AppCredits() = The End

July 12, 2019

Earlier this week I reached a major milestone in the production of Sleuthhounds: Cruse when I typed the seemingly minor scripting command AppCredits(). This programming routine takes Cruise from the regular game playing state into the credits for the game. In essence writing AppCredits() is the same as writing “The End”. Of course, it’s not the end end as there’s still a lot of work to do on the game. However, this signifies that it is now possible for players to do everything in the game necessary to progress from the opening sequence through the closing one.

[Dependency charts of all acts.]
Dependency charts of all acts.

Originally, Sleuthhounds Cruise was supposed to be 4 Acts long. However, as I worked through Act 4, story wise and technically it made sense to split that Act into two, Acts 4 and 5. The above puzzle dependency charts show the relative complexity and degree of non-linearity of each of the acts in the game. Each grey box in the chart represents one action the player must do, while blue boxes are actions that only the Homes character can do and purple boxes are actions that only the Ampson character can do. To save you the trouble of counting, here’s how each act breaks down:

Act Blue (Homes) Purple (Ampson) Grey (both) Other Total
1 29 33 0 1 63
2 27 25 114 23 189
3 97 78 11 10 196
4 30 25 88 5 148
5 10 3 15 0 28
Total 193 164 228 39 624

Back in February, when I completed the critical path work for Act 2, I did a high level estimate of the rest of the game and figured that Act 3 would be completed in mid-April and Act 4 by the end of June. In reality, Act 3 finished April 26th and Act 4/5 finished July 9th. So all told, just a little over a week later than the high level estimate said. Given that the game has been in development for over a year already, being a little over a week off is not bad.

Now that the critical path is entirely in place, the rest of the development of the game will be easier (which is not the same as easy). The remaining work breaks down into four major phases as follows:

Phase 1 (projected completion end of August, 2019)

  • Implement side investigations.

Phase 2 (projected completion end of October, 2019)

  • Draw final line art for all room backgrounds.
  • Implement non-op scripting for all rooms (scripting for actions players can take but that don’t advance the progress in the game).

Phase 3 (projected completion end of March, 2020)

  • Colour and finalize all room backgrounds.
  • Finalize all sprites and character animations.
  • Record and incorporate all sound effects, music, and voices.
  • Implement special features.

Phase 4 (projected completion end of April, 2020)

  • Final testing and debugging.

As can be seen, it’s still a lot of work. However, the majority of the work is about refining what is now currently in place in the game rather than creating new stuff. That said, the next phase of development covers the scripting of all the side investigations – optional story threads players can choose to get involved in if they wish – which is still new stuff being added in. One of the benefits of an interactive game versus something like a novel or movie is that sidelines can be easily incorporated. This is stuff that has no real bearing on the main story but deepens and enrichens the experience as a whole.

It’s an exciting place to be at in the development of the game, knowing that it can now be played beginning to end. Weirdly, it’s also the point where the game is in the worst state possible. All of the blue sky dreams of what could be have now turned into the cold reality of what is. While there’s still some wiggle room in there, by and large any changes at this point must conform to the mainline critical path as it’s currently implemented. Fortunately, I’m happy with how most of it’s implemented and have ideas on how to improve the areas that are still lacking.