Should fix glitch where Logic Train would not unlock even if you gave it the correct answers

Finally added achievements to the game! You should be able to unlock them simply by loading a save near the ending screen if you've already gotten all the endings! Enjoy!

[previewyoutube=AWEYyN4lf4g;full][/previewyoutube]

I'm very excited to show the first look at gameplay in Broken Spirits!

This trailer runs buttery smooth because I'm using Unity's in-engine capture, which keeps the framerate constant no matter what. But it actually has a pretty good framerate when playing the game normally as well (no noticeable hiccups)! That might change once I add more rooms and stuff though.

I had the Midori model mostly ready, and a few of the textures and props, but the rest of the content in this trailer was entirely created in just a week for the trailer itself. I don't know if that's representative of how long it takes for me to make three rooms. Some rooms had more props to make than others.

The thing that will probably change the most from what you see in this trailer and the final game is the exterior. I slapped it together with assets from an even older prototype to finish this in time. But I plan to add much more detail to the roof, extra design elements, redoing the foliage, etc. The outside of the mansion will likely be an entirely separate level to ensure I can add more detail. There will probably be other changes as well once I bring a cultural consultant on board to help make the environments and story more accurate. That was something I wanted to do on Broken Minds, but lacked the resources for.

Midori's model was initially created by vidavic. I tweaked some things about it afterwords, but it is 90% made by her. I used bits and pieces from this model in other models for example the models in Catalyst Wake are all mashed together with bits from this Midori model. It's also been super helpful as a reference for myself when modeling human characters. I can't thank her enough!

You'll notice there's a new look for the logo! The calligraphy was drawn by shodowave. It's so cool to have custom work done for this logo, and they did a great job!

The maneki-neko is my first in-game photogrammetry object. I scanned it myself. It's a great technique, but you shouldn't use it for everything. It works best for organic shapes.

As was mentioned in the presentation, I estimate it will take two years to make this, but take that with a huge grain of salt. Going into Catalyst Wake, I thought each part would take a month. Turns out it takes two and a half months. There are six chapters in Broken Spirits, so two years would mean four months per chapter. That seems doable, but who knows? I never know for sure until I'm actually making it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1600470/The_Evolving_World_Catalyst_Wake/

The good news is, because I was originally going to start making this in 2018 I've been planning it for many years now. I am very clear on the kind of game I'm making, what the parameters are, where I can scale things back if need be, etc.

In any case, I'll be releasing chapters as I complete them, so you won't have to wait two years to play it.

Introducing Sparkling Melon, the latest update to Broken Minds!

Sparkling Melon introduces a brand-new difficulty mode system. Now you can choose to play as a "Casual Sleuth" or a "Master Detective".




Casual Sleuth is for players who would rather focus on the story than get bogged down in confusing puzzles. Instead of Logic Trains, players simply select the right answer between several choices to proceed.

Currently there is no penalty for getting it wrong, but that may change in a future update with a scoring system of some kind. For now though, it's pretty simple.

Master Detective includes all the Logic Trains you know and love. If you want a challenge, this is the mode for you!

Sparkling Melon also makes some updates to the sprites. Before, sprites kept their heads in a static position as their expressions changed. Now the sprites move their heads, like they do in Methods it makes them seem more alive.

Some expressions have also been altered or cleaned up, and Hiroki's body has been redrawn. The thick borders around the characters are now more consistent.

Other small changes:

• Fixed confusing Puppet Theater minigame answer.
  
• Fixed bug with detectives swapping normal and blinking expressions during deduction section.
  
• Fixed bug where dream music would not stop playing if you moved through the dialogue quickly.
  
• Added apostrophes to minigame text
  

May 1st, 2019.

It's now, like, the end of the Heisei Era. Nobody really liked him anyway. In the brand? New? Reiwa era? Things will be a lot different?

In the Reiwa era, there won't be gross things like bread sweat or market-based economies. Everything will be 100% provided by me. You will all get glasses, but only non-prescription. They will be sunglasses.

Sunglasses are my favorite shades.

Congratulations to the new Emperor? I love how emperors still exist but like, in an ornamental way like how my lamp complements my rug, that's soooooo cool? Imagine if the emperor didn't match my rug? Yuck

Keep on doing those awesome emperor things.


reiwa~

These screenshots show Midori, the protagonist of Broken Spirits, exploring her wealthy family's enormous mansion.

