Hey, guys! Sorry that I didn't do my weekly update as I originally planned to do, but Full Sail classes and IGDA tasks were prioritized and I was very away from most of the sites. Anyways, I wanted to actually do a "possible" final update on things. Because, as a designer, I am both tired of working on this game and eager to start my next project.


1) The First Case Gone Through Hell

One of the things I will say about this project overall is that I've seen this project go through bad times and they have impacted both my morale and my motivation to keep working on the game. At one point, I had arguments with another designer of the project and decided to leave my role as lead game designer and designer overall. It was brutal. The game had no organization, no documentation, no nothing. It was a "let's do this and plan what comes afterwards". I nearly lost it. The team had their own things to worry about and I had to do most of the work myself. The game's decisions ultimately were left to me and at times I asked other members if they were okay with certain decisions. The case alone was practically a whole mess.

The game went through various design changes. From scene changes, to plot changes, to definition changes, to everything. I think I've seen the game change at least 7 times since the last update. It got to the point where I definitively said: "I'm done. This is going to be this, scrape this feature and add it for the next case, add this because it adds X thing, etc". The game will not be what the initial vision was, but it will have the same impact that we initially wanted. So, here's what we have to report on that:

-Players will NOT have a free-roaming section to search for more clues as initially planned. It will somewhat feel restrictive but will be added in the second case.

-Meet Jenny, Doc and Gordon! Three new characters that will be lore related. These characters will be of high importance for Jane in the following cases, but I feel that there needs to be some sort of introduction done right now. That said, I think one of them somewhat resembles a familiar character...








Did I mention Jenny is quite the sister?



-I am personally trying my best to work on the final scenes and test it out before October 1st. I have decided to finish Detective Jane by that date. No more "next week" or "I gotta polish", etc. If it doesn't get done within the day that it was assigned, it is cut out. I want to get this game out now because I have spent countless of hours working on it, stopped working on several assignments and not had once some personal time off. I need my time now.

-While the development of the game has been roughly almost or exactly 10 months, the game is fairly short because of the several small changes and phases it has gone through. While I definitively wanted to pour my heart into bringing the best quality of this game, I can't keep working on one project alone most of the time. So I am jumping ship and hope the story is good enough to intrigue players to know what happens in the next case.


2)This may be the first and last case I'll work on

As previously stated, the game itself was a complete mess. Our original vision couldn't been reached, it was a 1-man job for most of its development time and it took time that I could have worked on the games I wanted to work on. Detective Jane is NOT a 1-man production nor my (Michael) game at all. It is my girlfriend's idea and I wanted to work on it to see where it led to. But I have dreams and goals, plus ideas I want to explore. I got myself packs for RPG Maker, as well as other engines such as Unity, Game Maker and Clickteam Fusion 2.5. So depending on how well the game does and if the team I have wants to work 110% behind the next case or there are more people involved in the development of the next cases, I will consider staying.

3) Detective Jane now has a purpose and message: addresses sexism towards women

After several design phases and changes the game has gone through, we decided to send a message and portray a social issue in our game series: sexism. You see, the industry and the world nowadays has this issue and I can't stand people who stereotype, discriminating or judge women and treat them like crap. I've heard stories about sexism in the game industry and it is something I would like to address worldwide. Women can do just as much of a good job as men. And we can't treat them like crap. Sure, they do ask for equality but it isn't like we treat our fellow male co-workers like crap. It's just not right! So, in Detective Jane, the main character will be treated like crap so players can understand how it feels to be discriminated and judge, and finally displaying a method in the series to solve the issue once and for all.


I think that is pretty much what we have so far to explain. If anyone wants to know something in specific about the game's progress right now, feel free to ask. I just hope people understand that if the game comes out bad, it's because both my morale and motivation were deeply affected in the development of the game.

Here's to Jane's Voyage!

-Michael Figueroa
Team Captain/Lead Designer