WELCOME back to my narrative devlog series for Catalyst: Blind Faith!!! I hope you're just as excited as I am!!!!

We're going to dive in a SPOILER-FREE dissection of how I design and track massively different, branching continuities! This is quite an involved subject, but do not fear the scrollbar's size. There's a LOT of images in here to help out.

I want to take a big second to thank every single patron for their support!!!! I'm a month out from having my gallbladder removed and am not only slowly feeling better every day, but have them to thank for helping with basic and very important things during recovery like healthy food and my medicine. It will still be quite a road to recovery but I cannot say enough how grateful I am. This devlog was released a week early for them, with high resolution versions of all the many images in this devlog! That post is also available now for everyone, which you can find here!

LET'S GO RIDICULOUSLY INTENSE MUSIC FOR THE LEVEL OF HYPE THIS DEVLOG IS OPERATING ON (YES IT'S DRAGONFORCE): https://youtu.be/DZyYapMZSec?si=sA9SXQiL74mzP2UI

⌛⏰⏰🔀🔥🔥😉😉😉SPEAKING OF HECTIC TIMES😉😉😉🔥🔥🔀⏰⏰⌛

This devlog will be a veritable dissertation on how I write branching continuities in a VERY complexly interwoven visual novel. I'm even going to use ✨spoiler free✨ examples to not ruin the major story moments in my narrative game!

It's a lot of work to do this so I hope you enjoy the goofy art and a cozy, long read for this deep dive.

🔥THE OBLIGATORY TIMEY WIMEY DISCLAIMER:🔥 This devlog is all about how I write numerous timelines in a big, branching, connected VN! This will NOT be a crash course on how to write (specifically) time travel, and is not a tutorial on any of these things period.

CBF does have time travel, and a literal Goddess of Time, and we WILL unpack some spoiler-free examples of how that is also accounted for with all the other subjects I'll dive into today!

So grab a drink, your comfiest chair, and a good thinking cap. If you would like to jump to any portion of this BEEFY devlog, you can ctrl+f any of the following! (There are even goofy little checkpoints at the end of each one if you need to refill your drink or stretch your legs lmao)☕

wait wait wait WHAT IS GOING ON, DEVLOG ✨SERIES?✨ IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE I SHOULD READ FIRST?

✨Short answer: Nope! Read on.

✨Long answer: This might be a dizzying amount of information all at once, particularly if you have no familiarity with branching game design. If you want to do some deeper reading on ALL the narrative considerations I'm putting into this project, the earlier posts for this devlog series are nicely grouped together in high res here for anyone to read at their leisure! I also have each one individually cross-posted here on itch for accessibility! (The content is the same, filesize limit is just teeny tiny)

1. Narrative Design 101 and the Branching Structure of Catalyst: Blind Faith
2. Common Route Mechanical Madness + All Routes Preview
3. Merciful Game Design - The "Trunk" of Catalyst: Blind Faith's Branching Narrative
4. Punishing Game Design (VENGEANCE)

If you've read these previously, you can safely jump to part 2 (though you might miss out on the memes and bullshit I put in here for fun and to make this a good read lol)

🔀EASY NAVIGATION🔀

this is my biggest devlog ever, appropriate given branching adds multiple dimensions and some length to any narrative bahahah

🔀 INTRO | 591 words | 1 image <- You are here!

🔀 PART 1: In which I summarize mandatory context from 4 prior devlogs as concisely as possible | 382 words | 3 images

🔀 PART 2: PARALLEL UNIVERSES | 528 words | 7 images

🔀 PART 3: HOW THIS ALL WORKS TOGETHER | 2175 words | 16 images

🔀 OUTRO | 184 words | 1 image

🔥When the intro to the devlog goes so hard you might want a sec to chill and grab that drink and get comfy or something idkkk🔥

🔥OK LET'S GOOOOO🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

🔀PART 1 - In which I summarize mandatory context from 4 prior devlogs as concisely as possible🔀

Strap in

✨GAME SYNOPSIS✨

Catalyst: Blind Faith is a dark fantasy and horror visual novel, set in an apocalyptic world where humanity is on the brink of extinction. You shape the fate of a young and troubled priest who is obsessed with finding a cure for the strange phenomenon turning mankind into demons: the Catalyst.

