Okay, Okay - I know it has been over a month since my last/first post here but I can explain... I have been prioritising working on the game more than writing blog posts updates so much so that I now have to write up a massive blog post of all that I have done so far. Well done, Never - you so smart.
Anyway, here’s the juice.
The work I have done thus far includes:
Promotional info sheets for all the LIs/Dateable characters (Jump to 1)
Fully fleshed out plan for Teddy’s route (Jump to 2)
Name input system (Jump to 3)
Began MC customisation widget mechanics (Jump to 4)
Fleshed out plan for date system (Jump to 5)
Made some plans for joint-activity time (Jump to 6)
Made a list of work that needs to be complete for a demo release (Jump to 7)
Colour scheme/palette (Jump to 9)
Item Planning (Jump to 10)
Making money (Jump to 11)
1) Promotional info sheets for all the LIs/Dateable characters
^ These are the ‘promotional info sheets’ for the LIs. I have displayed these out as a sort of dating profile so it includes lots of ‘necessary’ information such as name, age, occupation etc but also so additional information like their star sign, hobbies, fave food etc so that a potential player may pre-determine who they might vibe with/have common grounds with prior to any appearance release.
Regarding, these being prior to appearance release - the silhouettes on the sheets are not true to the final products . Eventually, these sheets will have the characters in-game appearance where the silhouettes are but for now I found some fairly adequate internet silhouettes to hold there place until they are ready.
2) Fully fleshed out plan for Teddy’s route
I am currently using a ‘slow-burn romance system’ for the LI’s romance routes, the slow-burn meaning:
“Stories featuring characters who gradually and naturally fall in love or lust before beginning a romantic or sexual relationship. As the emphasis is on the slow evolution of the relationship rather than a quick conflagration into sudden resolution, such stories may contain a lot of UST and pining until the smouldering passion eventually catches fire”
~ Fanfiction Terminology by Moonbeam Predilections
Now I’m not really a writer of romance - in fact I’m not really a writer at all. Bar of course, the vast notebooks full of short stories and made-up fantastical lore I hide away in boxes from my early youth. So, I looked for further guidance and stumbled upon this lovely individual on YouTube:
This is Alexa Donne and they came up with a 14 step guide on how to write romance arcs which has been INCREDIBLY helpful to a noob writer such as myself - So thank you Alex. These are my notes on her guide:
Cover starting relationship: Enemies to lovers, Friends to lovers, Unrequited affection on either side, A wild curiosity, Fake dating or Secret dating etc.
Cover meet-cute or meet-'hate' etc.: Reflect on it further in text (reminisce). Even if characters already know each other it's the first time the reader has seen them together so make it memorable and 'cute'.
Reaffirm starting relationship baseline: So readers feel it more when things start to change.
Rising tension: There should be a clear shift in the relationship. E.g. Hate to love - Maybe there is some appreciation/respect. MOMENTS. But include doubt, misunderstanding etc just don't go too overboard.
Romantic turning point: One could confess feelings. Or there is a moment of realisation or not... could be only obvious to the reader.
Acknowledging the change. Not a turning point - could make things worse.
More tension. Shared looks. Romantic Torture.
The almost moment. Then Break. Torture the reader.
Giant Conflict/obstacle. Someone's done something terrible. They've been untrue.
It can't happen. Calm everything. Water it down.
Everything on the line. One party tells a lie. Massive obstacle. Massive obstacle. The ultimate uphill.
Reconciliation. More confessing. More kissing.
I really like this guide, it has been super helpful to me. I have planned Teddy’s route around this and it loosely follows this but also flows in a way I need it to for the story I want to tell via Teddy’s route. I like it so far not ( a lot) that’s not to say anything won’t change from the way it currently is but for now I’m pretty happy with it.
‘Yay! An MC with a customisable name - fun....’
This was annoying to implement I’m not going to lie to you. BUT it was necessary for me because I don't know about you but I much prefer when a dating sim allows me to choose the MC’s name. I’m not one to self project when I read a book or play a dating sim for that matter but I like it when a dating sim asks for my input because then I feel like my experience with this game is unique from others. Even more so if I get to make choices within scenes that is just ~chef’s kiss~ wink wink
Anyway I’d add a horrendously edited gif of that but Tumblr won’t let me upload it unfortunately but I did a stream of the process over on my twitch: twitch.tv/neverbeam
4) Began MC customisation widget mechanics
Now this is currently very, very, veryyyyy basic. But I want the player to eventually change aspects of the MC’s appearance - very minimal aspects but aspects nevertheless.
