[KICKSTARTER FUNDED! 11/20/14] Lovely Little Thieves

[PangoDango]

DOWNLOAD THE DEMO HERE!

SUPPORT OUR KICKSTARTER TO GET THE FULL GAME MADE!
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Hey there!

My name is Hope, and I'm making my first visual novel ever, so I could use a lot of feedback! I've been an enthusiast of the format for several years now and streamed a lot of VNs for both promotion (when they're good) and amusement (when they're not so good) as my screen name JesuOtaku for a while, but I always wanted rather be a creator than a critic when it comes to these things, I see such promise and so many good things in the medium, and I admire all the cool stuff that's been done with the relatively young format in the English-speaking world so far. I know making these things is a lot of hard work, and after nine months of gestation, I'm ready to share the WIP of the game I'm hoping to complete a demo of and send to kickstarter for a full version.

This is Lovely Little Thieves. I'm hoping to release the demo by August 15th, and I'm looking for some tips/assistance with programming (I am a big drooling baby with building blocks just learning the ren'py language) as well as someone versed in After Effects to cut a 60-second trailer for the game (which I will happily compensate you for.) I figured I'd need a label to release the game under, so I named the "production label" of the game PangoDango Games. (Hence my username.)

Once the demo is complete, I plan to take it to kickstarter to make the full, 70-80 CG monstrosity a reality, so I want to make it the very best it can be over this final month! Also, the highest resolution images I can post on lemmasoft is 800x wide, so if you want to see higher res versions of any of these images, you can see them on this shiny new tumblr.

THE TEAM

• WRITING/CODING -- JesuOtaku (me!)
• SPRITE ART -- Tengu-Arts
• BACKGROUND ART -- JackEavesArt
• CG ART -- Auro-Cyanide, DejiNyucu, seeking more artists for the full version post kickstarter!
• UI DESIGN -- Auro-Cyanide
• GAME LOGO DESIGN -- Ashuraoh
• COMPANY LOGO DESIGN -- Tengu-Arts
• ASSISTANT PROGRAMMER -- Barry P. III
• MUSIC PRODUCER -- [will be needed for full version post kickstarter]
• VOICE ACTORS -- [will be needed for full version post kickstarter]

THE STORY

Dawn didn’t know what to expect when she agreed to pile into a van with a mixture of friends and acquaintances and take a road trip down to Daytona Beach for spring break. She spent her entire freshman year studying her butt off at university, and she’s never really been out partying. At least…not that she can remember. Strange, horrible dreams of feeling her heart and mind slowly freeze solid in an endless black void haunt her long after she’s woken up, and make it hard for her to keep in touch with reality at all, much less get excited about a week of block partying at the ass-end of the country. Not one day into the long drive, however, the group’s van breaks down in the middle of the thickly forested New England mountains. With no help in sight and the sun rapidly setting, the gang seeks shelter in a dilapidated hilltop mansion, marked only with the number “72.”

Her friends are determined to go in, but nearing the estate reminds Dawn of the cold, isolated terror of the dark world in her dreams. It’s not long before her premonitions are proven true, as the group finds a desiccated corpse sitting up in the dining room and far worse surprises in the basement. The would-be spring breakers rush the door and hammer at the windows, but some supernatural force has locked them inside. What’s worse, the assumed house number “72” turns out to be another warning: the number warps and shifts lower every hour, counting down to an unknown fate at the end of their 3-day visit. She doesn’t know it yet, but the lives of her companions are in Dawn’s hands. The people she puts her trust in and the choices she commits to determine who survives the tale, as the house becomes more hostile hour by passing hour. Dawn must learn to fight for what she truly believes before the sun sets on the final day, or the master of this haunted house will claim all the little thieves that have wandered into his maw.

THE CHARACTERS

I was inspired by the f***ing adorable VN Autumn's Journey to use a transparent layer model for the characters' expressions, since it worked so well in that game. Their eyes, mouths, brows, and a few effects layers all move independently of one another, giving them, hopefully, an enormous range of expression. All five friends are romanceable, giving the player four boy options and one girl option to pursue. So it's sort of an otome game, but I hope the story will be strong enough that all genders and persuasions will want to play it. You don't have to get a romance ending, and in fact "choosing" an ending could prove very difficult as the choices are not framed as clearly as "BE NICE TO THIS PERSON" or "BE MEAN TO THIS PERSON" and are more about defining your own personality and telling you a little bit about yourself and who you would get along best with. ...Also, the odds that whoever you like is going to die a gruesome, gruesome death are pretty darn high.

