Rorasuketo Dev Blog

It's been a real struggle figuring out the SteamPipe documentation. I've been learning that the instructional videos from Steam itself have incorrect, outdated, or misleading information in them. (!) It took a lovely tutorial from a YouTuber to get me on track. Many thanks to AuroDev for putting that out there. I spent today trying to sort out how to make Achievements work with RPG Maker MZ. There are several different plugins/workarounds out there that promise such integration, one of which looked very promising. I even started to mesh it into the game... but I couldn't get it to work. Someone tried to have AI give me instructions, which I reluctantly followed with an enormous degree of distrust. There were a lot of very rocky moments here in Casa de Norcross as I raged my way through several misunderstandings. I've been told that I need to use my indoor voice when making futile verbal requests of my computer. There's really not enough documentation for these plug...

I'm in the process of coordinating an appearance at a roller derby event this fall, and I might try to push forward the release date to coordinate with said event! My original release goal, just to be extra safe, was January 2027. I no longer see a reason to wait that long. We'll see how alpha testing goes. With luck, I can roll out a beta in August or September, and have all the Steam finagling sorted out in time for the tournament.  The pipe dream is a demo testing table and some stickers for sale. We'll see how much of this becomes a reality. But I'm excited!

My adoring husband has done 3 playthroughs in as many days, and I ended up telling my alpha testers to hold off for a minute while I fixed some of the bugs he found. Husband and I managed to get through the entire game without it crashing, and I fixed about a dozen bugs, several of them pretty glaring. Now 1.04 is done, and I sit back and wait for my testers to test and find all the bugs that probably remain. I'm going to do something crazy. I am going to actually talk about coding in this dev blog for a moment. This was the worst bug. During a cinematic, the scene would fade out, and then fade in on the same scene and repeat itself. The game could not continue past this point. Here is how it is done correctly . If Self-esteem >16: These are best outcomes. If player is Anxious , go to worst outcomes . Else:  If Confidence > 90, say this dialogue, proceed to next city. Else: If Confidence > 75, say that dialogue, proceed to next city. Else: If Confidence > 50, say yet a...

I am in such a good mood today. My husband is getting a lot more kisses than usual, there is a spring in my step, and I occasionally break out into chants of "It's done!" or "It's happening!" My alpha testers now have access to the game, and here, I sit back for a minute, like Gandalf with his pipe, and reflect. There's still a lot of work to be done: Fixing whatever inevitable bugs are discovered in the alpha, catching up on Steam documentation, figuring out what NW.js is and how to update it, adding to my walkthrough, adjusting sprites, and maybe throwing in a couple plugins for cosmetic purposes. And yet. It's finished . I have a video game that can be played from start to finish. A cohesive project. A  thing. I never finish my projects, so this is a huge personal achievement. As I keep saying, because it still blows my mind, I started  Rorasuketo  in 2018. That's eight years ago . It's taken me eight years of picking it up, dropping it, k...

Reminder: Still looking for alpha testers! We're closing in. I'm afraid to say how close I am to being done with the alpha, because - of course - other things will pop up. However, I'm  really  close to being done with the alpha. I'm no longer spread across three white boards. It's down to one. My working storyboard. Arrowed sections are being worked on. Everything else is crossed off. Pictured are two of my helpers, but not two of my biggest helpers. Shoutout to my friends who are pushing me to the finish line with their enthusiasm and support. It is very much appreciated. This has been a crazy journey, and I still can't believe it's come this far. I'm beyond excited.

We were online for about an hour and looked at how some of the roller skating minigames worked in RPG Maker MZ. You can rewatch the stream if you missed it. I'm pecking away at things. It's still hard to lock in (as the kids say) and do the bouts because they are staggeringly un-fun compared to everything else. I find myself going back to sprite sheets, even. It's like when you need to do the dishes, but instead you clean the microwave, mop the floor, and anything else to avoid that dreaded casserole dish caked with lasagna. Hell, maybe even this post is avoidance! But I powered through yesterday, and Jam 1 of Bout 4 is done. That's no small feat. I count 7 different outcomes based on player performance just in that jam. A solid landmark accomplishment. Okay, to be kind to myself, here's what else I've done this past week: Finished Bout 2 (!) Second therapy session for the player Finished up wristguard logic puzzle (wouldn't you like to know?) Cleaned up/fi...