Now this image isn’t final and the artwork is not mine it is by Sutemo on itch.io (I am using V2). But it gives you a vague idea of the appearance possibilities for the MC.
You can choose between straight or wavy hair in silver, blonde, brunette or black and the eyes are either blue, green, brown or purple. Most of the choices are quite common bar of course the white hair and purple eyes situation.
Also it is quite clear here that MC’s default name (AKA her name if you don’t change it from it’s default value), you can change her forename but her surname is Winters for story purposes. Fun fact: I had MC painted as a bit of a brat from the get go so I chose the name Lydia as a nod to Lydia Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as she is definitely (IMHO) the ‘B’ in Brats of Literature.
This week I worked on a little MC moodboard - she is to some degree what we would call part of the ‘old money aesthetic’ or ‘the rich girl aesthetic’. She is the sole daughter of her father aka Mr. Winters the CEO of Winters Inc., one of the largest producers and suppliers of jewellery in the country or world. In real world talk, I would say if Pandora or Tiffany & Co were a family run business with a headline grabbing, bratty acting, fashionista heiress tied to inherit or someday run the company...
I have tested drawing MC a few times. I’ve been a bit on and off with what vibe I want her to omit so I probably won’t be sharing any of those pieces anytime soon as I’m not entirely certain of her aesthetically direction yet. I like the rich girl vibe or South Korean fashion but I also vibe more with the European drinking champagne in Chanel under the Eiffel tower situation so I will be intrigued to see how she develops.
5) Fleshed out plan for date system
OoOoOoOo the date system! I’m so exited for this one as it is more game stat management mechanics wrapped up in a kawaii bow. Let me explain: So the way the game currently works is at the beginning of the ‘week’ you pick one of the LIs to ‘work’ with (I say work because some of them might not abide by the average persons expectations of work). Then, for the rest of the week you have the interaction system this means on any off day (AKA not a work day or joint activity time day) you can single out your favourite LI and interact with them for that days activities. Interactions will include: Chatting, poking, gifting and hanging out or dating. The chat lines and their general attitude toward you will natural change as/if you increase your relationship points with them.
Now the ‘hangout or date system’ (depending on where you are with them) will allow you to take that LI to a particular place in game such as *drum roll please* The Arcade, Restaurant, Theme Park, Cinema or The Lake. At these particular places I am intending on having small QTEs or minigames (Which will be skippable if desired) to boost relationship points with your chosen LI. I wont say much more on the date system apart from that if you look at the LIs sheets you may be able to determine which date location may be their favourite. This will be good for you to know because if you take you chosen LI to their favourite location you will get a buff on your gained relationship points on that particular date.
6) Made some plans for joint-activity time
So, your average ‘week’ in game should be something like Monday: Choose who to work with and have a LI romance route scene, Tuesday: Player choice (Char interaction system), Wednesday: Player choice, Thursday: Player Choice, Friday: Player Choice, Weekend: Joint activity time. Now it’s canon and stated at the beginning in story that each week, to ensure that they spend some quality time together as a household (Teddy’s idea), they shall take it in turns to pick an activity for them all to do - and they have to do it. This puts the LIs frequently in situations that they would not normally part take in making a fun sort of Rom-Com sort of scenario for each of them at least once as the LIs for the most part have very different tastes.
I have planned around 4 at the minute but I plan to do 1-2 in game weeks in the demo so that’s already 2 planned and ripe for the picking.
7) Made a list of work that needs to be complete for a demo release
Regarding a demo, I now have a bare minimum of the amount of work I want to have done for the demo release.
Firstly, as previously stated I want to have 1-2 weeks in game fully fleshed out if 1 is enough time-wise I shall do one if not then it shall be 2.
I want to have character art of all the LIs and any other necessary visual characters that appear within the 1-2 week time frame story-wise.
Character customisation fully fleshed out
At least 3 LI routes. I want to prioritise getting the demo fleshed to the point where I can release it and then go back to making the game, so I might just include Teddy, Isaac and Finn in the demo as pursuable LIs and route lock Kit and Eren not for any reason other than cutting down on my workload and I have chosen these characters as I myself believe that the character archetypes of Teddy, Isaac and Finn should be included asap for promotional purposes. Whereas Kit and Eren have a different depth to there story that might cause a lot more intrigued if it is teased in the demo rather than began - that and as Eren is currently my mystery boy his route makes more sense being locked for the demo - no?
