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[nathy after dark]

Ooh, something I forgot to put in my original response:

What if our theoretical innkeeper has a small chance of being assigned a totally random form of bigotry? This could avoid alienating people by making none of them actually based on sexuality or race, i.e. "Your partner has green eyes but yours are brown! You disgust me." (Making the statement that under different conditions a society could have totally different kinds of targeted oppression, and ultimately it's arbitrary and anyone could be the victim.)

[AD1337]

Thanks MrHassanSan, Nathy and JWK5 for your comments. Some very cool ideas there! I especially liked 1) "breaks" (splitting up for a while), 2) meeting parents and 3) "judges" of your relationship that fight you because they disagree with it (or you can please them and avoid combat by dating the "right" person in their eyes).

As for the tone of the game, I'd really like to include both the "cute" side and the "dark" side of relationships. I think on the surface it will end up looking more "cute", but I'd like to have some underlying "dark" issues, like abuse, cheating, break-ups, manipulation, social prejudice, jealousy and so on. I met the developer of The Curious Expedition in Game Mixer (see video in previous page) and he had a similar problem with his game, about having a meaning in the surface and also something deeper, and how to balance these things. By the way, that event ended up being a reinforcement of my beliefs rather than a mind opener: make the games that you'd like to play and sell them. No market-driven F2P bullshit.

Still not sure how gender and sexuality will work, though! If anyone has thoughts, please let me know.

[TonyManfredonia]

I'm glad you're throwing in the hard truths of relationships, in that they take work! And sometimes they can be flat-out bad.

I commend you for not sugarcoating it, even if it will be mostly cute!

[Pixel Noise]

Just found this, and it sounds like a great idea. It seemed a little shallow at first, but all the thought you are putting into prototyping and the concept is really going to pay off - the project seems like it's going to be really interesting and genuine. Definitely following 

[Hephep]

I reply to follow this project! Very nice idea!

[AD1337]

Thanks guys! <3

I did a couple of gifs for Facebook, one to campaign for 100 likes and the next one after getting them. Here is Roguemance's Facebook page. I post in Portuguese there because all the likes are from my local Brazilian community so far.





I also made this mockup of Heartipelago, the overworld map where Roguemance takes place:



My current idea for the intro is that you'll start at the map and an earthquake will start and this heart island will break in half, splitting both sides. As the player progresses, the 2 sides of the island will move towards each other again.

The earthquake will probably be caused by the villain and final boss of the game, still unknown to me.

[TonyManfredonia]

Omg. The idea of the island (shaped like a heart) breaking in half is fabulous. Very "Kirby," in my opinion!

[MrHassanSan]

The art, as always, is superb! Antonio Carlos Jobim is my only exposure to Portuguese, but I liked the FB page anyway. Good luck garnering more likes!

I think the island-breaking idea is a nice bookend and frame for the game narrative. It's also a good reason to get virtually everyone in your game's world invested in the player's story—whatever that may be. It tickles the writer part of my brain, which is a good thing!

[AD1337]

Thanks, guys!  Worked on the promo art sketch today. This is my idea for the Steam banner, site background image and stuff.



Which angle for the girl, left or right?

[MrHassanSan]

Ahhh I'm torn!

At first glance, the one on the right looks better to me. With the Right version, the girl's body language feels more open, so even though they're facing away from each other, they still feel connected. On the left, it's more striking that they're facing away from each other. It makes them feel kind of distant from each other.

But on the other hand, the front of the woman's heart shield is a nice visual element—we lose that on the right.

Might I suggest shifting the man's pupils so instead of looking ahead, he's looking back at the woman? It already looks like she's looking at him—so if he matched, they'd feel even more connected.

Sorry if that's not helpful!

[Hephep]

Hello,

I feel that the woman is a bit on the background, behind the guy, is there a reason why? My feeling is that for a story centered around a couple where each of the member are complementary and equal in value, the art should reflect that!

(I feel also that the protagonists should not be gendered because love is universal but it's only an opinion and it don't remove the charm of the game at all)

[foofter]

I like any game that combines romance/dating sim with a new genre - good luck! I like the style, too

And I like the shield facing outward so that it feels like they are in their own little space together.

[AD1337]

Might I suggest shifting the man's pupils so instead of looking ahead, he's looking back at the woman? It already looks like she's looking at him—so if he matched, they'd feel even more connected.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the feedback! 

Hello,

I feel that the woman is a bit on the background, behind the guy, is there a reason why? My feeling is that for a story centered around a couple where each of the member are complementary and equal in value, the art should reflect that!

(I feel also that the protagonists should not be gendered because love is universal but it's only an opinion and it don't remove the charm of the game at all)

Thanks for your feedback. I tried sketching a side view, let me know what you think:



I'd only like to say that all characters in Roguemance will be randomly generated, there won't be protagonists everyone will play as like in most games. You will customize your own character and NPCs will be generated. The story will be emergent as well.

