The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free]

[Broodelin]

Many visual novels focus on fantastical worlds and situations. Others still 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.

[Mad Harlequin]

'Welcome!

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You're pursuing a severely underused kind of story for this narrative format, and I couldn't be happier. I'm excited to see what comes out of this project!

Best wishes.

[shwippie]

I love it already. I'm looking forward to any more details! I think it's a good choice you've made not to use character portraits. I'm very curious what she can do to influence people...and if there'll be an ending where she doesn't succeed in making an impression.

[Ran08]

Oh wow, it sounds really interesting. And you're right, I think the story will definitely shine through with this one here. ^^

Looking forward to this game! Good luck!

[Ghost]

Please tell me there will be an ending that allows you to donate your wealth to charity that doesn't result in a bad end

reimbursing Roxanne or helping Christain get surgery if she desires it would be cool, but i would at least like a way to assure Caleb doesn't get his hands on it 'cause that greedy leech don't deserve jack shit mumble grumble

Okay, that aside, I really, really like the premise of this VN. * v * I can't wait to see it come to fruition!

[Broodelin]

First off, allow me to thank all of you for your kind words of support for this project of mine. You have no idea how much your comments mean to me.

To Mad Harlequin: The fact that this is a severely underused VN concept is precisely why I wanted to do it. Maybe it'll be able to help spark other, better creators' creativity about their own projects.

To Ran08: I was a little nervous about not having character portraits myself, but it's always an option that can be added in later (unlike a solid story and choices). I'm glad you think it's a good idea!

...and if there'll be an ending where she doesn't succeed in making an impression.

I can't believe I forgot to mention this in the write up! Of all the possible endings with the characters, the only "bad end" is the one where Martine completely fails to be remembered by her family as anything but a financial nuisance they've gotten rid of instead of as a (good or bad) person.

Please tell me there will be an ending that allows you to donate your wealth to charity that doesn't result in a bad end

Well, it's less "wealth" and more like "well maintained and meticulously paid for life insurance policy" but I've been considering an end where Martine decides to change her will so that the life insurance money goes to the cancer ward at the hospital. It might require a couple extra minor characters to push the player towards that route though.

As for your spoiler-ed text,

reimbursing Roxanne and supporting Christian through her transition are totally valid things to do with the life insurance money but you might be surprised on how you react to Caleb's dream of going to Asia

All updates about The Death of Mrs. Macey will be published in this thread, but feel free to private message me if you'd like greater detail or think I haven't been updating enough!

[Broodelin]

One small step for Broodelin, one giant leap for The Death of Mrs. Macey...

The first choices and variables have been added to the beginning scene. It's just a quick and simple dialogue between Martine and Roxanne, but it sets the groundwork for Martine's relationships with both Roxanne and Christian later on.

I've also decided to use the creative commons/free backgrounds generously provided by mugenjohncel here to replace the ugly stuff I've been scavenging from free use image websites.

Progress feels great!

[Broodelin]

For anyone still subscribed to this topic, I've officially moved into development and into the WIP subforum!

Here's the link to the new post, which includes a working demo build of the game!