The game is basically done. Waiting for the last 2 backgrounds to put in the game and some testing, but I already played the whole game several times, so should be bug free! 🙂 I uploaded a video to dailymotion, since youtube quality was too poor (the game itself is 1024×768 !).
In the video below, if you want to try reading some texts, click on the “HQ” button and then fullscreen, and you should be able to!
Hope my english is good enough to talk about this! (no worries, the final game will be proof-readed and edited by a native english speaker!).
One of the major complaint I got for Summer Session was that it was sexist,shallow, and such. I don’t agree of course, even if I didn’t write that game myself. The game didn’t contain any explicit scene (actually, not even a nude girl !) but still people complained.
In Heileen there’s going to be lots of sexy situations, but nothing you can’t actually see if you turn on your TV anytime, or you read any teenage comic. Of course the game won’t be suited for kids. But for teenager, surely. There won’t be any explicit reference to anything, just allusions and sexy situation always presented in a fun way.
Since I’m making a romance game, I don’t think I can make it cutting out completely the “eros” part. But the game won’t be erotic. There will be one scene were a girl kisses the other, but is not a passionate kiss. It’s one of those kisses where you barely touch the other people lips.
At least here, it’s common between teenager, especially girls. This doesn’t mean they’re lesbian or whatever, just that are very intimate friends.
Well… when it comes out, hopefully at end of this month, I really wish that people will appreciate my game and won’t make useless and misplaced complaint even on this one! So far all beta-testers (all girls) liked the game and none complained about it being too “sexist” or “vulgar”.
I’m at chapter 4 of the game. I plan to have 10 chapters total, for a very LONG game 🙂
Now I’m thinking about the various endings. Better have many of them? I mean, the more, the better? or would be better fewer ones, but with the story that really branches out?
Let me try to explain better… most dating sims just show a different ending based on the skills you raise during the game. Heileen doesn’t have a schedule/planner, but a sort of quest mode to raise points, and has some internal values to store player menu choices (but without showing him exactly how much impact had his last decision heheh).
So I was planning to have at a certain point of the game completely different stories based on player choice. For example at one point you could have to decide if to leave the ship and help a friend of yours in a town nearby, or stay in the ship. Choosing the first option would lead of course to a different end, but also to a different part of the story. I mean not just a few paragraphs but really 1 whole chapter with your adventures helping him in town, like almost a separate sub-story inside the main game.
Another thing I am evaluating is the “sudden death” – very popular in the “Lone Wolf” gamebooks, mean that your character could face a sudden death without any real warning (like happens unfortunately in real life). I am of course aware that this isn’t a good decision for a casual game, but I always liked that feature.
I mean maybe I’m a bit weird but when I was reading the death description in those books, was cool to see how the main character was ending his adventure (also because I knew I could just go back a few pages and choose another path!).
Since I plan to have a “rollback” option, I don’t think that should be a problem. It means the user can use the mousewheel to go back in the game timeline so can choose another path that won’t lead him to the fearsome sudden death 😀
I’ve finished the first 2 chapters of the game. Writing in my own native language is much faster 🙂 even if it means I’ll have to get all texts translated…! hopefully they’ll do a good job at it.
I’m really proud of the aspect of the game. The art is even better than Summer Session one. Just take a look at my screenshots below:
The fun thing is that I’m attempting a sort of new genre: dating sim (or romance adventure) from a woman’s perspective! 😀 It means that the game will have his own variety of characters and some will be more polite than others, but in general, I’ll need to put the right dose of “sex appeal” without being too explicit.
There will be also some very cute characters (two cats) and in general a more relaxing atmosphere. For now I’m not going to put any sort of scheduling mechanism, also because the game takes place for almost all its length onboard of the Cat’s Dream (the ship name).
I have added a nice feature though which is called “Quests”. In practice during the game you’ll be able to find quests to solve, that will award points. Discovering a new quest will grant you 2 points, and solving it another 3 points.
At the end of the game you’ll be awarded a score based on how many total points you scored, similarly to what happens in Sid Meier’s games 🙂
Well I’m very excited about this game even if everything is quite new for me. My first real attempt at casual audience. So far it’s a great experience and very relaxing compared to coding huge games like Supernova 2!! 😉