As for genders, yeah, no position on how genders will work in the game yet. Only thing is that I'm thinking about it a lot and I want to be as inclusive as possible. For the cover art I am pretty sure I'm going for male + female because that is, in my opinion, the most inclusive option, even though it's not perfect. But that's only for the cover art, not the game. Any comments, let me know.

I like any game that combines romance/dating sim with a new genre - good luck! I like the style, too

And I like the shield facing outward so that it feels like they are in their own little space together.

Thanks! 

[Stricle]

Wow ! I didn't know you are Brazilian. It's nice to see more BRs in the Indie scene.
Nice work advertising your game, btw. Ah! and the last sketch is the best, in my opinion.

[Hephep]

Yes this is perfect as it is! And good idea for the automatically generated mates! You are on a good way

[sbeast]

Hey, the game looks pretty cool, will you be needing any music for it? If so I would love to help out, you can check out my portfolio here: www.sbeastmusic.com/portfolio

[AD1337]

Wow ! I didn't know you are Brazilian. It's nice to see more BRs in the Indie scene.
Nice work advertising your game, btw. Ah! and the last sketch is the best, in my opinion.

Indeed I am! I live in Porto Alegre and help unite the indie scene here, how about you?

Here's some pixel art I made recently portraying our meetups:

Yes this is perfect as it is! And good idea for the automatically generated mates! You are on a good way

Awesome! @AnyWhichColor helped me with the new angle.

Updates:

Had a nice exchange in Twitter:



I had been meaning to learn what people expected from the title for a while now. Luckily, expectations meet my vision closely: Roguelike, dating sim, RPG. Those are the genres I'd use to describe Roguemance.

Procedurally generated love interests: check. This is something very important to me. No pre-written characters, only generated ones. No scripted dialogue, no scripted story. Everything emergent.

Randomized / proc-gen world: check. This is important for replayability. Enemies too. I'm still not sure how to spice up the battle maps, but I guess obvious choices are destructibles and stuff like item crates and bonuses. Maybe something like an item that shows up and whoever picks it up first gets a bonus. Could also have stuff like geysers that activate every X turns, or volcanos that spit fire sometimes, things like that. The exploration map needs things like these too.

Resource management: check. The resource is love. Your relationship with each party member, how many party members you have, meeting new ones and breaking up with old ones. I'm not sure if this can be further explored with more resources, like gold and an overall love stat.

Time management: I started considering this after playing The Curious Expedition, and I have some ideas of how to explore this a bit, but I don't think time will be that important. What I am thinking of is taking from the "compass" system there, which points to your goal. This would tie in with the current system because it's yet another tension element in the decision-making: there's where you WANT to go, where your PARTNERS want to go, and where you HAVE to go to finish the level.

Rolling with what you find: This will boil down to what love interests you find in your journey. Since they are randomly generated, each playthrough has the potential of being quite different. Also, the skills system might help with this, if you find random skills to buy each time.

I've also been doing my really bad poems for fun:



Today I'm going to another meetup which will be about character design. See if I get some ideas on how to design the clothes and armor of the cover art characters.

Love you guys!

[MrHassanSan]

I'm loving the ideas so far! Procedurally generated partners is definitely a good thing.

For adding depth to the "love" resource, you could split that up into multiple types of love. For example (taking the Greek words for love here):

Eros: Sexual love. A bonus for people who constantly change partners.

Agape: Unconditional love. A bonus to this for keeping the same romantic partner for a long time. (Especially if you're with them a long time AND you only break up when your partner dies in battle)

Philia: Friendship. A bonus for having party members that are "just friends".

Your level of the different types of love could be tied to what weapons your character can use, or the effectiveness of certain moves in battle. It could also change how your player is allowed to interact with party members in and out of battle. Another random thought: maybe certain NPCs won't go out with you at all if you're inexperienced in love, or if you have a tendency to "hit it and quit it". ...Hump it and dump it?

Anyway, splitting up the love resource could help you accommodate different play styles.

Just a thought!

PS: There's also a fourth love from the Greeks—"Storge"—that's for parents and children. It doesn't sound like your game's going down this path, though!

[Juliano]

Hey Lucas!

Loved the poems, they are a great idea (the car one is really funny)! The heartipelago looks lovely as well!

Wondering how "Procedurally generated love interests" will work on the game. This will be comunicated mainly through dialog? Would be nice to see the mechanic changing depending on their love interest as well.

Hoping to play it on the next PAIN! I'll definitely post more feedbacks after playing it

[AD1337]

This weekend I did Ludum Dare 37 and made this:


http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview&uid=18059

Room King is about two pieces of furniture fighting for the best place in the room: the crown carpet.

Right now I'm travelling, spending a week in the Brazilian city of Curitiba and meeting cool devs as well.