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS



Returning home after a suspicious accident leaves her broken and burned, Midori Kariyama finds herself pulled into the chaos of her estranged family, who are being targeted by a serial killer.



MIDORI KARIYAMA
My goal with Midori was to create a stark contrast with the protagonist of the first game, Noa. Midori is athletic, brash, loud, acts without thinking, and embraces being a loner. She has a swagger to her that attracts people's attention when she walks into a room, as well as her arresting scarred appearance.

Her cat Naughty Frump always rides on her shoulder. She tends to wear military-style camo pants and jackets. She is actually kind of dumb, and isn't too good at piecing together logic.



KATSURA KARIYAMA
Katsura is Midori's mother. She is the first female CEO of Japan, and is ridiculously wealthy.
For her character and design, I wanted to make sure she didn't echo Noriko too much she's more cold than outright mean.



RYOU KARIYAMA
Ryou is a (terrible) rapper who is hoping to take his "talent" overseas someday! He's Midori's cousin.
His design is sort of the usual "gangster" anime stereotype, turned up to eleven with the gold face-studs and full body tattoo. He's actually pretty nice and sort of a yakuza poser.



GUNPEI KARIYAMA
Midori's father.
I always pictured Gunpei as this big, friendly guy. Of course, certain events in his life have made him a little more gloomy.



YOSHINORI URANE
Yoshinori works as a stock broker. His #1 award-winning stock tip is to invest in the Urane family company. For his design, I wanted to make sure you could tell that he's on the Urane side of the family, so I copied Katsura's eye shape. Gray hairs are sort of creeping slowly over him.



MOKEI URANE
Midori's cousin, from Katsura's side of the family. He aspires to work in film and television. As soon as I thought of Mokei as a director, I knew he should probably be in a very flashy outfit with a monochromatic color scheme. I chose yellow to reflect his energy in a friendly way. It's kind of a similar coat as the Ghost Trick character big hair and shoulder pads suggest a lack of substance. I added the buttons for a unique touch.



UME HAKASE
Ume is the only character in the game from Broken Minds. Ume claims to be trying to steer the YPDA in a less criminal direction under her leadership, which is partially thanks to Takuma and Yuzuki not being part of the organization anymore.
Ume was really hard to age up, because my original design of "29-year-old" Ume already had lines under her eyes. It was difficult to design her with longer hair, because it just didn't look like Ume unless her hair was short. But I knew that, being a whole decade older, she would probably have changed her hair style. Then I figured out the "razor line" and finally, something clicked and she looked like her snarky self again.

The reason I chose to focus on Ume for Broken Spirits and not Takuma and Yuzuki is because I felt that Broken Minds had more of its focus on Takuma he's the one making all the deductions and most of the decisions. Yuzuki had the least focus of any of them, but she has more relevance in the third game. Ume's particular brand of detective work is at the forefront of Broken Spirits so it was a natural choice. The reason I left Takuma and Yuzuki out entirely is because I wanted to shake up the dynamic of the detectives' interactions. You'll notice that in Broken Minds, Ume often follows Takuma's lead. Ume looks up to Takuma, and often imitates his mannerisms a lot of her snarkyness and rude remarks come from wanting to impress Takuma. I thought it would be interesting to see Ume in charge of the YPDA without Takuma's influence, and without Yuzuki's extravagant spending and criminality to worry about what would Ume be like? Anyway, you will hopefully see more depth to her in this game.

Note: The characters listed here are not the entire cast.


THE STYLE OF THE GAME

The aesthetic of Broken Minds leaned more towards Western architecture with slight Japanese elements, but I wanted to flip that dynamic for this game. For the UI, I'm drawing on influences from obscure Japanese horror games, cyberpunk, and websites from the early 2000s.

MORE GAMEPLAY

The game design philosophy from Broken Minds was sometimes deliberately confusing, and sometimes just plain confusing, and I think it was too concentrated in the second half of the game. The gameplay in Broken Spirits is being approached from an entirely different angle.

It revolves around rewarding two things: exploration and deduction, and both of those things lead into each other: exploring allows you to make deductions, and deducing allows you to explore more.

