Progress report & demo induction video/image set

Greetings!

There's a lot that I'll go over in the next few days, however I wanted to first explain the general progress of the project, along with what I expect to be completed prior to the initial version launch.

I also figured it would be a good idea to provide some demo footage, so as to help explain to people what it is I'm trying to achieve. Links for the vid and image set can be found at the bottom of this post, although I'll also explain some more about the video shortly.

So far the game programming/mechanics progress is as follows:

• Menu system completed, including a settings screen for volume and text speed control, and save/load screens. I'll be adding further controls within the settings in the future, but for now the core aspects of the menu system are complete.
• Save and Load system completed. Does what is says on the tin.
• Dialogue system, text and option selection (branching) pretty much complete, pending testing of the "skip" functionality in some edge cases.
• Event system completed, with currently 58 different commands for manipulating the game scene. I won't get into the system in too much depth, since it would easily fill a post or two in it's own right.
• Audio system completed, with three main audio channels (Background Music, Sound Effects, and Ambience). This system is fully accessible through the event system, which can also be used to trigger various one-shot sound effects in a range of useful scenarios (finger snaps, hand claps, whistles - the kind of noises that are useful in a hypno-themed game).
• Game state management completed. Not much to say about this one - anyone familiar with existing visual novel engines or RPG maker will have a good idea what this entails.
• Interaction system completed. The best way to describe this is to point you towards the "Ace Attorney" series of games. It's basically a point and click system for exploring the environment, rather than the typical set of options that you get in visual novels. Certain larger environments (such as school settings) will also be traversable using this system, which  will allow for some interesting cinematic setups.
• Player control "hands" half completed.  It's simply half completed because there is currently only a left hand. I'll be pretty much duplicating much of the logic to produce a right hand in the next few days. The system allows the player to interact with the environment (and main characters!) in a way that isn't overtly obtrusive. You can look forward to a separate "hands" post soon enough, where I'll cover it in much more detail.
• Expression system completed. This includes not only custom scripted and pre-set facial expressions, but also several manpu and speech bubble variations.

Regarding the game design:

• 7 rough character outlines exist for main characters (many of course based on popular manga/anime archetypes), however I'm still finalizing the visual design of the characters. It's pretty hard to make bad models in Vroid Studio though to be fair ("Jane" from the demo induction only took me about 15 minutes or so). Regarding Jane, I'm also not sure whether she'll make it into the main game (hence "John" and "Jane" - I needed some placeholder character names for the demo)
• I've got the prologue planned and ready to script. The prologue will simply act as somewhat of a MacGuffin, with each of the main character plotlines providing their own story and circumstances. It will also help to suspend some disbelief regarding some of the "hypno-hijinks" occurring in some scenes - there are already some subtle hints to this in the demo ;)
• I'll be trying to keep the interactions between the main characters to a minimum, so that the player is able to progress chapters with all of them in tandem. This will be more difficult than creating linear plot lines for each character, however the payoff will be that I can then introduce "harem" scenarios later based on the intimacy level of different character pairings.
• Initial environments will include the school (to which I pretty much have all the assets), streets/shops (I'll be looking to source/create these this week), and the main player house (I already have a good idea where to source good assets for this one). The streets section will be designed in such a way that I can expand the exploration area over the course of the game - probably through a well placed "road closure" here and there.

And finally, regarding the video demo:

• it's a brief short scenario, built using the latest build of the game framework, showing the main player "john" performing an "eye fixation" induction to his childhood friend "Jane".
• the demo features examples of much of what I've explained above, minus the hands and interaction system - since I want to produce another demo showing those off in much more detail.
• the character "John" is pretty close to the character for the main game, and so much of his dialogue is relevant. "Jane" is pretty close to one of the main character archetypes I have, however I suspect I'll need to re-model her a little to ensure she balances well with the other characters; as such, she may not exist in the final game in her current incarnation.
• I stopped the demo short of eye/face checks, and a potential time-stop suggestion, because those are things that I want to hold back for the initial release. I want there to be an order to these things, but if there's enough of a desire to see it before the initial game release then I may reconsider... ^_^

Anyhow, video and image set links!

Video (1080p)       -  MEGA  -  Mediafire  -  WorkUpload
Video (720p)         -  MEGA  -  Mediafire  -  WorkUpload
Video (480p)         -  MEGA  -  Mediafire  -  WorkUpload 

Images (1080p)     -  MEGA  -  Mediafire  -  WorkUpload
Images (720p)       -  MEGA  -  Mediafire  -  WorkUpload