The Date Ariane Remastered Project

This is a pre-project post to discuss my goals and ideas with this project. I'm also making this post public. If you are interested in following this project, sign up as a $5 patreon, and see its progress. I've posted a link in another post for current eligible Patreons to get the base "template" game. 

If I say things here that I want in the game, doesn't actually mean they will be in the game, this is all currently speculation/wishful thinking on my part.  

The base game is basically Date Ariane as it exists now but with all the pictures blown up to 1080p and the interface of the game designed to match the interface used in Ariane in Paradise and Hopepunk City:

You should immediately note that the pictures are not designed for this format, so they have black sides, overlay newer pictures, or gray and white checkerboard patterns indicating there is nothing to display.  The game is playable this way, but all the graphics need to be redone, hence the main objective of this project.

There is a temporary avatar representation of you, which I took from Hopepunk City.   All the choice menus are in the lower right corner, the stats are displayed in the lower left corner.  Ariane’s dialog is in bright yellow, and mostly in the default location in the upper left corner of  the screen.  It moves to the upper right if there is an additional  person on the screen who is left of her, or if she is not seen — for  example when you are driving the car.

Your dialog is always in cyan color and located in the lower middle  next to a picture of your avatar when you are speaking using one of three pics: you smiling, you asking a question, you unemotionally talking.  Your avatar will sometimes change clothes as needed, but this  feature is very poorly implemented at this point. There are many places where you will be inappropriately dressed.

Also as it currently stands, every time PC body parts are shown, they are male, because female images do not exist yet.

Which leads to one of the many changes with the game I plan to make…

Things I need to change!

The introduction of an avatar means two major changes to the game:

1. The game will have to adapt to the player being male, or the player being female.  Scenes where you can see the players hands or, um, other body parts, will have to have male and female versions.
2. Never in any version of the game, was the status of dress or undress of the Player Character ever discussed in the body of the game.  It was up to the player to imagine your status.  The upshot here is that it will lead to new possibilities.  For example, if Ariane wants to go to the store naked, are you naked too? or are you dressed?  This just leads to more options to adapt to and more possible outcomes.

Things I want to change (maybe).

While working on those player character changes, I would like to:

1. Make multiple avatars possible. Light skin and dark skin?   Different faces? Different hair? Different outfits?  To do this I would have to make avatars based on layers to avoid having to make dozens of different possible avatars.  I experimented a little with this in Hopepunk City in the date scene where you can choose to wear a jacket or not.  The  jacket was a separate element that I could just layer over your avatar.
2. Double the number of avatar emotions, adding “surprise”, “anger”, and “O-Face” which would rarely be seen but would be fun when they popped up.
3. I want to make enough changes to the game to distinguish it from the current Date Ariane.  One idea is to go really old school and add the hover click back to certain scenes. This might be tough as I would have to implement this different on mobile touch screen versions.  For example: I am thinking of getting rid of the choice to “check out the  telescope” from the menu, but when the telescope is visible on the  screen, it will be clickable to go to that content. I’m thinking of doing the museum the same way, and maybe add new content that can be found by hovering over the screen.  Bring back hover make out scenes?
4. New music, including an easier way to customizing the music.  Maybe instead  of rock, country, romance, and light jazz, it was dance pop, hip-hop,  smooth pop, and classic slow dance?  Open to suggestions.
5. Fun rule changes that make the story better.  For example, I’m thinking Ariane will no longer have a private pool, but will have access to a community pool.  This makes Ariane’s house a little more believable, and adds a sense of danger if you are skinny dipping in a semi-public pool.
6. On the “public nudity” front, I wonder how much fun an internal “hot  potato” game could be where the more time you spend naked in public, the more likely you get in trouble, resulting in the end of the date?  It could add to the sense of danger, or it could just lead to player frustration.  Worth a thought.
7. I’ve had a number of people suggest different transport options if you and Ariane are both drinking, like taxi/uber  rides, allowing for make out scenes in the back seat?
8. Other date scenarios I am thinking about: An “escape room”, a poetry slam, “netflix and chill”, an expanded amusement park, a second board game option that could spawn into it’s own game?

Things I don’t want to change.

I believe there are important aspects of the game that players still find appealing, and I don’t want to mess with perfection:

1. Dates should remain short.  A typical Date Ariane date last from  5 minutes to 20 minutes. No involved plots requiring backstory.  The  appeal of this is that when you make a bad choice, you don’t have to wade through the story again to make the good choice.  Also people love exploring the various choices, and short dates encourage exploring. 
2. Predictable outcomes.  When you play a path, you always get the same results, no  randomness except where obviously important (rochambeau, board games).  Random outcomes discourages exploring different choices.
3. Most dialog.  I don’t want translation to be a problem.  In just the opening scene I had to change "You are such a gentleman" to "You are such a charmer", and "portable stereo" to "wireless speaker".  I'm sure there will be more to come, but I'm trying to keep it low.
4. As  much of the current content should stay in the new game as possible. If changes are necessary to accommodate new content, the old content should still be available maybe through other paths. I want to add to the content, not replace the content.

These are my thoughts on this project as I begin.  Be warned that the jolt between new pictures and old pictures can be jarring.  I'm hoping that will motivate me to get new pictures out faster, but I am also motivated to take my time and do it right.

My goal with the new art is beauty is more important than realism. In just the 10 pictures I have done so far, I had to change the lighting on a few to make them look better, and the "hug" picture is obviously not true first person, but looks better than one that was (where all you see is the back of the couch).

There are currently 1,133 images in the game, I have no idea how long it will take to replace them all.  It is a safe bet it will be some time in 2022, but I'm not going to guess which quarter.