Ecchi Sensei - "What happens next?" No #1

this is the first of many "what happens next?" dev blog posts. Here I'll tell you about decisions I've made in the past and why I've made them. I'll also be telling you where we'll be heading. The "what happens next?" blog is not scheduled to appear on a monthly basis but it will be there whenever it's time to take a breather and think about what happened in the most recent updates and what the future is expected to hold.

Be aware that it is possible that these posts contain spoilers. I try to avoid them but it's hard not to spoil things when talking about the future :P

Alright, let's start from the beginning, and I really mean the beginning of "Ecchi Sensei", the original idea of a game into which I'm putting all my spare time and which I am passionately advancing every single day.

On May 3rd 2018, I made the decision to develop my own 3D adult visual novel game since I have already noticed that these games are becoming more popular in regions outside of Asia. I am a big fan of Japanese VNs but the "Western" ones also have their own appeal. The only thing that made me sad was the fact that most Western devs do things completely differently compared to the Japanese originals. Instead of an exciting and well-told story with many different characters and personalities, most games look mostly identical from the get-go, in my opinion the story and the dialogues don't get the attention they should deserve, and it's mostly about having a quick fap first and foremost.

To each their own, but that's not the kind of game I want to create. That's why I tried to combine the, in my opinion, positive aspects of the new Western VNs with the Japanese VNs that have been successful for almost 2 decades. Ecchi Sensei was the result of that.

From the get-go, I wanted to create a setup that won't already be boring after a year because everything is just on repeat. The setting of a daily school life from the point of view of a family father and teacher seemed quite exciting to me.

In Japan, the school theme is quite popular and I actually wanted to avoid using cliché scenarios. That's why only the basic concept is relatively similar to many other games. But if you take a closer look at the game, you will notice very quickly that something like this hasn't been done before and that was my goal. To create something new that keeps giving the player new reasons to continue playing the game.

In Ecchi Sensei, I primarily tell the story of our MC, Matsu Matsumoto. 32 years old, married, 3 daughters of which one is not his own, and working as a sensei.

The daily life of the MC seems to be quite difficult at the beginning since he took a new job at a new school which also developed a completely new school system which is unique in the mostly true-to-life Japan that appears in the game. In the school, other than 2 male teachers, there are only women, there's almost no men in the sleepy location that you can think of as a small village, and that's how it's going to stay. We will see almost no men in this game.

Those who know me a bit know that I'm a fan of realism. The fact that there's so few men in this game is not quite close to reality, and there's surely more factors that you can criticize here and there, but things are allowed to be a bit surreal from time to time.

When I started with Day 1, my intention was to confront the perverted teacher with moral problems.

On one hand we got the many daughters, the very attractive and loyal wife, as well as students and teachers, neighbors and mothers of students who have been waiting to get to meet a handsome young man.

Our MC is not a big fan of social norms but he knows very well how dangerous it can be to act against the norm, that's why he has qualms when it comes to doing something that's not tolerated for the most part. Be it adultery or abusing his authority as a teacher or other things.. the MC always strives to do the "right" thing but this isn't always easy.

Thus I'm telling a story of moral gray areas and how our MC can overcome them after careful considerations, on top of that there's the daily life, the new job, the fact that he is a family father, and everything else.

In short: Sentimental drama, slice of life, comedy, erotica, and romance are the utmost priority. These are the core elements of the game and I'm always trying to find the perfect balance.

The further we get in the game, the more intense things get. On one hand, we have the many different routes that can be taken, thanks to which the game can be revisited in different ways, and on the other hand, the relationships between the MC and the female chars intensify. The first days were very text-heavy without a huge amount of ecchi scenes. The more we get to know the persons, the more ecchi things are going to get of course. But the game is going to stay text-heavy. Every person in this game has a story to tell.

Just like in the real world, some women are "easy prey" and are throwing themselves at the MC (and we have seen quite a lot of those already) but then there's women who are not that enthralled by the MC, who are not so eager to flirt with him, much less get into a romantic relationship with him.

You've either met such persons only barely or not at all, this is because these persons are not that interested in the MC to begin with and thus avoid him, or they are avoiding him because of the fact that he is so popular and the competition is simply too big. There are many motives for why these persons haven't really been seen yet, but they exist, and they will be seen, and the MC has to fight hard to even make minimal progress with these persons.

In addition to that, other than Ina Hara and Tanami Fukisawa, you haven't met any married women or any women who are in a relationship, but they exist as well and we will get to meet them.

The idea of Ecchi Sensei came on a whim, but I have to mention that it is quite easy for me to think of stories and conversations, to give every person different character traits from the outside as well as the inside, and writing stories is my favorite part of my work. But I don't like pretty much all of other other aspects of the work process when it comes to the creation of the game, but still I'm trying my best to improve in all areas with every new update.

Especially when it comes to the graphics, you can see big differences over the course of Day 1 to Day 3. I did not have any experience in any of these areas before but there was, and is, a willingness to learn, and I will keep on trying to always improve in all the areas to make the game more interesting. Right now we're just at the beginning.

The many decisions that the MC could make in D1 are not purely cosmetic as you might be used to from most other games. Many of your decisions will have immediate results, you might have to wait 1 or 2 days for others, and others show their consequences after you've almost forgotten that you made the decision in the first place. In other words: If you've made a decision in Day 1, it can take quite a while until it has consequences.

My mindset when it comes to decisions in the game is just like it would be in real life. Some things change immediately and you have to wait for other changes to take effect. Remember the e-mails in D1? "IWILLDESTROYYOU666" and "TheFriendlyDealer"? These things remain unresolved as of D3. "#Case 315" and the reason why 7 students of class 3.F. have been suspended? Unresolved. I did not forget about these things, nor did I discard these ideas, everything has a purpose and a meaning and because the MC is curious, he wants to learn about everything.