A simple example is exploring a room and finding a key, deducing the key unlocks a door in the room, and unlocking the door and exploring the next room.

SOCIAL TREES



Remember the "Social Link" gameplay I mentioned in my last post? In Broken Spirits, they're called Social Trees. The idea is that by exploring, you can find various objects relating to the characters. Combining these objects in the right ways lets you unlock conversations that deepen your relationship, "growing the tree". When you reach the end of these conversations, you'll gain access to a room.

Explore and find objects > make a deduction about objects > unlock new area to explore.

Having played both Persona 3 and the Danganronpa series, which both use similar gameplay, I hope to alleviate some of the frustrations of those systems while retaining the positives.

For instance, with Danganronpa, there's very little incentive to use the Social Link system, from a gameplay point of view. What's the gameplay reward for spending many hours choosing the right gift and answering the right questions? Abilities in the Class Trial sections that I never used? It didn't feel worth it. I was discouraged, not only because I often got the multiple choice questions or gifts wrong and ended up making zero progress with characters, but because the character I was attempting to progress with would die!

Persona 3's system is better in my opinion. I actually ended up completing many Social Links because doing so gave me a useful gameplay reward, plus what I had to do to advance was always very clear. However, like Danganronpa, you have to kind of "main" certain characters because it's very hard to max all of them in one play-through, unless you look up a guide.

In Broken Spirits, you aren't constrained by time, but you are constrained by sections. Let me explain a bit.

Broken Spirits borrows the concept of "Freetime" which is defined as the time between major story events (aka MURDERS!!), where you can just relax and do whatever.

If you would like to skip right to a main story event (IT'S A MURDER, FOLKS!!), you are able to do so.

But otherwise, you can spend Freetime exploring and growing Social Trees. Each Social Tree is split into three horizontal sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches. In one day of Freetime, it's possible to unlock the Roots of every character's Social Tree. You have to wait until the next day of Freetime to unlock the Trunk, and then the next to unlock the Branches.

The three horizontal sections are split into three vertical sections: three parts to the Trunk, three parts to the Roots, three parts to the Branches. So in total there are nine conversations to have with each character.

Hope that makes sense!

THE MUSIC

Once again I'm drawing on many different styles for the music, but this time more geared towards a "2000s" sound. My influences for the soundtrack are the Witch Hunter Robin, Persona 3, Beyond Good & Evil, and Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex OSTs. I'm also incorporating waaay more traditional Japanese elements like koto and shamisen, and I've written many tracks in the Japanese scale.
The OST will be a mishmash of traditional Japanese music, orchestral, techno, house, neo-jazz and alt-rock.

How the heck do all these things come together, you might ask?

Well good news! I'm going to be releasing a preview of Broken Spirits' OST once every month from now until the game's release. Right now I've composed over 30 tracks, but most of them I want to keep a surprise, so that's why there's a slow roll out. Here's the first track I've released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNex9QDbeuU

I decided to release "Crimefightingers" first because I think it effectively illustrates a large sample of the different styles I'm meshing together in this soundtrack.

Unlike Broken Minds, this time I have several leitmotifs that will pop up throughout, and tracks specifically for certain characters that play during their Social Tree interactions.

I've also invested a little in hiring some real musicians to record melody lines for certain tracks it's thanks to your support of Broken Minds that I'm able to do things like that which improve the experience.

REVEALING TOO MUCH?

If you're worried about this post spoiling too much of the game, please don't be. This game will be very long, and there are very significant plot elements and characters that I'm leaving out. How long will it be? Well, I miscalculated how long it would take other people to play through Broken Minds. I can complete all of Broken Minds (every route, plus Hard Mode and Detective medals) in roughly four to five hours. However, I read quickly, plus I know the answers to the puzzles. It turns out it takes most people that long to finish only one route. Broken Spirits does not have multiple routes (though I have decided it will have two endings). I'm adding support for a maximum of two play-throughs with a New Game Plus mode.
However, as it currently stands there are six chapters outlined. I don't know how long each of them will take to play, however it's reasonable to assume they'll take at least as long as the deduction section in Broken Minds, so about two hours. I'm going to estimate one play-through taking 12 to 15 hours WITHOUT Freetime, but I will update this estimate as I develop the game.

I wanted to at least describe the Social Tree gameplay in order to get some feedback does this sound like a fun system to you, or a boring system? The time to tell me is now!

