So this past month I finished up adding… new NPC emotions! I wasn’t sure if I was going to do these, mainly since I didn't think it'd help the dialogue much, but I'm glad I took the time. I've been playing some VNs lately, so I guess you could say that was an inspiration. I actually do think they make quite the difference for the game's feel, and they make you as the writer think a lot harder about the specific emotions you're trying to convey. And how long you want to stay in one emotion.
Here’s a few examples, all the way from the concept stage…
And how it turned out:
That is all, more for next month!
- Jia
P.S. Realizing how each line for NPC dialogue tries to serve a very very very specific purpose, really different than real-life convo it seems
February Dev Update
Hi again!
So some of this past month has been working with our publisher to take care of some logistical things, but besides that, we're mostly back to regular programming now. Which means I’m back with another monthly update!
The main update from this past month has been crafting some cut scenes like this in-game.
Hopefully these make a few important moments like when you first encounter a new area more memorable and hold more weight. I also thought it'd be pretty neat to observe the maps from different angles too.
Other updates include sifting through the dialogue and some story tweaking, so that’s a little hard to show you.
That's all for now, anyways I'll try to keep these short and sweet, you’ll hear from me again next month~
Sincerely, Jia
Publisher Announcement!
Hey there~
For this new year I have some massive news to share! We’re incredibly proud to announce that Night Loops is now being published by Freedom Games (https://freedom.gg). There’s a ton that a game publisher can do much better than Estella, s3-z, and I could ever hope for alone, like taking care of a lot of the business and marketing side of releasing a game. That includes managing our store pages, marketing and advertising the game, helping showcase the game at both digital and live events, PR, and a lot more. Really it lets us totally focus on working to make the game the best it can be and provides us with the resources to do so.
There’s definitely some horror stories of publishers derailing the vision of a game or forcing arbitrary restrictions on the dev team. So I’m super glad to be able to say our experience with Freedom has been far from any of that. Freedom has been a true partner to us, only enhancing and supporting our vision. We were very careful when considering whether to go with a publisher or not. In the end, we selected Freedom because they are committed to our vision of the game, and I trust they want to see it reach its full potential as we see it. So just to close, we’ll continue to maintain our dedication to the craft and have complete creative/development autonomy.
As always, thank YOU for making this milestone possible. And hoping for the best on this new lap around the sun, talk to you soon!
- Jia
December Dev Update
Hi!
It's been about a month, so I thought I'd do a quick update on some gameplay things I've been working on. Also cannot believe it's already December...
Cursed Cycle
In Act II (not in demo), the main NPCs live on their own schedules. This leads to a few interesting narratives. Here's a quick snippet from one of those cutscenes I recently finished up...
Other updated things in the full game version:
- finalizing and polishing True Ending - cut scenes for Good Ending - quality of life fixes like more pianos for fast-travel - general bug fixes
Anyways, happy holidays and talk to you soon~
Sincerely, Jia
Psychic Somewhere
Just a warning, this post won’t have any real content updates, but I thought it would be important to share some thoughts.
As I’m getting closer to the end of development, I’ve had a bit of time to do some thinking. And basically, what I want to do is talk about what motivated this game, if for anything, it’ll be for myself when I look back on this... for posterity’s sake I guess you could say.
Psychic nowhere
At its core, Night Loops is about the journey of finding one’s place in the psyche, a True Self. It’s about a woman who is traveling through life numb, floating in the day-to-day tedium. Through the path to the True Ending, you help her rebuild the inner world and take back ownership of her mental sense of Self (i.e. finding her “psychic somewhere”).
During the end of art school, I was focusing on this subject of “psychic nowhere”. Originally coined by psychoanalyst Shinhee Han in her discussion of the psychic lives of young adult Asian Americans, the term describes a state of dissociation, a detachment from the psyche. In other words, the sensation of the “False Self” having taken over. It’s a condition often correlated with the absence of a clear geographic belonging or destination.
Being Asian American myself, it felt natural to begin incorporating these topics into my work. I began to realize growing up maybe I never had a window into the psychic lives of others like me. So I knew I wanted this game’s overarching journey to be one of traveling through the planes of the psychic nowhere to the eventual finding of the psychic somewhere.
Funny thing is though, I hadn’t really thought much of this original thesis until recently. Which brings me to my next point...
How do you stay true to the essence of the original after 2+ years of development?
So the first version was scrapped after ~6 months. The demo version you see here (v0.13.0) is the product of 2 more years after that point. So I have to ask myself, did I stay true to the original purpose?
To be honest, when I look back at myself 2 years ago, it’s a completely different person. I can’t help but still smile a lot from it though. So that’s just to say, there’s hardly a chance the finished product will exactly reflect the thoughts I had on this subject at that time. I guess there's no rule that says it has to though, right? And this finally brings me to a last thought...
It doesn’t really matter, does it?
It sounds somewhat nihilistic, but what I really mean is that it doesn’t matter if I meet my expectations for this game. What really matters is you, the one who actually plays it, and the experience you take away from it. Our interpretations of the same game or painting could be vastly different.
But all this talk about shared experience and original theses won’t be worth anything if I don’t actually complete the full game. So that’s some more motivation for me to reach v1.0.0 ASAP.
Anyways, if you made it this far, thanks for listening to what could amount to rambling at this point and till next time, sincerely, Jia
Thanks for trying out the demo!
Next Fest wraps up today... With that, I just want to say it’s been truly amazing sharing this piece of the game with you.
All your feedback has been super motivating.【Also I’ve gotten a chance now to watch all the youtube/twitch playthroughs too, really cool stuff! :D】And already seeing some quality-of-life improvements we could make in-game too.
Anyways, I’ll continue to keep you posted on our development progress, which I can also now confidently tell you, is nearing the end.
Until then, here’s a drawing of MC and Ids enjoying some manga...... safe travels!
- Jia
Night Loops Demo
And in customary slice-of-life fashion, the long awaited festival is here!
With this you’ll be able to get a feel for the gameplay and narrative. Also with your feedback I’ll keep fine tuning the game, so please leave your thoughts in the community hub. Going to try my hardest to make the final full game the best it can be *fist bump*
Hope to see you in the night loops, Jia
P.S. #1 Thank you to everyone who downloaded it so far this past week, you all actually beat me to the announcement 😈
P.S. #2 Made some improvements and bug fixes to the previous demo as well~
Prepping a demo for Steam Next Fest!
Hey~
Happy to announce we’ll be participating in the October Steam Next Fest 2022! As part of the event, we’ll be releasing a free demo version of Night Loops.
Also, it's been a while, but we’ve been super busy getting this demo into a condition Ids would be satisfied with! :]
Till next time, sincerely, Jia
From Wells World...
Hello there~
Welcome, welcome, I’m glad you’ve stumbled upon the Night Loops corner of the internet… Let’s start off with a quick update. I’ve been working on this game for most of my conscious last ~2 years, and am *at last* nearing the final stages. I’m incredibly excited (and a bit nervous actually) to be close to sharing it with you!
Anyways, most recently I added some details to our Woods map. It’s actually the arrival point, the very first area of the Other Side you plunge into... so I promise no spoilers here :)
Will keep trying to post updates like this once a month or so. As of now, I’m aiming for a release around Fall this year. For any questions, feedback, notes, feel free to comment or start a post in the community hub > discussions section! Well, gotta run, need to get back to the hotel!
