Hey we have poll results and Mario’s long-awaited Ghost story today, but first the usual update.
Klaysee the Superhero
Very good person and friend of the team Klaysee made maps of Doll Manor’s floors, to help you if you get loooooost.
They are on this forums page, spoilered in case you don’t want to survive.
Programming and Whatnot
I’m about 75% done the maps for the Biolabs. The critical path is completed (except for a few areas that need new tiles), so I’m working on the side areas. It’s been a long time since I did anything but metal and moonrock, so the maps are probably too big. Oh well, rework them later if necessary.
Artistry
Chicken has completed most of the concept art and is going to be cleaning up the many dialogue portraits we never got around to. SX-399’s portraits are done, we got a new neutral for the Steam Droids, and she’s going to be filling in Christine’s form portraits.
Hund is working on getting us a new title screen, having done the sketchwork and moved on to texturing. Urimas is doing the new enemy sprites for the biolabs.
Music
DrDiss got me a song from Chapter 2, or at least the first draft. No spoilers!
On the plus side, Patrons get to hear Sanya’s theme from Chapter 2 this week as part of their bonus stuff.
Writing
The Ghost Story is done and 5$ patrons for… a lot of months… will get to see it today! If you are one such person but I don’t send you a message, please message me and let me know, I’ll get you set up.
Poll Results Time
Doll Manor’s prototype 3 came out last week, and I put up a poll for all 5$ patrons to scrutinize. Let’s go through the results.
There were 67 downloads for the game and 28 respondents for the poll. Assuming at least a couple were someone downloading it twice, that’s pretty close to a 50% response rate. Amazing!
Fairly positive feedback.
Hey.
If you’re the person who voted 4, I want to talk to you. Message me. What can I do to make the game better for you?
Otherwise, I’m happy with the results. People like the game, woo hoo!
No surprise that a game named Doll Manor would have dolls as the most popular creature. Resin Titans are basically dolls as well, so add them together and they swept the voting.
Meanwhile, statues are going to go cry granite tears in the corner, having gotten zero votes. Maybe someday, statues, but not today.
And inexplicably, three voters voted to stay human. Is it the thigh-high stockings? It has to be.
Taken together, 9-10 voters were fairly spooked while 14 voters were not spooked. Considering this is a text-interface game with simplistic graphics, that’s a pretty good amount of spook.
As for the rather lengthy reply: This is the best reply ever.
What is described in this comment is exactly how the game was designed. It’s meant to increase tension, allow you to overcome it, and then throw something new at you to ramp the tension back up. You experienced it exactly as it is intended. Wunnaful!
Crushing the other options is “Finish Chapter 5 First”, so we’re off to do that. Doll Manor will likely get a full public release sometime around July or August, based on how long Chapter 5 takes.
I was surprised that a thematic sequel did as well as it did. I have some ideas ready to go should we have time for it in the future. It’ll be really dark, scary, and depressing!
As it stands, it looks like people want a crossover with Pandabonerbum to resolve the plotline. Now all I have to do is figure out which hero should be responsible for saving the day/getting dolled. It’s too late in Chapter 5’s dev cycle for it to be Christine, but Sanya, Jeanne, and Lotta are all candidates. We’ll see who the unlucky girl is.
In other news, I’ll try to convince other people to make mods in the Text Adventure engine so that we can have a lighthearted goofy story. I won’t have time to do it myself.
DYNAMITE!
If you want to know what the hell I’m talking about, go here. It’s the best comic ever made. It’s, like, Watchmen good.
Evidently, the sugar-sweet kiss of heavy ordinance won. Good job, ordinance!
Cyberdemon girl? Big deal. She’s slim pickins.
I asked Chicken if she wants to do a Cyberdemon Girl and she said yes. Expect to see that in Chapter 3.
Budget Stuff
The March budget report is out if you want to see where the money goes.
(Hint: Not to me. 😦 Sadface)
Pandemonium Development 