Hi! I made some download & install instructions for you and added them to the page.  I'll post them here as well:

To download and run the game:

1. Download the correct file for your system.  The top option is for Windows and Linux, the bottom option is for OSX.

2. The file will begin downloading onto your device.  Once it is done downloading, open the folder location.  This will usually be your Downloads folder. On Google Chrome, you can select 'Show in Folder' to direct you to the appropriate location.

3.  After locating the folder, you will need to unzip it.  To do so, right-click the folder and select 'Extract All'.  After selecting that option, choose the file destination, then select Next.  The file will begin unzipping.

4.  Once the process is done, navigate to the file destination.  The unzipped folder will be there (you'll notice that the icon is different).

5. Open the folder, then select the executable file to start the game.  Have fun! 🎃

Let me know if that make sense, or if you have any other questions!

I'm glad you liked it, thank you for playing! 💕

Halloween House Party

Note From the Team

Hi all!  Thank you for looking at this page!  We recently finished a visual novel dating sim for Spooktober VN Game Jam, and wanted to share with everyone.  We had a lot of fun working on this game, and learned a lot from the experience. 

If you play the game, feel free to rate or leave a comment.  We'd really appreciate it.

Happy Halloween! 👻🎃🍬

Overview

Halloween House Party is a visual novel created for Spooktober 2nd Annual Visual Novel Jam.  You play as Cordelia, an awkward college recluse dragged to her first college party by her best friend and roommate, Ashe.  Spend your time chatting up party goers, mixing drinks, and… flirting?

Find love in this fun, spooky, sapphic visual novel!  Will you be swept off your feet, or will you end up getting ghosted?

Features

~15,000 word count!
3 datetable characters!
Good and neutral endings!
Drink mixing mini-game!

Visit the game page by clicking here!

I wanted to comment just the see the bat wings on my icon, hehe. :)c

Mini Update

Hi all!  A quick update to keep the thread alive.

The whole team has been working on a game jam since the beginning of September.  We will be finishing up this weekend, so lookout for new Al Dente updates towards the end of the month.

Thank you!

Thank you! Super happy to hear that! :) 

Devlog 8.0

Some news!

• We had planned on launching socials for the game on 9/1. but we decided to push it back to 10/1.  If you're interested in following Al Dente before its official launch, follow these accounts:
  • Twitter: @AlDenteGame
  • Itch: Yum Yum Games
• Sam and Ebere will be working on a game jam (Spooktober VN Gme Jam) for a month! For September, I'm just going to continue putting in the essential framework into the game. 

Other than that, we got a lot of work done internally.  Creating an Itch page for the game, an official email, etc.  In October I'll begin posting devlogs on the game's official page, but I'll continue updating this thread from my personal account as well.

Also, before jumping into the updates, we just want to say thank you for 500 (almost 600 now, wow) views!  I'm sure that half of them are just me looking at the page and making edits, but I still want to thank everyone who takes the time to look at our posts.

Sam has been doing some testing different ways to render the sprites.  They are looking really polished! (Betti pouting is also just really cute!)

We can also introduce Eli!

Eli (Elicoidali)

Birthday: 10/30
Star Sign: Scorpio
Height: 5'8
Coffee Order: Sweet Blended Mocha with 5 Extra Shots of Espresso
Favorite Food: Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Parfait

Until next week, thanks!

Devlog 7.0

Some updates since last week:

• We have an official team name: Yum Yum Games!  I'll begin posting from that account soon, so be on the lookout for that.
• We are planning on launching socials for Al Dente on September 1st.
• Worked more on character sprites and added new text into the game.

We have a few more concepts for backgrounds & mood boards:

I'll also introduce Penelope!

Penelope (Penne)

Birthday: 1/3
Star Sign: Capricorn
Height: 5'9
Coffee Order: Ethiopian Pour Over
Favorite Food: Caprese Salad

This is so cool!  There's some really interesting and surprising combinations in here.  Great work!

This is interesting.  As someone without a lot of musical background, I can't imagine being able to differ between sounds like this.  Really cool concept!

Thank you!  We are all really happy to hear that!

Devlog 6.0

We have more to show about the player character(s)!  You'll be able to select between the four below.  You can name your character and specify pronouns yourself, but their canon names are Reggie, Caye, Olive, and Jean (from left to right).  Their names are all based on pasta toppings, can you tell which ones?

