Original Notes

My original notes on the game’s concept, mostly from before I started work. Spoilers ahead, but I don’t know why you’d care enough to read this if you haven’t seen at least a decent chunk of the game. Notes are normal text, my commentary is in italics.

NOTES Characters: Childhood friend of yours who who wants to make the most of their last moments. (Spoilers) You can attempt to romance them, and they’ll comply- if you press them on how they really feel, they’ll reveal that they aren’t actually attracted to you, but they do like you enough (platonically) that they don’t mind going along with it to make you happy for your last few hours. (/Spoilers) That’s Charlie! He made it into the game pretty much exactly as I originally envisioned him. Scientist who logically understands there’s nothing he can do to save the world in such a short period, but can’t bring himself to stop trying. (You can try to convince them to stop, but they’ll be happiest knowing they did their best.) This is Sanna! She’s also mostly as first envisioned, though she isn’t TOTALLY convinced there’s nothing she can do to change the world. Also, “he” ended up being a “she.” That happens sometimes. AI who “wants” to sacrifice themselves to save the world, and is really unhappy because all they can do is either wait it out or kill themselves for no reason. You can probably offer them some comfort by letting them know that you appreciate what they’ve done, and what they’d be willing to do. This one didn’t make it into the game at all. “Broken” robot who used to be connected to an online network, and finds themselves lost and somewhat blind without it. “I hope you’re happy when the sun sets today. I wish I could see you, I don’t know if I remember your face…” It normally spends most of its time in sleep to preserve power, but has recently been spending all its time awake- Is it aware that the end is coming? Its dialogue seems to imply that it at least vaguely is. “(The robot is already active when you arrive, which is odd, considering that…)” This one also didn’t make it. This probably would have been the saddest character in the game to interact with, because it’s capacity for a “happy ending” is very limited. “Trick,” a previously hostile infiltrator who decided to give up on their mission because you’re all screwed anyway. He still won’t tell you his real name, though. “A guy’s gotta have at least SOME secrets, right?” (That is, unless you spend your last moments with him.) This guy didn’t make it into the original game, but he did end up in The Beacon! The main change in his implementation is that he doesn’t actively hide his name, he just doesn’t give it out unless he has a specific motivation.

Setting note: There’s a light in the sky that starts out bright and near-blinding, but fades to a warm glow as the end nears- and shortly before the end, it turns to pure darkness. No stars. The odd light never really made it into the game- it just starts out at a normal brightness, then gets darker. I’m honestly not sure what this light would have been because the actual cause of the apocalypse was always very vague.

TODO: Maybe add an update eventually for a storyline with Captain Fox. Could be an alternate start: You choose either “Snowset Camp,” or “Fox’s Trawler (Bonus Story)”. Two years later, but it’s finally here! I only decided to make in an unlockable story (as opposed to available from the start) once I started working on it, though. You can probably try to set off fireworks at some point. It’s dangerous, but… who really cares about that any more? This was implemented exactly as envisioned. You can have friends help you out, but it’s still not a safe idea. Your final decision is who you’ll spend the last moments with. A friend? Someone new? Just by yourself? (The last gives some insight to the player character’s internal monologue.) Your absolute final moments (last 60 seconds) are a choice within that choice, and depend on what you pick. The first part of this made it in, the second didn’t. It could have been kind of neat, I think- something along the lines of deciding at the last second whether you’re genuinely at peace, or not okay with what’s happening. If you choose to spend your last moments with your friend, your “60 seconds remain” choice is whether to kiss him, hug him, talk about nothing in particular, or just sit in silence. If you kiss him, you are then presented with a choice to ask if they enjoyed it. Insisting on honesty results in them admitting that they don’t really like you that way but want to see you happy, while just asking gets a simple nod. You can also choose not to do anything else. The last moments of Snowset were originally supposed to count down in smaller increments for all endings. Aside from that, though, this is implemented in-game almost exactly as written here. The only real difference is that asking Charlie if he enjoyed it has him say it made him happy, rather than simply nodding.

Ending draft:

Score: Well. I can’t put a number to what you’ve done. It’s all the same in the end, anyway. So really, there’s just one question that matters here: Are you happy with your decisions?

(Yes)->End game (No.)[…No? Why’s that? (I could have done better.)->Well then. Lucky for you, there’s another timeline waiting. (There was nothing I could do.)->That’s true. Sometimes things… don’t exactly turn out we hope, do they? Well, that’s life, I suppose.->Though… This world may be doomed, but perhaps there’s somewhere with a little more hope? {Link to “Rewind”}] I originally planned on presenting the ending as if you were being scored, but then pointing out that you can’t really put a number to how someone handles a situation like this. That didn’t make it into the game, which, in hindsight, is probably for the best because it doesn’t really add anything. The post-game dialogue about whether you’re satisfied with your path did make in in, if not exactly as written here. One of the options for expressing dissatisfaction was supposed to be a hyperlink to “Rewind,” another game of mine that I… never actually ended up writing, and at this probably won’t. Since the link never made it into the game, thankfully that’s a moot point.

