I’m fleshing out the last “exploration” section of the game while fiddling with some of the pacing and editing.
Progress
This week was dedicated to the last backtracking sequence in The Weight of a Soul where Marid travels from Rats’ Run (below the Shanty Quarter) back to the Channelworks. Because the district has changed quite significantly since the last time we saw these places, and Marid herself has a new perspective, I’ve had to go over these areas and add new descriptions and flavor.
As I mentioned last time, I’m cutting down on some of the side content so that I can make the game fully playable from start to end faster. That means that this “exploration” sequence is really rather perfunctory with most of the side paths being blocked off. It works well for pacing, though, as narratively speaking Marid doesn’t have many reasons to hang around and examine things.
I’m not sure how many “scenes” this is according to my metric, but I’m proceeding according to schedule and that’s what matters right now.
Next
This week I will be working on three very significant scenes:
- Marid’s last encounter with Horatio, as a sort of emotional touchstone before going on to the final confrontation. Like the last dialogue (and pretty much every dialogue in this game to be honest) this is going to be an emotionally fraught one. It’s also interesting because it will give the player a chance to dictate Marid’s last impression of her childhood friend and what shape their relationship will take next.
- A short sequence where Marid crosses the previously uncrossable Channelworks Concourse bridge. This is less emotionally impactful but will be important for setting the tone of the area.
- Marid’s confrontation with one of the antagonist’s lackeys, who will be obstructing the way to the antagonist. This will be another dialogue with lots of interesting implications.
What I have laid out for this week is kind of daunting and I wish I’d gotten started on it earlier, but there’s no time like the present, I guess. Like Marid, I’m going to have to forge on and do my best to handle the work as it develops.
Chin Kee Yong 