Hi all! We're .... wait hold up we haven't figured the name part out yet --

 Ah yes okay

Hi all! We're XxShadowlordxX and we're super excited to participate in this season's jam!
Our game is a Visual Novel /  Restaurant Sim set in a space cafe. If that's not immediately exciting to you, read on. 

The main backstory is that once humans advanced and started to communicate outside of Earth, they became part of the intergalactic community.
A main citadel evolved where all species sort of cross-over and that is where a council with representatives of each of the four main factions/species can come and discuss the laws and rules between the worlds
Tegan wanted to create a cafe where all species could feel comfortable and so, in the safe neutral zone of the galaxy, set up shop.

Tegan, a human on the citadel who has always dreamed of making a café where all species can come in and get along. She wants to make things equal and fair for everybody.

Along the way you'll meet and get to know 8 unique characters, a few of which I'll introduce in the coming days. 

DAY 1: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 2: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection-connection?before=7#post-337715
DAY 3: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection-connection?before=8#post-337964
DAY 4: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 5: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
Day 6: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 7 & 8:  https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 9&10: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection... 
DAY 11: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 12: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 13: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 14: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...

OKay okay okay, this is gonna be pretty long for the first day so bear bare with me.

Alright so we kinda did a lot so if you're here for the pretty pictures ill get those out of the way and then you may go.
Our artists, Banrabbit and Iris were hard at work creating mockups for desserts and characters

I feel the need to break up the pictures with meaningful text but I cant think of anything so ....... 

You'll meet our first character tomorrow but for now all I can say is that he ........ rocks....... thats not even a pun on his name or anything he's just a real cool dude.

Our writer Tibby  got a solid feel for the personalities of the 8 characters and began working on the many (MANY) different endings you can achieve with the smattering of characters.

And after a long discussion and debatably too many strawpolls (though you cant have too many strawpolls)

we decided on MC's name and attributes ... i think

we did right guys

okay I think its Tegan. Yeah Tegan, who's snarky and fun, a little sarcastic but optimistic and kind.

We started talking about character races and design choices for them and Banrabbit drew up this design for an alien race: 

Banrabbit and Iris also chiseled down the desserts to a tentative 25 or 23

And finally, banrabbit the mighty un-resting boy made this:

And with that, he rested. 


Lastly but not leastly, our programmer began putting together the first build of the game, complete with lovely placeholders and everything:

And here's all the implemented features for those of you who are boring (jk love u)

CUMULATIVE STRAWPOLL COUNT:

6

making decisions is hard

And none of this would have gotten done had the team not shared cat and dog photos in our brainstorming channel parody channel called the Dog Cafe .... what a concept

Thanks all for reading and I'll see you tomorrow with an update on the music and audio in the game ... hopefully

-Myserval <3

oh no oh no oh no I missed it ... sorta 
this is day 2!

As promised, I'll be introducing new characters along the way, starting with this one. Gaius!

Well, Gaius and his bird companion, Emily. Gaius is a musician at heart and an earth elemental in body. Here's how Tibby describes him:

Flirty, somewhat egotistical, mischievous but nonchalant

Couldn't have said it better myself. Cause I didn't say it. But still.
Gaius is a master shredder and an amazing flirt. 

Guy's a free spirit, and doesn't care about much, but unfortunately, the citadel isn't so free. His requests to have a concert at the citadel keep getting ignored and his music keeps not appearing in various shops around.

His bird Emily, however, isn't quite as big a fan of rocking out as he is. But she still loves him. But I don't wanna spoil too much else!

In other news, we all began planning out what we could do in 2 weeks, in particular cutting back on the scale of dialogue. We're gonna flesh out two characters for the Jam version, and plan on fleshing out the rest of them after the jam is completed. But I'll still be introducing the rest of them over time cause it's still fun! 
ONWARDS!

The audio team (Tibby and Myserval) have been hard at work on themes for characters. Here you can find a sound test for some of the early theme sketches.
https://clyp.it/uj33qidq?token=a0a44972ed96392ff2f3fd481a840d5d

And then in programming, 

worked on clock and scheduling code, because I got stuck on a dumb edge case I didn't have time to write up example data and plug it into the UI, but a clock/time management system is there and works and I'll make it playable in the morning.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'll have more for you day 3~!

Let's start right off the bat with some music! Myserval whipped up a couple test themes to get a feel for how the music in the game should sound. 
Here's a mischievous one: https://clyp.it/1fjwwhxz?token=0c2fcaded34f30f0b373cc33ce2bae60
And here's one for the tutorial: https://clyp.it/bujhs1rp?token=da3ff8d720a496f56a9110755893513b

Tibby began work on another character's theme (whom you'll meet tomorrow) and started sourcing inspiration tracks for characters. 

