Hey, y'all! It's been a little over a month, so fuck it, it's updatin'-time!
Bigfoot's route is now 100% completed!
Yep! Bigfoot's route is now done! I still need to retest everything before release, of course, but yeah! Route 4 is now 100% completed and I've began work on route 5!
Wow! What progress!
Achievement support!
Dialtown (...'s full unreleased version, lmao) now has achievements! Like, officially. They're working 'n' all, which is exciting, because it's something I've never done before for games of mine. I teased a few of the achievement icons (drawn by the talented Snazzamazing!) previously, but here's an updated version (with one extra to show off!)
There's 10 achievements in total! Whew, lad!
It's time to meet #5.
This is the 5th route dateable. His name is Norm, and this is his shadow (well, twice.) I can't reveal much about him, yet, but... Well, you'll become acquainted with him soon enough... (His route is unlocked by getting all of the other routes' good endings, and takes place AFTER the others, chronologically!)
Closing thoughts:
Progress on the 5th route is already coming along nicely! Still early stages, but hey, it's exciting nonetheless. I also just uploaded an experimental bugfix patch, has a few font changes, a few tiny oversights fixed, added an ending slide to Dietown, etc. Nothing extreme.
...I think that's all I have to say for this devlog. Should have some (equally?) exciting news in the next one! Thanks for dreaming with me!
Yours houndly,
Dogman
Meet Bigfoot! - Devlog 12/03/21
Alright, I know why y'all are here, so I'mma get right into it.
Hello, Bigfoot.
[previewyoutube="RBQD3jxpgbI;full"] Yes, as you no doubt saw in the last trailer, I can confirm that Bigfoot is the fourth datable in Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim. He has over 60 unique character poses, and a few bonus goodies in-game, including an animated fight sequence! (I have taught Bigfoot the ways of violence)
His route IS coming along solidly. Oh, right. Speaking of total progress...
Let's talk total progress!
Right now, I'm working on the 4th and 5th full routes for Dialtown and boy, am I hard at work. If you'd like to see The Chart, which shows the game's entire progress thus far, I'm happy to oblige. Behold. Progress. (As always, anything in Green = full done, yellow = needs code/assets, red = script undone)
As you can see: yes, folks, no more RED.
I can confirm that Dialtown is powering through the remaining stages of development and while I'm not comfortable sharing an exact release date yet: Dialtown's a-comin'. Late Spring to early Summer's certainly lookin' to be possible!
Thanks for reading and take care, y'all! I'll have more neat progress to show off in the next one ;)
Dialtown - Main Trailer (Devlog 14/02/21)
Howdy. Happy Valentine's Day, y'all! To commemorate this special day, I've written a lil devlog to show off how development is coming along!
Trailer, Schmailer!
Okay, without further ado, to celebrate this, the day of arrows and chocolates and a statistically abnormal rate of impregnations, I present to you... Dialtown's main trailer, and the fourth dateable protagonist! [previewyoutube="iyKnR5Bz95Q;full"] ...wasn't that, uhhh, something? Yeah! Over 20 endings, 5 dateables, hours of content... I'm still hoping for a Spring (google says that's March to late June?) release, 2021!
Overall progress!
Alright, it's time. Lemme whip out the ol' chart.
Y'know the drill, roadmap of the whole game, every plot-beat/important scene. Anything green is ready to go, just needs final testing/fixes. Yellow means done script, some assets, red means no script.
I'm proud to announce that Dialtown's script is only 2.5 scenes away from being finished.
I'm really hyped, honestly. According to my current calculations (only wordboxes (minus text commands) + name boxes), Dialtown's (full) current word-count is over 132,000 words!
For clarity 'n' comparison, William Shakespeare's Hamlet is 30,557 words. This means, yes, you can fit FOUR Hamlet's into Dialtown, and have enough room to fit every word in this devlog in, too. (25 times over!!) WOOT.
Thanks for reading!
Honestly, Dialtown's been a real labour of love so far, and over two years down the line, I actually have a lot of anxiety about the big release. I'm super stoked to finally get it out, but 2 years of writing, photo editing, programming, photography... two years of all-nighters, headache tablets, budgeting, grueling work... all leading to one moment, one release date. It's a lot of pressure, admittedly! But, it's been a fun ride, and the train hasn't stopped just yet.
I guess I'd just like to take this moment to remind y'all that I'm super grateful for having y'all follow me. (...presuming you, the peanut reading this, IS following me, y'know? If not... well, do! It means you get to hear me speak to YOU right now. woah! nuts!) Dialtown's very close to my heart, and seeing the outpouring of fanart and community love from Dialtown's small (but tight-knit and passionate!) community has been staggering.