We'd love some feedback on their designs!

No matter who you pick as your PC, you are already friends with Betti (your old roommate from college).

Betti (Spaghetti)

Birthday: 7/31
Star Sign: Leo
Height: 5'5
Coffee Order: Blended Dirty Chai
Favorite Food: Pizza

Thanks for looking!

Devlog 5.0

Mostly did a lot of backend stuff this last week: added dialogue into the game, worked on sprites, etc.

We have some visual inspirations for what the exterior of  Betti and Mac's (they're roommates!) apartment will look like:

We also started drafting some logo/icon ideas for the game.

We plan on starting a Twitter and creating a game page on Itch at the end of this month.

Devlog 4.1

Double post today!  Time to introduce Connie and Bo!

Connie (Conchiglie)

Birthday: (???)
Star Sign: (???)
Height: 5'5
Coffee Order: Hot Water
Favorite Food: Pasta (Any kind.)

Bo (Bowtie)

Birthday: 2/25
Star Sign: Pisces
Height: 5'11
Coffee Order: Hot Americano with Sugar and Cream
Favorite Food: Chili Cheese Fries

Devlog 4.0

It's been a productive week for us!  We've really been sorting out our internal processes.  Some things going on include:

• Finishing more scripts for the game.
• Deciding on a title screen concept.
• Creating milestones for the game.
• Reviewing the games aesthetic and feel.
• Talking about character development. 

Right now there's still a lot of conceptualizing going on.

Ebere working on some concepts for Betti and Mac's apartment:

As well as a concept for the player select screen, from Sam:

There will be four playable characters in the game.  Essentially, the player would be looking at a photo of friends at an old college party.  From there, you can pick your character. Betti (non-playable) is the one in the middle, they are all friends.

Thanks for looking!

Devlog 3.0

Hi all!  We are going to begin introducing some of our characters between updates, starting with... Celine and Manny!  The artwork shows design progression for the characters, as well as some fun sketches and final designs! 

Celine (Cellentani)

Birthday: 8/28
Star Sign: Virgo
Height: 5'5
Coffee Order: London Fog with Vanilla Syrup
Favorite Food: Cheesecake

Manny (Manicotti)

Birthday: 5/9
Star Sign: Taurus
Height: 6'1
Coffee Order: Specialty Seasonal Drink
Favorite Food: Pumpkin Pie

Devlog 2.0

Welcome the cast! 

 From left to right, we have: Eli, Mac, Bo, Manny, Penelope, Connie, Betti, and Celine.  The sprites above only have the flat colors added, so they are unfinished.   More about these characters... soon!

As for other updates:

• We've added a background artist to the team.  Welcome, Osi!
•  We have someone in mind for game music.
• Team socials and roles have been added to the first post.
• Some changes to the UI have been made.

It's been a busy week for us, so we will have more to update next week.  Thanks for looking!

Thanks for the feedback!  I should have specified in the above posts, but those are just placeholder backgrounds.  We have an artist who will be making actual backgrounds for the game.

I like the second concept a lot, too!  And that's a good point you made about the cursive, I hadn't thought of that.

Devlog 1.1

We have some early concepts for the title screen as well. 

Devlog 1.0

There's so much that has been done already!  Here's some new things since our last update around last year (on the old thread):

• We went through a few iterations of the art style for the game, but have finally settled on a style for the sprites.
• We've added a background artist to the team (very recently).
• We have concepts for the UI and title screen.
• Most of the game's road map is laid out.
• Some character scenes have already been added to the game.
• Player can pick their own name and pronouns (she/he/they).

In terms of characters, I'll probably be able to show them sometime soon!  I'm responsible for the UI of the game, so I'd like to get some feedback.  Here are some early concepts (which include early art of the character sprites):

Here is the actual version, currently in the game:

I've added a CTC cursor on the bottom right-hand corner.  The quick links menu is also currently off to the side.  I'm thinking of making the actual textbox expand to the edges of the screen instead.  I like the idea of the quick links being icons, though I'd probably have to add hover text so that the player knows which icon means what.

Welcome to the dev logs for Al Dente!

Hello, I'm Malisa! I'm the programmer and project manager for Al Dente, a visual novel dating sim. 

