Culina: Hands in the Kitchen [BxG/BxB]

[netravelr]

Update: We are currently on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight.

Introduction
For those of you unaware, Culina is a series of games which contain elements of both visual novels and strategy games as you create your very own restaurant.

The Spirit of Cooking, introduces the characters, the environment, and the overall goal of the second act. It will play much like a traditional visual novel and is free to play. In this game, Hands in the Kitchen, the game continues right from the ending of the Spirit of Cooking with the player will actually running their very own restaurant, buying ingredients, creating recipes for it, and deciding how much to charge. Will you raise enough money to prove you can sustain the business? Not alone. Thankfully, the relationships that you have with people will help you and give you strength through gameplay advantages. Do you spend your time hanging out with friends or try to be a better cook? How you choose to spend your time is up to you. As a reminder, Hands in the Kitchen will be a commercial title and yes, due to your feedback we have added a BxB route to the game.

For those wanting to see a video, I've posted a quick Vine preview here.[/center]

Characters

You
Blood Type: ??
Height: ??
Weight: ??
The Main Character of the Culina series is a hard working guy who wants to own and run his own restaurant on his own terms. Whether or not this is viable for him is yet to be seen. During The Spirit of Cooking, he is a student at Paloma College and is romantically interested in Emily Sutterland.


Paul Richards
Blood Type: B
Height: 182 cm
Weight: 72.6 kg
Paul is a pretty down to earth guy. His family owns and runs a produce shop that he’s very proud of and plans to work at after graduating. He’s very loyal and has trouble with letting go of people and resisting the urge to help others. During The Spirit of Cooking, he is a student at Paloma College and is dating Lisa Harding.


Emily Sutterland
Blood Type: A
Height: 166 cm
Weight: 56.5 kg
Emily loves food and has a creative mind. This leads to exciting moments in the kitchen when she’ll try out different things with varying results. Her dream is to own a restaurant one day and introduce many flavors to others. During The Spirit of Cooking, she is a student at Paloma College and is romantically interested in the protagonist.


Lisa Harding
Blood Type: AB
Height: 174 cm
Weight: 61.2 kg
Lisa is a bit of a romantic. She has a lot of goals for her life and wants her dreams to come true quickly. Because she’s scheduled her life so precisely, she worries often about whether or not things will happen as she wants them to. During The Spirit of Cooking, she is a student at Paloma College and is dating Paul Richards.


Katie Walker
Blood Type: A
Height: 167 cm
Weight: 55.5 kg
Katie is a peppy and hardworking young woman. She is saving her money to transfer to a full time university and takes classes at the local community college around her shifts. During Hands in the Kitchen, she works as the main waitress at the protagonist’s restaurant and can be romantically interested in the main character.


Dante Moreni
Blood Type: AB
Height: 186 cm
Weight: 70.3 kg
Dante is a stern looking but shy Italian. He likes to dress formally and has an intimidating aura which makes people wary of him. He is a friendly person who has trouble interacting with people as a result. Despite his naïveté, during Hands in the Kitchen, he is an excellent sous chef who works for the protagonist in his restaurant.



Claire Campbell
Blood Type: O
Height: 160 cm
Weight: 50.0 kg

Claire is a petite but strong willed woman. She has an outgoing personality but keeps her personal life private. During Hands in the Kitchen, she has shifts at the butcher where the protagonist buys his meat and helps him find the best values and cuts. She loves her work and can be romantically interested in the main character.

Credits
Programming/Design/Story Concept:
John P. Doran

Story/Writing:
RoziePozie
Serenity Frost
Stephanie Hata

Music:
Christopher Doran
Andrew Riley

CGs:
Ezri
Pam Isleta

Character Art:
archia
Ezri

GUI/Additional Artwork:
ehcs

Background Artwork:
Auro-Cyanide
Ezri

Narrative Scripting:
Aleema

As it stands right now, most of the gameplay has been implemented, I'm just waiting on some art assets in order to get the game to a place where I'm more comfortable sharing it, but as you can see ehcs' art really makes the GUI much nicer to look at and our work on Love at the Laundromat has given Culina additional features and vice-versa. I've gotten a new writer to work on the game and she's been moving at a much faster rate than my previous writer so I'm hoping to have the game out within the next few months. However, I am attempting to get someone to work on CGs for pivotal parts of the game within each of the character's story lines. As I hear more, I'll keep updating.

[DreamDragonHatchling]

due to your feedback we have added a BxB route to the game.

^^ YES!!! Love you!

