This is the third entry of my weekly dev diary for The Weight of a Soul.

Progress

This week, I managed to finish 6 scenes (not easily, given that Crusader Kings 3 released this week and ate up some of my time.) I’ve now finished the “above-ground” section of Day Three and the rest of the chapter will be moving through new areas.

I have a good feeling about the progress so far. Until this week, I hadn’t felt like I was “really” making progress because Marid had been confined to previously explored areas, and I was just adding new content to them. Now that new rooms have opened up, it’s the first concrete reminder that the game is actually moving forward.

Representation and Race

I’ll take an aside to talk about something that I’ve been concerned with in The Weight of a Soul: representation.

Because it’s set in a fantasy setting with fantasy races, and especially because it depicts goblins as a minority race with their own communal area in the district, it has a responsibility to discuss race in a way that’s mature and respectful.

I’ve tried to navigate the minefield of political correctness as best I can; I’ve tried to depict Marid as a privileged outsider who has some visceral reactions to culture shock and things (such as the goblin habit of snacking on precious metals), but tries her best to respect cultural differences.

Once the new update comes out, you’ll see that I’ve added a small discussion on minority religious practices in The Weight of a Soul as well. A big subplot in The Weight of a Soul is dealing with people who are marginalized by society, or living within a society without taking part in it or feeling at home in it.

This is all related to the theme of the story, I promise.

School Presentation

I had to give a presentation on The Weight of a Soul this week. Not much changed from my initial proposal; I just used the earlier presentation plus a little bit of tweaking to discuss the progress I’d made since school started. My school seems satisfied with the way things are going so I’m just chugging on for now.

• The Weight of a Soul Dev Diary