Everstone Daycare - Progress Report (Dec. 23, 2021)

(Early) Merry Christmas everyone! I thought I should give an update today instead of on any of the following days as I have Christmas plans that might keep me from working or posting between now and the New Year. Unfortunately, I have nothing visual to report, but there has been progress that's been made since the last update.

Regarding the previous poll, the winner of which muscular/burly type Pokemon will be used as one of the choices for playable character ended in a tie between Obstagoon and Incineroar. I discussed this between myself, Tennet, and Spooky and we ended up deciding that it will be Incineroar that will be used going forward. 

We considered other body types/archetypes that people would find appealing and we decided that the tentative four that you will be able to play as will be Incineroar (as stated earlier), Zoroark (based on a poll held by Spooky), Mewtwo, and Charizard (both based on a group decision). However, for the sake of easier development, the early builds will focus on exclusively playing as Charizard for the time being, as it allows us to develop the scenes and scenarios in the game without having to duplicate the work needed for every other playable character before being able to move on to the next one. I'd prefer having a game with only 1 finished route than several unfinished ones first, personally. 

I've spend the past few days experimenting with setting up the systems that will be present in the game and making mock-ups to test them out. So far I've succesfully tested the room-to-room movement as well as the presentation style for the character interactions that we've decided to go with. Over the next few days, I'll try work on developing the more vital systems to the game such as the Day/Night cycle that will be used as your timer for escaping. My ability to work on the game consistently is still inconsistent due to my current holiday situation, especially so close to Christmas and New Year. 

Work on the music for the game has been going smoothly. After brainstorming which tracks will be needed and and which songs to reference or take inspiration from, we've finished the final draft for one of the main tracks, with a second one on the way. We want to keep the music less serious and more lighthearted to match the tone of the story we want to tell. Tennet will continue to work on it over the next few days and we'll hopefully have something to release to the $10 and up patrons soon.

That's all I have to report for now. I hope everyone has a good rest of the year and I'll continue working hard on managing myself, Tennet, and Spooky!