Project EggDev

Our current project is a dating sim we call Project EggDev.

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DevBlog #4: Some fresh eggs?

This past meeting was quite hectic, what with the self-imposed-40 minute deadline to pick names. Goes to show, nothing puts on the pressure like a due date! due today do today am i right

Since talking about this past meeting would bring up too many spoilers, I’ll tell you a bit about what we needed for this game. When preparing to make any game, there needs to be a list of assets. Just to give you an idea, our bare minimum for art assets alone comes out to nearly 60 objects! Of course, this is a dating sim, so the majority of the those assets are the different characters with different emotions. 

Nevertheless, it NEVER hurts to have a solid list of every single asset you’ll need, even if it’s as small as a textbox, a script, the sound of a button. It really puts the scope of your project into perspective, especially when you’re working on a game genre you’ve never done before. 

Just to set some examples, our asset list for narrative includes the finalized text documents, a handful of mandatory plot outline documents, and a few world-building documents. The art asset list includes backgrounds, text box designs, a font, and the character sprites as well as any side characters. If your asset list is starting to look a little big, then you’re probably doing it right! 

This is where feature creep comes in. Anything that isn’t completely necessary can go into a “feature creep” list, which, for our game, is original character themes crack is sad and a few art assets. Unfortunately, chances are that every little feature you come up with won’t make it in the game. For now, we’re putting our all into what we currently have!

Also, introducing our newest victims members, Yolkien and Tama-sama! Yolkien will be JPEgg’s slave helper and Tama-sama will be Shelliot’s servant helper. Here’s to our growing nest!

-Crack

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Character Intros!

Hello all! Finally, after much discussion, we’d like to introduce our characters!

First off, your cherished childhood friend, Gale! You haven’t seen him since you left town after high school, and he hasn’t changed much, although he seems more attached to you then before. Perhaps distance makes the heart grow fonder

You’d almost completely forgotten about Gale’s older brother, Carter! He tends to be hostile towards, well, everyone. He easily works the most hours at the cafe, and puts his all during those work hours, but what does he really plan on doing with his future?

The shyest of the bunch is Beckett! He’s currently an undergraduate in dancing, and while he’s quite capable, his introverted personality covers a rather peculiar sense of humor. He’s close friends with Esther, but opening up to anyone else is almost out of the question.

An avid gamer and the only girl working at the cafe is Esther! She’s quite lazy when uninspired, but her outgoing attitude and social and academic expertise make her a genius at anything she puts her mind to, that is, if she can put her mind to it.

And lastly, the edgy and loud Eduardo! Recently graduated in theater, he can take any role given to him. He’s full of energy and antics, and even a few secrets. You've heard he’s got a tendency to lie, so his tall tales and stories are clearly fake, right...?

Look forward to meeting them!

-Crack

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DevBlog #3: Crambulee brought pizzas

The meeting don’t start till we have snacks. Nothing hits the spot like two solid hours of cracking jokes and scrambling up names.

Hello all! Crack apologizes for the very late posting of DevBlog #2 and DevBlog #3. Without further ado, let’s talk business: Chapter 0.

Every video game needs a tutorial. While some games may seem self explanatory, it usually takes a forgiving level or two to get into the swing of things. For dating games, it’s absolutely essential to have an introductory chapter to, well, introduce your potential significant others. 

We wanted to give a brief intro of the player’s situation first of all, as well as present an inconsequential first option menu to show how the gameplay works. Granted, there are many ways to decide the outcome of a route, but we chose a basic gain/lose point system, with your character’s response affecting your point values. 

With this in mind, we set to writing our first chapter as a team. Things to keep in mind were that this was the player’s first time being introduced to the world and characters that we created, so we did our best to take things slow and introduce some basic elements of each character. We also didn’t want to overwhelm the player with too much so each conversation was relatively short. 

After writing, of course, is editing for grammar and plot holes. The tense is always a pain to sort out, but text based games rely on really solid editing. Also tricky is making sure that the player is able to understand the plot from their point of view, as it’s easy to forget that the context developed for the game is a different beast from the context presented in the game.