THE BACKGROUNDS

There will only be two backgrounds completed for the demo because my wallet is not bottomless. (Oh, that it were!) The rest will be placeholder images, but the goal is to have all backgrounds done in this style for the full version. Because this is a bottle story that takes place inside a single mansion over 72 hours, there will be a Zero Escape-y type "revisiting of environments" aspect where the player should feel like they're feeling out the layout of this spooky closed space as different paths push them to focus on different rooms.

THE GAMEPLAY

This is a simple VN in that there are no RPG elements or complex mechanics. It's all just player choice, and every choice in the game is binary: the player will always have only two options at a prompt. I wanted to focus the experience heavily on player choice and re-playability. The demo alone will have 40+ choices for the player to make, and all of them affect how the story can potentially end, so ~choose wisely.~ Your choices will change fate only slightly at first, but the choices will snowball into 9 different "ending types" with hundreds of ways to get there and dozens of variations on those Nine Fates. For example, getting a True Ending with a character, any one of the five characters, counts as just one of those 9 Endings, but needless to say the five True Endings are wildly different from each other. So you're getting more than nine endings, it's just Nine Different Kinds of Endings and the ways to get there are pretty endless thanks to the bottle story structure.

THE TRAILER

(Watch in HD!)

Please tell me what you think of the project so far. (Any favorite characters/ideas? Anything that looks off/problematic?) Let me know if you have any help to offer, and thanks for being such an awesome forum! (I've lurked here plenty to look at projects and figure out how to code, but I'd never registered til now. ~Please be gentle with me.~)

[Googaboga]

Sweet this sounds/looks fantastic. I like what you have planned for how choices work and the art looks top notch. So far I think my favorite character is Colin. I love abrasive characters that grown on you. He seems to be the type who is lovably irritating rather than annoyingly so.

Welcome to the site Pango and good luck to you and your team ^^. And by the way I love watching your Anime Derbies :3.

[kitsubasa]

Oh man, horror game with a GxG route? Sign me right up, this sounds really cool! I love the character designs, the rough colour-coding of them is nifty, and the backgrounds look utterly amazing-- there's such a creepy atmosphere to them, I love it.

As far as the plot goes, I'm a sucker for haunted house stories, so this looks interesting-- having the chance to explore the building is going to be neat, and I like the fact you're working with that Zero Escape concept of exploring them and revisiting as the plot is fleshed out (presumably to get more information and recontextualise earlier discoveries?). I'm also excited to see what kind of deaths you hit us with, since one of the fun parts of games like Zero Escape is seeing the story turn to custard as you reach bad ends and people all get offed.

My favourite of the characters you've put up so far are Randy and Danielle. Danielle... largely because hey, GxG option, so I'll take what I get there and it's cool seeing a GxG route with a character type that doesn't normally get them. Randy seems like a fun character, and I really like his design-- plus I'm interested to see what happens with him becoming a liability, whether that means he's going to be killed or start killing people, or even just endangering them, I'm curious so see what he does.

All up, this looks really neat, and I'm looking forward to the demo! One thing I'm wondering from your description so far; will the choices you make influence your path through the building, and which rooms you get access to? You've mentioned replayability as a big focus, and I know in these sorts of games, one of the things that suckers me into replays is knowing I've only seen parts of a building on my first run, and that full exploration will only happen if I do multiple playthroughs. : O

[sasquatchii]

Oooh, this looks like it's going to be fun! Very ambitious but awesome for a first game.

I love that there's no clear cut "be nice" or "be mean", and it's more about the choices that the player makes. And it also seems like there's going to be a lot of choices, which is fun!

[Ran08]

Oh, this game looks fantastic! I love the genre combo, haha, so I'm definitely playing this when it comes out.

Hmm, my favorite has got to be Colin or Ray. I like the latter better though, haha, since he's kinda my type in real life. However, I might try out Danielle's route as well. There's a GxG option, right? Haha. I usually don't play GxG routes since I can't relate much, (and I like stuff I can relate to!) haha, but I wanna go for Danielle here. She seems really interesting!

