A Clean Desk is a Sign of Dirty Drawers

April 1, 2022

As I continue to finalize the Sleuthhounds: Cruise game, I pick different rooms to work on for different reasons. Sometimes I pick small rooms so that I can get a bunch done in a short period of time. Sometimes I pick big, time consuming rooms so that they don’t pile up for the end of development. Sometimes I pick rooms in roughly the order they’re encountered during gameplay so as to make a stretch of finished rooms right from the start of the game. Sometimes I pick rooms specifically because I know I can blog about them without fear of spoilers.

This time out, I picked the cabin of one Marion Wood, a passenger aboard the cruise ship. Her cabin ticks off the boxes of being big, being the next up on the “critical path” through the game, and being bloggable. Marion’s cabin is interesting in that it’s one of the locations on the ship that changes over time. Miss Wood’s not the most fastidious person aboard. It’s not that she’s messy, just that she cares more about her own appearance than that of her room.

Not all passengers are neat and tidy. Some pristine cabins...
Click to view larger.

...get messier...
Click to view larger.

...and messier.
Click to view larger.

Finishing Marion’s cabin is something of a milestone. With this room complete, it means that it’s now possible to play from the start of the game through to the end of the first act without seeing any of the quick-and-dirty, pencil sketch rooms from the early stages of development. That’s not quite the same as saying all of those locations are finalized. There’s a handful that require some tidying up to their scripting and/or some last adjustments to their otherwise finished room art. Even so, it’s exciting to have Act 1 done(ish)!

Previous:   |   Next: