I finally got to update on Sunday! And super early, too!
Started on Chapter 1! I started using Tweego thanks to Anna's guide, having realized my game is going to be pretty big! Having multiple projects in Twine for different chapters would be immensely helpful to reducing lag and getting organized, but having used It, I realized...
Fixed major styling issues. When I first used Tweego, I realized it completely broke my CSS, which is what gives the game its look and design. The game fell apart, and after some troubleshooting, I realized I was in an old version of Twine. Whatever it was, it was messing up my game! So I had to dedicate a few days just to get my game looking back to normal, making a couple of sacrifices along the way. I honestly thought of sticking to the older version, but I've decided that it's important to be on the latest!
Set up my itch.io page. Still private, but I'm getting it ready soon! Pretty happy with how it turned out, and I'm glad it has more extensive support for HTML than Tumblr has!
Character spotlights! With any luck, they're going out tomorrow, but to make up for the fact it's only going to be once a week,I'm sending out a total of four side characters--same length as the previous character spotlights! Don't know if I should put it in a massive post or spam posts four times or even space it out. Any thoughts? But I'll be busy tomorrow, so the release is tentative!
While I was making an itch.io post, though, I realized that some people may be interested in how I did some of the effects! I am a fan of looking at other people's works for inspiration, so I decided that I might publicly post my stylesheet, and go through selections of it to explain how to implement!
Also realizing this, however, I've also added a new page to my Carrd explaining my boundaries for codediving, referencing my work and posts, and the content of asks. Feel free to skim through it!
Long time, no talk! After a long, but lovely 2.5 week journey to the South Island, I have finally returned to EcoQuest and the internet!!
Our swim with dolphins got us up bright and early, and we were suited up in wetsuits & on the dolphin encounter boat by 5:30am, because dolphins are the most active in the morning. The first pod we stumbled upon had around 200 Dusky dolphins in it, and they were beautiful. Dusky dolphins are one of the smallest species of dolphins at around 1.8m long, and they’re also some of the most acrobatic! Unfortunately, we couldn’t swim with the giant pod because the water visibility was no good, but we soon after found a new pod, and we all dove off of the boat to see them up close. Now, dolphins are attracted to noises, so I want all of you to picture 15 people snorkeling off of the back of a boat at 5:30am, attempting to make dolphin noises through their snorkels. It was completely hilarious, and even though the visibility wasn’t completely great in the area we were swimming in, the dolphins eventually came to investigate. As beautiful as they were, swimming with them was actually a bit terrifying at times, because they’re super-fast, and with the visibility, you couldn’t see them until they were right next to you. And then they were gone. But as we stayed in the water longer, they got more and more friendly, and eventually they were chasing us in circles and diving down with us, and it was one of the most wonderful things!
Usually, EcoQuest does an over-night stay at the local marae in Kaikoura, but due to construction, we were unable to do that this semester. But lucky for us, Brett, a member of the marae and also a Department of Conservation worker, came to visit us and then had us join him at his family marae for a traditional Maori meal! We all stopped at the beach and gathered driftwood and bull kelp, which is this hugggeee kelp plant that actually feels just like the material wetsuits are made out of. We got to the marae, and got the traditional welcome, and then made a fire with the driftwood and started on the food. The first step was to make pockets out of pieces of the bull kelp, and then we stuffed them with veggies, bacon, and paua, tied them off with flax, and cooked them in the embers of the fire until the kelp turned bright green. I accidently burnt my finger and dropped my bacon on the ground, which was extremely tragic, but everything else was delicious, and it was a really cool trip. Later that night, our group met up with Brett again for the first night of Kaikoura’s first annual WhaleFest event, which was a week-long educational event about whales following the release of a local marine biologist’s new book on New Zealand whale species.
We all had a completely wonderful week in Kaikoura, and at the end of the week, got a full weekend to ourselves to do as we pleased! 9 other girls and I decided to spend our weekend in Christchurch, which is one of New Zealand’s major cities. Unfortunately for me, I had no idea that a huge earthquake destroyed most of Christchurch back in 2010, and so I got there expecting a city to find a lot of ruins. But it was still beautiful, and you could tell the city was trying its hardest to bounce back! There were newly painted murals all over the place, the chain-link fences surrounding construction areas were decorated, the Cardboard Cathedral was completely innovative and beautiful, and there were pop-up exhibits all over the place! We really only had a day and a half to explore, but I think we made the perfect choice when we decided to spend our entire morning at a local market. It was filled to the brim with delicious local fruits, veggies, meats, pastries, hot foods, and so much more! I think we all sampled basically everything, and then we each bought something completely different and shared it all for lunch. We walked through the center of Christchurch to the botanical gardens and spent the afternoon walking through the beautiful trees and flowers before heading into the Canterbury Museum to learn some pretty cool stuff. The only bad part of the trip was that when we woke up on Sunday to pack up our tents, it was pouring rain, and we were soaked through before our bus even picked us up to take us to the town where our group was picking us up. They didn’t pick us up until 6 hours after we got dropped off, and we spent all day walking back and forth between the 2 café’s in town like wet, sad, backpacking orphans. Which honestly must have been pretty sad, but also pretty funny to see!
Since this update is already so long, I think I’m going to cut it off here so that you don’t get too bored reading, and then send you all an additional update this week talking about the last week and a half of my South Island adventures! I hope that you’ve all been doing really well in these past few weeks, and I can’t wait to hear about all of the adventures you’ve had while I’ve been gone. Talk to you soon!
