Log 2 - The estrogen pills are getting to my head...

Hi! It's been a while, hasn't it?

I could say I've been busy recently, which I have, but more importantly, I've just been procrastinating. But now I'm back on the grind! This time around, I've made a lot more progress on the game and even got an actual playable ((albeit very unfinished)) demo. I'm only distributing it to a select few at the moment for testing and feedback, but maybe expect a demo soon when more art is done?

I've added a few more objectives and minigames, as well as one new texture: Tiles! Even though it's just a placeholder texture, it really helps the game be... playable? Without tiles, it's actually super difficult to even tell when Ellie is walking. Who woulda thunk.

I added an intro section before gameplay starts where Ellie is looking at a story on her phone about a transgender protection bill being blocked in her state. I realized there wasn't much to get across to the player that Ellie was afraid of using the bathroom because of her anxiety around being trans and being seen/judged by transphobes, so I hope that intro works. My initial thought was to have her read a story about a trans woman in her city being attacked in a bathroom, because that would be a lot more direct of a message to the player and give even more reason for Ellie's anxiety, but I didn't want to be too serious and morbid in this silly little game. I hope I can find a happy medium between displaying Ellie's anxiety and fear while also keeping the game light and silly. I'd really rather undersell than oversell here though, as I don't want to be triggering to anyone.

I've also made some UI fixes like fixing the scaling on other screen sizes and on Mac, adding a dropshadow to the text for more readability, fixing Ellie's sprite, etc., as well as some other random bug fixes. An important fix I made was a super prevalent bug that softlocked you if you beat a minigame faster than the starting dialogue. Fixed! Heh, kinda proud of that one. Still need to fix an issue where you can beat a minigame without the food actually going in to the basket ((it just hits the edge and you win??)), a bug where the food phases through the basket, and probably more.

This isn't about fixes though, it's about game design, right? After some playtesting, the game is way too small. Part of the challenge of the game is supposed to be finding the next objective and making your way over in time, but right now, the map is too small for that to be difficult at all. That, and the cheese and soy milk objectives are wayyy too close to be one after another. So next time, I plan on maybe doubling the map size, adding signs for different sections, and changing the objective order so that soy milk and cheese have a different objective in between them. I think it would be fun to make you go back to the dairy aisle after just leaving it. Time wasting, hehe. I'm also toying with the idea of making Ellie slower, but we'll see.

The next major update should be adding an actual fail sequence ((right now, when the timer goes down, it just locks Ellie in place)), adding a win sequence where you buy your things and get out in time, and adding a proper pause menu. I have an idea for a win sequence where you have to talk to a cashier who won't stop talking about their day, so you have the option to leave while he's talking or stay and listen, risking your precious pee meter. Listening to the full conversation could be sort of like a "reward" for completing all the games with a lot of extra time. Not sure if I should have that sequence be automatic while Ellie is free to move around, so that you can literally just walk away, or have it be a controlled dialogue sequence with a yes/no option. I think the former may be funnier.

Finally, I have plans to add other shoppers ((who will be cute little ducks)) that walk around randomly and act as obstacles. I think that'll be cute!!

Okay, this is a lot of plans that I just announced, so I better get to work on implementing it all! I want to have something playable for y'all soon, so I'll work extra hard this week! <3 For anyone out there reading, thank you so much for following this silly little game! See you soooon~!