Devlog #4 📚 Working on the Demo

I am writing this in bed after dying at the gym. please clap

In case you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.

This month, I worked on the demo for Truth Scrapper!!

The demo for Truth Scrapper is DONE!!! (but you know I still need to get some people to playtest it and do some QA and we also need to translate it so really it’s not done but you know)

To celebrate, I thought I would go in a bit more detail about what a demo is, what it’s for, and how I go around making one.

📚 WHAT'S A DEMO

So, for the uninitiated, a “demo” is a little slice of the game, that is supposed to encapsulate the gameplay and story and stuff. It’s usually showcased in events like conventions (PAX, Gamescom…), and online (Steam events, especially Steam Next Fest). The goal of a demo is to GET THOSE SWEET SWEET WISHLISTS BABYYYYY

📚 LEARNING FROM PAST MISTAKES

When it comes to the demo for In Stars and Time (my previous game), I think it did a great job showcasing both gameplay (through battles) and story (through events and dialogue). I ended up taking the first floor of the main dungeon, and fixing it up a bit so that the time loop starting was the Cool Thing at the end of the demo, and Loop’s appearance was the Cliffhanger. Oh yeah your demo needs a cliffhanger so people go “oh my god i gotta know what happens next let me wishlist this.” So yes, I think I succeeded in that regard.

However, one big issue it had was the LENGTH. The demo was EASILY AN HOUR LONG, which is fine-ish when it comes to online demos (players have some time) and streamers (yay they get to play a game), but not great when it comes to conventions.

We only showcased the demo at the Tokyo Game Show, and I think in 3 days, only a handful of people played it from beginning to end. We ended up making a save skipping the first cutscene, and asking people if they wanted to see the story, or start from the gameplay, which is… Not great!

So for the Truth Scrapper demo, my goal was to make it LESS THAN THIRTY MINUTES LONG. But also a piece of personal lore is that I am terrible at knowing how long a game I made is, so we’ll see if I succeed.

In positive things though, the ISAT demo allowed me to find some cute ways to make the full game more interesting, like tutorial fairy Loop being the one to tutorialize you at the start of the game! Originally, Loop just talked to you after your first loop, so they kind of came out of nowhere. Having a tutorial at the very start of the demo, then having that tutorial tell you to come to the tree was an idea I had for the demo, and it was so good I ended up adding it to the game! So hopefully, making the TS demo will also help me figure out some things…

📚 MAKING THE DEMO

Ok so the one problem I had from the start was that in the full game, Day 1 is Amour’s day, and Day 2 is Betz’s. So obviously, I couldn’t just take either of those days as a base for the demo, since I wanted to showcase both characters immediately. Whole new day it is. DAY… X!!!!!!!!!!! (not canon to the full game.)

All days in TS usually follow this structure:

Wake up -> Explore the town -> Explore the Dwell -> Point and Click investigation -> Dress-Up-type minigame -> End of the day.

So I figured I would follow this for the demo, but, uh, immediately realized that would be a two hour demo. So I simplified it to this:

Wake up (longest scene, needs to establish characters and setting) -> explore the Dwell (quickly) -> very quick Point and Click (“yahoo there’s gameplay”) -> Dress-Up-type minigame (it’s short and cute) -> End of the day (and cliffhanger).

So most scenes are way quicker, and hopefully this will be a 30mn demo (GOD PLEASE I HOPE I’M RIGHT)

The demo also showcases the memory gameplay, where Sosotte gets to choose memories that give her specific “perks”. I originally had it just like the full game, where you can change those memories whenever, but I decided to make those permanent (you pick them at the start and they don’t change), which should allow for a certain level of replayability. And demo achievements. IF I CAN GET THEM TO WORK.

Truth Scrapper has a lot of funny words and lore that would take longer than a demo to explain, so I also simplified the story there to make it more understandable. If some players want more details, there’s always the option for them to scour the Glossary. This is honestly the biggest reason for playtesting, I really want to make sure I didn’t make the story too complex for the demo… We’ll find out…

What else. Oh yeah. Since the demo is based on the latest Truth Scrapper build, I made sure to delete all mentions of stuff that happens later in the story. Yes including songs. Yes including sound effects. YOU WON’T GET ME THIS TIME, CODE DIGGERS!!!!!!!!

Uuuh yes that’s all. I know I said all of this and you don’t have the demo so you’re like “ok cool I guess that sounds great” so uh I hope you’ll play the demo when it comes out. Probably. Early 2026 or something.

📚 HOLD UP HERES SOME ART

Oh yeah... I also drew some art based on this music video. You should really follow me on Bluesky or Tumblr or even Instagram.

ok thats it byyyyye

DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Links!
📚 Official Website
📚 Join the Discord
📚 Sign up for my mailing list
📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky
📚 Follow ME on Bluesky