development thread (art, writing, etc)

[jack1974]

Haha that's just awesome
(BTW Marcel is carrying her near a window on a very tall tower, and throwing her out of it!)

[jack1974]

that chibi was useful during the design stage of the scheduler screen....

[jack1974]

A few days later...

this is the almost final version, it's just missing the chibi activities and I'll probably add a tab on the right with the possibility to also check the relationships. I wanted to have every info available in one screen and I think I managed to do a nice job. I wanted to reuse Roommates' scheduler but in the end was faster to just recode it from scratch

[fabulaparva]

So...will this be the 'Haul Luggage' or 'Clean Rooms' icon for the Scheduler?

[jack1974]

That's a good question

[jack1974]

Marcel looked happier carrying Rosalynn
I'm waiting for some last minute sprites and music tracks, meanwhile I am doing some testing/tweaking for the stats balancing and such. I still hope to do the beta by end of month though!

[jack1974]

added all the chibis and also another tab on the right to display the romance relationships. So far I tested and tweaked all the main plot scenes, but I currently have a random mechanic (3 possible outcomes for each activity).
I'm thinking to change it to some fixed mechanic instead, like:
- three activities of one kind in a week = +1 bonus on the related stat. If are 6, +2 bonus
- four different activities in a week = +1 reputation (you normally earn reputation with main plot choices, or randomly)

this way there could be some strategy at work, since you must either win all the skill checks in the main plot to get 80 reputation and unlock the special ending, or reach 80 by other means.

I think will use that system, since the current random one could be criticized

[jack1974]

Lol OK my idea didn't last much basically using that system everything was too predictable and not fun anymore. So I've reverted back to the random result, but since you do many weeks (32) the random factor has an impact up to a certain point (32 x 7 days = 216 total random result, so the final values you'll get are more or less similar on several playthroughs).
I played it several times, and I managed to win getting the special ending every time. Of course, since I know what to do but I'll also make a walkthrough like I did with my other dating sims. Once you know "the trick" it's actually not hard to win at all even in Normal difficulty (in Easy it's really... Easy!).
All that's left now is to add the musics and wait for the last 2 sprite images. Since we're halfway through April I really think should be able to do the beta at end of month as I hoped

[jack1974]

Last 2 sprite images arrived! Silverhyena (the writer) could do some extra chibis for the 4 guys, but I can definitely finish the game already. OK, 15 days to check/code about... 50 scenes (they're already scripted luckily so I only need to add music/fx and check everything).

[jack1974]

Some screenshots, just to show that despite a lot of sad/serious/tense moments, there are also many other funny ones:


and here's Licia (one of the secondary characters) who already figured out everything!