Progress Log 9/6/21 - Dating System + NPC Standings (Patreon)

We had a bit of an erratic month during August and our release schedule was shaken up a bit because of the public build. However, we’re still at work! We took into account the results of a poll that was put up a couple of weeks ago and the highest voted choice was NPC Romancing. In order to implement that, a few systems needed to be setup first.

NPC Standing Menu Implemented

NPC standings can now be accessed with a new menu.

None of the NPCs are hidden at the moment, but later on, it’ll only display NPCs that you have met. The menu currently contains an icon for every character that we have planned so far.

Selecting an NPC will open their full bio with things like their favorite items as well as age and height. Later on, we intend to add more functions to this menu like being able to view their expressions.

NPC Gifting System Implemented

In order for NPCs to have favorite items, we needed a way of actually giving them items.

Selecting the new “Gift” option in the dialogue menu will allow players to give an item to an NPC and increase their standing if it’s something they like. Only one item can be gifted at a time, but it currently has no spam limit, so you can do it indefinitely as long as you have items. Realistically, this will be balanced out later in development and some kind of limit will be applied.

The gift system prompted us to do a bit of work on item slots as well. Items can now be picked up individually by right clicking, allowing greater control over the inventory. We still need to do stack splitting but that will come at a later date.

NPC Dating System Implemented

Now here is the big one! Dating NPCs!

Dating is an entirely new system that we’ve implemented. Players will be able to pick an NPC and invite them out on a date to a specific location. The first implemented date scene is a picnic by the lake.

NPCs will ask a series of questions and the player will be tasked with responding to them. 

Responses can be Positive, Negative or Neutral, and you’ll receive a marking in the corner nodes depending on what you pick.

If you successfully manage to get a perfect date by answering all of the questions properly, you’ll receive bonus standing, as well as bonus crystal currency.

But be warned! Failing 3 or more questions will cause the NPC to abruptly end the date. Meaning no completion bonuses.

The dating system will be available in the next build release, which we plan on having available around the 15th of this month.

Story Rework Planning

After playing through the game extensively, we realized that having the world be empty in the beginning is doing us more harm than good. It’s difficult to explain things without having any NPCs already living in the world and with Kaneko practically being a blank memory slate.

Because of this, we’ll be reworking a bit of the story in the beginning and having the game start off with more NPCs already established. We’re thinking that Kaneko, Hazel and Rua will already have shops set up so that the player won’t have to build everything from scratch through Rua.

This will probably be our big focus for the next update, along with a new NSFW scene.

That’s all for now! We should have another poll up later this week for you guys to vote on stream sketch ideas!

-Vanis & Doku