A blue shoreline, connecting to a sea with floating anchors.

An ant person drifting on a floating anchor.

A person meditating to the vibrations of periodic falling teardrops.

A tree that has two stems, each growing like an independent tree.

In a magiscience classroom, two magical beings circulate in the air and a robot cat is sitting on a table.

The things that can be done in the game now are summarised here.

• An environment can be built using Godot 4 editor. The environment background can be mapped with a tileset and objects in the environment can be interacted with.
• Non-playable characters, NPCs, can also be added to an environment and be interacted with. NPCs can also follow the player around within the environment or to a different place.
• Players and NPCs can have dialogues or monologues. This feature uses a Godot addon called Dialogue Manager by Nathan Hoad and contributors, see https://github.com/nathanhoad/godot_dialogue_manager.
• Cutscenes can be created, either in a separate script or directly in the Dialogue Manager. The latter means that cutscenes in this game are integrated with this addon, so the same user interface can be used when making a cutscene as when writing the dialogue.
• The player can obtain, read about and use items on objects or NPCs in the environment.
• The player can change settings using the main menu or the pause menu. So far, there is only a setting to toggle background music.
• Finally, the game can be paused, then saved or quit, then loaded again. If NPCs or objects in an environment have changed in some way, or any other form of game progression has been made, that is saved too.

Most features should now be implemented now. Future features will be added to the existing code once the story gets to that point, such as items with new effects or that can be equipped on the player.

This idea avoids item menus. Pressing an item hotkey opens a thought bubble with an item. The player can then select items in the thought bubble and do the same thing as with an item menu.

Whenever the player gets close enough to an interactable object, an action thought bubble appears (the nearest object is selected), so the player knows when it is possible to interact.

But if the player then opens the items thought bubble, the usual interaction is replaced with an item interacting on the object. Both thought bubbles are opened to show this.

Hopefully that makes it clear what the item is used on. But there are some downsides. The bubbles are a bit small for comfort and might blend into the background.

Something is still missing. It is about a strange sense of alienation that never goes away, combined with irrational solidarity and unconditional support.

The basic setting of the story is a new student who is received by a delegated mentor to a boarding school, in a world where magic and science coexist. Characters do not keep secrets from the player. There is no need to make the player struggle for answers. Because the answers are not meant to be believed, not until the story progresses. This story is about blindly trusting someone, only because nobody else would.

The story was trialed in version 0.2. It was too incoherent. So instead of a written manuscript, the story will be improvised as the game is being made. If the story does not reach any particular end through improvisation, so be it. The story can be improvised again. Gradually iterating on different story paths until the real ending is found.

This version tests the story and lore. Before making any kind of graphics, a text-based version of the game may reveal problems with the story that a story-based game would have. This version definitely reveals some issues with the story. Forcefully attempting to send a message seems to open up too many plotholes. Is there a way to let events unfold more naturally?

Having searched around the internet, there seems to be a lack of games with the following traits:

• The player character is frequency given attention in the battle. For example, the battles could be spectated by story-relevant NPCs. Allies and enemies could comment on the flow of the battle.
• The narrative is entertaining. To enable this, the story needs to allow many quirky characters who all contribute meaningfully. A hero-centered story often only has room for stereotypical archetypes.
• The reason for a battle should not be made in hindsight. Many battles in RPGs are forced constructs that make little sense in a point of a story. Also, such attempts often desperately try to moralize violence in the story.
• Progression can not only rely on gaining stats from leveling. The game should not be a repetitive level race between the player and next boss objective. For this reason, the game developer should really question the point of increasing stats when leveling up.

To satisfy these traits, something new needs to be tested. Having now concept tested a gameplay and story setting, it was found to be difficult to develop a turn-based gameplay that is scalable enough to last a full game. So for the future versions of the game, does a game that satisfy above traits really need combat gameplay? This question will be answered for future versions.