FOX’S TRAWLER: A note: All of these notes, aside from the first two, were written during the development of The Beacon, as opposed to the others which were written a while before I started working on (what is now known as) Snowset: The Last Days of Winter. The title of this side-story was originally “Fox’s Trawler.” That is what the ship is, but I changed the title to the ship’s actual name.

The Beacon IV is equipped with flares, meant to be used for communication. Considering that it’s the end of the world, though, you could just use them as makeshift fireworks. And hey, maybe you’ll even draw another ship to you- it’s not like they’re likely to have anything better to do. (If you’ve done this in the FT side-story, the flares show up in some Snowset endings. You can reset this in the Cheats menu.) The flares can be launched in-game, and do show up in the “all characters” ending of The Last Days of Winter, but there’s no mention of actually signalling another ship. In hindsight, that doesn’t make much sense because the setting is very isolated. Also, you can’t reset the flares, because it’s a very minor change and I can’t really think of a reason you’d want to undo it.

You have the option to offer Evelynn candy at one point- She doesn’t like it, it’s too sweet for her. But in the end, she’s glad she tried it. There’s also a certain brand of candy out there that mixed bitter and sweet- It’s rather niche, but Eve would love it, if she ever got to try it. Which she doesn’t. …Oh. Evelynn was originally conceived as a more dark and brooding character. I still like this scene, but couldn’t really find anywhere to fit it in the game.

You have an opportunity to make Evelynn properly smile at one point. This is very important. Several points, as it turns out, and it always makes the protagonist quite happy.

Depending on where the crew is positioned (which may change as time passes and/or based on your actions), someone you’re not talking to might overhear you. I tried to do this, and it ended up adding a lot of complication to mt work for fairly limited payoff, so I abandoned it. If I had unlimited time to work I might consider it, but realistically, it doesn’t make much sense.

Depending on how close you are to Captain Fox, she might want you to call her Captain, Fox, Evelynn, or Eve. It’s not really based on a relationship meter, but Captain Fox can ask you to or let you call her by those names depending on your path through her branch of the story. Every instance of Captain Fox’s name/title in the game except for the first (where you can’t have had a chance to change it) is a variable that’s being displayed.

Trick has grown to like the crew of the Beacon over time, and is actually kind of happy to have an excuse to be honest about his identity. …Yeah. This is mostly a general story note to myself, but it holds true, even if it’s not explicitly stated.

Make sure to keep track of where everyone is, and have the game refer to their location appropriately, especially if you’re in the same place. Again, this was never properly implemented, but it took me a while to give up on.

Use a different color scheme for The Beacon side story, via tags? It should be pretty obvious if you’ve actually played The Beacon that this one got worked in

Names: Captain->Lily Trick->Blue Savvy->Light Potential default names for the protagonist of The Beacon depending on who she talks to first. I ended up using all of these.

Why did it take Lily so long to realize she had a crush on Evelynn? Because she confused it with simple admiration. This is complicated by the fact that Lily does genuinely admire Evelynn in a completely platonic way. The crush is not unrelated to that, but she would feel the same admiration even without any romantic feelings in the mix. This gets some discussion if Lily (which is what I call the protagonist here because this refers to her interactions specifically with Evelynn) confesses her feelings to Evelynn.

Evelynn reacts to Lily’s crush by telling her that she doesn’t feel any romantic attraction toward her, but she does love her platonically… along with the rest of crew, really. Well, aside from Trick, who she just plain doesn’t know that well. It isn’t that Lily isn’t special to Evelynn, it’s that the entire crew (with the exception of Trick due to lack of familiarity) is special to her- she doesn’t feel that way about the vast majority of people she meets. (Also note that this isn’t the only way Evelynn can express her love for the crew.) This isn’t discussed in as much detail in-game as it is here, but most of it is either stated or implied to be true.

The protagonist of this story doesn’t talk as much as the protagonist of The Last Days of Winter, but she’s more observant- more of the story is narration, as opposed to dialogue. This is true to an extent. The Beacon’s protagonist still talks a lot, but she does occasionally make notes of other things, especially expressions. There’s also a few scenes that are mostly or completely silent, which have more narration than similar scenes in TLDoW.

Make sure to tell the player about the flares, or at least that something has changed in at least one of TLDoW’s endings (and which one if exactly one). I did that. That’s pretty much the point of writing this down.

…And two additional notes about where some story concepts came from, specifically the names of the AIs. (These may not be in italics, but they’re not original written notes, just stuff I though was worth mentioning.) Savvy is a name I’ve had written down for some AI character. It doesn’t mean anything in particular, but I liked it enough to save it for future use. E-VOL actually comes from a previous story of mine that has since been lost. Given that it’s no longer available, I figured I might as well recycle some of it by using it elsewhere. Interestingly, the original story was post-apocalyptic, while Snowset is a story about the apocalypse occurring. Given the type of apocalypse in Snowset, there can’t really be a “post-apocalyptic” continuation of the setting, so the stories could really only be linked thematically. While I do enjoy shared universes, anything else taking place in the Snowset universe- like The Beacon- is inherently going to share a common fate.