Anyway... I can't wait for the demo! Hahaha. I hope it comes out soon. :3

By the way... I don't know if I just missed it, haha, but... it this free or commercial? ^^

[Vynuxys]

this is looking very promising! i love the art, and even though the story is a little common, i've yet to play an rpg in this sort of setting so i'd be looking forward to it regardless. the playable character is also a bit of a trope, but if you say the game's about developing our own personality - that's great! i'd love to be able to do that, and if it's not just a battle between Miss Nice and Miss Mean, even better!

and.. character death? yess, give me all the drama 8D i have to say i enjoy playing slightly under pressure that someone may be in trouble as a consequence of my actions.

so far i'm gravitating towards Danielle and Jay as far as characters go, we'll see if it changes though, especially after the demo. can't wait 'til it's out! c:

[ameliori]

Man I love all your characters! They all look vibrant and unique! I'll be waiting on this eagerly!

Edit: I love the UI design. It's really clean! Very nice job so far

[PangoDango]

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback! Super stoked to hear the game looks intriguing so far.

One thing I'm wondering from your description so far; will the choices you make influence your path through the building, and which rooms you get access to? You've mentioned replayability as a big focus, and I know in these sorts of games, one of the things that suckers me into replays is knowing I've only seen parts of a building on my first run, and that full exploration will only happen if I do multiple playthroughs. : O

You're going to see most of the rooms in the mansion no matter how you play the game (gotta show off dem backgrounds,) but it's what happens in those rooms or what you discover there that changes, yes. And there are a couple rooms you might not ever see depending on what path you take. It's not Zero Escape-y to the extent that parts of the mansion are locked, though, it's not a puzzle game. You just may end up in some rooms more than others, and discover different things there.

By the way... I don't know if I just missed it, haha, but... it this free or commercial? ^^

The demo will be free of course, but the full game is planned to be commercial. (Just like 10-15 bucks, though.) This is because the planned length and # of CGs is comparable to some of the full-length Japanese otome games that it borrows from, and I'm paying people who produce work for the game, so yeah, it's basically commercial already, and I'm serious about a polished result.

[Ran08]

Ahh, I see! 10-15 isn't expensive I guess, hahaha, but I tend to have problems when it comes to online shopping, lol. ) Still, I hope I get to buy (and play) it when it comes out!

Looking forward to a demo now, haha. Keep up the good work!

[Cafechan]

*grabby hands at that GxG route*

This looks amazing so far. I love the premise, and the cast is so unique. The GUI already looks so pretty too. ;_; Danielle interests me the most, but I have to say, I'm very grateful for the subversion with Russell. I looked at him and thought, "oh no, here comes the big mean jock," but he actually sounds really sweet and likable. Good luck with everything!!

[PangoDango]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

In case anyone was wondering about that weird title...



Here's a little hint for the story to come...

[llplldll]

Im really looking forward to this!
The interface looks really nice and clean. The characters all sound very interesting too. I can already see myself gravitating towards Jay though, lol!
Im excited for the story line too, I haven't had the chance to play very many horror-esque games with a female lead in them.
Good job on this so far, I can't wait to play the demo!! XD

[PangoDango]

It looks like the demo is going to be released right on schedule in three weeks, so in the meantime, I'm keeping the tumblr updated n' healthy with asks!

Questions are open to me directly about the game, but because that would be kinda narcissistic and wear thin, I decided to practice getting everyone into character by opening asks to the six characters of the game as well! So it's a combo dev blog and RP blog of sorts!

So far, Colin and Danielle have each answered a question, (and me ooc as dev) but I'll have more to put up tomorrow. I'll post/answer three q's a day so if keeping up with the game's progress that way interests you, follow away on the tumblr! ^_^ b

[Kay]

This is interesting. It's fun that it's a bit of a period piece. The character designs have a really great aesthetic. They're bright and colourful and distinct. I'll look forward to playing it!

Also, if you do get around to needing voices, give me a shout. I'd be happy to audition. I've done a few games in the past for Lemmasoft users, among others.

Good luck getting the kickstarter together.

[PangoDango]

New CG complete for the game, courtesy of Deji_Nyucu!





As you can see, I split it into two images, because this CG is actually a panorama! (So the whole image is never quite viewed at once.) This is the car that the game starts off in, (though strictly speaking it's not the first scene of the game,) and the image will pan back and forth from right to left as characters speak, giving the illusion that the player is "sitting" in the front passenger seat. Character's expressions will change and vary as well. It was quite an undertaking, but it should be a really neat for the players to experience the story and first meet all the characters before switching to sprite interactions and staging for the rest of the game.

Going to have a beta ready for testers this weekend. I'll post here again when I need willing players.