Toil and Trouble [Halloween Dating・Potion Creation Sim]

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minyan
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Toil and Trouble [Halloween Dating・Potion Creation Sim]

#1 Post by minyan »

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Autumn is a proud student of Ravensbrim, the largest Witch Academy in the country. She's heading from her home in the big city off to the rural countryside to begin the three month internship that marks the end of her last year in school. Between creating potions for the villagers and making new friends, it’s sure to be a summer to remember.

Live out the days in Hallow’s Hollow as the only witch the town has seen in a century, and see creatures you've only ever heard rumors about. With a colorful cast of side characters, including a mummy who just wants a friend, a zombie who may or may not be stalking you, and an adorable wolf girl who needs a little help controlling her powers, there's tons of content to play through!

Follow us on tumblr here!

The gameplay follows a day by day format. In the morning you will gain experience points by making potions as part of your internship through school, using ingredients they've sent, and some you've found as well. Experiment with raven's feathers, ashes, liquid ice, and a host of other items you'll find around town depending on your actions. After following the main story of that day, as well as viewing character events dependent on your love interests current affection points, you'll see various miscellaneous scenes based on the potions you've created. The story will eventually split depending on which love interest you have the most points with.

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・ Choose your characters skin tone!
・ Create powerful, frightening, or downright silly potions by mixing
together up to three ingredients that you'll find while playing through the days.
・Earn extra exp by completing potion requests from the townspeople!
・ A three month calendar with events that change depending on your actions.
Replay until you find all of them!
・Every weekend get letters from back home. Will you placate your parent's obsessive
need to know everything you're doing, or ignore them? You might even
get a letter from someone you're interested in!
・ Love is in the air with four possible love interests to woo!
・ A host of side characters, each with their own sprite, and their own story.
・15+ CGs!
・ Unlock achievements in the form of different in game hats!
・ Over five different endings!

Price: $10

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- Sprites: Complete!

- CGs: 0%

- Writing:

 ・Main Route: 20/60

 ・Salem Route: 20/20 (14,943 Words)

 ・Muffy Route: 20/20 (21,544 Words)

 ・Abbadon Route: 10/10 (20,000) words


 ・Spoopy Route: 5/10

・Endings: 0/4

 ・Neil Route: Done! (6,237 Words)

 ・Brad Route: Done! (2,880 Words)

 ・Bebe Route: Done! (3,662 Words)

 ・Lawrence Route: Done! (6,623 Words)


 ・Misc Scenes: 0/21

 ・Letters: 5/???

- 50/??? potions to discover
- 38/??? ingredients to mix and match

- GUI: 20%
- Music: 0%
- BGs: 5%
- Programming: 40%

Questions:

1. What do you think of the game overall?
2. Does the gameplay entice you?
3. Who's your favorite character?
4. What would you like to see from this game?
5. Would you support a kickstarter for this?
6. Any other comments?
Brought to you by:
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Proofreaders:
Thornbush
Runadial
AntiquedFae
Last edited by minyan on Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:08 am, edited 45 times in total.
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Scribbles
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Fantasy・Dating Sim・ Mix potions!]

#2 Post by Scribbles »

oooooh I love halloween and all things halloween-y this looks really cute! I'm excited to see more about this ^^
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runadial
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Fantasy・Dating Sim・ Mix potions!]

#3 Post by runadial »

This is one of few Halloween-themed games I have seen around here, and knowing I haven't seen much, the concept of this game makes me a bit jittery. I love the variety of races, and I look forward to seeing that play out in this game. I haven't played your other games, but seeing all the positive feedback from others who have played it makes me excited myself, though in truth I personally have harbored no huge interest in the other games.

Let's see...since many people seem to be curious about favoritism of characters, I'll share mine based on what I know so far about them: Salem. I think the name has a nice ring and charm to it, and not to mention his personality appeals to me! He looks very cute; if he isn't the "main route", then he will definitely be the first I pursue.