While you dive deep into the ruins that cover the land, you can channel the power of any God in the pantheon through your weakened and fractured body. Every choice you make carries favor with different aspects of reality and influences the nature of your journey, for better or for worse.

Control unrivaled power—at a cost.

Be true to yourself.

Conquer your demons, inside and out.

You: Going through the horrors. 😭👍

Game: Big. 👐

Choices: MANY.🔀🔀🔀

Got it?👍 GREAT👍👍👍🔥

BIG IMAGE INBOUND TO ILLUSTRATE👍👍👍🔥

This is the most simplified way I can illustrate the types of branching in this game.  (Scrunched so the smaller text might be illegible on here!)

✨ALL YOU TRULY NEED TO KNOW (FOR THIS DEVLOG'S PURPOSES) IS AS FOLLOWS:✨

• The consequences of player's choices in the common route follow them through the entire rest of the game.
• At the end of the common route, the player chooses which one of 10 routes or "hard branches" they want to take with full transparency. No guessing!
• The "hard branch" of the story you take may never touch key events (AKA the "trunk" of the story) ever again. Shit can vary wildly.
• No matter how different events become though, does NOT mean this is 10 different games.
• The events in each "hard branch" very often can merge, touch on key events before splitting again, or even enter a different "hard branch" permanently if the player chooses to do so. How this works and how I keep track of it is the bulk of this devlog!
• The choices the player makes therefore shapes our hero's fate. Not just which ending you get, but how his life changes every step of the way.

🔥Loooong devlog checkpoint🔥

🔥🔥You are resting beside a time wizard🔥 🔥

🔥take your time toooo🔥

🔥let's goooo🔥

🔀PART 2: PARALLEL UNIVERSES

You've got the gist of this game's narrative design down and so now we can begin to talk about parallel universes

I am not joking

OBSERVE

On the left we have a dark fantasy and horror visual novel, Catalyst: Blind Faith.

On the right we have a modern-day college AU, CORCAEA UNIVERSITY.

Trust the analogy. Trust. This is how we'll have ZERO spoilers from this point on.

Parallel universes are a beautiful thing.

In CORCAEA UNIVERSITY, you attend a big college campus!

It's your first year, you know NO ONE (at first)!

There are many locations in a big college campus. You can visit the library, the cafeteria, the local coffee shop, etc. All your classes can be at different locations too.

That doesn't mean it's 10 different games, though. To be able to go to many places and actually do varied shit there means it's just one really, really big game.

I'm going to repeat something a lot for comedy and to help reinforce how much is going into this game's development. We're building context fast!!🔥

🗣️🔥 YOUR CHOICES MATTER BECAUSE THEY AFFECT WHAT LOCATIONS YOU SEE🗣️🔥

This is you. Well, sort of. We use 2nd person narration: You play as Richard, a socially awkward and sports-obsessed nerd.

Richard is an established character with his own preferences and history, but the choices you make shape more than just his fate!

🗣️THE CHOICES YOU MAKE AFFECT RICHARD'S CHARACTERIZATION🗣️

🗣️A LOT🗣️

🗣️🔥YOU PLAY THE GAME WITH THE THEMES YOU WANT TO SEEEE🗣️🔥

You don't get to choose exactly what you see. There's a big cast of characters! Like Orgoth, the barista, who fucking hates you at first sight.

You may never even go to the coffee shop he works at, but if you do, the way you have acted previously can (and will) shape his first impression of you! And that first impression is already terrible!😀🔥☕

You can have a horrific first encounter with Orgoth, or even do something that causes you to never see him in the game again. Socializing for Richard is often like an Olympic event, but there is hope for him!

You could even become friends if you REALLY try hard enough.

🗣️🔥YOUR CHOICES AFFECT WHICH CHARACTERS YOU SEE, HOW THEY ACT TOWARDS YOU, AND MUCH MUCH MORE🗣️🔥

Stay with me we're still building context for the complexity of parallel universes. Trust. Trust in the modern college AU.

Richard's passion for sports is really all about the 💖team captains.💖

He is aggressively willing, bisexual, AND ABLE to pursue ten (10!!!!) different relationships in this game.

