I thought I'd try to make something for this year's Yuri Game Jam, since I ended up losing motivation to do so last year. I worry a bit about the quality (since I need to focus on my major projects, like Eldritch Academy), but I wanted to try to get something done during a set timeframe like the kind used for game jams.
My project for the game jam is tentatively titled "Blooming Nightshade", and is part of the same continuity as Eldritch Academy and some of my other recent stories. It's planned to be a short, simple game that can be easily played on an Android phone (as there are so few GL/Yuri games on Google Play). The story is fairly basic: after hearing about several other student couples forming at Solana Academy, Himeka Uchida decides to try to find a girlfriend of her own. The game is split into weekly events that introduce the characters and their relationships to each other and weekend events where the player can choose who Himeka spends time with. To put the features into list form:
- Free
- 6 love interests
- Romantic or friendship paths for each girl
- (may not be implemented) Pair up some of the other girls with each other
For progress, I'd say the script is roughly 25% drafted at something like 3k words. I've also been messing with the new Ren'Py GUI for the first time to try to get something that looks good on a phone (in portrait mode) without needing a graphic designer to make custom GUI. I've also put up a recruitment thread on Lemmasoft to look for a character artist for the portraits.
While the game is mostly fully coded when it comes to progression (with most of the actual events being placeholder text for now), I do have a few issues I may need to address:
- It's currently possible to start a romantic relationship with multiple girls with no acknowledgement or consequence. I might need to add breakup events or have the player choose which ending to get during the final event (which would also need breakup events for dumped girls).
- It's currently possible to keep spending time with a girl that has no events left, but there is no generic "spend time with" text. I'll need to either lock off girls with no more events or make a generic event for each girl once their story is finished.
- If I include the feature to pair up the other girls with each other, I'll need to decide how that works in game mechanics. Should this prevent the player from starting a relationship? Should it be allowed if the player is in a relationship with one of the girls?
- If the player doesn't have a love interest at the end of the game, what should the ending look like? I might have a generic friendship ending, but should it include everyone or just the people the player actually spent time with?
At any rate, I hope I can pull this off during the game jam time period. Eldritch Academy takes priority, but I want to be able to participate in something like this every once in a while.