You can also listen to this Dev Log on YouTube.

Hi everyone, this is our first (ish) dev log in 2024 and the first one we’re trying in video form so, in case you’re new here, hi! I’m Gizmo. I am the writer and director of a game called Strangers on Paper and I work with Grogu, who’s an amazing artist, and we use these dev logs as journals where we talk about the progress we’ve made, things we learn along the way and… yeah.

So, today we’re talking about the writing side of things. First of all, you know how we’d taken a break because Grogu’s graphics card had basically exploded? Well, about three weeks ago my laptop decided to stop working out of the blue. Luckily I keep all my Strangers on Paper files online, but since then I’ve been writing everything from my phone, including this dev log and I’ll have to borrow a laptop to turn this into a video. Thank you, Google docs, for being a thing.

Now, this month I took my first actual holiday in over six years and figured I could use one (or some) of those days to edit bits of Chapter 2 since I’ve been having some ideas lately of things I’d been wanting to change (in that sense, I’m kinda happy we hadn’t rendered those scenes yet, because they involve some changes in the environment).

By day two, I’d suddenly spent 9 hours writing with small breaks, I just couldn’t bring myself to stop until dinner time. It’s always crazy to think about all the time that goes into work for a chapter that will be played in such a short amount of time, as it happens with most media we consume.

Another thing I’ve appreciated about this break we were sort of forced to take was the fact that I’ve come back to these pages with fresh eyes - the best kind of eyes for editing - and I’m loving it. Our priority has always been making a game WE love and, damn, did I enjoy those nine hours.

There’s still quite a lot of editing left to be done, but Chapter 2 is looking like it’ll go over the 30,000 words mark (for reference, Chapter 1 was a bit over 22,000). And then there's Chapter 3, which continues to go back and forth from being the final chapter to being split into two in my notes and drafts, but that’s a future me problem.

Anyway, our next dev log will include some updates on the visual side, hopefully some good news since we’ve been finding some ways of working around our setbacks.

Been playing quite a lot of card games lately so I’ll leave you with one for yourselves: Give us ONE word that ties these images together. We’ll pick our favorite through all platforms and let you know by the next update.

Before I leave, let me quickly remind you that you can add Strangers on Paper to your wishlist on Steam!

Thank you as always and see you soon!