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The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Indefinite Hiatus]

Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 4:50 pm
by Broodelin
Edit: This project is currently on indefinite hiatus. Please refer to this post for a few more details.

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:
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 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).

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.

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

Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 5:30 pm
by fleet
I'm a bit surprised nobody has commented yet. Your story is not what one usually sees here at LSF, and I applaud you for that.
I see you decided to include music and I applaud you for that.
You said you were not going to use character portraits. I would recommend you use sprites of some sort. Good artwork will attract people to your VN.
My advice is free, and generally speaking, worth what you pay for it.
Very respectfully,
fleet

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

Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 5:36 pm
by Mad Harlequin
Oh, congratulations for progressing out of the ideas board!

As I said there, I'm definitely interested in this project.

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

Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 7:25 pm
by Broodelin
Thanks to both of you for your kind words and feedback! :)
fleet wrote:You said you were not going to use character portraits. I would recommend you use sprites of some sort. Good artwork will attract people to your VN.
I considered your advice on this, and I've added some very basic silhouettes as character portraits. I didn't want to go too far into detailed sprites because I think that it would compromise what I want to do with this project and also take up a lot of unneeded time.

I'll attach some screenshots of the game in my next update post. :D

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

Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 9:32 am
by Broodelin
EDIT: This build has been taken down. Please see the first post in this thread for the latest release.

DID I SAY SCREENSHOTS, I MEANT GAME FOLDER

After a couple of all-nighters, I've finally gotten the first two scenes (with choices and variables) up and running without any glitches or bugs on my machine.

So, without further ado, I give you the first working build of The Death of Mrs. Macey!

I've attached the Ren'Py folder to this post, so it should have everything you need to get the game running through your own Ren'py program. (You have to put it in the same place as all your other projects to get it to work.)

Once you've gone through these first two scenes, could you maybe consider giving me some feedback on how the game is doing so far? Maybe?

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

Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 8:24 pm
by Googaboga
This game sounds so lovely yet sad. I'm really looking forward to it.

If I have time I'll check out what you've uploaded C:.

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

Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 8:30 pm
by Broodelin
Thank you for your support! I'm currently working on the fourth scene right now, so the next build should be on its way sometime within the next week or so. Here's hoping it won't break anything! ;)

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

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 12:02 am
by Broodelin
The first alpha/demo of The Death of Mrs. Macey (with executables!) has been released. Check the first post for the download. :)

All systems are supported, so please help me squash some bugs and typos while also playing the game!

It includes:

* 4 Scenes
* Choices and tracked variables
* All major characters (plus a few minor ones)
* Music
* Horrible Character Sprites
* Backgrounds
* Even the elusive custom fonts make appearances!

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 2:16 am
by Ran08
Done playing the demo! :) So far so good I say. I actually really like the characters coz they're easy to get attached to. Hahaha.

I already sent to you the comments I had for the game, so... yeah. Haha. I wish you good luck on this, and I'm really looking forward to play the whole thing! :) If you need any help, feel free to message me. Hahaha. ^_^

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 4:22 am
by Chasing Summer
Okay, I’m definitely going to have to find time to play the demo! The idea’s both refreshing and interesting, and even though I love romance games the most, this sounds great as well.

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 4:37 pm
by Broodelin
Sorry for the lack of updates over the past couple of days!

I've been working on a couple of GUI improvements and also collaborating on writing this game with the incredibly cool Ina!

I've added a character page to the main menu and completed scenes 5 and 6.

Only two scenes to go and the game will be ready for a final test-run before the official release! :)

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 4:39 pm
by Mad Harlequin
I really have to get off my butt and play this!

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Sat May 24, 2014 6:57 am
by Broodelin
I've just started coding the last scene before the epilogue. This project is almost complete already, and just in time for my trip into the mountains!

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 1:44 am
by Broodelin
A quick update:

# Roxanne's neutral, bad, and good endings have been implemented and are ready for private testing.
# Christian's optional scene has been drafted but not yet coded.
# Caleb's optional scene is in the process of being drafted.
# Endings for all characters have been drafted.
# Logo is being designed by the incredibly cool Armee
# Various bugs and errors have been squashed.
# Character artwork is still comprised of horrible silhouettes

Re: The Death of Mrs. Macey [Drama][Family][Free][Demo]

Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 3:07 am
by Googaboga
Awesome. I'm glad things are coming along :3.