Frosto Remembers: Dr. Blankenship

The first dev log post where Frosto talks about a part of development!

When you think of Love Sucks you mostly think about the three girls. But it's hard to imagine the game without Dr. Blankenship.  Her sassy dimenor, her seductive winks, her...large personality.  She's become a staple of the game.  But when we launched the first build of Love Sucks, she didn't even have a model yet due to the rush.  So how'd everyone's favorite history teacher come to be?

Dr. B started off as a solution to a problem. Theo and the girls were in college, so having a class together when they could have different majors meant they needed a general class.  And a late night one meant class could be small. History was a good fit.

I remembered a history teacher I had in college who was a young thing, she couldn't have been more than 10 years older than me. Great at lectures, she also had a passion for local history, searching out local events from the not too distant past. Not an "overall" history kind of person, but someone who liked all sorts of primary sources and first hand accounts of even small things.  

Next came the combined struggle.  We needed a reason for the girls to take Theo out, but also a reason to specifically like him. At the time they were aloof and just were in class and asked him out, the hot-girls-that-never-talk-to-you-suddenly-notice-you trope.  ButI wanted more.  I wanted something that showed the girls as characters and that Theo had normal interactions with them.

I wrote a small scene which might be one day the start of Love Sucks.  "The Struggle" in April of 2020

Anna drooped her head down onto the table with a sigh, a look of misery on her face.  
“Why a research paper and a presentation in the middle of the year?” she asked, a tinge of whine on her voice
“Because small projects are for quitters” Sarah said from across the table.
The three were set up in one of the private rooms of the library, a big glass window showing out into the rows upon rows of books.  They had already pulled out a decent amount of reading material, and all had their laptops open.
Anna’s big blue eyes glanced up to Sarah “Tell me more about this ‘quitter’ thing.  Do they have a pamphlet? I might consider joining their group”
“I would too if it wasn’t forty percent of our grade” Theo said as he typed on his laptop.
Anna grumped again.
Jan entered into the room holding more books. She had the biggest pile out of the three, but oddly her laptop wasn’t out, just several notebooks.  
“Does Professor Blankenship grade on a curve?  There’s only five of us, if we fail Naomi could carry us right?” Anna asked
“Is that how grading on the curve works?  It always confuses me” Theo said.
Jan looked down at Anna and frowned, and poked her head.  “Speaking of curves, sit up straight.”
Anna looked up still slouched “Huh?”
“If you expose the girls to any more gravity you’re gonna stretch out that blouse”
Anna stuck her tongue out before she sat up and took a moment to adjust herself.  “Some people don’t appreciate the struggle,” she said.

This was also the first instance of "Blankenship".  I remember wanting a normalish-sounding name that sounded good with Dr.  I wanted it to be long but not clunky or super foreign.  I also didn't really want it to mean anything. Blankenship seemed normalish. I didn't even look up the name meaning, just wanted something normal sounding.  Worked.  She was just a name though.

In May of 2020 while talking, we came up with the idea that their teacher was a real character, and that she was "hawt".  We figured she might be a monster of some kind, but coming across her later in the game where she was in skimpy clothing would be best.  Everybody loves the hot for teacher thing.  Everybody.

But then, if she was in there, what was she to be?  Well that came around because of Sammy.

Sammy was an idea from Aila that started off as a dog that the girls found and Theo was going to convince Jan to take it home.  I suggested a cat because I suggested if I found a puppy outside I'd either be scared to approach it or I'd be finding it's owner.  Cats are everywhere and nobody bats an eyelash.  

But suddenly adding in that Dr. B was a witch and Sammy was her familiar was the real tipping point where everything came together. Not only because of that connection, but also skimpy witch outfit.  Also, if there were local witches, she could be studying the history of witches.  Hence her talk about "historical accuracy" when it came to her outfit.  

The first ideas around Dr. B as a character though were weird. First, she was a nerdy type who suddenly lets out wearing a sexy witch outfit...but that's no fun.  We already filled the holy trinity of boobs, butts and abs, so the question became what is Dr. B.  And we settled on Milf. Yes, she's stacked like Anna, but we envisaged her as quite tall and with sultry eyes.  And with that, the cool Dr. B came out, professional but not frumpy, cool, but also inviting and sultry.  And yes, still a bit nerdy.