A Puzzling Thriller inspired by the Zero Escape and Danganronpa series.
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Latest Updates from Our Project:
Update Time
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Jul 18, 2021 at 12:57:24 AM
Another quick one.
I'll structure this one just like the last Update:
The Dreams are all built and playable, but still need final visual polish. I do a lot of talking about the Dreams, but not much showing. They are pretty crucial to the game, so they'll be better experienced for the first time in game.
I'm still doing CG work, but also working on some small animated scenes. By small I mean really small. In the last Trailer there's a moment where you see a closeup of the main character appearing to wake up in bed. Since the art has been changing a lot since then, I'm redoing that moment (which will appear in game), and thinking of small animations, like that one, to place throughout the game.
Unfortunately, the CG I wanted to show off isn't done yet, but I'll finish it by the next Update for sure. I've been putting together a couple all at once, jumping back and forth between them. The other CGs are spoiler-y so I want to get some specific CGs done soon to post in updates.
There was a pretty barebones Examine feature in place when you zoom onto an object. I'm working on something a bit more appealing and clean. Essentially, when you zoom onto something, there will be a button to press hovering over a portrait of the main character (in the UI). When you select it, a dialogue box will slide out from the corner, and the character will remark on what's there. I want this to be a way to add more personality to him.
Lastly, I added a new puzzle room to Challenge Room 5 which I can't show! I was playtesting the game a bunch and felt there needed to be a bit more to that level, so it's in a good spot now.
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That's gonna be it for this Update. These update plans sometimes fall through, but... I want to get that CG done for next Update (for real this time), and the new Examine function.
Update Time
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Jul 03, 2021 at 03:38:28 PM
Back to our scheduled updates.
Here's what I've been working on since the last update:
Challenge Room 2 is finished and polished (every other room but 1 is finished, but not polished).
I finally expanded on the HELP button during dialogue. It was pretty simple to setup, so I'm sorry for not getting that done in time for the Demo. Essentially as you progress through the Challenge Room, which could be picking up an item, opening something, etc, I simply change a numbered variable called the "Room Phase." So when you enter C-Room 1 (for example), the Phase is 0, when you pickup the Key, the Phase goes to 1. If you talked to the characters and ask for Help, they will have different responses if you're on phase 0, 1, and so on. It's a decent amount of work, but I think it'll make the game feel really polished.
Touched up the character art that needed little adjustments. Now I'm getting back to finishing the different sprite expressions/poses.
I have a big pile of rough CGs that I need to finish, and that's what I've been getting into as well. Being honest, some of these will wind up being cut, but I'll try my best to get as many CGs into the game as I can.
I added a monologue style sequence to many of the game's cutscenes that you'd find in most other visual novels. The main character is not a silent protagonist, btw. Not sure if that was ever stated, and I wanted to give him more moments to express himself.
I've been addressing much of the Demo's feedback. For example, one thing that I never actually took note of, is when you pickup an Item, it takes the place of your equipped item. This could lead to minor annoyances if you wanted to use an item that was previously in that slot before you picked up something new. So you'd be forced to open the Inventory and switch back to the item before doing what you had in mind. So I simply added an option, "Auto Equip Item" (maybe theres a better way to say that). What it does is allows you to choose if you want new items you pick up to be automatically equipped or not. So if you prefer to pick things up and still be holding the item you initially had equipped, you can do just that.
It's getting cramped in there, so next thing I'll do is give the Controls display its own panel.
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Another short one, but that'll do it for this update. What would make for a cool next update, would be me showing off one or more of the game's CGs, so I'll work towards that.
Demo, Recap and What's Next
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 03:11:32 PM
This will be a short update.
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If you missed it, the demo is out. You can get it through Itch or Steam:
Regarding the demo, its much shorter than the backer only demo since I cut out nearly all of the story parts. I just couldn't find a way to put it in without stopping the flow of the demo. Walking up to characters one by one and chatting was something I took from the Danganronpa V3 demo. That worked much better there because that's pretty much the bulk of the game anyway. In Roulette you do puzzles and stuff, so it ended up just causing confusion and ruining the flow in my opinion. So this new demo is pretty much all one string of gameplay.
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Now for a quick recap:
The demo is out, I finished most of the character art, and the challenge rooms are in their final stages.
What happens next:
Finalize each Challenge Room
Polish some of the already finished environments
Get the remaining music tracks made
Refine the game's writing (could use 1 more draft at least)
Create a final trailer that will announce the game's release date
Finish the big promo art piece
I am very close to the end of development. After that, the game will be run by the Publisher, and we'll have to work on the porting and potentially some localizations. We may just release it in English, then work on more languages after release, but it would be much better to have some more languages in at launch.
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That's gonna be all for now. Really not sure what to do with these remaining updates... I'm very much running out of things to show, but I do want to keep the updates coming on time. I hope that's okay with everyone. It's been a long time coming, but this is finally the home stretch.
This is just a quick demo update. There will still be a normal one this Saturday.
Character Art & Screenshots
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Jun 06, 2021 at 11:41:11 PM
This will be mostly a picture dump. I'll start with some screenshots, then end with all of the Character Art.
I feel like I may have reached the limit of what I want to show in the game...
Especially when it comes to Challenge Rooms, I'll have to get really funky with my angles. Every Room that I've shown so far have much more to them, but those discovery moments will be better spoiler free! Not to mention there's a little bit more than I'm keeping to myself to use for the final trailer that I'm putting together now.
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Finally, the character art:
I made some more presentable arrangements of the characters. 5 pics, 3 different characters in each. I recently updated Roland, so you'll see his new art in his pic. Each image will be clickable if you want to see the full size. I'm still self conscious about their legs, so you'll only get to see them in game.
I'm still very tempted to update all of the art again, but I will just have to restrain myself. Everytime I post art, I instantly see everything that can be improved. I can't touch the art anymore if I want to finish the game in a reasonable amount of time. Is what it is...
But on the topic of updating art, here's the old versions of the characters' art (minus the MC) from back in 2019:
I kinda like this old angry MC more, but that didn't fit with his character. I see right away that everyone's eyes got bigger. Maybe I'll allow myself to make them all a bit smaller, but I promise not to touch anything else.
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That's all I got. The next update lands on the 19th, but I'll make a small one a couple days early on the 16th, as that is the day of the final demo's release. It will be fully public, on Steam and Itch.io.