WHEN WILL I FINISH IT?

Well, seeing as Broken Minds took two years and this game is like 3-4x the length... just kidding. It's a bit more complicated than that there are a lot of factors influencing the amount of time it will take to finish this game.

SHORTENING THE DEVELOPMENT TIME

The one year anniversary has come and gone, and I think now is a good time to start talking about what the sequel to Broken Minds is going to be like.

In Japanese, "Kokoro" has three meanings. One is "heart", which is the most common meaning. One is "mind", which is obviously what I went with for Broken Minds, and the last is "spirit", as in who someone is "in spirit", like their characteristics, in a way. That is the true meaning of "Broken Spirits". However, there's also, another, more playful meaning of the word "spirit", which is "ghost". And "ghosts" have something to do with "Broken Spirits" as well.

Here are ten fun facts about it!

Surprise! I'm finally releasing Broken Egg on Steam, with a brand new light novel as well Broken Spiral!

They are free to read for anyone who has purchased the main game which right now is pretty cheap, thanks to this Halloween sale!

These light novels are a good way for me to bridge the gap between games, and hopefully answer some unresolved questions.

Why today? Because it's the one year anniversary of Broken Minds! One year ago, I finished the final build of the game. Of course, since then there's been bug fixes and a much-needed update. But it was finished "in spirit". And speaking of spirits (hey, check out that smooth segue), I'm planning a post soon that will announce a few things about the sequel to Broken Minds, Broken Spirits, across all platforms, so keep an eye out for that.

I hope you had a happy Halloween!

LockedOn.

I'm happy to announce that the OST for Broken Minds is now available to purchase as DLC!

It includes 40 tracks, over an hour and seven minutes of music.

Successfully publishing this DLC was sort of a test now I am confident I will also be able to put the light novel "Broken Egg" as DLC up on Steam as well.
Unlike the soundtrack, Broken Egg will be free for anyone with the base game.

Stay tuned!

LockedOn.

This update is called Cold Lemon because, like a cold lemon, it's very refreshing.
Here's what's new!

Goal Indicator

The map now has a little exclamation point icon that appears in the areas you need to go. When you're required to click on a "Talk" icon to proceed in the story, it changes accordingly. Feel free to deviate from the path, as the indicator only shows you the quickest route through the game.

Wheel of Fallacies Hint System

The hint system will now indicate when you've selected the wrong fallacy, instead of just telling you when you've missed a fallacy.
Initially, I was going to remove some fallacies to make this minigame simpler overall. But I realized that that might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. With this improvement, the entire game is much less frustrating, so I just left them in.

Slippers in the YPDA

About halfway through developing this game, I had a panic attack: in Japan, people wear slippers indoors! It had somehow slipped my mind, so I frantically added slippers and bathroom slippers in every location, and updated the sprites to wear slippers as well. However, I went a bit too overboard, and added slippers to the YPDA's porch. What I somehow didn't realize was that you wouldn't wear slippers in an office building just at home. "Duh!", to use a 90s expression. Oh well. I've since removed the slippers from the YPDA. However, I left the slippers in Uzumaki's office, because the floor in his meeting room is covered in tatami mats.

Arrows

Since there was some confusion about where to go when the game requires you to leave your location, I made it so that the forward arrow wiggles so that it's more obvious that you need to press it. As part of this, I added a new angle to Noa's apartment that focuses directly on the window, instead of the center of the image being focused on the couch (which makes it way easier to know what to do).

CGs

I added Noa's parents to her apartment while you're able to look around. I also updated/redrew some CGs at the "Detective's accusation" section.

Uzumaki Route Fix

The detectives never addressed why the autopsy was "poison and a heart attack" on the Uzumaki is Guilty route. I've since changed that, but in doing so, I also changed the cutscene to reflect the new version of events. In the original, Uzumaki was shown to have played a sound on a cassette that caused Noriko's pacemaker to malfunction, and then smear lipstick on Hiroki's lips, but that had a few flaws. Why would Hiroki die just from having the lipstick smeared on his lips? In the new, simpler version, Noriko dies by panicking at being shot at (remember, she has a heart condition), and Uzumaki feeds Hiroki a pink poisoned chocolate, leaving a stain on his lips that the detectives thought was the lipstick.

