Now that Mrs Macey has made it out of the idea stage and into the WIP stage, I've decided to give it a topic here for updates and comments.
Here's the original post from the Ideas subforum:
I can officially say that actual coding of Mrs. Macey is anywhere from 5~10% complete and that the backgrounds have all been selected thanks to the Creative Commons subforum here at lemmasoft. (This topic, started by mugenjohncel, in particular).Many visual novels focus on fantastical worlds and situations. Others concern themselves with finding love, be it in the schoolyard or beyond.
The Death of Mrs. Macey is about an old woman's dying days in her hospital bed and her efforts to leave a lasting impression on the people she interacts with.
Story
The player assumes the role of Mrs. Martine Macey, an seventy-five year old woman succumbing to lung cancer. While there are various endings to the game, there is no way to keep Mrs. Macey from death. What really matters is what she does to influence the other characters' feelings towards her and towards each other, all of which is based on the player's choices.
Characters
Martine Macey: 75; An elderly woman in the final stages lung cancer; has a daughter, two grandsons, and a great-granddaughter; widow of five years; retired nurse; tends towards being harsh and bitter when confronted with difficult situations; spends her time lucid watching Clark Gable movies
Roxanne Thomas: 51; daughter of Martine Macey; divorced from Micheal Thomas; daycare manager;resents her mother for refusing her help after Peter Macey's (Roxanne's father and Martine's husband) death five years ago and for shoving the brunt of the medical bills off onto her; hides negative feelings through passive-aggressive behavior
Christian Thomas: 22; the elder twin of Caleb; has a two-year-old daughter named Emma; paralegal;recently came out as transgender to his father, who encouraged him to not reveal it to the rest of the family until after his grandmother's death
Caleb Thomas: 22; the younger twin of Christian; taking a gap year before going to graduate school for architecture;wants to travel to Asia with the money from his grandmother's life insurance policy
Notes
This game will be completed without character portraits and possibly without music. This is pretty much just a vehicle for the story, characters, and choices to shine. Also, this may or may not be used as part of my senior creative writing portfolio/presentation...
Should this game be released to the general public, it will be free no matter how much work I've put into it or how much money I have to spend creating it.
Progress
Story and script: 35~40% complete (Basics completed with choices and branching drafted)
Actual programming: Infinitesimally small amount complete
Backgrounds: 70~80% complete (Thank goodness for free use image sites!)
A Humble Plea
Any help that you can give me concerning anything about this project would be greatly appreciated, particularly of the programming or graphics variety!
Questions, comments, or concerns can be left in this thread or private messaged directly to this account.
I'm also pleased to announce that this game will feature music! It's almost as if this is a real game or something...
At this point, I'm asking for help (I need somebody, it could be anybody) with coding in particular. Even just commenting on snippets of code I post in this thread lands you firmly in the awesome category.
I'd also like critique on the actual script and choices present in the game, which I will allow you to play through yourselves by uploading the game folder at various stages of development.
A Start for Discussion
Once I get the minor bugs sorted out, I'm going to attach the game folder during this stage of production to this post. That way, you can give me feedback based on what your experience is playing through the first two scenes and even comment on the writing/coding/atmosphere.
But, for my first trick, I'd just like to take a quick survey of people who would be interested in playing this kind of game. You can submit your answers via replying to this post or by sending me a PM.
