Really loving the art direction here, posting to follow. I'm interested in learning more about the gameplay.
Hopfully I can describe this in an interesting and comprehensible way. Ive got a lot going on in my head for this project so bear with me.
Gameplay breaks down into two juxtaposed sequences and two action breaking sequences.
There is a day sequence and a night sequence, and an outside sequence and a dream sequence.
The day sequence is a chore / life simulator with a psuedo-hidden resource management system.
You have three hearts which are supposed to represent your wellbeing which is a combination of typical human needs that can be met via different chores / actions such as: working, eating, showering, doing laundry, petting your cat, etc. You need to maintain a balance of these activities in order to maintain your wellbeing.
Each room in your house has two unique acts/chores assigned to them as the z and x buttons in addition to the ability to open the map with the c button to change which room you're in.
Each act costs one act point, of which you have three. Some acts cost other resources in addition that are psuedo-hidden, such as money obtained from working.
The acts / chores themselves are small sequences that require ordered button presses to progress through a task.
An example would be the laundry chore:
There is a transition and we see our z x c buttons shift to the bottom of the screen.
Our chore icon is displayed in the upper left and the first action is written along side it ( or possibly right below the z x c buttons): "WASHER"
We also saw a small washer/dryer unit slide in from our right into our view.
A pulsing star/sparkle slides over to hover above our z key.
We press and hold the z key until we see the square around it fill up with color. When we release the button the washer's lid will pop on up!
The text dissolves and resolves as "DETERGENT".
Our little star slides over to our x key. We press and hold and release:
a little detergent bottle slides into view.
Next, the same happens and now our text says "OPEN" and when we hold and release the little cap pops off of the detergent bottle.
Next our text changes to "CLOTHES". As it does this a laundry basket slides into veiw from our left.
Our little star slides back over to z.
We press and hold and release. A pair of socks, or maybe a shirt or pants, lift out of the basket and gets placed into the washer.
We continue on like this for pouring the detergent, closing and starting the wash, and continue, methodically, to dry our clothes as Well.
It's about the process of ordinary tasks.
Some acts are shorter, and some are different all together. For example, in the bathroom there is a mirror action. This consists of one sequence of z x c. This tells us elements of our psuedo-hidden status: such as money balance, hunger, thirst, need to shower, amount of clean clothes, feelings.
Or the phone act which is just a phone that you can dial numbers on like your boss, friends, or parents.
Once all act points are consumed for the day sequence you can no longer complete acts, instead you have to go outside of your house (in the game).
Once you are outside you have free movement with z x c keys' used like to wasd with no s. Outside you've got some plants, a mailbox, and a neighbor, and well....somthing else soon arrives (involving the namesake). You can have a very simple chat with your neighbor about your day or just smell the flowers.
Once you're done you can head inside.
Now starts the nighttime sequence.
The game color changes from a pink / magenta to a deep purple.
This is the same as the day sequence but your act points are refreshed to three.
You can do all the same things as before, but this time once you are out of act points instead you have to go to sleep.
This begins the dream sequence.
Dreams are generated but also based upon elements of your day aswell as your wellbeing. Inside of dreams you have free movement just as you do outside.
Dreams are basically side scrolling exploration simulators. Sometimes there are entities to talk to or things to read, sometimes events will trigger certain diolouge from an unknown source.
They are meant to be all strange and different but follow one interlinking arc that well help reveal to you the key to success: which is making sure you are at maximum wellbeing on the 7th day of repeating the loop of: day, outside, night, dream. This is in addition to having completed certain tasks while outside of the dream.
That's all I will say right now because otherwise it starts to get spoilery.
Thanks for taking interest in this project. I've been working very hard to make it everything that it should be.
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