A creeping sense of guilt for not posting anything in a while made me realize that, for a dialogue-based game like Stars Die is, I haven’t actually shown any ingame dialogues yet. Brilliant.
This short video is the very beginning of the game, that replaces the typical main menu. All the options are available through contextual objects. Sleeping on the bed will quit the game, interacting with the mirror will let you set a custom name for your character or change game settings and the boat’s wheel will start the game. This way, the game teaches you the very simple mechanics right from the start while also serving as a brief introduction before the main game begins.
As you can see, the dialogue system is pretty standard, similar to that found in CRPGs, particularly Planescape: Torment, which was the main reference for this. I experimented with some less conventional dialogue mechanics, but I couldn’t really design anything that felt right for this game. It already has a certain old-school feel to it overall that I can use as an excuse for the lack of experimentation, so it doesn’t bother me too much (it does literally keep me awake at night though).
This is just one example of a conversation the player character, Dybowski, is having with one of the main characters, Dr. Miyazawa, also modelled by @wabbaboy, with the character art made by my good friend Javier Benítez, like all the others. The room right now looks too empty and bland, but it’s still very much wip. The image below is a slightly closer to how the interiors will look in terms of density.
Nothing amazing but fucked lighting aside, it looks kind of cozy.
The rest of the game is relatively close to completion, around 70% according to my omniscient progress excel, with the only exception of music, which I’ve been trying to compose and produce myself as part of the challenge and learning process, but so far it’s been an utter disaster. Hopefully I’ll get there eventually. Or maybe I’ll just rip off Ulver.