Honestly I thought that'd be a lot more interesting but hey now you've got cool music to listen to while I talk about the next stuff!

Next stuff of course being art - duh i mean of course its art what else

Banrabbit created this for the kitchen layout - look at it! It's so pretty!

Speaking of the kitchen, we started talking about how interactive the cooking elements should be, and whether or not the interactions are worth creating more assets for. To start off with, it's a good idea to add some sort of intractability and chance of failure. Oh! I'm realizing now that I haven't touched at all on that yet so allow me to [copy and paste from what our programmer wrote up]. This would be a good time to start playing that tutorial music

(All numbers are fudged for the sake of example)

You have a 6 hour shift from 2pm to 8pm

When you start you see a clock in the corner it only advances when certain actions are taken:

• Taking someone’s order (5 minutes)

• Preparing food (10 minutes)

• Having a story conversation with someone (20 minutes)

Serving food consumes no time

People come in at different times of day and will have one of 3 possible indicators over their head to reflect their state

•  means they want your attention, if it’s yellow it’s to order food, if it’s red it’s because they have an urgent conversation

•  means they’re waiting on you to serve food they ordered

•  means they are thinking/eating/content, they’re not actively trying to get your attention but you can try talking to them anyways and you might get a story conversation

TL;DR: Actions take time and you're gonna have to balance them if you wanna ever have a chance at a connection.

Whew okay anyways we talked about having a mini game to play whenever you make a recipe, which determines how well you cook whatever you were trying to cook. Like, a candy crush sort of game with all of the ingredients you'll need, or similar scenarios.

Well there weren't any dogs either today which was somewhat disappointing but we're all working on the game so no dog cafe today! But tomorrow you'll be seeing the next character (one of the mainline ones) and hopefully soon you'll be able to play it a bit!

I think we're at 8 strawpolls now

Thanks!

ALllllright  ..... DAY 4!

We're really starting to make some solid progress! Today, quite a bit got done (for a weekday of course) - and we'll start with today's character; Heather.

To quote our character design document, 

She...is a mythic bitch. Sassy, snarky, quick-witted and ‘opinionated’

She's a great political leader running for office in the election .... but she's sorta racist. Erm, speciesist? ...... She has some old-fashioned opinions towards other species. Here's the conversational art for her (animated, too; oooooh!):

And here's her counter sprite, created by Banrabbit:

That's how she'll look sitting at the counter, more or less. She'll have multiple emotion states depending on how she's feeling. 

Speaking of the counter, here's Iris's finalized backgrounds for the counter and for the kitchen screens.

Pretty sweet, huh? 

Alright next up, audio. 

Myserval took to odd sound tactics (aka foley) to produce some food and counter sounds. M&Ms, sprinkles, plates and breads all went into the sound blender and came out sounding pretty convincing. Here's all of the final sounds, back to back in less than 30 seconds: 

http://clyp.it/e00rh4hb?token=cfb8fb2e20e32a077764cf65311bfda2

Oh, and foaming handsoap too, for some of the creamy sorts of sounds.

Our programmer made some headway on planning out the cooking mechanic. The recipe system  is already in the build of the game, so whatever we decide on in regards to a mini game should fit within that system. Also, we'll have to work on how exactly the whole mini game fits in in the context of the game, so it's not just some tacked-on time filler. 
That being said, though, we're planning on the prep method changing the mechanics of the mini game a bit, like the fridge vs a shaker.

Anyways, thanks as always for reading and I hope to see you here again tomorrow for another weekday

-Myserval 

Today was a bit quieter but nonetheless: 

Let's kick today off by looking at where the build of the game is at. 

It's crazy what a little art and a font change can do, huh? The clock functionality is in as you can see in the top right corner, and I'll be posting videos of this in action as we get closer to a finished product.

The kitchen features tabs for keeping track of the orders from customers in the top left corner.

As Iris and Banrabbit begin to create UI elements, they'll be added to the build.

Iris and Banrabbit began working on the second mainline character, who you'll see soon enough ;) I can tease a bit though; she's not human.

Tibby created and Myserval transcribed into the computer the theme for that same second character, which you'll also hear soon enough ;)

Myserval worked on some UI sfx, including page turns, saving, and various fanfare.

Tibby finished day one dialogue for Heather, our first mainline character.

