Devlog #47 - Chatterbox
Hello! I have emerged from the other side of July a new person, battered by the onslaught of NPC implementation that I started last month.
I don’t remember if I mentioned we’re working on our first pass for the Kickstarter backer beta yet, but if I didn’t. Yeah.
So, this month, we’re nearing the end of implementing some of the connective tissue to bind some Snacko features together.
🐐 Why does everyone talk so much?
Oh right, I wrote the text, it’s my fault.
Anyways, the bulk of this month for me was continuing to put in NPCs. This entails a couple of things…
Sprites: Stefan did all the animations, but not all of them have been put in as Flipbooks (Unreal’s system for sprite animation)
Portraits: I had the PNGs, but they were just floating around in my PC
Schedules: the bane of my existence, responsible for my deteriorating husk of a person I became. There was more detail on this last month, but essentially, it’s just a lot of careful busywork that needed just enough brain power to wear you down
Dialogue: each NPC has a “dialogue resolver” that tries to determine what dialogue asset to use. For example, a shopkeeper will have a “come back later” set of dialogue when you bother them during store hours, or a specific set of lines about food when they’re eating. It’s essentially just a bunch of true or false checks.
Alongside the resolver are the actual dialogue assets (spaghetti monster). Within these, there are sometimes trees to determine which set of text to use depending on the time of day for hello’s, or the relationship level. As you befriend them, they’ll let you in on a bit more of what makes them tick. I hope you’ll spend some time getting to know everyone and their quirks!
…and that’s the bulk of what I’ve been doing! You can really watch me melt into my skin through my source control commit descriptions:
📬 Return of the Mailbox
Ever since we remade the player house, the mailbox was replaced with a shell of its former self. It no longer had a little flag animation when you stepped outside and had new mail, it no longer had a little floating notification for your new letters…
Truly tragic.
But despair no more! I put it back in.
Also, recursive hooked up the rest of the letter system for inviting NPCs. In the past, we had the UI and framework, but only Mack ever replied. No matter what. You cannot escape Mack.
(Un?)Luckily for you, that system is now in, so you can escape from Mack. For the duration of the beta, we’ll be just giving you the house you need to invite NPCs for free, but in the final game, blueprints for building different kinds of houses and shops are unlocked as you progress for that sweet ✨dopamine✨.
🪑Don’t Be A Birch About It!
Also to give some more meat to the build, I added in a select few pieces of buildables from a set you can craft after razing the Grassy Plains of its natural foliage. Here’s a sneak peak at some of the pieces:
The vibe I was going for with the Birch set is a mix between some mid-century modern and Scandinavian vibes. All the white parts are dye-able, like the seat cushion and lamp shade. You can really change up the feel of the pieces by making them bright colors!
And…that’s all for this month! Thank you for reading until the end 🌼 We’ll see you next month!
Extra thank you to our Patrons and Ko-fi supporters! Without you, Snacko development would look very different. We appreciate every one of you 🐾