But what I did discard is the "PC project". In D2, the interactive PC has been introduced. Unfortunately, it won't be worked on in the future. I have invested more than 3 days into creating the character cards and my former programmer back then has passionately claimed that it would be easy for him to make the PC interactive. After a delay of 2 weeks and half-finished work, I had to learn from my new programmer that the old code is completely unusable and it would have to be made anew. Thus we decided to put the PC project on ice. But thanks to the smartphone feature, there is some sort of revival of the PC project, just on a phone instead of a PC.

Many of you already know that my plan consists of creating 365 ingame days, and, as of now, there is only one new ingame day per update. This is not going to continue being the case forever. There will be special events in which 1 update may contain 2 or even 3 days. Starting in 2019, this will happen from time to time, but one ingame week per update is the upper limit.

Right now I'm considering whether I should make the ingame weather match the weather in real life. For instance, Day 2 was a midsummer day in real life, it could be chilly and cold in D6. I'm not really sure yet if I want to handle things that way.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this :)

In Day 3, you have seen the first instance of something which I personally would like to show much more often. I'm talking about the fights. The different "ninja clans" don't really like each other all that much, but you don't need to be a member of an old Japanese clan to be able to get into fights. Just as usual, in every school, there are conflicts between the individual students. Yes, the world doesn't revolve around the MC. The students are having their own lives, their own struggles, and from time to time, you as a player will be able to see the game from a different perspective. That's when we slip into the role of another person.

In the preview at the end of D3, I mentioned that there will be flashbacks of the past. First and foremost, these flashbacks will show the young MC, the young Hiroko (our lovely waifu), and many other persons in different periods of time (when the MC was 14, 18, 25, and 29 years old) and there's one thing I can tell you already: If you paid close attention to D3 and you've read the dialogue between the MC and Fuyu after the dojo, you know that our MC hasn't always been the calm nice guy we know him as. He has been practicing martial arts in the past and his mentality was quite short-tempered. The way he talked to and acted towards the "crazy nurse" in D3, that's how he used to be when he was younger.

So, the fights will continue to be a thing, the question is whether they are going to be played out stylistically or if we're just going to scratch the surface. That's your decision to make.

The opinion of my supporters is very important to me because you should keep on liking the game. I keep on telling my story, that's not going to change, but you can decide on what should be shown more often and what should be shown less often.

The same applies to the "most liked characters" poll. Your votes show me who needs more attention, who needs less, and who should be leaving the country on the next flight *cough* Christa Beckers *cough*.

You can always reach out to me with suggestions and advice, if you're in my Discord then you know how outgoing I can be, even if I should be working and not responding to almost every single message ^^

Alright, let's get to the exciting part. What is going to happen?

I'm not going to talk about upcoming features just yet (at least for the time being), I'm talking about the upcoming days to give you a taste of what you can expect.

Day 4:

The intense feelings between the MC and Fuyu are constantly growing and you're spending your lunch break together. You will have the possibility to get on a new route. One path brings you and Fuyu even closer, the other will ensure that you can keep your distance from her.

Another student will also be offering you two routes. You can keep on being friends as usual or you can become more than just friends.

D4 is also the day when many past decisions are being mentioned again.

This goes back all the way to D1, and on top of that, D4 sets many routes for the future.

Our MC will also make a list for his tasks. For instance, in D2, during the interview with the girls, he talked about solving these problems. Kaede and her family problems are quite high up on the list, but Satomi Fukisawa, who is no longer wearing that much makeup, is also going to get a spot on the list because we have to drive a wedge between the school director and her husband, the Japanese Minister of Education, because they are disregarding one thing as they keep setting different goals for their daughter. The daughter wants to make her own decisions about her future. The crazy nurse looks a bit different now. She's still crazy, but now also a bit prettier. So far I have avoided making drastic changes to the face of any character. I do change the makeup and the outfits (and, in some cases, the hair) every day, but I never planned to do something as drastic as to change an entire face. But it felt right to do that, and you will only see it in the rarest cases that the appearance of a character is changing as much as it did in this case.

Day 5 (Friday):

Kaede sends all suspended Students a mail after that our MC will have a talk with them on Saturday. we learn from the school director (who will get a visual overhaul) that the first mock exam of the students must be conducted on Monday (Day 8). This mock exam happens twice a month and is meant to be a preparation for the nationwide exam that happens on Day 100.

#Case 315 is being uncovered and the new information will be used in the interview with the students.

Our male colleague Noro Yamoto will give us free passes for the anime convention that happens during D5-D7. We will also be having the choice between having a drink with Suzuka and Ina or enjoying our spare time with other activities.

This thing that waifu wants to talk to us about, mentioned in the D3 preview, will have a big impact on the game from here on.

Day 6 (Saturday):

For those who didn't know, in Japan, you also go to school on Saturdays, but in Ecchi Sensei, things are a little different. There are no mandatory classes. Each Saturday, the students can decide on their own whether they attend school or not, and if they decide to participate in the classes, they won't be the usual thing. Next to club activities, there are workshops by the students and teachers in which you can participate just like in school festivities. Art is going to play a big role but there will be many other workshops that the MC can attend, or even conduct on his own. We also follow through with the interview of the suspended students.

The anime convention, you gotta go there. Hot girls in cosplay outfits? The convention might be in a different city but maybe you get to meet a familiar face or two.

Day 7 (Sunday):

Day 7 can take many directions, either the MC enjoys the free day to the fullest and lazes around, or he is active and spends his free time with others.

Whatever you decide on, it will have consequences. Whether those are good or bad, that remains to be seen ;)

I hope you'll keep on enjoying my game.

See you next time.