As always, I'll see you in the next devlog, where I'll have more big news. ;) As always, catch ya later! Thanks for dreaming with me!
Yours houndly,
Dogman
New build! (Experimental!)
Okay, so I'll just dive into it!
Due to some... poorly communicated font licensing issues, I had to strip EVERY text box font that was currently in the game and replace 'em with newer, better fonts. Yes. I literally had to replay the whole game to make sure it all worked. All dialogue. HHHH.
But, not all is lost. I took the time to genuinely improve some content! Many recurring characters that lacked unique fonts before (Mikey, Jerry, Mugger) now have 'em! Randy's poses have been relit, and I've even added new poses to Randy's expression list, some are even animated!
But, that's not all! I've also added a custom pronoun system! Basically, if you wanna use a specific set of your own pronouns, you can enter your own in, manually, just like your player name :). Honestly, just wanted to see what it'd be like having a system like this in-game because i've never seen this done before, personally. Super experimental, but lemme know how it works in-game :) Talk to Roger and Peter to see the new pronouns in action (or go on a date, Jerry uses them at the start of dates!)
Also fixed a ton of typos, gave Nathan new poses, changed some intro shots, new music system a- I've done a LOT for Dialtown since the last patch, tbh-
So, yeah. This update is kind of a beta. You VERY well may see pronoun weirdness, text running out of the text/choice boxes and/or music playing inappropriately. If you do, please lemme know and I'll patch it immediately! Oh, and of course, a new game is required since so many things were changed across the whole game. Thanks for reading!
Progress Update, achievements art + release timeframe! (13/11/20!)
Howdy, howdy, everyone! I realize that it's been a while! Just for the record, I usually post mini-updates in my Discord server(invite's closed for the moment, should be open again by next devlog!!!), but anyhow, this also gives me an opportunity to show everyone exactly where development is right now, so without further ado, the news:
Achievements:
Yeah! I'm workin' on achievements for Dialtown! Got 10 planned, most tied in with getting the best endings for certain routes 'n' whatnot. Might add one or two more, but... 10 is what's on the cards right now! Also, all of the achievement icons show funky stylized renditions of the characters drawn by the immensely talented Snazzamazing! Here's a sample of three of 'em, so you can see how cool they look! :>
Maaan, I love these things.
Total Progress!
So, I'm sure y'all are probably wondering exactly how much of Dialtown is good, and how much is left to go. Well, lemme whip out Ye Olde Faithful Chart so you can see how much of the total routes are finished.
To explain what this means: This is a depiction of all five routes. Encircled in white is what's in the extended demo, right now.
Anything in green is fully done (minus final tweaks, bugfixing, final polish, etc)
Anything in yellow has a fully completed script and some assets done, with me ready to start coding it when I want.
Anything in red means some assets, no script.
As you can see, there's a whole lotta green, and not much red left! By the next devlog, the whole chart will be yellow and green, no red left at all! Also, the OST is completely done! (Minus one track we're saving 'til the very end ;))
So, let's talk release!
Dialtown is coming out Spring, 2021!
I don't have a date to announce yet, but I have an internal date that I'm doin' my best to hit! Regardless of whether I do or not, Spring, 2021 is a safe bet! Ayyy!
Hope y'all are as excited for release as I am! No? Then, I hope you're all at least half as excited!
...still NO? Aren't you even a little excited?! C'mon, man, I have pUPPIES TO FEED, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME, I HAVE MONEY CAUGHT UP IN FIJI, THEY'LL TAKE MY SHINS IF I DON'T SELL THIS SHODDY EXCUSE FOR A-
...I mean... That's it for this devlog! See y'all next time!
Randy's route is now public!
Alright, gonna just, uhhh, drop this here, since it's late, right now-
Randy's route is now fully included in the demo.. Repeat, Randy's route is now fully included in the demo. Go have fun! A few new hours of content, 6 new endings, yadda yadda. Full release is the next big milestone, but of course, that's still a good bit away. If this devlog felt lacklustre, that's 'cause it was. Man, I really PHONED THIS ONE IN, huh guys? Do you get it? Phone it in? Because the game itself is ABOUT phones, and 'phone it in' means... God, I'm sleep deprived. Have fun!
Update, Extended Demo announcement + a comic contest!
Hi, y'all! Sorry for not writing one of these for a little while, but BOY have I been busy! I'll get right down to brass tacks!
New update!!!:
Yeah, I finally got around to fixing a few issues on the steam version that I wanted to fix up. Fixed a crash users were getting at one particular bit in-game AND I redid the hobo's poses (+ added 5 new ones!) to update his assets to my current standards! (note the changing monitor colours + added perspective.) Nice!