Sweetheart, I know you must be starstruck but try to keep it together. Surely you recognise me? Heather Brawen, politician. Remember - Branwen can win.

I'll refrain from posting the whole thing in here so you can read it for yourself when you play the game, but trust me, it's great! She also worked on day one for that second character ... I really should just introduce her ... don't get too blue though!

We're definitely getting to the part where I've gotta be careful what I show, but today I just genuinely don't have much to show you guys other than to just say "X did this, Y did that" so hopefully you weren't looking forward to anything huge!

also no dog. Yeah I know, I'm disappointed too

Thanks and I'll see ya tomorrow!

-Myserval

Alright I may not be able to post anything big tomorrow so today's gonna be a pretty big one(for a wednesday)! Prepare your butts!

OKay okay okay so I'm gonna finally show you guys the second mainline character (at almost halfway through yeah ... okay)

Ready?

Its ....

Theo! Yes, its two girls and yes, the main character is a girl. shh there'll be boys in the full game. But for now these two characters pose the most interesting and variable writing styles we'd like to shoot for in the finished game, so we thought they'd be fitting for the demo. Anyways, 

Theo is an Aerian fashion designer. Well, her full name is Theokleia Lycholos, but she goes by Theo. 

Theo is gentle, level-headed and mature but clever and quick-thinking, with a mischievous and rebellious streak

Here's some concept art from way back at the beginning of the process for Theo. 

So I don't wanna show you her final design yet so there can at least be a little dramatic tension, so let's take a bit of a detour, to the audio department!
Here's that theme from yesterday for Theo:

 https://clyp.it/fdmgr1z3?token=5bf885deefc0b7e0ee55d8704f01dfcf

It's pretty unfinished but that's generally sortof the sound it could maybe sound like ... or it'll get scrapped all together. Who knows?? Game Jams! (aka tibby hasn't even heard this version yet... time zones!)

In writing, Tibby went through and finished day one for Theo, and started day two for heather. Iris went back through and provided script editing and that means that the writing for day one is just about finished! 

Iris then made a starry background for the cafe.

Okay enough stalling! Here's what Theo looks like! (hopefully you're playing her theme in the background here we go!)

Theo has always been a gentle soul and dislikes her people's idea that humans are impure or not worthy of her designs. She fell in love with a human who showed a great interest in her designs but her own people won't accept it and forced her out.

And once again quoting Tibby's backstory document (The pun was too good to leave this one out!)

MC should save these star-crossed (literally) lovers and preach acceptance!

Let's take a look at some of the concepts that brought us to theo:

So from the beginning we wanted Aerians to have two sets of arms. You even saw in the first day's log if you were looking close enough that there was an Aerian concept sketch. IDK if Iris even wants me showing that one so if you didn't, iris, oops

We also had a bit of trouble deciding what the coat should be. We thought that the lepoardprint looked just a bit too primitive for the Aerian race, so we went with a sort of ghost-y transparent overcoat.

Also, Iris began working on other generic characters to fill the other seats so that the whole restaurant sim part becomes more of a real portion of the game. 

That's what I can tease for now, but tomorrow, there'll be more of em!

Thanks again for reading! We're almost halfway there, hope you all are holdin' up well! take frequent breaks and stuff and I'll see you around!

-Myserval

HELLO !!! SHE IS MY FAVORITE thank u for catering to my needs. i'm disappointed that there is still no dog in this thread but i'll forgive you because this is really coming along. i'd love to see a gif or video of your cooking mini-game so far in action!! also also: it's actually really neat to see you guys making your own foley :Oc 

It's been a bit, hasn't it? Well, it's day ... 9 I think ... so that means I gotta catch you all up on days 7 and 8. (plus a little video play-through of the build so far!)

i had to improvise okay?

Anyways, I'll be playing a bit of catch up today what with not having a log for the past couple of days. So here we go! 

HOLDUP WRONG VIDEO OOPS UHHHH

So watch that, that's got 50% of this devlog in it.
Ok we good to continue?

OK that didn't quite work, but I basically showed just the game in it's current state OOOOPSPSSS I'll try again tomorrow haha!

So here's those generic customer sprites I mentioned: 

There's 6 of them for now, and they're all my favorite (though that kid is super sweet I'm sure, pun intended)
These will appear in the place of those weird Natalie sprites. ᴵ ˢʷᵉᵃʳ ᵗʰᵒˢᵉ ᵃʳᵉ ᵍᵒᶰᶰᵃ ʰᵃᵘᶰᵗ ᵐᵉ ᶦᶰ ᵐʸ ˢᶫᵉᵉᵖ ʲᵉˢᵘˢ ᵗʰᵉʸ'ʳᵉ ˢᵒ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵖᶫᵃᶜᵉ

As for what's happened since that particular build (that was basically all day 7), our programmer has been working on implementing the visual novel screen and the text to go with it. 

