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Long-Distance Notes | Status Report #01
🕑 Added 2025-04-28 08:19:07 +0000 UTCEighteen days ago, I told you that I was going to change the way I develop my games—specifically, my mental approach to them and the way I report to you about the progress I’m making. Today, I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing since then.
Time off:
This might not come as a surprise, but I spent some of my time doing nothing. There were a lot of holidays in Germany over the past two weeks, and there’ll be even more in the coming days. I took some time off like most regular workers and just spent it with friends and family. But even during that time, my mind was racing. It’s difficult for me to let go and relax when I feel I could be—or should be—working instead. I still have to find a way to actually enjoy my time off without feeling guilty about not working. That only adds more pressure and makes it difficult to recover.
Side Project:
Most of my time was spent on the side project. You can see a screenshot of the options screen above. I started out by focusing on the main menu—not making it crazily customized (I like the functionality of the standard Ren’Py stuff), but making it a bit clearer, prettier, and adding some extra features that I developed in CoM. Text size adjustments and a gamma slider.
Then I focused on a minigame that’ll be part of the side project—the largest minigame I’ve ever made, with progressively added content and difficulty, XP points, and a skill tree along with it. I did a lot of the scripting with ChatGPT and am really happy with the result. The code is cleaner and better than anything I’ve done in the past, and where my skills used to limit my possibilities, I was able to find solutions this time. It’s still not finished yet, but the core functionality is there, along with most of the visuals. Just a few more days, and the minigame will be done.
Covenant of Morn:
And then there’s Covenant of Morn. I spent the least amount of time on this project, trying to get some distance from it. I know that I needed—and still need—to gain perspective on the project. It’s not going the way I want, and I don’t mean only the financial aspect. As I said, I want to take my eyes off that part and just create.
I see a lot of mistakes that I made in this project, and while I did add some small things—like an option to sleep in Enna’s bed in chapter two and an event with it—I want to focus on something else today. Last Friday, I suddenly had an idea.
I hadn’t really looked at the project for about two weeks when I got an idea. Where exactly it started or how, I can’t really tell you. I remember there being a specific thought, a trigger, but I can’t remember what it was. But what happened in the end is that I was sitting in a long-distance bus, traveling to another city to meet my sister, when I started typing out an idea in my notes app. It started out as merely a plan to rewrite and edit some parts of the game to add more narration and strengthen the player character’s internal dialogue. But it evolved into an alternative approach to the entire story I have planned—not changing the story itself, but adjusting elements, highlighting certain parts, and clearing up some confusion. I quickly realized that what I’d written down was good. I sent it to a person I trust to check it and tell me what they think, and they agreed immediately. It’s more focused, easier to follow, leaves a stronger player character, and gets rid of weak points and unnecessary, boring fluff.
When I said I wanted to change my approach, I didn’t exactly mean this. But I know that it’s what I need to do. I rewrote MIST several times during development. For now, I have refrained from any big overhauls of CoM, but I think it’s time to do just that. The story will stay the same. My ideas are the same. But I will change the presentation, highlight some things, cut others, maybe add a scene or two, and strengthen the player character. This project will take time. It’ll be a bad hit to my finances, and that’s all fine. I think I need that right now to really learn to let go. :D It’ll also mean that the next update is definitely delayed, but it also means that I’m certain I’ll deliver the best version of the game that I can make right now, and I’m really excited about it. It’s the first time that I’ve been this excited about Covenant of Morn for at least a year—maybe even longer than that.
Also, right after this post, I’ll release a poll. Make sure to check it out and leave your vote or a comment. I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions about this.
That’s all from me for this month’s status report. I wish everyone a great week. And it’s just an accident that I’m releasing it on Monday—not a regular thing... :D