Menu system in full working order
8) Designed basic layout of House Map
The house map is what you will see at the beginning of the work week when you go to choose who you want to work with the icons of the boys will be on screen as buttons that you can click and teleport to them. There will be a confirm you want to work with this person screen, you can confirm or deny and then that will start your scene. If it is any other day instead of loading a scene it will load the LI interaction screen where you can chat, poke, date etc. Depending on who you are romancing they will either be in their room, the living room, the kitchen or the bathroom.
The icons of the boys will either be a chibi version of their face or their flower - I am currently undecided on which.
So, I decided to progress further with the aesthetics I would have to create a colour palette soon ~ This would help with colouring for UI, Characters, promotional pieces etc so the sooner the better really. But as for actual colours, I had no idea. I didn’t want to go with the usual blocky, solid colours or various shades of pinks as expected for a dating sim as I feel it fit the genre okay but not the brand. This dating sim is about an Heiress finding herself as well as hopefully love or romantic attachment. So I decided to look further into that specifically. Our MC is an heiress so something classy, elegant maybe but also with an air of vanity, ego or pride. So I hot google images, Pinterest and Tumblr until I found:
‘The Swing’ by Jean-Honoré Fragonard also known as ‘The Happy Accidents of the Swing’ (French: Les Hasards heureux de l'escarpolette, original title). At the forefront a symbol of infidelity and scandal but visual and in my (admittedly artistically novice) eye and image of flirtation with a person of interest at the potential annoyance and with efforts not entirely your own. So in this I see a lady or girl flirty with the man below, kicking off her shoes, extending her leg etc. others looking on in mischief, the exhausting efforts of the man aiding the lady in her flirtation (whether he likes to or not) and all of this occurring in a beautiful potentially secret safe place. So yes, it’s scandalous, yes your potentially making others aid you and yes you’ll definitely get into a lot of trouble if someone finds out...
An heiress gets into a bit of trouble and moves into the home of her fathers trusted assistant alongside his other male roommates and begins aiding them with their work and potentially falling in love with one of them and thereby going against your father’s wishes entirely?
That. AND THE COLOUR PALETTE.
Colours included are (left to right): Air Superiority Blue, Eton Blue, Chestnut, Middle Red, Eggshell, Satin Sheet Gold and Burnished Brown.
Anyway, passionate speech aside. I love this painting, it’s vibe, its colours, all of it. I think it will all work well for my game. This isn’t me saying that other colours wont appear of course, I know I turned my nose up at6 pink earlier but pink will always have a place in dating sims - I just don’t want it to have the biggest position in mine.
p.s. aren’t rococo paintings just the pinnacle of romance anyway?
There will be a shop you can go to in game for the gifting segment of the LI interaction this would take a full day out of you schedule though so you’d have to plan around it. I have also made it so that the items help the MC do more things such as the energy drink - this will allow MC to interact multiple times with an LI. There will also be special items. I wont go into much detail about these as they can all do different things and I’d like to keep them as something you can discover during playing the game.
Otherwise current items include:
The Earl & I: Eternal Hearts: Limited edition poster book
Immortal Annihilation: Lady Vice Figurine
iBoy Limited Edition Album
This will all be purchasable at the convenience store accessible on the main map.
‘Wait, so you can buy things but with what money?’
I hear you, I’m currently dabbling with this. Currently I’m thinking that Teddy will arrange with MC a pocket-money scheme where she can earn money to buy things. This may seem a bit degrading but MC will be in a situation where all her original finances have been frozen and she can’t access any of her accounts, she is working with the guys on a near daily basis to cover her living costs, so she can live there eat the food etc. So she does these additional pocket-money tasks specifically for the spending money. These tasks will be available on a notice board in the kitchen if the player chooses to do any of these tasks then that will take a full day of interaction so the player will have to plan wisely.
Tasks will include things like: Do the dishes, do the laundry, clean Kit’s/Finn’s room, help cook dinner etc. The money she receives for the task will differ depending on the task.
Oof, so that’s pretty much it for this update. Apologies for the scale of the post but I hadn’t found the time to write recently so I thought it best I group it all into one big update. I hope to do another dev stream soon so if you’re interested keep your eye on my twitch: www.twitch.tv/neverbeam
But yes, I shall see you guys (hopefully soon) for the next one ~ peace <3
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