Banrabbit has also been working on getting the UI elements to look good

oh no wait

oops

I anticipate, especially given the speed of our momentum at this point, that we're definitely gonna need to use the buffer days we gave ourselves. We've gotten far, especially far for 8 days, but we've still got a long ways to go before we reach what we'd like. There's a lot of stretch goals that we seem to be able to reach if we work hard at it, but it's not looking likely for some things. We'll see though! I'm just the audio guy so what do I know.

also, important take on (admittedly somewhat tangential) Heathers, the TV show 

OK so if it wasn't clear, here's sorta how the game loop goes.

The customer appears, you have a visual novel type interaction with them, then they go into their waiting stage. They'll have given you their order in their visual novel interaction (and if it's a generic character, it's likely that's all they'll give you). Then, you'll go to the kitchen, cook what they wanted and then leave the kitchen and give it to them. Then, they'll talk a bit more and sit for a bit and enjoy their food.

Tibby has been working a lot more on polishing up dialogue and we're through day 2 for Heather, and at the beginning of day 2 for Theo, so things are going well there. 

On a sorta different note, I wanna introduce more characters to you. You likely won't see them for a while (not in the jam) but I wanna showcase some of what Tibby's been working on! erm, worked on the first day!

And lastly, Myserval has done absolutely nothing thanks dude 

Thanks all!

- Myserval

Alright ... I promised myself that I wouldn't do this two times but here we are ...... Day 9 & 10. Of course it's more bearable because I posted 7&8 at 6:00 on day 9 ᶜᵒᶰᶠᵘˢᶦᶰᵍ⋅⋅⋅

Im gonna start posting based on days left because a) its a lot more dramatic and b) I'm really not sure what day it is. 

Anywho! I've got quite a bit lined up for today. We're gonna start where we usually start, the music

SO Myserval started working on finalizing the sound of the game and he's created a day loop for being in the cafe: 

https://clyp.it/fauhprn5?token=1918e022293cca496a67eeebcdde6032

That's a sort of early version of it, the final version will sound a lot less dissonant. (especially with that weird chord modulation right in the middle) and more dated

He also began picking apart what all was needed for sound effects, and came up with this:

This is a list of the minimal viable product when it comes to sound effects. Okay not minimal, maybe, but definitely simple. It doesn't include UI sounds, like advancing dialogue and the VN side of the game. OK so maybe it isn't minimal viable product. BUT it is what will appear in tomorrow's devlog! Originally, voice acting was going to happen (think Dream Daddy or Fire Emblem, just voice blips more than anything) but that's becoming more of a stretch goal thing. We decided who might be voicing which character but we figure it's wise to figure that all out after we figure out the other parts. 

In art, iris created expressions for all the generic customers:

The art department wasn't really able to do much what with school and sick, so that (along, of course, with all of the other character's expressions) Is all I get to show you. However, three buffer days were planned for the art team (I don't know if I shared the schedule or not), so it should be no problem at all! All that's left is to finish the food sprites and kitchen UI which should definitely be able to be done in 5 days. Things will start ramping up again in the next couple of days as we realize what all needs to be done and we scramble to get stuff done

Here's some writing! You can sorta see the format that we gotta follow for Ren'py

OK i think I maybe lied about having a bit lined up for today. I know a lot got done! I'm just not sure exactly what all got done. It's been two days after all. Writing, of course, continues to advance; Our programmer is adding stuff all the time; art is making things look good; and audio is testing ideas and designing sounds. However I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what because everyone's got their heads down in their work trying to get stuff done! 

I'll go ahead and introduce a new character though! There's three left. 

Alright I think that's it for (two)day! As always I hope you're keeping yourself well and if you're getting sick, sleep! Or something, I'm no doctor.

Thanks!

-Myserval

PS

Tibby totally called it

weeeooo weeeooo It's that time of the day again! it's time for ...

(its day 11)

Alright, so it's Monday of the final stretch of 5 days (4 days remain at the writing of this post) which means it's jam time!

I don't think I've shown you guys this document yet, so here it is; a 7 page long document detailing every dish and how to make it. 

