Hi all, a lot has changed and been developed since the last log!

Part of the game will include interacting with a fully fleshed out 90s, Nokia-esque phone and this is what I have been spending a very large
amount of my time working on. I created a large number of screens for the phone art before realizing that I actually wanted to replicate the dot-matrix art style. Thus, began another week long venture to find a way to do this and recreate the art style. I've attached an example of this dot matrix art that I ended up with. It's much less distinct in-game with linear mipmapping, which I think really makes the style look authentic. So in the end, I think the adventure was worth it, in the end the phone screen is looking very low resolution, in a very 90s way!

Along with this, I created a script for Aseprite (the program which all the game art is made in), that will set up a canvas for you to create your own dot matrix art! I literally couldn't find any documentation or anything whatsoever by anyone else trying to recreate this art style, so I'm pretty proud of this one! Here is a link to the GitHub repo: https://github.com/BirkinSornberger/AsepriteDotMatrixCreator there's a font included that I created, feel free to use it without limits!


Aside from the art itself, programming the phone was quite the learning experience. I am a very rookie programmer, so this introduced some new situations for navigating the UI. I had to come up with some odd solutions, but things are working very redundantly and without fail! The UI navigation is looking very smooth now, and I'm finally getting ready to move on to the next stage in the story. There's still a ton to do with the phone, but I have essentially added all the screens and info needed to take the player to the next stage, for this specific ending and path of progression. (Of which there are many) There's even a classic game on the phone now, iykyk ;)

I've started working on some more features as well, like integrating a terminal, a fleshed out "start" menu, rework lots of art, etc. The more I work on the more I want to add, and the more I add the more time I spend working on it, and the more time I spend the more I go "welp, might as well make this thing as feature packed and quality as possible!". So, given that, I am constantly thinking of new puzzles, new ways to beat the game, new endings, etc. My goal is to appeal to a broad range of people. If you're into super hard, deep thinking puzzles, I want there to be plenty of puzzles if not a whole play-through worth of puzzles for you! Or if you don't like hard puzzles, I plan on implementing fun "hints", or simpler puzzles for different play-through styles!

Pretty soon I'm gonna try to get a Reddit page, YouTube, a website, maybe even an Instagram setup for this game. It's just a lot to keep up with, and to be honest, I'm a pretty introverted person. So even just a little bit of attention gets me really nervous lol. I've pretty much been spending most of my free time working on this game, it's become a real passion project! I work in a manufacturing plant 8hrs a day, 5 days a week, so I usually get to work on my game for a couple hours a day. I've also been going camping a lot recently as it's about to start getting real chilly out here in Colorado! Gotta get it in while I can! If I'm not out camping though, spending all night working on my game with some music or a show in the background is just one of my favorite things to do right now lol.