secret project: february update

Monthly update for my game, Sugarplum Cafe!

Based on feedback from my December prototype, I want to make the world of Sugarplum Cafe feel more immersive, without making this game too ambitious. I spent this month implementing quite a few changes, and I think the game looks really different now!

1. Showing more of the cafe

In the newest prototype, the merging grid - which I'm calling the Kitchen since that's where the desserts are made - will be hideable. You can tap the Kitchen tab to show or hide the grid at any time. 

With the Kitchen as a popup rather than a permanent part of the screen, you can see more of the cafe and customers. Eventually you can even choose your own decor! But I'm saving all the decor design for later.

I had considered making the Kitchen an entirely separate room, but after talking to a few friends they all preferred having the grid as a popup because it was nice to have everything in one place. Plus, that would have just been the same as the October prototype where I had all the different mechanics on different screens, I promise this is 100% different you guys lol

2. Showing more of the characters

You can also see that the characters are a little more chibi-fied, because I wanted you to be able to see their full outfits but they wouldn't fit on the screen with full proportions 😩 

Here are the latest versions of the characters, but these are still placeholders so I wouldn't consider this the final art style!

The ladies from the previous prototype were:

• Vanilla - will walk you through the tutorial, lolita/maid-inspired fashion
• Mint - the smart, no-nonsense one; she just also happens to be hella chic (I need to give her a more academic design but I like this dress too much)
• Strawberry - influencer wearing an outfit inspired by lovecore. Loves taking hot photos of herself and filming aesthetic vlogs. Will have an influencer bestie named Cherry and a relative named Pineberry who will also become customers
• Chocolate - a classical dancer, a little bit of ballet and a little bit of flamenco. Will have a family of other chocolates, like White Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Ruby Chocolate. Maybe they are also dancers but idk yet

And there are four new faces:

• Milk - Vanilla's relative, "Dutch/Swiss milkmaid" inspo. Kind of want to give her MILFy vibes for the lulz
• Coffee - she owns 51% of this company and always has shit to do. A little inspired by Tayshia from the Bachelorette.
• Tea - eccentric fashion designer. Definitely inspired by Guo Pei's designs a little bit. Will have friends like Matcha, Milk Tea, Earl Grey
• Soda - a streamer who loves funky beats and Y2K-inspired fashion. Visual aesthetic was inspired by SOPHIE meets In Love with a Ghost. She's a streamer because SodaStream and wears soda sneakers huhuhuhu

Because "Lady Milk" sounds incredibly questionable, I'm thinking about renaming Ladies to Misses e.g. Miss Vanilla, Miss Chocolate, etc...like pageant titles!

And they all have their own Madelines too! I also gave each Madeline a unique hairstyle that resembles the lady they idolize most, just to help 'em stand out.

The new ladies are all based on beverages, because they represent a new crafting mechanic in addition to merging.

3. It's a cafe, not a patisserie: Making drinks

Soon you can make more than macarons - you'll be able to infuse the ingredients into drinks!

The Steeper is an item that will allow you to make flavored drinks. Steep any ingredients from the prototype (Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Mint) with a new beverage ingredient (Tea, Milk, or Soda), and after some time the ingredients will combine into one of the custom drinks above! (You can add Coffee to a Milk combo to turn it from a Latte into a Cafe Latte, but only with steepers that can take three or more ingredients.)

It takes time for ingredients steep, but you can merge your Steepers to upgrade them and make them faster.

4. Adding more desserts

Of course, the beverages I chose are also valid dessert flavors. You can treat the beverages as dessert ingredients and merge them too.

As for how the beverages will spawn, I could make baskets for them as well, but I've been considering more fun ways to spawn ingredients besides baskets...but that's for another update 👀

5. Adding a plot 

Added a dialogue player so I can write a story! Right now the story itself is incredibly generic just so I can test out the system, but I'm pleased with how it's looking so far.

I can load any story in the form of a script and it will play out like a visual novel! Oh, you can also scroll up and down and reread any dialogue you miss. Rereading stories is a feature I desperately wish a lot of games would let me do.

I'm not the best writer and I don't think the story of Sugarplum Cafe will be particularly groundbreaking, and I also don't want this game to be too story heavy for players who don't like visual novels. But I think that some semblance of plot will allow you to feel more connected to the characters and see more of their personalities.

6. Various quality of life changes

• Clicking a basket now spawns all ingredients at once instead of one at a time.
• Also replaced the item description with a tooltip that appears if you hover over an item. For baskets and steepers the tooltip will show you how much time you have left.

• The menu is now hideable.
• I split the Shop and Catalog into two separate screens as feedback from the prototype showed there was confusion between the two.

Conclusion: What's next?

For one, I hope the drink mechanic sounds fun to you all because it's something I want to use for crafting other foods besides drinks!

I mentioned that I'll be working on a story - you'll unlock parts of the story as you make progress in the game, but I still need to implement the progression system in the first place.

I also mentioned that I have some ideas on a more fun way to spawn/collect ingredients besides baskets. Will need to keep brainstorming this.

Lastly, I want you to see even more of the cafe! Eventually there will be multiple rooms in the cafe that you'll have to navigate around to take orders, not just the room you're seeing in these GIFs. I'll leave you with some quick mockups of various backgrounds I've drawn for the new version of Sugarplum Cafe.

Thanks for reading!