You can destroy his grades, but you cannot destroy his desire for love. We stan.

The player chooses at the end of a beefy common route which relationship they want to further most. No matter what.

🗣️YOU CHOOSE WHAT ROUTE YOU WANT THE GAME TO TAKE🗣️

🗣️🔥 BUT THERE IS MORE TO THE GAME THAN JUST YOUR ENDINGS.🗣️🔥

🗣️💖IT'S ABOUT THE JOURNEY🗣️💖

🔥"This tells me nothing about actual parallel universes, time wizard," you may be saying🔥

🔥"ty for your patience," I gleefully reply. "you faced the great scrollbar and are ready for the psycho shit" 🔥

🔀PART 3: HOW THIS ALL WORKS TOGETHER

We will build on all this now with the fun, specific, complex narrative examples. You can get the full picture of how this all works together, and when I'm done, I can share a non-spoiler example of how I personally track these things.

It should all make sense. The spreadsheets should make sense.

should

I will use two (2) non-spoiler examples first to illustrate some very complex, time-based game design considerations with heavily branching narrative. I salute you, fellow time wizards🪄

🔀EXAMPLE 1:🪄

No matter what, in CORCAEA UNIVERSITY, there comes ⏳⏳⏳⏳a time in the game⏳⏳⏳⏳ where a scholarship application can be submitted. There are many reasons you may want a scholarship!

What if you fell in love with the cheerleading captain and worked hard to pursue a career adjacent to hers?

Or maybe it's for your own sake.

Maybe it's for another subject or sport entirely!

🗣️YOUR CHOICES MATTER AND AFFECT WHAT DIRECTION YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR "EDUCATION" 😉😉😉😉

Regardless of why the scholarship matters to you, ⏳⏳the date you must submit your application by⏳⏳ never changes. The world and important dates and times are a constant thing that will NEVER change based on your choices—

Not even if you time travel to try and outsmart the chess captain. ⏳⏳It is out of your power to change the dates and times for several huge in-game events!⏳⏳ Richard has limits and there's plenty of shit he can't do, even if he went backwards in time to try to do things COMPLETELY differently!!!!

⏳⏳Your ass WILL meet that scholarship deadline or find out!!!!!⏳⏳

We're going to pretend for a moment that we're in a bad continuity. You fucked up the scholarship application!!!

"What the fuck?!" Richard may (will) be asking

See, you got the paper in on time, but have been running Richard ragged the whole game. ⏳⏳⏳

🗣️WELL WELL WELL WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE

🗣️YOUR CHOICES MATTER AND CARRY CONSEQUENCES.

Richard is so sleep deprived, he missed boxes 10 - 24A on the application. He doesn't even know what that means. Neither do you. All you know is that you got an email notifying you of the fuck-up, and the only way to save your scholarship is to make...

A phone call.

THIS IS A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

But you have to press on.

Or do you?

You'll be talking with robots at best for six hours minimum and no doubt hearing shitty hold music the ENTIRE time ⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳⏳💀💀💀💀💀

💀THERE ARE ONLY TWO POSSIBLE WAYS RICHARD CAN RESPOND💀

🔀Ask your only friend in this continuity, Gwen, to make the call for you🔀

🔀OR🔀

🔀Literally die🔀

Celegwen would also literally rather die than make that call

but you know she'd do it for you if you ask nicely enough💀💀💀

🗣️THIS IS A LOVELY MEANS OF ILLUSTRATING:🗣️

• The choices you make leading up to that ⏳⏳inescapable date and time⏳⏳ still make a HUGE difference.
• Even if you choose to literally die rather than ask a friend to make a phone call for you, it's your choice how Richard's journey goes, for better or worse.
• Some bad endings are worth taking. Sometimes you don't want to see the story go on, even if it's entirely your fault things got so bad. And that's very valid!
• The sheer degree of ways this single example scenario can vary are extensive
  

Let's apply this to the breadth and depth of the entire game's narrative complexity now.

