Horned Barista [SoL] [Comedy] [Psychological] [Horror?]

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SpeCTRL
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Horned Barista [SoL] [Comedy] [Psychological] [Horror?]

#1 Post by SpeCTRL »

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A dynamic, small-to-medium length visual novel, with a small in-build mini-game style free-time mode, with emphasis on style, aesthetic and evolving character relations and an in-depth view into emotions and thoughts.


The Shōjikina family are notorious for their coffee chain - Ketoru Premium. Based in Northern Japan, they thrive on putting love and passion into their coffee - from the raw ingredients, to the love and time put into how it's made. It all started in the Sendai Branch, within Tōhoku region. There, the original family under keep the birthplace of their franchise within optimal fame and attention, locally. Soon, however, the franchise will need to be inherited, and this falls to the Shōjikina's only son - Touma Shōjikina. A notorious deviant within his local school, yet an excellent barista.


It's a shame that this VN isn't about the coffee chain, but rather, Touma's shifts at Ketoru Premium, and the plethora of interactions, events and times shared and experienced by him. The reason for this narrative is simple - he lives with most of his life a grey blur - he is impartial to most of life - a habitual disinterest in most, if not all of his surroundings. However, when he works at Ketoru Premium among polite customers and a tranquil atmosphere, he feels... alive. He feels like it's worth paying attention to time passing, or to the things around him. It follows times where Touma truly reaches for a feeling of consciousness, of worth - content. A true and powerful exception to his otherwise monotonous life.

It's almost a shame that, despite positive comments about him, he himself is quite a bitter guy. He almost feels disassociated with positive emotions - happiness, laughter and joy being a rarity, and replaced with bitterness, irritation and groaning. He has a notoriously short temper, and despite easily sinking into a mood where good customer service is natural, a rude customer can easily set him off into agitation and rage. Of course, he restrains himself to the best of his abilities. He finds most things annoying, is a pessimist and naturally spouts dark humour, as both a coping mechanism and as a way of self-entertainment. He's quite literally the manifestation of the colour grey. Regardless, however, this means he has amazing focus - but of course, he rarely utilises it.


With this, there is one individual he has most of his encounters with whom shares the spotlight within this VN, but I'll get to that.[/center]


One day, someone Touma vaguely recognises from school whom comes to the coffee shop on a one-off stop - someone he thought of as bland - Hana Odayaka, Literature club president and one of the top scorers in his year in exams and academics. She is introduced as a second perspective, as the player can live through her eyes as well as Touma's. She's almost the exact opposite of Touma - an optimist, arguable klutz,and constantly bubbly and smiling. She can read people extremely well, and although easily startled and overwhelmed, she maintains her own atmosphere of peace, understanding and fun. She is also known for being very playful, and drawing out the colour in people, unless of course, if she is met with resistance. Such a contrast between two characters means for some comedic, realistic and meaningful exchanges. The player can even create a romantic relationship between the two. After her first and initial visit, she keeps visiting - somehow, Touma draws her back, again and again.

Giving a dynamic perspective means that the player can get to know both characters extremely well, and see their lives in fine detail. They can witness their feelings evolve as the player molds a resulting conclusion for the two, whether that be romance or conflict.

Of course, I am also debating a 'home-mode' for the two, in that between days for both of them, there are times where they sit at home online, and during free time, browse the web, pursue daily jobs/tasks (Touma looking into coffee tutorials, or listening to music, playing games (probably dystopian survival games) and Hana ordering books for literature club, or talking to friends, watching blogs etc.) This gives an extra degree of control and narrative to the characters, and expands the universe they live within while being able to internalise the game within just the coffee shop and their rooms, while showing the rest of their lives in motion through social media in this free time mode.

And of course, I have illustrated the two - this is just concept art, but I'm extremely happy with the results.
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Anyway, I'm yet to recruit anyone, but I expect this will be a fairly short visual novel, free instead of commercial, compared to my commercial studio-led game. I hope to bring a group of people (free) together for this to be my first small project - to show I can complete a project and give me the necessary experience as a precursor to Silent Tongues.


If you're interested in helping me craft this small but sweet vision, please let me know. I'm open to any and all help. I myself can do art, coding, writing, music prod., composition, and a few other tidbits, but I won't be able to realise this all myself in a reasonable amount of time, so If you like what you're reading/seeing, please let me know, offer me criticism, opinions - whatever! I appreciate it all the same! =3


(The reason this is in idea stage, is that this can go in one of many directions. It can be solely the first three genres - highly stylised, aesthetic and sweet. It can have emphasis on human feelings, thoughts and evolving psyche. It can be grounded yet feel live a world truly alive, colourful and beautiful - in a real sense. The style I'll apply to this VN will compliment this greatly).

Thanks for reading!
Last edited by SpeCTRL on Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Remind me to update this...

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TellerFarsight
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Re: Horned Barista [SoL] [Comedy] [Psychological] [Horror?]

#2 Post by TellerFarsight »

Sounds like a very cool short story. I love your concept art and its Roald Dahl style messiness. Your plans for possibly taking it further are interesting, but I would suggest you don't let this project spiral into too large a project propelled by overambitiousness. Writing the more intense version could easily double the length of the story, but I think it would be very effective throwing all of it in at once as like the last 5 minutes of the story.
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Re: Horned Barista [SoL] [Comedy] [Psychological] [Horror?]

#3 Post by Cindigo »

I like Your character design. It’s done in a very smart manner, but You destroyed my trust in You being able to keep the story consistent by contradicting yourself; if that would have happened in an actual VN I would have started the next one:
he is impartial to most of life - a habitual disinterest in most
He thinks how amazing things have been ... when things were just right, in the place that gave him these feelings
I wouldn't mind if it would have happened because of some negative emotion but that rosy premise...seriously?

I don’t think You should do both. From the looks of it the scale of the project is too small and You would end up rushing and ruining both premises. I would suggest doing a sequel, maybe?, by splitting just before the event.

I think I have no problem with other aspects of the idea.

I’m not sure, but I would like to try being a second programmer, if there is such a place...I’m not sure whether I can take the lead programmer’s role, but I’m sure I can do some basic stuff. I have 0 experience with Ren’Py and 0 experience with python, but I have 10+ years of experience in actual programming (C# and PHP mostly), from which about 2 years in making a game, and I’m sure I can learn how things work in this engine. I already started reading the documentation and it seems to me that the engine is fairly easy to use, one just needs to memorize a lot and think a lot about how to deal with the design flaws :D I’m sure I’ll never learn it if I don’t work with someone else’s project.

Additionally to that I can take the role of destroyer of ideas. INTP’s are terribly good at finding flaws, inconsistencies, pattern mismatches and criticizing, thus making concepts stronger and better flashed out.

I hope mister Honest and missis Calm can get along well :D
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