So how are thing going on Briley 2? Well, quite well I would say.

It helped to have all the novels written, as I can pull most of the dialogue from them. On the first game I stripped back the dialogue quite a bit due to worries about cartridge space; the game was originally planned to fit on a 512K cartridge, but I switched to using 1Mb EasyFlash format so I could add in all that I wanted, extra portraits, more sprites etc. Since the new game is designed for EasyFlash from the start, right now space worries are not a problem. The other point to note is that due to changes to the original text, some typos crept in that weren’t in the original books. I’m hoping to rectify that on the new game by double-checking all the text as is goes in, and triple-checking any text that gets added; better to take time and fix it now, than to get some player to spot it after release.

The new game will be in 3 distinct parts, following the 3 novels it is based upon, those being The Fallen Witch, Grey Waters, and Grimoire Citadel.

I’m currently working on the first part, and already I’ve added a new location (The Maepole Cemetery) and reworked the East End of Maepole village. You see, a festival is coming, so that will involve adding stalls the player can interact with, some containing shops, others containing new mini-games.

Some locations from the first game will be altered a little, while others will be dropped completely as they won’t be needed. Briley 2 has a larger world map, so there will be plenty of new locations to visit and explore, including new towns and villages, and various ruins.

I’ve decided to not try to load saved games from the first game, as that would cause too many issues in terms of items and general progression; instead, I’ll be setting all the characters EXP to a set default so I can control and balance game progression better.

As with the first game, I will be adding new locations and minor quests that are not in the books, just to add more gameplay. That way I can balance out the whole game as I did with Briley 1; there needs to be a balance between story telling, combat, exploration and problem solving. Part 1 is a challenge to make a good enough game as Briley Witch book 5 takes place in just the village of Maepole. For the game, I’ll be adding outside locations nearby to give the player a chance to do a bit of exploring.

One difference between this game and the first will be the way parties are handled. The first game focused on Briley, but the new game will switch between different groups as the story unfolds. At one point Smokey will be the lead character, another time Alyssa or Branwen. This will mean I’ll have to keep track on what group owns what items, so that should be interesting…

So that’s all for now! My current plan is to complete part 1 before giving it a playthrough to see how it feels. Right now most of the dialogue has been copied straight from the novels, so I’ll take a look at that and see if it needs trimming down a bit.