Matsumori Days

We already know that there's a difference between player knowledge and developer knowledge. Sometimes, as developers, we loose sight of what the players are supposed to know at any given time. But what about player knowledge versus character knowledge? If the player knows something that the character's don't, that's one thing. The player may laugh off how stupid the characters are for getting themselves into the situation that the player knew that was there. Alternatively, the player may be frustrated at not being able to steer the characters away from the situation that he or she thought could have been avoided. There may be more possibilities than this but I'm too lazy to think any more up.

So there's a spectrum of possibilities for when characters have less knowledge than players. What about characters that have more knowledge than players? There's plenty of examples of characters, controlled by players or otherwise, that have knowledge that the players don't. If the character is an ally, that person generally chooses to share his or her knowledge with the other party members usually via a long, boring blat. If it is an enemy, that person generally makes some kind of commentary about his or her plans to kill off the party and world domination. In that order.

However, this is a game where information is specifically held back by both friend and foe alike. As far as the sequences where the antagonists have their blattage, they could seriously be talking about anything. Players may well think that killing off the party and global domination can't be too far from their minds. If they think that, and that's fine by me. But what about Mina? She's an ally, right? She probably knows a good chunk of the behind-the-scenes details. Shouldn't she have given a blat about what she knows in Chapter 1? Didn't happen! Does she give one in Chapter 2? Nope! Chapter 3? Hard to say right now!

As part of the epilogue of Chapter 2, Masako talks with Mina. As part of their conversation, Mina decides to share her story with Masako. The game switches off to the antagonists before anything substantial gets served. The player is left with the assumption that Masako knows a ton more stuff than she did before. Even if Mina didn't tell Masako absolutely everything she knows, Masako still gets into a position of greater knowledge that any of the other player-controlled characters. Or the player controlling those characters, for that matter!

As of the current writing, Masako does tell the other party members (and thereby the player) a few things that she knows at the near-outset of Chapter 3. Does she tell the other party members everything she knows? Probably not. Will she have internal monologues that trail off to prevent information from being spilled too early? That's the current plan, but I'm not sure how well it will be appreciated.

My ultimate aim to to cause players to have a moment where everything the game has thrown at the player, story-wise, finally makes sense. Perhaps that aim is a bit high for what is essentially a "first game" project, and my writing might not be up to snuff to relay the sense of absolute understanding that I'm aiming for that I've gotten from other games (I'm looking at you, specifically, Might and Magic V - Darkside of Xeen!).

In any event, I'm still quite far from implementing any amount of story elements of Chapter 3 into the game proper. I'm sure something else up the line will cause me to make yet another blog.

One of the first things I want to see happen in Chapter 3 is to allow the switch from home world to dream world to be at the player's behest, rather than have it be at the game's behest. Unlocking this ability to freely switch between the two worlds may also allow for more options as far as optional tasks are concerned.

So far, the party has been transported to the dream world each night. How they are transported is unknown to both player and party at this point. Since I want to allow players to switch, it seems likely that whatever, or whoever, is causing the switch, has somehow failed, stopped functioning, or what-have-you. After the party members fail to be switched over, there's going to be a "next day" sequence where the party members get together and discuss how relieved they are that the ordeal is over.

Or is it? Masako, being the kind of woman that she is, knows better. She will suspect that something has gone wrong. She will also suspect that there might be some kind of bridge in the home world that the party can use, and that the bridge might even be on the campus of Matsumori High. The other party members wish her luck in her search, and then disperse. After this event clears, the player takes control of Masako, and is tasked to seek out the "bridge".

I already have an idea where the "bridge" is, but I'm uncertain how to give out clues to the player as to it's location. Regardless of what information Masako gathers, or how it is gathered, I'm thinking I could give players access to her classroom desk, located in 3-B. There, I'd place an event where Masako rattles off what information, clues, and evidence, and what-not she has. She will always come up with some kind of conclusion. "I need more clues" is a possible conclusion she can arrive at. Though, knowing her, she would probably be more wordy than that. In any event, when she comes up with the "correct" conclusion, the switch that enables "bridge" to be found is flicked. With any hope, the player was paying attention to what Masako was saying, and will direct her to the prescribed location. That's right! I'm asking players to comprehend what Masako is saying! Madness, to be sure! What happens after that is, to make things brief, the rest of the Chapter's main-line events and, when I get around to implementing them, the optional tasks for the Chapter.

This is all well and good, certainly. However, the thing that has me most worried about is the dungeon-delving of Chapter 3. Being the final chapter of the game, there are no more characters to be introduced. No more Trials to clear. However, giving players access to the final dungeon right off the bat doesn't sit well with me. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do at this particular moment, but I've always had half a mind to have some kind of outdoorsy area for this game. Not a "world map", though. I'm thinking more along the lines of a bunch of interconnected areas (Secret of Mana anyone?) that eventually lead to the final dungeon. Maybe I can have the dream Matsumori entrance lead to these areas? And once the party gets to the entrance of the final dungeon, open a two-way "quick teleport" for ease-of-access? Hrm. In any event, I'll have to put more thought into this idea as a whole.

