Let's talk about choices. As better designers than me have pointed out, they're the core of what makes up any game. We've already talked about a lot of mechanical choices you'll be making in previous diaries. Today I want to focus on the narrative choices you'll be making.
Some of these are what you would expect. Characters offer you a clear choice, you pick one. Good and bad things happen based on your choices. Nice and simple. Others are more gradual. How many times have you said something that annoys someone? Or something they disagree with? Many of your choices will slowly raise or lower character and faction opinions.
Some choices are larger than others. What you choose for your background early on is a major choice. Opting to align with the miners over management is another early choice that drastically changes the content you'll encounter. But even the smaller choices will often lead to different interactions, knowledge, research, or more. This gives you a story that's a little more uniquely yours, and adds to replayability if you want to explore some of the other paths.
So far, all of this is pretty normal for story focused games, so where are we different?
Firstly, we try to write our dialogue as actual conversations and not information dumps. You won't find a list of questions you work through with any NPC here. If you choose not to ask something, you often won't get a second chance.
Secondly, we pull from a variety of sources to unlock conversation options, not just what narrative choices you've made so far. What research have you unlocked? How well have your performance reviews gone? How wealthy are you? What have you looked up in the company database?
In fact, let's dig into that last one a little more as it's getting some changes in the full release. We built the database system originally as an in-universe way for players to look up game rules. Then we started adding lore entries to help flesh out things without weighing down conversations. Then we wondered how much fun hidden stuff we could put in this.
Our first take on this has fallen pretty flat. Most players click through the entries they are given and move on, which makes sense. There's already a lot going on and playing detective isn't really aligned with the rest of the game. In the full release, we're removing the search option and ensuring that all entries are found though hyperlinks, research, or story choices instead. It should make the discovery much easier to come across while still being a bit of a hidden bonus for players to find.
Finally, while we're talking about choices, I want to talk about the ones we've made. We founded Respite Games to be a place that's different from what I experienced in the rest of the industry. Two key elements of that are a lack of crunch and a dedication to quality. As we approach our release date, it's obvious that we cannot hit both of those goals without delaying the game slightly. So, we will be releasing on September 15th instead. This will give us the time to make sure you have the best game we can give you without sacrificing our own health and sanity.
Alright, we've gone over a whole lot of side systems in the diaries so far. Next time I think we should probably blow some stuff up.