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Reverie Dev Log - November and December
Side Note: This one is quite long, if you only want an important part, there is a TL;DR summary at the bottom.
New Year Note
Happy New Year! We have now reached 2024! Reverie has begun as a little project since April 2021, before it even has its name. The more modern variant began after the demo release in August 2021, with CH1 releasing in May 2022, so it’s been a long way.
Though to admit, considering CH2.5 update came in December 2022, this means CH3 has a gap of a year now (though there are some updates and patches on 2.5 for a few months. This makes it seem like progress has been in stagnation, especially with delayed dev log recently.
This one will be shorter in technical and progress details, and more about the general gist of development plans in general, the surrounding environmental change in modding and OMORI as a whole (as that bears a great effect currently), and finally explains the slow down a bit (though a TL;DR: basically the past few months is holidays).
Also, Development post will now rather be every 2 months as well.
(And also the time is better spent on actually development than just writing, lol)
Overview
November and December for its period of time wasn’t as much done compared to previous months, though it wasn’t as bad as the worst case scenario when factoring in multiple holidays coming in that could have easily killed the motivation entirely. So all things considered, it’s relatively steady going despite the circumstances
For a quick rundown:
More NPCs implemented in maps
Writing is a bit more organized and more steady in terms of work now (And also an additional writer member!)
Portraits started to be done for most main characters
Connected up some progression from separate disjointed cutscenes
Some new plans that reduces workload*
Some enemy sprites are done as well on the side**
A few changes and re-polish on some music tracks
*for example, sunset are done on same map with filter than whole new set of maps
**Which are low priority, more of optional content in CH3 context
Updates, Changes and Needs
There are multiple factors that affect development, here it will be listed from short term factor to long term factor and potential future.
Holiday and Breaks
Let’s start with easy stuff, the short term factor. The past few months contain multiple holidays and also school breaks for some people. There isn’t much to say here, people on holidays get busy therefore less people are doing mod work, especially Christmas and New Year holiday.
(I mean, reverie is a fan mod project, not a job, lol)
Though there is still at least some minimum baseline of trying to keep interest up with some check in, so the interest doesn’t die off entirely, as mentioned in previous Dev Log before large holidays tend to be in big risk for that.
CH3 and Real World Content
One major thing to think about is the length of the real world section and the amount of content it has. The real world content has a large upfront cost due to making an entire new asset for the majority of aspects, so any new things added more will take far longer time than usual other chapters in the dream world.
There are two major aspects to consider, the mandatory story aspect, and the optional side content aspect.
Mandatory / Story Content
As of current the main story aspect of CH3 is quite short, unlike Dreamworld areas, the Real world main content mostly revolves around cutscenes and dialogues, if you speed through the dialogue and cutscenes, it could very well take only half an hour or less to go through (though that’s unlikely the way it’s played on first playthrough at least, ignoring reading time).
One conflict is that, Reverie as a mod is far more focused on Dreamworld sections and battle heavy, making real world sections a bit awkward to make, taking quite a large amount of development time compared to other dream world chapters. The question then is how much real world content should be made, factoring in development time?
Side / Optional Content
As for side content, like in base game it’s mostly NPCs giving fetch quests (which are simpler to make), or potentially jobs (which is a bit more complex).
One unique aspect of Reverie over the base game though, is some amount of gameplay battles to at least give something to do (think of Jackson poster in Hobbeez in base game, but more fleshed out).
The important question is, how much side content should there be in the real world section of reverie? While it is cool to have some side content in real world and is a common complaint on base game itself that the real world feels lackluster, making more things in real world also takes up a large amount of development time which is not ideal. It’s a balancing act between not too lackluster but also not too much content which would take too much time.
RPGMV Needs and Modding Community
And finally, the general community aspect. The OMORI fandom has aged quite a while now, and as time passes the amount of people interested is reduced as well. This project is ultimately a fan project so the amount of interest on the mod isn’t really a problem, but what does this mean is there are less people interested in OMORI and also modding in general,.
A fair amount of people who tend to do RPGMaker MV (RPGMV) works tend to now be out no longer modding, or new members who do would tend to be making own project anyways. This means there has been less people who are available with RPGMV side, which means aspects like cutscenes should be cut down smaller to avoid development hell.
What this means for development is the gears shift from previous usual development focused on efficiency (getting task as parallel as possible), to a slower but sustainable development, focusing more on sustaining interest, which is better than losing interest totally.
TL;DR
Basically, the key important points are:
Short term aspect of Holidays and New Year makes November and December slow period in general.
Real World content (and CH3 by extension) is more time consuming and harder to make than other chapters
Therefore, amount of Real World content needs to be discussed, both mandatory and optional content
There has been less people in Omori community in general meaning there is less people to go by, especially RPGMV sector
Therefore, development has switched to a more slow burn state, taking things slow but sustaining interest to avoid burn out or lost motivation
And for development posts, now will be posting every 2 months than every months instead to reduce writing.
And about Applications...
Applications are always open! RPGMV / Programmers are always appreciated!
Final Stuff
Well now that you read this far, here's some portrait of Daphne and Bowen! (and also probably the only few sprite that is showable related to CH3 now)
There isn't much detail, but when resized down it is enough as a sprite