[Googaboga]

I remember The Spirit of Cooking . I can't remember what my ending scores were though. It's been awhile since I've played. Well I'll just wait and play it again from the beginning before Hands in the Kitchen comes out.

[Mimi_Melody]

Ahhh I'm so excited >< Thank you for adding a BxB route

[netravelr]

^^ YES!!! Love you!

We love you too!

I remember The Spirit of Cooking . I can't remember what my ending scores were though. It's been awhile since I've played. Well I'll just wait and play it again from the beginning before Hands in the Kitchen comes out.

I'm glad you remember it! Hopefully somewhat fondly. You may want to wait for Hands in the Kitchen because with it we will also be releasing a "Director's Cut" of The Spirit of Cooking in the final game with gameplay tutorials as classes and additional scenes during the college time.

Ahhh I'm so excited >< Thank you for adding a BxB route

Well, it's important to listen to people's feedback. There will only be one BxB route, (Dante) but we are doing our best to make it a good one. I really think the direction our new author is going in for the each individual character's story-lines is great and we will hopefully have some more content to show soon, namely gameplay though because I think that the story already has a good amount spoiled.

[Auro-Cyanide]

It's looking wonderful Netravelr! I can't wait to play it and run my own restaurant :3

And I must agree with everyone else. Katie is still my first pick because she is such a cutie, but hot damn, Dante and his check bones.

[sheetcakeghost]

due to your feedback we have added a BxB route to the game.

^^ YES!!! Love you!

Ahhh I'm so excited >< Thank you for adding a BxB route :D

I've tried my best to handle the BxB route in a mature and realistic manner. Hopefully it won't disappoint.

Katie is still my first pick because she is such a cutie, but hot damn, Dante and his check bones.

I've tried to write Katie as adorable as she looks, but she'll end up being more frustrating to deal with than you realize. The only "easy" relationship to develop in the game will most likely be Claire. I'm still in the process of writing her, though, so that might change.

Oh, and for those who are curious, you don't have to romance anybody. You can end up just being friends with them.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I've tried to write Katie as adorable as she looks, but she'll end up being more frustrating to deal with than you realize. The only "easy" relationship to develop in the game will most likely be Claire. I'm still in the process of writing her, though, so that might change.

It's no fun if it's easy >:) People are complex, if it was simple then they wouldn't be very interesting characters.

[azureXtwilight]

Looking forward to this, also loving the idea of friendship route

[sheetcakeghost]

@Auro-Cyanide
Ha ha, that's very true. I'm just hoping I manage the good sort of difficulty and not the frustrating kind.

@ azureXtwilight
Thanks, hun. I was pretty insistent on the friendship thing. It's something that always bugged me about other games. My insistence met little resistance from the boss. d:

Oh, and I really dug Doppleganger.

[Googaboga]

I'm glad you remember it! Hopefully somewhat fondly. You may want to wait for Hands in the Kitchen because with it we will also be releasing a "Director's Cut" of The Spirit of Cooking in the final game with gameplay tutorials as classes and additional scenes during the college time.

Yeah I liked it a lot :3. Oh that's neat thanks for letting me know. I'll play that instead then.

[netravelr]

Been working on the inventory system today. Note that normally when you have 0 quantity of an item it won't show, I just have it on for debugging purposes.

[sheetcakeghost]

For those of you interested in this sort of thing, progress on writing Claire has been slow going. She keeps deviating from the plot I'd planned, the cheeky woman. And (not to blow my own awesome horn here) it doesn't help that I'm doing my best to make her a well rounded human being, which is hard to pull off just in general.

Oh, and I have a query for all you lovely folks. How do you like your VNs? Well done or rare? Do you like long story lines or do you prefer things to move along quickly? Would you want to spend more time with the characters at the expense of a fast pace that comes with a limited time frame? How much sugar do you usually take in your romances? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[netravelr]

Just as a quick update, I've got a new version of the gameplay mechanics up with my new GUI and I'm doing a little in-house testing with it. Should things go well you should be seeing some new updates very soon.

We are plugging right along, with Serenity taking over the writing and working quite diligently over the past few months (we already have 4x the amount of content that the original Culina had and we still have plenty more to add, but it's going at a very accelerated pace), we've also got a new artist who is helping me with the CGs in the game as well, which is also coming along quite nicely and I'll post a hint of that here...

Any feedback? I'd love to hear any thoughts or advice for improvement. Cheers!

[Ideduce]

I really can't wait for this game!
I noticed that Lisa and Katie's faces look almost too much alike. At least for me. I was thinking maybe adding a beuty mark on one of them to distinguish them a little more. It's completely up to you though.