Planning pays off!

After all that planning, I feel like I made a ton of progress over the weekend - which in turn makes me feel a lot more positive about it all.

• New options to develop Briars - not many's favorite companion, but the sidequest I'm finishing exploring his past fleshes him out, and depending how things are handled, the player can open up new class options and bring him out of his shell
• New party management system - using the roster and limiting party size, and meaning that which companions are with you on which quests has more impact - and ultimately improve replayability. Will retro-fit into Chapter 1.
• New creature - Caller in Darkness - using a custom vfx (from the skills Amraphael taught me in making a Ragewind). Will tie off the horror quest nicely.
• Cutscene 1 finished - involving 2 different ways of approaching it, and 3 different outcomes I was dreading this (put it off for 3 months!), and a big weight off my mind to have out of the way. Took most of my toolset time over the weekend to script and work out the various paths
• Cutscene 2 finished - leading to an ambush, which is hopefully simple but effective, and has a nice visial segment to it
• New monster scripts in place - to tie into some cutscenes I'm still working on
• New custom items
• Area touching up/polishing

Might not seem much, and there isn't much to show for it visually, but for me that's a big hurdle out of the way. But what's got me more upbeat, is that in the midst of my daily commuting daydream this morning , I had a flash of inspiration for an amazing idea that should be simple, elegant and effective. Can't beleive I hadn't thought of it before. I'll save the details for some other time.... ;)