These are just three of the ~20 recipes in the game. I'd detail them all but it would just take way too long and I don't think you all wanna read through the design documents and I don't particularly wanna go through and screenshot them all. But here's a familiar one:

Banrabbit finalized the designs for the desserts and their recipes.
We also talked a bit about how decorations would work. In particular, making global decorations rather than discreet ones for each recipe.

Alright! Moving on to art!
Starting off is a mock-up of how the prep portion of cooking might end up looking like in-game, with art to support it: 

Banrabbit put together pretty much (i think) all of the UI in the game today
Iris began working on dessert sprites, too. 

Tibby, of course, was continuing the writing part of the game, finishing day two and beginning on day three (presumably with a bunch of editing of previous sections, too) - also this:

And in audio, Myserval finished all of the sound effects for the cooking and the counter mechanics of the game. It's ... unruly:

Okay, maybe not unruly but definitely a lot. Namely, this: 

https://clyp.it/ktsyujmk?token=160b0930229bce76d4bd6b995f95400

It's an ambiance track for when you're at the counter. You can hear the hustle and bustle of the space station that the cafe is attached to. Skip to 0:16 for the good stuff ™

He also got to work on a couple of day themes, particularly in the jazzy realm, which you should be hearing somewhat soon.

That's about it -

Thanks for reading! Stay in school!

-Myserval

We're down to the wire here folks! It's day 12!

Alright this is gonna be a quick one, cause it's late and I wanna sleep. 

Myserval worked on the audio bits, completing (probably) what all needs to be done on the sound effects side, meaning he'll be moving to focus all of his time on polishing music. In particular, the parts of the music that need to get done for the jam, so likely no character themes (but we will definitely see!)
Here's all the sounds he worked on-- there are some repeats from yesterday because they were bad and they should feel bad, but they're good now

Alright now it's time for some recipes. Ban and Iris were hard at work making these puppies: 

er wait ... these kitties:

that's a tiny photo oops you'll have to squint because I totally don't have enough time to fix that 

Speaking of time, (really? that's your segue? ok) Tibby has been spending a lot of time working on the writing, she's halfway through day 4 for the mainline characters. 

Alright and that's all we have time for folks!

Thanks as always for reading and be sure to like comment and subscribe. XxShadowlordxX out!

-Tired Myserval

Alright this one's gonna be short too, not because I'm tired but because I've only got a bit to show you.

Oh god i actually got nervous typing that ..... Here we go!

Lots of recipes and ingredients got done today! Particularly, these: 

And these:

I hear the constellation drink is to die for ... er wait that's not even funny

Tibby went through and added expression tags to all of the dialogue, to make Heather and Theo emote.

And lastly, there was discussion of an ice cream sandwich recipe. Well, I guess the name. I guess. 

Which, makes sense! Ice cream is cold. But then .... 

oh no

........ so uhh

yeah uhh

https://strawpoll.com/55ew1bpg

I dont wanna leave off on that. So here's another character!

Anyways, that's all I've got to show you for today! Yes the Uranus thing was necessary. Yes it pertains to the development of the game. I'm sorry I put you through that. 

I'll see you in 24 hours!

-Myserval

oh no.

24 hours left. We're here! We're reaching the final corner before the jam ends. We're all hard at work adding final polishes to everything and filling in the holes that we overlooked during the process. You might have seen an entry pop in and out intermittently as our programmer started building semifinal release candidates for the jam!

So I guess it's inaccurate to say it's the final countdown, since I imagine we'll be fleshing the game out quite a bit more after the jam. So, it's the semifinal (but really beginning of the end sort of) countdown!

In the past day, all of the ingredient art got done, and work began on the Itch.io game page. That's why you might see the game pop in and out of the entries page!

That's a lot! 

There was discussion of adjusting how decorations work (for the time consideration of not making 3 variations of each recipe in 24 hours). The decorations are going to be adjusted to become holographic, and hover more as a garnish than edible decor.

All of the writing is finished, and our programmer started putting all of the new assets into the game. UI, Sounds and a bunch of art sprites all got added to the game. It's all starting to fall into place

speaking of falling, i'm starting to fall asleep so it's wise of me to get out of here before my head hits the keyboard!

But first, the last character:

Thanks! I'll talk to you tomorrow for a recap ............. probably........

-Myserval

Hey all just wanted to pop in, and say: The game jam is about to end. You can find our game in the entries tab and we'd love to hear what you think about it! I'll be passing your comments onto the team and I'm sure they'll be happy to hear anything you have to say about it. 

https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/rate/214586

Thanks all so much for your support and interest and I'm really proud of where our product is at this point. I'll be popping in soon to post a postmortem but until then, thanks for reading!