Blog: Getting back into away in the woods development

1 May, 2024
Tagged as: #game-dev, #away-in-the-woods

With both Inn Need and my grad school semester wrapping up, I'm getting back into away in the woods development. In my last blog post, about a week ago, I made the following to-do list:

Now I can happily say I've knocked it out! This looked like making a big flowchart of all my story notes from 2022 and how they worked together and editing it until I was satisfied. Along the way, I even made an ultra-truncated demo version of the game so I could test how the pathways to different endings work.

A multi-colored flowchart with the text obscured, showing different pathways for the game to different endings.
A multi-colored flowchart with the text obscured, showing different pathways for the game to different endings. This one is visibly more complex than the last one.

I'm honestly really glad I ended up putting off development for so long, because I feel like I have a much stronger handle on what I want from the game and how to make it happen now. First of all, the Inn Need/the Studio Overdoing It team has taught me so much about the organizational aspects of game design (huge thanks to Tei, who went to game design school and has shared her wisdom). Secondly, I've been trying out a lot of new-to-me media, from television shows I thought I'd never watch to reading for fun again to playing some truly remarkable video games.

I'm not sharing it yet because I don't want to get cocky, but I made a timeline for away in the woods development that I hope to follow. In the meanwhile, I'll share it one month at a time. Here are May's goals for away in the woods: