May

 How It's Going

When I'm making a text adventure I like to make these big "to do" grids in a spreadsheet. Everything that needs doing, in every location, and then just a sprawling list of general things to do. The green squares are done; the yellow squares don't apply to that location.

By this measure, what I'm working on is just shy of 90% complete. Of course, that final ten percent may actually be a bit more consequential than it seems - it includes things like adding a hint system, for example. And I have also just decided that I want to add an expanded end-game.

But I did recently run into some issues where it turned out I was bumping into limitations of the Z-machine (the classic text adventure engine this thing uses), so we'll have to see just how much more I can expand it...

What It's Being

 My idea for these games set in the same universe as Killing Machine Loves Slime Prince is that each one will borrow some mechanics from a genre of video game not usually associated with text adventures or interactive fiction. I kind of got a start on this in KMLSP, which evokes the spirit of a Metroidvania, even if it shies away from fully embracing the mechanics (see Trouble in Sector 471 for an example of someone going all the way with this concept).

This next instalment is following its genre a little more closely, it being one that's very close to my heart. It's a bit difficult to tell at this point exactly how diluted it is, and how much of an acquired taste...

I do also have a good idea what I'll be doing for the third game, but at this point it's counterproductive for me to start planning it out in any detail.

Where It's From

I've played almost every mainline Resident Evil game they've ever made. I've never played the original version of the first game, and I still have to get around to the recent remake of the fourth one, but that's still a whole swathe of the most influential franchise in a particular (sub?)genre of games.

What I've been doing lately is playing through some of the other survival horror games. Your Silent Hills; your Dino Crises; your Parasites Eve. Compared to the homogenised (streamlined?) triple-A games of today, there's some real character to the way these games are put together. I mean the mechanics, the structure, the controls... Attempts were made. Things succeed magnificently and fail gloriously. (I'm not pretending there aren't still games made in this mould: your Signalises; your Heartworms.)

I don't know why I'm mentioning this. No reason, I guess.