Extended demo!:
Alright, so, I'll be transparent. I had an extended version of Dialtown's demo prepared for youtubers/reviewers to play, but tbh, nobody with over 100k followers would give DT the time (and any who said they would ended up just... not bothering, even the ones who set their own dates/times), so... Yeah, that's just a teensy bit soulcrushing.
But, hey, the way I see it: there's no point punishing those who HAVE given Dialtown a chance just to hoard content for those who won't. So, I'm going to be releasing a new demo at the start of August which'll feature hours of new content and of course: Randy's FULL route (all 6 endings!)
CONTEST:
Now, onto the REALLY exciting thing! Before the extended demo, I'm holding a three week art contest, that allows users on twitter/tumblr to write scenes that can make it into the game!!! All relevant info is on this flyer: Can't wait to see what people come up with! As always, thanks for reading, hope y'all are excited for what's comin' up as I am! Ciao!
New Update + News! (19/05/20)
Alright, so, quick devlog:
There's a new location in the demo!
So, I added a new explorable location to the town, it's a bar! If you go there before finding a partner, you can even do a round of speed-dating and meet four new characters! Here's a sneakpeak showing off a few of the new characters: Pretty nifty, eh?
Android port in the works!
Yep! It's super experimental rn, but it seems as if Dialtown might end up coming to android with the windows version on launch! Might even port the demo itself to android for people to try out, if it's something people would like ;)
Here's a few pics of it in action, courtesy of my bf! It needs polish, but overall, seems to be (mostly) fully functional, which is nifty! That's it for this devlog, stay groovy, y'all!
Demo hit 1k players & Oliver's route now done!
Howdy, folks, Dogman, 'ere. Thought I'd update you all since it's been about a month since my last devlog!
Oliver's route is now implemented!
Yes, folks, it's true. Oliver's route is now implemented, all 5 endings working/in-game!
Here's the ole reliable roadmap. As you can see, 3/5 routes ARE now finished. In terms of endings, that's 19 out of 25 endings. I have a good few months of work ahead of me, getting the final two routes scripted, shot, assets produced, (art, music and voice acting is still to be done), and finally, working and in-game. But, progress has been good!
1k demo players! (and a comment on Dialtown's overall public process.)
Well, I'll keep this short, but over 1,000 people have played (and I hope enjoyed) Dialtown's demo! This is a really weird number for me, because you can look at it in two ways. In a cynical light: DT's demo only made in two months what Dayshift at Freddy's (my last series) makes in 2.5 days!
That's... not so encouraging. In a way, just a teensy bit heartbreaking, actually, as is the fact that only ONE youtuber that's covered DSaF has actually bothered to play Dialtown's demo, with most not even acknowledging my messages at all. (Which I believe to be a major reason for these poorer figures.)
What IS encouraging, though, is the outpouring of fanart, the active discord community appearing for the game, as well as the dedication of the fans that Dialtown DOES have. Phonecord, for instance, Dialtown's discord server (CLICK THIS TEXT IF YOU'D LIKE TO JOIN.) has over 400 members and is incredibly active.
Usually, when a big release happens, there's a jolt... followed by a decline, until something big carries the release to a larger base of people. Dialtown's player numbers have remained CONSISTENT, despite only minor updates occurring to the demo, which is an incredibly optimistic showing of just how much its fans are trying to force the game down people's throats like a regurgitating momma bird help convert potential players to the Dialtown family, which is fantastic to see.
That truly gives me the motivation to finish the game, knowing that not everyone is going to walk away just because I don't do FNaF stuff anymore. Really. I know Dialtown can blow my previous work out of the water in many ways, and I will do everything in my power to make it the best game it can be.
Do YOU wanna make history?
One small final thing, btw: If anyone wants, I have a Patreon now, since I realized that I lacked a real tip-jar. I've got a few ranked pledging tiers, if anyone's interested in any of these things:
Unique role in my discord server!
Have your name in the DT credits!
Have your VERY OWN name easter egg in-game!
Access to a special channel in my discord server where you see bimonthly video teasers!
Hey, y'all, gonna keep this short and informal. So, out of the 550 or so people who've played so far (woot, broke half a thousand before youtuber coverage, thanks, guys!) a few people reported an error I couldn't replicate. So, I did some spring cleaning and realized some of the js files bundled with rpg maker were kiiinda out of date. Anyway, I updated those.
Also, stripped the exe of DRM. It's a free demo, and the game's on Itch.io too now, so it matters not! Performance SHOULD be better across the board for everyone, my own tests showed surprising increases in memory efficiency.