My muse has, once again, used the Bludgeon of Inspiration on me. However instead of giving me the drive to move the game forward, it has given me the drive to define events that occur before the game started.

I'm writing this blog post in an attempt to take a step back, and question why my muse wants to bother with detailing the sequence of events that lead to Matsumori Days in any manner. I was content with saying, avoiding unnecessary spoilers and to be as technical as possible, "stuff happened". But my muse wasn't happy. It wanted to know what that "stuff" was. It wasn't enough to make passing, in-game references to events that may very well have enough story to have a game, or other media, built around them. Also, it's an aspect of creation. It doesn't care what is created, as long as something is created. Since Matsumori Days was in relapse, my muse must have decided to move on to something else. Hence, the latest usage of the Bludgeon of Inspiration.

So far, I've been working the past day or so, at my muse's behest, on writing up something of a short story that details the "stuff" that occurred before the game takes place. I have no idea how far I'll get, how the story would be released, or even if I will release it at all.

This exercise may just be another incredibly stupid thing I'm doing until my muse gets ideas in it's head to actually work on Matsumori Days, because I'm bored and have nothing better to do with my free time, or it could be more a permanent relapse from development in general. I can't really tell at this moment.

I'm not totally happy with the decision I've made in respect to the Water Trial, but one was made. What's going to happen is that the water will be blocking a side passage, and, of course, the "Boss Pavilion". There will be staircases (they still look like they are going "up" to me) that go down to the water. When the water drains, the staircases will lead to the path that was opened up. I suppose a screenshot would be in order, but I don't want to clog up my locker with more Water Trial shenanigans.

While the Water Trial decision will continue to bother me for some time, I'm finding that I don't really have a decent puzzle for the Damned Trial. I was recently thinking of a test of strength. However, that would make it the third dungeon that performs that technique (the other two being the Fire Trial, and as an option for the Divine Trial). I want to change things up a bit, but I'm not sure what kind of puzzle would fit. In a previous blog (I'm not even going to try searching for it), I mention that I may want to have the player make some kind of sacrifice for the Divine and/or Damned Trials. While the Divine Trial does not necessarily ask for a sacrifice anymore, the query of "What price would you pay for power?" does sound like the kind of temptation the Damned Trial may want to have.

I'm not in a huge rush to make a decision on the Damned Trial, though. I kinda want to playtest the Water Trail shenanigans that are in place. Try telling that to my Muse, if it gets in the mood, though!

Anybody else kinda miss Liberty's DOING IT! series of threads? What, you don't remember those? Well, that's understandable. It's not as if she had a call-out in SNews, or anything. At least, I think she did. What, you don't know what SNews is? Can't remember, for the life of you, when the last time it was printed? Blame Kentona.

In the case that you simply weren't around during that period of time, the DOING IT! series was a collection of threads that served as a place for RMN users to showcase what they were working on, or perhaps even future projects. Each week had a different theme. One week was about story, another week was about music, another week was about characterizations. Stuff like that.

Anyway, I had half a mind to start a DOING IT! - Season Zwei. Or, if we want to continue with the... er... shall we say suggestiveness of the title, it could be something like "Wanna do it... AGAIN!?" However, that would mean two things. First, I'd have to start a thread (Heavens, forbid it!). Second, I would be tempting Fate to have the RMN userbase, in general this time, ignore what I thought would be a great/crazy idea yet again (Making me 0 for ...4?). Of course, putting this into a blog performs the same purpose, in it's own way.

Rolling this post back to Matsumori Days, thereby making this a legit blog (Sneaky sneaky!), waaay back during the first re-construction of this game (It feels like ages ago!), the DOING IT! series was pretty much in full swing. It was a very rough attempt, and I never officially posted it to the appropriate thread, but I went through the motions of defining my characters not in what they do (their role in the game), or what they looked like (that's what concept art is for), but what their characters were. In other words, their personalities. My point is, would I even bother to do that much, feeble attempt it might have been at the time, if DOING IT! never existed? Who knows?


Okay, enough of that blattage. Time to relay update information. (Whaaaaat!?) My Matsumori Muse has hit me, once again, with the Bludgeon of Inspiration (somebody should totally make that an actual weapon) to work on this project. In the space of... hell, I don't know how long it was, but it was basically done last night. In any event, I went from not implementing anything in Chapter 2 to implementing, and testing, Chapter 2 up to the point where the player enters the Divine Trial. As far as I can tell, everything I've seen is working beautifully. However, I should probably take a step back and look over everything again. My Matsumori Muse has been known to cause me to be quite hasty in the past.