Hello once again, everyone. No particular rhyme or reason to the timing of this update. I just felt like posting an update. Last time I posted an update, I believe I said that the second chapter was complete and after taking some time off to rest, I would be diving right into making chapter three. And I did try to jump right into chapter three, but it wasn't working out quite like I had planned.

Musings on Chapter Three

You see, in the past, I've been able to more or less come up with the murder and then wing my way through the chapter, coming up with all the necessary scenes and moments as I went. I dove right into chapter three and tried to start writing and it just felt wrong. Like something inside me was screaming "you need to take a step back and re-evaluate how you approach writing these chapters from here on out". So I did just that. I took a step back and decided I would sit down and write out an outline for the entire chapter as well as the trial. From scratch. I had already been planning to outline the trial from the beginning, as I did with chapter two (which was a hugely beneficial move), so ultimately this wasn't a huge departure from my original plan.

Anywho, I sat down at work over the course of a week or so and charted out chapter three from the beginning. Everything has been outlined, and it's looking good. I'm excited for some of the scenes that happen in the daily life, and I'm amazed I'm still able to come up with as many free time scenes as I do. The trial is looking much better than it did originally. I think I've successfully managed to avoid the lull in quality that tends to happen somewhere in the middle of Ace Attorney/Danganronpa games with one of their cases/chapters.

To get into specifics, the second half of the murder/trial is largely unchanged from what it was originally. I completely rewrote the first half of the murder/trial from the ground up, though. The first half was originally pretty, uh... Well, to be entirely honest it was straight up bad, looking back on it now. Now, I think the first half honestly might outshine the latter half. It largely deals with a part of the murder that vaguely reminds me of the fifth case in Danganronpa 2. Just as in the fifth case in Danganronpa 2 when you saw the murder scene you went "what in God's name happened here?", Chapter 3 brings similar thoughts to mind—or at least, to my mind. It should be a lot of fun.

So with that being said, I'm now working on the daily life of Chapter Three. Shifting once again into full-on development mode (rip almost literally all of my free time and social life). I will say, now that I've outlined Chapter Three and know exactly what scenes I want to make and what I want to go over in them, I feel a lot more comfortable writing. I'll definitely be doing the same sort of thing with Chapter Four and Chapter Five. Chapter Six, on the other hand, I think I can still wing a bit. At least towards the start of the chapter. I'll definitely need to outline the final investigation and the trial.

Other Miscellaneous Notes

I just want to mention a few other things before I end this blog and get back to work. First of all, I want to mention how Chapter Two's beta testing has been going. Two of my beta testers have finished it so far. Others are still in the process of working through it or haven't started it yet because they must actually have lives or something (the weirdos). So far my beta testers seem to be enjoying Chapter Two rather well. One who finished the beta said something that stuck out to me after he finished. He said he couldn't decide whether or not he liked the first chapter or the second chapter more. That was interesting to me, because I personally think Chapter Two outclasses Chapter One on a number of fronts. But I suppose opinions on each of the chapters will vary from person to person. I'll be looking forward to seeing which chapters are more well-regarded and which are looked back on less favorably by both beta testers and regular players alike.

But it really makes no difference to me. As long as none of the chapters are flat out bad or anything, I don't think I should tempt fate by asking for much more than that. Haha.

One other thing I want to emphasize in regard to Chapter Two's beta testing is how important this beta testing really is. I am but one person. I do my best to put this whole game together and edit it to Hell and back, but there are still a number of things I miss. Case in point, on the last testimony of the second case, one of my beta testers got stuck for an hour trying and failing to figure out what the contradiction she needed was. And what was the problem? The description I had written for the piece of evidence used to contradict that particular testimony was wrong. To be more specific, I had made one single error with one single word of that piece of evidence's description. And that one word was the difference between the contradiction making sense and the contradiction being totally incomprehensible.

So yeah, I'd just like to take this moment to say I really appreciate the pain and suffering my beta testers go through so the rest of you don't have to suffer as much.

(As a side note: Said beta tester who got stuck on the last testimony for an hour said the second chapter felt really long. She said it took her like nine hours. I think she's just a really slow reader. And plus there's that hour of being stuck to take into account. But I found that interesting nonetheless. I guess this game'll have some meat on its bones when all's said and done after all.)

There's one last thing I'd like to say. Or perhaps it would be better to say there's one last thing I'd like to vent about. I don't know about anyone else, but these past updates have stricken me as terribly dull to look at. I wish I had some images or something I could stick in the middle of these updates to give you all something to look at aside from a wall of text. But unfortunately, we're just at that stage in the game's development where anything I post would be a spoiler. It's a bit frustrating. Especially seeing as I keep saying "I'm making all this progress!", but words aside, I can't show any evidence of that. I know that's just how it is, but... I wish it didn't have to be that way.

I will say that I've requested for the artist I have drawing up some cover art for Danganronpa Team to draw said cover art sometime between now and when Chapter Four or so is finished. That's something I can share as soon as it's in my hands. But until then, I'm afraid words are all I have.

So I guess for my parting words, I'll simply say that I'll post again once some amount of progress has been made with Chapter Three! Keep hoping that progress continues for me! And also, do me a favor and hope that I don't die of heat stroke while I'm writing this. It's starting to get stupidly hot outside again, and with my PC on most of the time, my room is a bona fide sauna. 'Til next time!