(Time Range: 2021-09-03 16:20:36 -0400 to 2021-10-02 17:55:01 -0400)

Chapter 2: Hugo Goes To GDEX

Whoa! More patch notes! This entry will cover from August 30th through October 2nd. That's only about a month, but it was a really big month for us! September ended with us demoing a "version 1.0" of the game at GDEX 2021!

This time range still won't take us into the "current" repository. But some of the defining art style gets implemented this month in order to get us to where we could fully call it a "version 1".

Before we get into it, in order to also provide some context for the upcoming art, we have unearthed some "first few months" design sketches that missed the last couple of patch notes! Not sure precisely when these were made, but "early on" for sure.

On September 3rd, we tried out some initial art stabs in-engine, including basic UI, and blocking out environments and CGs.

By the 10th, the first four sections of the intro script had been added (called A1 through A3), and a week after that, we added A4, buttons for basic choices, a placeholder / broken main menu and painting minigame.

We also iterated on the title screen before we found the one we are still using for the demo today!

September 22, painting minigame... Getting close! And an early Riley/Nora CG

Here comes Hugo... Watch out for his weaponized man-bun.

Hugo's final CG was in by September 27, days before GDEX.

September 30 and October 1st was all last-second minor tweaks to dialogue, fixing the stat-checking system, stage directions, and timing out some of the ending cards.

October 2nd saw merges of the "demo-ready" painting minigame, gallery CGs, custom character name input, and some disclaimers of unfinished features. We also made the start menu "sexier".

GDEX last year was really interesting. Our booth got placed pretty far away from the main floor space, kind of in outer-space, really! But since it's a game about dating, the pseudo-privacy of being away from the crowds gave us higher-quality feedback, and players who were willing to spend more time on the game. (In contrast, this year, we were in a much denser area, and had a lot of people walking by, but not as many people who wanted to slow down and enjoy the game or give us feedback. Luckily we had a QR code this year for people to scan!)

We try to always have a fun booth design. Last year GDEX marked the beginning of October, so we leaned on Spooky Season and put up orange lights and decor.

This had some cool unexpected benefits at the time, like, visually signaling across the show hall where we were, helping folks find us across the vast reaches of outer space. (And find our other neighboring, less-flashy booths!

The Halloween decor did have the unexpected side-effect of making people suspect that our game might be a sneaky murder-game in disguise. ("Which character is the skull?")

Fortunately, our game is just a cute game about love and coffee.

Overall, showing the game at GDEX 2021 was a blast, and helped us lean in and commit to finishing the rest of the game!

For perspective, the version we showed at GDEX was 1.0.0, and the version of the current demo as of the time of this writing is 1.1.15. So we're almost there!

The next Patch Notes 4 (Chapter 3 of the Patch Notes Saga, which started with Chapter 0) will see us from post-GDEX, through to 11-11-2021, version 1.1.3.

See you next time!!

-A Couch Lion