THAT'S RIGHT IT'S FINALLY ⏰⌛⏱️TIME⏱️⌛⏰

🔀EXAMPLE 2:

LET'S JUMP IN THE DEEPEST END OF THE OCEAN

THE MARIANA'S TRENCH OF BRANCHING NARRATIVE DESIGN

🎉It's graduation day!!!!🎉

THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS ON A ⏳⏳SET DATE AND TIME⏳⏳!!!!!

You can imagine the many ways that could have led us here.

You can imagine how many events can connect to this one, end-game point.

But let's not imagine.

⏳⏳⏳Let's explore parallel universes. Together. 🫴🪄⏳⏳⏳

There are eight different Gods and Goddesses sports clubs. All are equally appealing for Richard to dedicate himself to. He's not normal about it but we love this about him. The weirdo shit is what we're all here for.

All the choices you made throughout the entire game, whether or not they're remotely connected to sports, could have been influenced your relationships with the team captains.

Even if you didn't pick the route for the cheerleading captain, she might be really happy to see you on graduation day, just based on the choices you made.

So! Whether or not you wound up joining a specific club or not, you were probably favoring one captain, or even a couple. The way that Richard's character has developed is going to have changed no matter what!

🗣️The route you chose to get here is going to have had a huge impact, no matter what!

The enemies, friends, and other social encounters you had WILL factor in to the course of your entire game.

Even if you don't see the shitty barista Orgoth on graduation day, you might be thinking about the impression he left on Richard way back in week 1 of your first semester. It's a big journey.

Maybe you are graduating side by side with friends!

Maybe no one is here with you on graduation day at all.

Some of the other students you see on campus have rich stories of their own, and no matter how many times you play the game, you can probably count on them playing a big role in Richard's story.

That doesn't mean you have to be friends with them. Maybe you made Celegwen take a shitty phone call the day she had a big test or something 😢

Maybe you haven't heard from her ever since, and she's nowhere to be found on graduation day.

Maybe you picked one of their routes and just wanted to have some normalcy for a change.

Maybe you decided Ofelia seems cool, and became great friends. She's not here, but will be when you get back to the dorms. Being a theater nerd isn't so bad when you have a headstrong stagehand gf who supports you no matter what, right? 😭💖

There's a lot of endings. What matters is that you follow your heart.😭💖

That also means that maybe you never made it to graduation day. The date is always there, but you could have taken a bad path and fucked up Richard's education altogether!

🗣️You don't necessarily need to reach a big date to have a meaningful ending!!!!!!🗣️

Maybe you made it to graduation day, and he's a mess. That could be the story you wanted to see. That's the point, really.

That's why keeping internal consistency is the most important thing in this entire game's design process. Your choices change the story, but there MUST be internal consistency for any of this to make sense and feel sound.

Richard changes. The world doesn't have to.

Whether you doggedly pursue just one sport (and its captain) at ANY cost, flunk out entirely and despair, have a great year with a happy ending (it's possible!), have a bad year and love every second of it (even if Richard doesn't)...

In any combination of events, no matter which way the story goes...

All that really matters is that the player gets to see the story they want.

"is it time, alaric," you, the newly initiated time wizard may be wondering "will I gaze into the abyss and understand what gazes back"

"soon," I whisper, "but first a flowchart"

It's hard work! And even harder to talk about without spoiling the whole game. This is a flowchart I use a lot, which is a little outdated by now, but illustrates in the game's demo just how much choice is used to give the player a rich and complex experience.

You don't need every single decision to cause a permanent divergence to tell a compelling game. I argue that you can tell a much more compelling story by letting the player make mistakes and keep going. Letting the player have smaller means of expression and continuing to check for that is a lot of fucking work though, and so it is understandable why most games do not do this.

Honoring the choices of a player in such a way is a herculean endeavor. We've talked about it briefly in only the broadest strokes in this devlog, but I'm sure you understand that it would be much easier to make 10 separate games!

But I'm not. I'm making

ONE

BIG

BRANCHING GAME

it's time

you are ready

you understand the scale of this narrative endeavor and the why

I can feel it in my bones

my decrepit lich time wizard bones

I have a spoiler-free version below of one of my spreadsheets. This is one of many ways I track the branching continuities in CBF on my end! It's just one (1) way I do this. This spreadsheet has 48 tabs! Suffice to say I also use many different methods within the same game.

