L'Express Royal [G/B x B/G] [Romance]

[kyotsuba]

{Synopsis}

Working for the famous French manufacturing company, Falstom Corporation, your bright ideas and designs have appealed to your higher-ups greatly. You were offered to work on a large-scale project for the partner business, Rene Inc., to help design a new rail line that would be the fastest in the world, except Rene Inc. is stationed in Spain! The Spanish firm has offered to let you take their most luxurious train once a week in order to meet and discuss outlines for the upcoming train, but the train ride there will be twelve hours long! As a result, you begin to grow close to the staff working on board L'Expresss Royal during your trips and maybe you might even fall in love with one of the members?

{System}

The game runs over an eight-week period in which the player rides the train twice a week. Dates with the characters are unlocked after the fourth week with high enough affection points and the ending occurs after the eighth week.
Regardless of who you choose as the protagonist, you will be able to go after all characters!

{Features}

Two protagonists to choose from (able to change name from default)
Seven different routes (five males and two females)
Fifteen endings (good and best endings)
Free gameplay (technically pay-what-you-want)

{Characters}

{Backgrounds}

-coming soon-

{In-Game Screenshots}

-coming soon-

{Progress}

Script: 5%
Coding: 5%
Sprite Art: 22%
Background Art: 0%
CG Art: 0%
Music: 0%

{Credits}

Story and Art: k-yotsuba
Coding: My sister
Music: Free online sources (unless I am able to get a composer because that would be super)

Thank you to my sister who is helping me code the game in Ren'py!

{Questions}

It would really mean a lot to me if you could answer the following questions in the comments! ^_^
• What do you think of the story and characters?
• Who would you go for first and would you look for all fifteen endings?
• What do you look forward to in the gameplay?

{Updates}

8 August 2015: Forum Posted

{Notes}

This project will take quite a while as I will be busy with school, but I will try my best to finish the full version within a year or maybe two if needed!! I really want to be able to create this game because I really love trains a lot plus all the characters, and would be happy to see others enjoy this as well!
I am hoping to be able to push out a demo soon that will feature the first week of the game!
(It will probably be a while before a demo is released though with my two-person staff and I am going to be busy with college soon..I'm dead c':)
I also have a tumblr set up for the game that will be updated every once in a while with progress on the game. If you have any questions or comments about characters or the game, you can leave a message through the askbox on tumblr! Thank you so much for reading through my thread! <:

[Amy_oai]

Oooh this looks so good! Can't wait to see more updates on it!

[Coren]

This looks cool! Really like the logo. It's so crisp.

[kyotsuba]

@Amy_oai: Thank you so much for the kind words! I hope to update it with backgrounds and in-game screenshots soon!!

@Coren: Thank you so much! ^^ The previous logo I had was very bland so I'm happy that you find the final logo appealing!

[neuropsy]

What do you think of the story and characters?

I really love the concept of most of the story taking place in a train! I'm someone who really enjoys the act of traveling somewhere just as much as arriving. As they say, getting there is half the fun, and a game about that is something I would definitely want to experience.

Who would you go for first and would you look for all fifteen endings?

Hmmm... Either Teo or Gilbert, probably Teo. He seems like such a sweetheart. I love funny guys who are also very caring. I hope he turns out to have a nerdy streak beyond newspaper comics, hehehe. I'm usually not the type of person to hunt for all the endings if there's a lot. My heart tends to be captured by one love interest and as long as I have the best ending with them, I'm set. xD

What do you look forward to in the gameplay?

I'm curious to see how you'll execute a story with such a restricted setting! I'm sure it'll be challenging, so I look forward to see how you'll handle everything.

I've followed you on Tumblr!

[Kikaharu]

• What do you think of the story and characters?

I think the story seems interesting. The characters I didn't really read their information. But at first I thought Chae Young was a male until I looked at the full body image and notice that they were wearing a skirt so I went back up to the little profile and then noticed that they have a chest of a female. I probably wouldn't of noticed that for awhile if I didn't look at the full body image.

Also to me, I feel like Eras and Gilbert are brothers. Even though their eye and hair color are different. Just feels like they are brothers to me. The full body image made me be like for sure they feel like brothers because they are wearing similar clothes. I know it's odd but that's how I feel.

• Who would you go for first and would you look for all fifteen endings?

Who I would go after first I am not sure because I usually pick one when I am playing the game. And even if I pick someone as my favorite sometimes I put off their route because I don't want to love that one so much that I don't play another one.

Yeah, I probably would look for all endings. IF, and I mean if there is a CG gallery and I missed a CG (or more than one) from not doing all the routes. If I have gone through some of the routes and there isn't a CG missing from the gallery then I probably wouldn't continue playing. I know that is sad to say and is a bit rude to any visual novel but I like having that extra-ness to it. It's like yay I get to read and play a cool thing and I get a pretty picture Woohoo!

• What do you look forward to in the gameplay?

I don't know really. One thing I hope for is what I hope for all visual novels, which is diversity in routes. I am okay with a little bit of same conversation but when its like the whole game is the same for each route except like a few lines diffference once in while, it drives me crazy because it's like why even make different routes if they are going to be the same thing. It's like telling the same story over and over but with a different person in the place of the original.

[kyotsuba]

@neuropsy: I agree! I haven't been able to travel on a nice luxury train (only in games ;v;) but I enjoy having conversations while traveling to a destination!

Teo definitely is a huge sweetheart and is kind of a dork in an adorable way xD. He's the kind to make jokes (no one laughs at them though or just give him disappointed look) and give people bear hugs! Gilbert is very flirtatious, but can be just as lovable as Teo in his own way. c:

I have ideas about how I want to execute the plot without going to far out of the bounds of the setting, so I hope it works out well! ^^ Thank you so much for leaving your thoughts!!

@Kikaharu: It's ok to not have read the info (the text is kind of small so it is kind of hard to read uAu), but yes, Chae Young is female! Though I can see why she could be mistaken for a male because her features are not as cutesy as Stella's. Yeah, Eras and Gilbert look similar (unintentionally), so they could be brothers in another timeline. I could see the staff joking about them being brothers. xD They have similar outfits because they both work with food and liquids (Eras at the bar and Gilbert in the dining cart, thus he rolls up his sleeves as well as wearing an apron).

I totally relate on holding off on the character I like most, too! xD I do plan to have a CG gallery and there will probably be spots missing if you do not complete all the routes (which of course you aren't obligated to do). This is mainly because I plan to have CGs for all the routes that you get during the game and at the end if you get the best ending!

I am definitely planning to make the routes diverse (there will be some scenes that will be repeated in the routes that are just filler scenes most likely) with different scenes depending on choices you make and who you chase after, but due to the small staff working on this project, some parts in the various plots may be repeated. I really would love to make this game as diverse as possible though, so I will do my best when writing and executing those scenes! :> Thank you so much also for leaving your thoughts!!