Pic 26: Dinner at the Blue Azul

I'm literally in the home stretch of finishing Hopepunk City, at least the story part.  The scenes where you date Ariane, which I have surprisingly struggled with, is literally the last scenes I have to write and illustrate.

I knew an option to romance Ariane and FINALLY make her your girlfriend had to be a part of this game from the original concept I came up with back in January 2020.  And yet I struggled with this scene, or a set of scenes, because it needs to be different and at the same time similar to the dating scenes from Date Ariane, Something's In The Air, and Ariane in Paradise.  I guess I kind of needed to do everything else first, and ask myself "What is there left to say?", because there is a lot left to say, and I've incorporated some of it into the conversations of the date.

The "Blue Azul" is the name of the restaurant you work in at the beginning of the game. "Azul" is the Spanish word for "blue", so it's literally "blue blue", which has the advantage of being a cool sounding name no one in their right mind would use in real life.

There are two obvious references back to Date Ariane.  One is the blue dress, the very blue dress you buy Ariane to get the "Devil in the Blue Dress" achievement.  The second are the poses. I basically use almost the same poses here at the poses used in the backyard barbecue scene in Date Ariane.   I do not use the eat/drink/talk/compliment mechanic here as by the time you go on this date, you and Ariane have established a friendship already, but I use the same poses in a conversation relative to the plot of the game. 

On the completion front, writing and illustrating this scene has taken about 3 days, still three more scenes to do, and only 5 days left of August, so I'm not going to finish this month, but looks very promising for a full "alpha" release in September.  Then I get to come up with achievements to complete "beta".  Target release still on track for October.