I'm just sharing my process. Take from it what you will. What you do with forbidden timey wimey arcanery is up to you.

This is a goofy, ✨spoiler-free✨ version of one (1) tab in my master spreadsheet illustrating:

A. Numerous endings are being accounted for when I outline anything.

B. One row is hidden because I change these spreadsheets constantly over time. Shit gets cut out with prejudice. These outlines are ONLY tools, which I adjust as much as I need to help me make the game itself! They can be ugly and simple. This isn't what the player sees, this is normally meant for my eyes only!

C. There is a custom calendar for the game. I track the time span of everything.

D-E. I watch for "parallel chapters": entire chunks of the game that run adjacent to another timeline in the story. It's most often to ensure consistency with the timeline. Sometimes hard branches can merge into each other. The dates and times are not the only important thing. (✨Watch me veering away from spoilers hardcore!!!!✨)

F. The choices the player makes are the #1 thing I watch for when outlining and tracking the narrative! EVERY SINGLE CHOICE is given extreme thought and care. I don't put them in the game frivolously, even if they functionally don't cause a huge divide in the narrative. You should appreciate why this is so important for a good game experience, and why it's such a joy as a narrative designer and game designer!💖

G. The variables that correlate to each choice often are significant enough that I make special note of them, even when outlining very streamlined spreadsheets like this. Relationship points, special attributes for Richard, his physical condition, you name it. Not every choice does this, but I have to decide when they do! It is deliberate design. It must be programmed too. All the game's design is built off the branching narrative design!

H. Lastly, this sheet has a short summary of events. This helps me at a glance to outline the narrative, see where I will cut away the fat, and ensure the story's branching is always meaningful.

One more look at the extremely simplified flowchart, showing the types of branching narrative for the 10 hard branches Catalyst: Blind Faith takes. You may stare into the abyss of parallel timelines and smile, understanding how much work goes into making sure a solidly designed, choice-based game stares back.

It's all good if most of this didn't make any sense! I hope you enjoyed a look into just how much consideration goes into the different kinds of various branching timelines in this game.

Whether it's a (relatively) linear route where we have a couple of endings at most, or the monstrously complex trunk of the story where most routes can merge into...

I hope reading this devlog today helps you appreciate the extreme care, consideration, love, blood, sweat, and tears going into the MANY different continuities in this one, BIG, VERY BRANCHING GAME!

It's a lot of work, and I've already made an obscene amount of progress. I could not be more excited to be working on such an ambitious project. The amount of progress made on its systems and every last little design detail in the last year alone is indescribable, so I'm thrilled to be sharing it with you all!

I'll be sharing a stream of my current progress on Catalyst: Blind Faith with our community VERY soon! The server anniversary is coming up fast. To celebrate we'll be piling into voice chat in our community Discord while I give a behind-the-scenes look at a lot of this stuff in action. We're also going to do a dumb thing of everyone in the VC voting on what choices to take and maybe some dramatic reading.

(Definitely dramatic reading we love it)

I hope to see you there! It's going to begin on Sunday, September 21st, at 3:30PM EST.  We usually go for a couple hours at least and I've got a LOT to show off from the last year of development heheheh

╰(°▽°)╯ obligatory joke about timey wimey stuff being inescapable in this devlog ╰(°▽°)╯

🔀OUTRO🎉

Whether or not you can join in the anniversary party, thank you so much for reading! I hope you have a great month and thank you so much again for the support! The next narrative devlog will be spoiler-packed with how I do a lot of this stuff in the context of the narrative, with things like maintaining consistent characterization and how the player can drastically change Richard's goals and fate.

Let me know any thoughts, questions, or your favorite silly picrew image in the comments below! They were all made with this lovely Picrew. Thank you all so, so much for all the support and love for this game's development during such a hectic time for me.╰(°▽°)╯💖💖💖🔥🔥🔥

But really thank you all so, so much! 🫶🫶🫶 🔥🔥🔥 Here's to you all being legends cheering me on while I go from interactive fiction to commercial visual novel development, and six years of dark fantasy and horror choice-based games!!! Looking forward to sharing more game updates very soon!!