Hopefully by now you have had a chance to play through the demo of Shards of the Past. (Chapters 1 and 2) If not, you might want to hold off on reading this update so as not to spoil anything for yourself. We have seen the introduction of a few characters and some of their backstory as well as details into the time period of the world they inhabit. Your character has also taken on a task that will kick start your adventure, whether you did so willingly or not was up to you.
Branson was a wildcard since much of what you learned was through him and sometimes things didnt happen exactly as he was telling you. The choices you made during his flashbacks determined how certain scenes will play out in the future. Will he be a possible, if not arrogant, ally? Someone who at least was willing to show mercy to Caleb during the execution and immediately came to his sisters rescue. Or will he be a possible enemy you must watch out for? Someone who was willing to execute a young boy and stood by watching while Kaela was attacked for his own perverse desires for his sister. This is a person who, based on some of your previous choices, might be traveling with you. Can you depend on him if the situation arises?
Chapter 3 development has been coming along nicely and this update is shaping up to be a large one. We currently have two main paths that depend on your choices from Chapter 1, traveling with either Damerek or Branson. These paths are further split with many scenes and dialogue variations depending on your previous choices. Scenes have been written to further give us more information about both of these characters and their backgrounds. While on the road traveling to Castle Helmsworth you will have the chance to learn more about Bransons history and his familys conflict with the elves. Your choices for him during the previous flashbacks in Chapter 2 will also change details of his background story as well as how he will react during encounters during your travels. While traveling with Damerek you have the opportunity to try and find out more details of his past as well as set the foundation for a possible side quest and future path. Talks with Damerek while traveling, as well as at night at the campsite, will allow you to slowly earn more of his trust and learn just why he is so far away from home and what he might be hiding from you. Both of the main paths will have scenes as well as a flashback that detail how your character and Qinara met, plus some of the details of your character's origin. On top of this will be a dream that your character has that will give some hints as to where he came from. A large bulk of this content has been written and coded with images to go along with it.
I have been working on writing dialogue and code for the random encounter system I want to implement starting in this update. My goal is for each Act of the story to have a pool of encounters that you can possibly see while you travel from major story points in the game. The first example of this will be on your way to Castle Helmsworth you will encounter people or an event taking place. This will be randomly pulled from the list of possible encounters for Act 1 to improve replayability of multiple playthroughs. The event itself will also have changes depending on if you encounter it in Chapter 3 or later in chapter 4 or 5 as changes and choices you have made will create variations on scenes in these encounters. When you come across one of these encounters you will have the option to continue and play out the encounter or to avoid the situation and continue on your travels. The encounters contain a good amount of content and will also serve to introduce possible new characters, give lore and history to the world and recent events as well as provide the opportunity for you to learn more and grow closer to certain companions. Examples for Act 1 involve coming across an encounter on the road and when choosing to participate, playing out the scenes for that encounter as well as an overnight stay somewhere followed up by morning after scenes and then your group heading back out on the road. If you choose to avoid an encounter then your group will continue on their way and set up camp somewhere on the way to Castle Helmsworth or their current destination. Campsite scenes also provide different scenes and dialogue than the encounters will and will also give important character background details as well as grow closer to certain individuals. The goal is for participating in and avoiding encounters to both feel rewarding.
Some dialogue that the elves speak will be in their elvish language, especially when they don't want humans to understand what is being said. I have been testing various fonts to try and find one that works as an elven language. Many times this will also be presented with translated text for us the players to read, but in some situations you might need to rely on Qinara or others to translate what is being said. I have been doing a lot of work in Unreal Engine and Blender to learn enough of both of these applications so I can create and export new scenes for use in Daz Studio which is the program I mainly work in for creating the visuals. Chapter 2 saw a few new custom music tracks I created and I am working on developing more for chapter three. One such track I created is a 4 minute long(skippable if you desire) montage of Qinara singing a song in elvish that will be used during a flashback. I have included a small demo of the first minute of the song. [previewyoutube=uFhYThA-2ww;full][/previewyoutube]