We started the project around summer of 2019.  We actually had a Devlog thread for out game already, but it was archived since we didn't update enough.  Moving forward, I'll be posting a new update every weekend!

I don't have a lot of experience coding, and it's my first time learning Python and Ren'py, so I hope you can looking forward to seeing my (and the teams) growth throughout the updates. 

The Team

Game Overview

Title: Al Dente

Theme/Genre: Visual Novel, Dating Sim

Engine: Ren'py

Target Audience: Young Adult and Up

Synopsis:  Have you ever thought, “Man, that spaghetti was so good I could date it!” Now you can in Al Dente, a super saucy dating sim where you can date the embodiment of your favorite pasta.

Constructive feedback on our updates are welcomed!

Dev Log #1

Heeeeeellooo!

I don't want to spoil anything visually until we are ready to show it, so here's some things of what we have done so far:

• Project has started!
• All the main sprites are lined, and being colored.
• The first characters prologue is working in renpy, complete with scene transitions and stand in character sprites.
• We're working on concepts for the UI.
• We have a stand in for the splash screen.
• We started using organizational tools to keep the project moving.

Things are slowly coming together.  The next things on my list of things to do is to rough the backgrounds that we need for the first scene, as well as finish making concepts for the UI.  Once there's more of the script done I can keep adding scenes to the game!

By the end of the month we should be able to post the roughs of our characters and UI.  Looking forward to hearing feedback. :)

Welcome to the dev logs for Al Dente!

Hello, I'm Malisa! I'm the programmer and project manager for Al Dente, a visual novel dating sim.  I'll be responsible for some concept art as well. Right now we are only a three person team so we wear many hats!

I don't have a lot of experience coding, and it's my first time learning Python and Ren'py, so I hope you can looking forward to seeing my (and the teams) growth throughout the updates.  We've just started so there is a lot to look forward to!

Game Overview

Title: Al Dente

Theme/Genre: Visual Novel, Dating Sim

Engine: Ren'py

Target Audience: Young Adult and Up

Synopsis:  Have you ever thought, “Man, that spaghetti was so good I could date it!” Now you can in Al Dente, a super saucy dating sim where you can date the embodiment of your favorite pasta.

That's about it! I'll be updating soon, thanks for reading.

Hey, saw your post on reddit!  I just finished playing for a few minutes.

Visually, the game is really appealing! I love the sprites.  The shadow effects that you have on the house and trees are a nice detail, and I really like how the light around the lantern is handled.  I like the music as well, the loop is simple and created a good ambiance without being irritating after listening to it for so long.  The logo is also clever, when I saw it first I thought this would be some kind of creepy pasta.

I don't really understand how the streak system works? I'd plant and harvest all my seeds and get a streak bonus, and then do the same thing the next day and my streak would be ruined.  Is this an error on my part?

All in all, it's a really nice small game to have been made for a class!

Wow Thanks so much! You comment made MY day! :)

We were all just regular undergrad students working on the game so no professionals here, but my script editor really appreciates the compliment!  The most you can do to support the game is to share it.  Thanks for telling your friends about it, and most importantly thanks for playing!

I'm so happy that someone really likes the game and that it comes across well.  It was difficult only having one semester to work on it so there were a lot of what-ifs.  Do you have any feedback on how I could make the game better?

HELLO!

I'm Malisa and this is my first time posting in the Devlogs lol!  Right now I'm working on a game called Redwood!  I'm working on it for a class at my university along with some programming majors.  We've been working on the game since January.

As for me, this is the fourth game that I've made!  I've been making games for two years now and I'm really proud of this one, so I'm excited to share it all with you!

ABOUT THE GAME

Redwood is about a teenager named Trinity who sets out to find her missing friends.  Traveling into a mystical Redwood forest, she finds that her friends have been somehow overcome by some mysterious force.  The force causes the negative feelings that they have about themselves to be amplified.  Trinity must find each of her four missing friends and help them realize that they are more than just their negative thoughts.

SCREENSHOTS

FEATURES

Exciting Tetris Based Gameplay

Interactive Dialogue

Variety of Characters

Unique Visual Style

LINKS

Official Game Site: https://mcnash5.wixsite.com/redwood

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_MalisaNash

My Portfolio: https://www.malisa-nash.com/