Our next meeting will be to finalize ground zero Chapter 0 and to tell you some specifics about each character! Until next time!

-Crack

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Yolk of the Week

Mother: Do you want your omelette with egg yolks or Egg Whites.

Son: I'll just have what I normally have.

Mother: So not egg whites?

Son: Yema

-Shelliot

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DevBlog #2: Snacks, Settings, Puns Oh My

So first of all jagabee has tuna in it??? like why

We’re back! It’s been a very long time between posts because Crack has scrambled brains two weeks since our first meeting, and we’ve gotten a few more gnarly details settled, including our overall events that will happen to every route and how our darling characters feel about each other. Without revealing too much, let’s just say there’s a little tension in the air both good and bad, and that we’ve gotten quite a few deets ironed out about them during this past meeting.

All of the characters are about, say, in their 20′s, and in varying degrees of education and financial status. Of course, this provides an great incubator for some drama and conflict. There are five routes total, all written by Meggi, Shelliot, Baluuchi, and myself. We were able to come up with a very juicy pentagram chart of how each character feels about each other. 

In case you forgot, our setting is a rather smallish cafe. It’s run by our five characters and you, the player! In charge is the rather eggclectic manager, who is not above, er, giving some of his employeeggs a little push out of the nest. And of course, what is a cafe without it’s loyal customers? During their days off, some of your coworkers just might stop by to say hello!

We’ll give a little sneak peek of who you’ll be wooing working with as we get a few more details ironed out. Until next time!

-Crack

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Hello World!

Hi, everyone! We’re just a group of people interested in making a VN style dating simulator. Here’s a little more about us:

Crambulee is our record keeper, pun counter, and general babysitter. Currently a hospitality major and Mystic Messenger trash, she enjoys getting people drunk (she’s our designated driver), being a closet weeb, and wondering how the **** she ended up in charge of us.

Meggi is our editor and marketing expert. Currently a PR major and permanently nocturnal, he claims the title of the Ultimate Weeb. Obsessed with Danganronpa, League of Legends, anime and waifus. Loves yelling and giving people ultimate titles. 

Baluuchi is our business manager and resident trashdove shipping lord. Currently a business management major, she can usually be found without Fire Emblem Heroes husbando Niles, much to her disappointment. She likes drawing, Cactaur, dank memes, and Cactaur.

Shelliot is our artist and resident Pun Lord. ‘Nuff said.

JPEgg is our programmer, and, unlike Meggi, he simply lacks sleep in general. When he’s not napping you can always find him cooking some delicious egg dishes in the kitchen.

And yours truly, Crack, sound designer and composer. Currently an amateur video game designer and D. Grayman obsessed trash, I enjoy playing bassoon and watching playthroughs of video games I can’t afford.

what could possibly go wrong

-Crack

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DevBlog #1: Starting out!

So far, we’ve been following a model based off of our team’s past experiences with developing and playing games. The first order of business was to decide what we wanted from this game. We wanted to do a visual novel style dating game in which you have just started working at a cafe for a summer job. We managed to work out a rough schedule of tasks, and, of course, a hatch ship date. We also began brainstorming character tropes that we wanted to follow.

Working out a schedule is probably the most tricky part of game development. Things can and will go wrong. Since this is our first project, we have an extremely short development time of about 21 weeks, or about five months, with the hatch day on August 8. 

On top of this, we’re mostly college students in varying years. We decided that May would be our “dead” month, and hopefully we’d have most of our group-decision details ironed out enough that we could go through the whole month without needing a serious meeting. This time could be dedicated to graduating, finals, writing dialogue in our own time, etc.

We set a few deadlines for writing dialogue as well, so that JPEgg has enough time to implement dialogue and assets. About a month before the hatch day, the writing “team” will dissolve, and each writer will have another task, such as publicity and maybe even crowdfunding?. 

The final layout for deadlines is about 70% from past experience and 30% experimenting, so let’s see how it goes!