Noa's Backyard

I modeled an entirely new backyard. It's still a big field, but now there are buildings and a road behind it, so it doesn't seem like Noa lives in the middle of nowhere. The ambulance is also no longer still there.

Uzumaki's Computers

The original interface on the computers was based on (and used some icons from) Windows 3.1, which was released in April in 1992. However, I don't know if that was the case in Japan. But more importantly, apparently Microsoft's guidelines about using screenshots of their software is that they can't be modified. Since I have to modify screenshots to serve the story, I decided to just make my own interface from scratch, inspired by Windows 3.0. Also, Reiwa's computer and Uzumaki's computer have different windows open on them, whereas before they were both the same.

Internet References Removed

I wanted to reference the internet as part of the mystery, but there wasn't much to the internet back then. I've updated it so that Takuma talks about books instead.

Other Changes

• Save prompts before Logic Trains
  
• Changed the final Logic Train infoboxes to be less confusing. Now it's clear that you're "breaking" the logic of Takuma's argument.
  
• Fixed a flowchart goof where it didn't actually show you the right way to be innocent on "bad" routes.
  
• Noa now solves/tampers with the lipstick clue in a way that makes more sense.
  
• Noa now has a "reading letter" expression, so that it's clear that it was in her possession when Ume asks for it later. I also updated the Puppet Theater minigame to include this.
  
• Takuma no longer discusses his brilliant theory about how toxic paint chips from the ceiling landed in a glass of water that Hiroki drank.
  
• Noa's body was flipped the wrong way in the "alone" ending, so I re-rendered it.
  
• I ran the entire script through spell check (which I actually hadn't done yet). Hopefully there aren't any more spelling errors.
  

I'm so glad people are playing Broken Minds, and someone even did a Let's Play, which is very exciting. However, it's also brought to light some of the lingering plot holes/weird inconsistencies/mistakes that I somehow left in the game. I think it would be pretty negligent of me to leave these in.

Part of the reason these mistakes are there in the first place is that, in the beginning, the game was going to be extremely short, so I was just making it up as I went along. I had the main mystery and idea in mind, but it wasn't fully thought out yet.

However, I later decided to expand the game and added much more complexity to it, in the process creating plot-holes and illogical dialogue. Much of this I later thought through more and fixed, but in the early parts of the game, there's still some stuff there that I added as set-ups for things that ended up never happening, half-baked theories, etc. I also never really went over the game's dialogue with a fine-toothed comb after I completed it, mostly from burn-out. I'm regretting that a lot now, haha!

That's why I'm excited to announce a new patch that will hopefully fix as many of these things as possible, and make it a more accurate 90s experience as well. I'm not sure when this patch will be completed, but I've moved it to be the next thing on my agenda, and all of these changes will be in the next update to the game.

Here is a quick list of things I'm planning:

• Add parents to apartment during fire. (I was originally going to, but for some reason I thought it wasn't necessary).
  
• Add dialogue to fire CG explaining what happened in more detail.
  
• Forward arrow will pulsate near the window so it's more obvious that you need to go there.
  
• An icon to indicate where you need to go next on the map.
  
• "Cross-reference my handwriting with the letter" contradicts the Logic Train later.
  
• Ambulance is still there for some reason. Also, Noa's house was originally in a strange empty field of grass, which I later replaced with a surrounding neighborhood. However, the CG of the evidence bins still shows an empty field.
  
• Remove the yukata reference at the window (for some reason I thought Noa was wearing a yukata, when she clearly isn't).
  
• Poison scar is weird. Why not have Noa taste the lipstick to prove it isn't poisoned instead?
  
• Ume's motive theory is so bad that even lampshading it doesn't work. I will change it to be better.
  
• I'm going to replace the computer screens in the therapist office with my own custom interface.
  
• I'm going to replace all the cellphones in the game with beepers. Japan actually did not start using cellphones as early as '92.
  
• Lower transparency on Uzumaki's bookshelf so you can see the books inside.
  
• I'm going to cut down on redundant fallacies in the Wheel of Fallacies. Right now there are just too many options, too soon. I'm also going to change the code so that it will run a bit faster.
  
• You will be able to skip a Logic Train that you played if, for whatever reason, you loaded a save from before you played it.