current playthrough. The second would be available from the main menu and would show all of the choices made in all of the current save files.
It will take a while to implement and test this system, but we're confident we will have it available to all of you by November 13th. We will be keeping you all updated on the flowchart's progress as it comes into shape!
Chapter Select
While the flowchart is our current main priority since it has been a feature the community has been asking for, there are other features we would like to implement that we think the community will appreciate. One of these features will be a chapter select option for new playthroughs.
From the main menu, clicking on a blank save slot would give you the option to start a game from the beginning, or start the game from a chapter you have played in a previous playthrough.
The main difficulty in setting up this feature is that every choice in a playthrough earns the player points that play a role in what therapies the player can get access to and what endings the player will receive. Starting a game midway through would have the player missing out on so many points that a bad ending would be guaranteed, while giving the player full points would remove any difficulty or incentive to play from the beginning. We plan to avoid this by giving the player a small amount of points, so that a playthrough from chapter select is viable and sufficiently challenging.
In the future we might build on this feature by giving players more customization options with how chapter select-based playthroughs work. Possible options include randomizing what stats players start with and allowing players to pick what points they start with.
Because the chapter select feature requires some similar coding to the flowchart while requiring fewer new graphical elements, the base chapter select will be available next week on Oct 30th, with the updated options coming out November 20th.
Concept Art Scavenger Hunt
Syntherapy had lots of redesigns since development first started as a Twine game back in 2017, and the look of Syntherapy has changed a lot over the years as a result! There's a lot of pieces of concept art we have that we think would be fun to show off to all of you, and we know a lot of players had fun finding the hidden butterflies, so we'll build on the idea of finding hidden objects with a scavenger hunt that allows players to unlock pieces of concept art! These pieces of concept art will be viewable both from the main menu and the images folder in the computer hub.
Because this feature isn't as crucial to the game as the chapter select and flowchart, this feature will be out a bit later. Our current plan is to have this feature available on November 27th.
Objective Tabs
During beta testing, a common issue our players informed us about was poor direction. To remedy this, we added the Stanley icon in the email hub to inform players about the current objective. We think it would probably help if we brought a similar feature to the sessions. We'll be adding a tab attached to the textbox that will remind the player about their current objectives, loyalties with different characters, and other information including what hidden butterflies have been found and other information relevant to the player.
We'll be updating this feature as other features are completed, but we plan on having the the main objective tab available to players on November 6th.
Minigames
There are three minigames in Syntherapy: Bubble Pop, a Spot-the-Difference game, and a Neurotherapy minigame. These minigames can be used to gain more points during playthroughs. For players who might just want to play these minigames or practice them, we'll be adding an option to the main menu that will allow players to just play the minigames outside of the main game.
Because of how simple this feature is to implement, we plan to make it available on October 30th.
Alternative Game Modes
As of now we currently have plans for two alternative game modes that will both encourage different play styles, and also encourage players to see game content that they might not think about seeing otherwise!
The first alternative game mode would be an Challenge Mode to try and land at a specific ending in Syntherapy. Chapter select would be disabled for this mode, and knowledge of the flow chart will be essential to ensure landing at the correct ending!
The second game mode would be a Therapist Mode. Unlike the main game, where there are five outcomes you can advise for the patient that can all lead to a good ending (mind wipe, returning to Tara's care, continuing therapy with Dr. Park, continuing therapy with another therapist, or letting Willow live independently), in this game mode only one of these options will result in a good ending. Your job will be to use clues from your therapy sessions and discussions with Heather in order to find out which one of these options is the correct one, and then try to achieve one of the good endings that results in that option!
While we plan on implementing both of these game modes, we will most likely only be able to have one of these ready before the end of the year. We'd love to hear back from all of you about which game mode you would like us to prioritize for 2020! Our goal would be to have this new game mode released sometime in December 2020.
Quality of Life Improvements
Syntherapy currently has limited keyboard controls in the main computer hub, which we plan to remedy in the coming weeks. Our goal is to have full keyboard controls by November 20th.
We also plan to continue fixing any other bugs that come up!
SCHEDULE AND RECAP
That was a lot to go over, so to recap, here's our content schedule for the remainder of 2020:
OCTOBER 30TH:
Minigames playable from main menu
Base chapter select options
NOVEMBER 6TH:
Objective tabs
NOVEMBER 13TH:
Flowchart viewer
NOVEMBER 20TH:
Full Keyboard Controls
Updated chapter select options
NOVEMBER 27TH:
Concept Art Scavenger Hunt
DECEMBER 2020:
New Game Mode
(ENDING CHALLENGE MODE or THERAPIST MODE)
Let us know which New Game Mode you would like us to prioritize for December 2020 and be sure to let us know if there are any other game features you would like us to include!
Thank you for being a part of Syntherapy's launch and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of our journey together!
