PYONG!: Puppy Your Owner Needs Greatly (AllxAll) [Dogs|Romance|Comedy]

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PYONG!: Puppy Your Owner Needs Greatly (AllxAll) [Dogs|Romance|Comedy]

#1 Post by milksoda »

PYONG! is a game where you play as a special shibe trying to find your owner a special someone.

Long version: Cupups, or Cupid Pups, are dogs that are summoned when a hopeless young adult makes a wish to find love. It's your first time on the job, and your work's all cut out for you. Your task is simple: work undercover as a regular dog to bring your owner love before your year-long contract is up, and don't break the Cupup Code of Conduct. One problem: your owner is a real piece of work. Forced to take a gap year after burning out last semester, their morale is low and they're in no shape to be seeing anyone. Thankfully, they live in a city full of fellow dogs and dog-owners of all shapes, sizes, and temperaments, so it shouldn't be hard to get them out of their shell. Right?

The genre is meant to be lighthearted, comedic, and a little sad at times because dogs are involved and we all know that anything involving dogs will get real emotional real quick. I'm hoping for it to be 13+, but looking at some of my story content it might turn out to be 16+.

Features currently planned are:
- (Almost) every character, love interest or not, owns an iconic breed of dog. We have a pug for the classic boy next door, a samoyed for the vet, a corgi that works with your local dog cafe, and more that will be revealed soon!

- 8 romanceable characters, along with their trusty dog sidekicks; 4 female, 4 male. Everyone's bi.

- 3 endings per character, and 1 secret finale.

- A "baton pass" between the MC and the dog, the dog would have control when speaking to other dogs and during walks, and the MC would have control when talking to other humans.

- A lot of character customization, mostly feature-based.
I wanted to use character customization as a way to give the player the option to recreate themselves in the game or play as someone entirely different.

- Stats that can be changed depending on which actions the dog/owner takes.
  • Persona: sincere-cynical
  • Guts: timid-assertive
  • Heart: warm-cold
  • Social: naive-perceptive
  • Fitness: energetic-lazy
The MC starts at 0 and can then level their stats either way (+/-). Each stat will change how the MC behaves in certain situations, from reacting to events to unlocking dialogue options.

- The player has 4-6 time slots a day where they can choose to go to any location where they can work, perform actions to change stats, or find love interests to advance the story. As time goes on, the seasons and weather will also change, which will affect the environment and what activities you can do. The total time span of the game will be 1 year.




I've been writing it for roughly eight months now, and while I have most of the character routes down, I'm struggling more with the gameplay mechanics and the logistics of how the game is going to work.
I don't know how other people would feel about playing as a dog for half the game. Not to mention I would have to figure out how transitioning between dog gameplay and MC interactions with the love interest, since choices will still make up a large part of story progression. I know that most of the fun in dating sims is trying to figure out what the right dialogue option is in the face of your love interest and Dog forbid I try to take that away from anybody.

I haven't put all my work here because it'd just be a wall of text, so if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer. Also, if you have any advice or resources you think would help me, they would be much appreciated!

P.S. Apologies for the criminal lack of love interests in this post. They'll be revealed soon.



Here are the most burning questions I have right now: (You don't have to answer all of them)

1. How's the premise sounding? Is the writing awkward?

2. Is the concept of Cupups too cheesy? How hard are you cringing?

3. What are your thoughts on the gameplay mechanics? How would you improve them or make them more efficient? What are your personal favourite dating sim mechanics and why?

4. Give me all your input. Any of it. Please.

(On another note, I know that the title is a mouthful. I was considering going with Puppy Love, because it's simple and self-explanatory, but felt it was too generic?)

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Re: PYONG!: Puppy Your Owner Needs Greatly (AllxAll) [Dogs|Romance|Comedy]

#2 Post by coda_ »

Hello, crashing in, don't mind the crater:

1. I love the premise. Cute puppy matchmaker, prancing around on their doorstep one day, they can't get rid of me because the bars of the puppy pound can't lock in Roman magic, so they give up and let me bunk with them for a whole year, scuttling after them as I try to make sure their attempts at dating don't go horribly awry. How about "yes" forever?

