The name's Mono(chrome) and this is my first solo real project and I'm really excited to present it! I know I'm gonna have to improve on literally everything so feedback is extremely appreciated. Thanks in advance for checking it out!

Plot

Love⚡Struck is the first game on what I hope will be a short series of novels focusing on the romance and crime solving adventures of a young college couple. For this game, which I'm using as my jam entry, Claire Chase (the protag) gets stuck on a café by a heavy rain while on an assignment. Claire passes time by watching the other people in the café, most notably Laura (the love interest) who arrives a while after her and completely captures her attention for the rest of the morning. The situation quickly shifts after a sudden blackout when one of the customers appears dead after the lights are switched back on! Now working together with Laura, Claire must find out who the killer is, for the safety of the other innocent customers.

Characters

From left to right:

• Claire, 22, criminology student, police assistant and main character!
• Laura, 21, law student and love interest. Naturally drawn to defend others.
• Latte, 45, owner and barista of "Cute Café", the worst reviewed café in the city.

• Edmund, 32, a silent and calm security guard. Works together with Vic.
• Victor, 30, a loud and short tempered security guard. Works together with Ed.
• Sean, 22, extremely annoyed for some reason.

Gameplay

After the body is discovered, the player can interact with the rest of the (living) cast and search the café for clues (clicking on stuff). When all relevant clues have been found and all conversations are done, the discussion/deduction segment starts in which the player must make the correct choices to advance the conversation. Interaction occurs in 3 different ways: choosing the correct answer out of 3 or more statements, point and click on the answer in an image or choosing the relevant piece of evidence (out of the ones collected during the investigation segment.

The game will have 3 different endings. The one you get depends on how well you do on the discussion/deduction part. In future games, mysteries will be alternated with dates between Claire and Laura which will also have gameplay segments and endings will result on a combination of how well you did on the mystery AND on the date.

Development

You can download a demo for the introduction part here: https://monochrome.itch.io/cc-lovestruck

I'm currently working on the investigation segment. Needless to say, as I post developments here there will probs be some spoilers about the mystery part of the novel!!

Extended intro! Investigation UI! Excitement!

Working to complete the investigation segment in time for the submission deadline!!

I've been creating the assets and writing extra conversations this past few days. You can click on interesting stuff to examine it, on characters to talk and also on Claire to think about the investigation (and get hints if you don't know what to check or who to talk to). The investigation will inmediately advance as soon as all relevant evidence and information has been collected, but the player can choose to remain there to find extra conversations (and click on Claire to progress whenever they want).

I also added some new conversation, extended old ones and got a couple new sprites in! I may upload a small update this weekend fixing typos and including the new stuff but most likely I'll hold it back until I have the investigation segment.

New menu graphics! Final backgrounds (now with 100% more rain)! Screen effects!

Before making any more progress with the investigation segment I wanted to touch up the entire thing. That meant, first of all, finally completing the backgrounds. The left and furthest wall of the café, connected by a curve, are supposed to be transparent and show the street, almost pitch black due to the storm and fog outside. Hopefuly, that's what it looks like! All backgrounds, scenes and CGs have also been updated to that effect.

As on last update I also did some minor corrections and added screen flashes and shakes in the dialogue here and there to make it more lively.

The menu, buttons and additional graphics have also been updated and remade. The basic history page didn't really look good to me, so I tuned it a bit to show a small portrait. In a mystery game, I feel like it's useful to be able to quickly look up to check on what someone said a while ago at times, so this should make that easier!

I'll upload one last introduction only v0.3 demo later today as I finish messing with the menu and fixing other minor problems!!

Investigation progress! Notepad! Detectiving!

Last bit of work that will (maybe) see light before the jam ends in, like, a day and a few hours. The investigation script has taken tons of time out of everything else, as I want to leave as little plot holes and confusing details as I can so that the deduction segment flows easily without having to rely heavily on giving hints to the player. During the investigation (and during discussion / question parts of the deduction) the player will have access to a "note" screen containing all evidence revelant to the case, helpfuly written down by Claire, along with some occasional drawings.

Additionally, CGs for close up investigations and special dialogue have also finally been completed, but I'll leave that for you all to see when the next version is out!