Exciting month! This devlog has a couple announcements, a progress update on development, and some previews of what I've been working on. First half provides an overview, second half has additional details and teasers for those who are interested in such things~

Contents

I. Overview

• New Announcements
• 100 Wishlists Celebration (recap)
• Development Updates

II. Details, Previews, and Teasers

• New Background Art
• Dynamic Text Mechanic
• Cursor Warp Mechanic
• New Music Tracks

I. Overview

New Announcements:

1. Amadeus will be participating in Steam Next Fest. Look forward to streams of dedicated gameplay footage on June 10 & June 15.
2. Amadeus now has a press kit! It has some neat info on the history/making-of, in addition to the usual details.

Relevant links at linktr.ee/amadeusgame - Next Fest stream details will be added there soon.

100 Wishlists Celebration (recap):

As thanks for all of the support here and elsewhere, I made a custom webpage to host a multimedia version of the Amadeus demo soundtrack. I've also updated the BandCamp OST album to include the new demo tracks and new art.

Check it out here!

Headphones encouraged but certainly not required.

Development Updates:

Focusing back on Amadeus after last month's Mystery Jam sidequest, I accomplished quite a lot this month.

• Art - 1 new point-and-click background + research/sketches for 3 more
• Build - 1 new scene built in Unity, also created a template so all future scenes can be built from it easily
• Mechanics - Implemented text pauses in all existing scenes, created hotkey to warp cursor to inspectable objects
• Music - new music! one dynamic 3-layer track mastered, one track to be mixed this week, one track at sketch phase
• Marketing - made press kit and 100 wishlists celebration updates to OST album

(Speaking of the Mystery Game Jam - if you'd like to play a short but finished game that I wrote, you can check out my team's game: Robot Detective and the Case of the Automurderated Intern.)

That's it as far as the big picture is concerned. Bookmark the linktree to stay up-to-date between devlogs!

If you're interested in some more details and some previews/teasers on what's to come in the full game, I've included those in the following section which is a little more long-form.

II. Details, Previews, & Teasers

New Background Art

In the full game, you will briefly explore Dartmaure before heading to the manor. I received feedback from the demo that it could use a little more grounding/introduction when you start controlling Amadeus. I agree; I also have a few more plot hooks I'd like to introduce in this new scene.

One important thing I learned about my own workflow while finishing up the demo is that I was not able to truly write the point-and-click scenes until I had a finished design for the background. The process of designing detailed backgrounds involves a lot of research, research which is itself a form of writing, research that forces me to answer questions I hadn't considered before. So I made sure to start on some new backgrounds much earlier than I did when working on the demo.

I'll likely need to draw at least one more screen for this point-and-click segment, but I finished the first, which feels very good:

Once this was ready I scanned it and started building the gameplay scene it'll be used for. I also decided to make my life easier, and after creating a functional skeleton of a scene with all core mechanics implemented, I made a copy of that to serve as a raw template for future use. All scenes I need to make from here on out can be easily built from that copy. Hooray for not reinventing the wheel every time I need to make a new scene!

(The other art I've been working on is for the very next scene that takes place after the demo ends... within the watchtower. No spoilers for that!)

Dynamic Text Mechanic

One major mechanic missing from Amadeus in the published demo was the ability to pause text mid-scroll for dramatic effect/pacing/"breathing" after punctuation. This is a pretty fundamental visual novel mechanic and it was a priority to add for the full game. It now exists, and I've implemented it in all existing scenes!

I recorded some footage of the intro scene to demonstrate what it looks like. Please note that the actual timing and placement of these pauses is subject to change; at the time of recording I was just really excited to show it off as soon as I had it working.

(Here's a little behind-the-scenes intel for you: the way this works is it interprets the character "<" as a brief pause. Then I just insert as many as I need for the length to feel right! One after commas,< two after periods. << Three after major punctuation!<<< And sometimes<<<<<<< a bunch in the middle of text for drama.)

The pause length is a multiplier of your current text scroll speed, so if you are a faster reader the pause will also be faster (and vice versa). From testing, it "feels" correct to me that way.

This mechanic was much easier to implement than I feared. I'm really happy with it, and I think it adds a lot of character to the writing.

Cursor Warp Mechanic

One of my other priorities for the full episode was to make it playable using the keyboard only. In the published demo, the core game can be completed with just the keyboard, but there are some "inspectable" objects (those indicated with the eye icon, that Amadeus comments on from far away) that you need to hover on with a mouse to interact with.

I've just finished building a mechanic that lets you use a hotkey--currently "i" but subject to change--to warp your cursor over the next item on a list of inspectable objects in the current scene. Then you can press space to interact with it as usual. I am debating whether or not to also have this cycle through all objects that can be reached with WASD movement, but for the moment I'm only using it for the objects you inspect from afar.

This mechanic has not yet been tested on other platforms. I'm hoping to get it in front of playtesters next month to iron out any issues with it.

New Music Tracks

Here's a teaser of a new dynamic track I'm working on for the full game! Like the music that plays while exploring the graveyard and watchtower area in the demo, this piece has 3 distinct layers to it that will fade in at certain gameplay moments. I've done more polishing work on the mix since I made this teaser, and I'm so excited about how it's coming:

The music that will play in downtown Dartmaure is also about 80% done (I should finish a preliminary mix later this week), and I've sketched out the very start of one more really cool piece that will be used later in the episode. I'll share more snippets of the new audio as the release draws closer~

That's a wrap for this month! It was definitely the right call to take a "break" last month and focus on the Mystery Game Jam. Coming back to Amadeus after that break has been very rewarding. I'm incredibly motivated.

Stay up-to-date: linktr.ee/amadeusgame