Of course that's my baseless headcanon on how that'd play out. How would an undercover magic puppy get an owner? Was it just coincidence that the owner was looking for a dog? Or is it more like "crazy how this dog is always here" type deal and we're more often than not a big sleuth?

2. You've designated this project as comedic, so even if it was cringe, I'm expecting it to be funny cringe. I live for cheese though, so I honestly don't care about whether or not something is perceived as embarrassing, because if I enjoy it, I'll stan it. Personally, I wouldn't even worry about that—sounds more like an admission of doubt from the author than a critical question for the audience, so I'm gonna go right ahead and say live your life bb and don't look back.

3. I think the stats alone are pretty straightforward. I'm assuming of course the stats are for the human character and not the dog, and any actions the dog takes is to influence the human into more positive stats—otherwise the dog is acting counter to their job. In which case, I'm lead to believe that the human is starting out with their stats in either a balanced position or a negative position, and our goal as the dog is to guide the human to positive traits. The numbers feel like a back-end scripting thing for you to keep track of points. I'm personally not expecting numerical values when I look at the stat chart, where I'll read a negative integer and have that correspond to "sincere" for example.

My big questions are how sure are you in allowing the player control over two main characters acting counter to each other, and how do you expect the two to act? If we were to control just the dog, then the human has to have their own personality, habits, and tendencies, and we have to learn and navigate them as a character of influence. But, if we control both the dog and the human, then I'm expecting a more complex interaction between the two in the same way, but as one player juggling both a protagonist (dog) and antagonist (human) position. I'm imagining the human is locked into neutral or negative-leaning responses that the player has to pick to try and manage dating interactions, and the dog is like a guide for stat training and offers buffs in tough spots, which slowly introduces better choices for the human next time they attempt something with a key skill level or a specific love interest.

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Re: PYONG!: Puppy Your Owner Needs Greatly (AllxAll) [Dogs|Romance|Comedy]

#3 Post by Johan »

I remember seeing this post many days ago and I felt in love with this idea, but then i lost the page and I didn't remember until now :3! I like the name though! It definitely catchs my attention! it's just me who forgets things all the time 😋😋. Also, I agree that "Puppy Love" is way too generic.

I love the whole idea! Especially this two features:
(Almost) every character, love interest or not, owns an iconic breed of dog. We have a pug for the classic boy next door, a samoyed for the vet, a corgi that works with your local dog cafe, and more that will be revealed soon!
A "baton pass" between the MC and the dog, the dog would have control when speaking to other dogs and during walks, and the MC would have control when talking to other humans.
And I don't think it's too cheesy. I don't actually like dating sims. I just don't like them. BUT this idea, with dogs, with dogs as CUPID, with a cupid dog who talks to other dogs to get a date for their owner. I mean, what's not to like there? 😊😊 Good luck with this project!
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Re: PYONG!: Puppy Your Owner Needs Greatly (AllxAll) [Dogs|Romance|Comedy]

#4 Post by Lil Ace »

1. The premise sounds great. The idea of guiding someone towards love is a good idea.

2. It sounds stupid funny, in my opinion. But as Coda mentioned, it's a comedy so it could definitely work. If it was cheesy enough or just as a background event, I'd be cool with it. You should follow your own heart on this one, because without seeing how it plays out, I don't feel I can say one way or another.

3. Can't help much here, unfortunately.

4. I think it would be more interesting if you controlled the dog all of the time. I think it would be fun to try and manipulate your human to do the correct things. Say, during a date the human is taking the conversation in the wrong direction, so you can bite him or pee on his leg. If he has a love poem memorized but forgets parts of it, you could be in the background giving him visual cues to the next piece of the poem.

I get the feeling you aren't savvy with players controlling the dog, but I think you should go all in on the idea. While you were mentioning how you can customize the MC, I'd be much more interested in choosing what kind of dog I get to play as. Since you've been writing this for so long I doubt these changes would be easy to implement, but the point I'm trying to make is I would be interested in one or the another, not both. Either playing as a dog the whole time or a human the whole time, I feel that switching between them wouldn't be as interesting.

Hopefully that doesn't come off as harsh, because you've got an interesting hook to build the game around. I'm interested in seeing where you take the game from here.
:)

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