Lovely little creature

Content warning: everything.

I recently started making headway on a new game based on the short story I made, called Syzygy. The game, timeline-wise, picks up from around 6-12 months after the events of the final chapter of the story.

This is an extremely self-indulgent project that was partially inspired by Otchakun’s May’s Summer Vacation. May’s Summer Vacation (or MSV) is a NSFW RPG Maker game in which you freely spend your summer break interacting with a wide array of odd ball characters and experience all sorts of events. It’s lewd, silly, lighthearted, and really fun! The art is cute and well done, too!

MSV made me realize that my game projects don’t have to be so linear or follow any set structure. I, too, can tell a story by placing the character in a “sandbox” of sorts, and allow the player to familiarize their selves with the world however they please. Now that I think about it,  Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle has a pretty similar gameplay loop, too.

So yes, Syzygy is a casual, kind of romantic, simulation game in which the main character, Solis, is free to explore her small town and interact with a varying cast of characters via hang-out events. These characters include:

• her parents
• a homeless rat girl
• her teacher
• convenience store workers
• her ex-band members

I cannot overstate how self-indulgent the contents of this game will be. It will be stuffed full of all of my favourite themes and kinks. Here’s the gist of the sensitive content expected to be in the full release

Mell (mom)	Alba (mom)	Miss Rhéborr	Pebble (ratgirl)	Nuit & Angel (conbini)
Incest, period sex, piss, underage drinking	Incest, feet, piss, underage drinking	Grooming, sexual harassment, kidnapping, torture, cannibalism, guro, death	loli, humiliation, torture, genital mutilation, dubcon, coercion	babying, diaper play, drugging, dubcon

I plan on implementing a “Disassociation” toggle for the Rhéborr/Pebble route, so that player’s won’t have to see any grisly depictions or descriptions of the more graphic content if they don’t want to.

Now here are the routes involving her two ex-bandmates:

Vesper	Azúcena
Vomit & nausea	staying out late, making tiktoks

🤔

What have I done so far?

The intro for the game has been fully implemented! It starts off with Solis coming home from her last day of school. The player takes over immediately with the freedom to explore the neighborhood. Once home, you can complete a small task from her mother to set up some Christmas decorations around the house. Time advances, and you go to bed to end the day.

I made a shitton of assets in Asset Forge. I love this tool so fucking much. Very quick and easy to make simple/low-poly models. Asset Forge and Blockbench are the only 3D modeling tools that my smooth brain is capable of comprehending.

Made a lot of 2d assets too. RPG Developer Bakin specializes in that 2.5D look. I drew a lot of 2D assets for use in the overworld, as well as for the UI and emoticons (like ‘balloons’ in RPG Maker). a lot of it is unfinished/placeholder, but it’s in there!

I fully implemented a Time-Of-Day system, which was, once again, inspired by MSV. Time will only advance after completing a hang-out event, or after napping in bed. Certain events or actions can only be completed in certain locations and/or at certain times of the day (ranging from early morning to late night).

I put together a ‘Relationship’ menu that doubles as a character dictionary and a quest tracker. Ever since I first played Tales of the Abyss, I’ve been a huge fan of games that provide some sort of log or tracker for the player’s current objective. I’d hate for someone to forget what their next objective was simply because they stopped playing for a few days, or because they switched focus from character A to character B and forgot what they were meant to do with character A again.

I also intend for this to be my first-ever paid/commercial game. Although, with everything that’s happened with payment processors on all these digital storefronts… i’m not sure how well that will work out… 🥹I intended have a demo build that will allow the player to fully experience both mom’s routes to completion. Anything beyond that will require access to the full game.

What’s next?

Now that the intro segment of the game is complete, I’m working to implement the entirety of Mell’s route. This will require the implementation of the town so that the player can visit the conbini and cafe (mell owns the cafe). I’ve been creating 3D and 2D assets for these locations. The player will be able to complete a simple minigame to earn a small bit of cash.

The next time I post about any progress on the game should be after I’ve fully implemented Mell’s route. Thank you for reading