As a side comment, I don't know about anybody, but I think I'm starting to see more games with non-binary or transgender bachelors. Not that I don't like it, of course; I myself feel a bit drawn or fascinated to those types of characters. Other than that, I can say that I will play it, though I'm also the type to not be able to replay something often, but if certain things make me curious, then I would definitely go and replay it! Just a quick question though: will this game be free or paid?
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Fantasy・Dating Sim・ Mix potions!]

#4 Post by Averxy »

Scribbles wrote:oooooh I love halloween and all things halloween-y this looks really cute! I'm excited to see more about this ^^
I love Halloween too! Everything about it is just so fun and we're really hoping to bring the feeling of Halloween into this game as much as we can.
We're excited to show you more!
runadial wrote:This is one of few Halloween-themed games I have seen around here, and knowing I haven't seen much, the concept of this game makes me a bit jittery. I love the variety of races, and I look forward to seeing that play out in this game. I haven't played your other games, but seeing all the positive feedback from others who have played it makes me excited myself, though in truth I personally have harbored no huge interest in the other games.

Let's see...since many people seem to be curious about favoritism of characters, I'll share mine based on what I know so far about them: Salem. I think the name has a nice ring and charm to it, and not to mention his personality appeals to me! He looks very cute; if he isn't the "main route", then he will definitely be the first I pursue.

As a side comment, I don't know about anybody, but I think I'm starting to see more games with non-binary or transgender bachelors. Not that I don't like it, of course; I myself feel a bit drawn or fascinated to those types of characters. Other than that, I can say that I will play it, though I'm also the type to not be able to replay something often, but if certain things make me curious, then I would definitely go and replay it! Just a quick question though: will this game be free or paid?
Hopefully Toil and Trouble can live up to your expectations and pull you more into our other works :) I'm glad you like Salem most! He's my baby haha, such a sweet heart. He tries so hard. I hope you enjoy Muffy as a character, she's pretty awesome but I might be biased.
This game is going to be commercial but it will most likely only be between $10 - $15 USD so hopefully that won't be too expensive to most! Toil and Trouble has a lot of neat features, and so many different routes and different things to try out that you can't finish it all in just one playthrough and considering it's going to be our fourth game we thought making it commercial would be more than fair.


Thank you both for commenting! We really appreciate it!
Completed: Heartbaked, Ellaria: Cotton & Cream, Plain
WIP: Toil & Trouble, Twisted
Check out Arena Circus, The Pretenders Guild, and Mnemonic Devices by Minyan!

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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Fantasy・Dating Sim・ Mix potions!]

#5 Post by minyan »

Scribbles wrote:oooooh I love halloween and all things halloween-y this looks really cute! I'm excited to see more about this ^^
Thanks so much! I've wanted to do something Halloween-y for soooo long... excited to keep working on this!
runadial wrote:This is one of few Halloween-themed games I have seen around here, and knowing I haven't seen much, the concept of this game makes me a bit jittery. I love the variety of races, and I look forward to seeing that play out in this game. I haven't played your other games, but seeing all the positive feedback from others who have played it makes me excited myself, though in truth I personally have harbored no huge interest in the other games.

Let's see...since many people seem to be curious about favoritism of characters, I'll share mine based on what I know so far about them: Salem. I think the name has a nice ring and charm to it, and not to mention his personality appeals to me! He looks very cute; if he isn't the "main route", then he will definitely be the first I pursue.

As a side comment, I don't know about anybody, but I think I'm starting to see more games with non-binary or transgender bachelors. Not that I don't like it, of course; I myself feel a bit drawn or fascinated to those types of characters. Other than that, I can say that I will play it, though I'm also the type to not be able to replay something often, but if certain things make me curious, then I would definitely go and replay it! Just a quick question though: will this game be free or paid?
Salem is fun to write, that's for sure! Glad to hear you're interested in this. I really love games that can be different each time you play through, and that's definitely what I want to accomplish with this! The scope seems pretty large, but we've been progressing at a steady pace so I'm pretty confident we'll be able to finish without tearing our hair out xD Yes, this game will be commercial as Averxy said, but there will definitely be a free demo.
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Fantasy・Dating Sim・ Mix potions!]

#6 Post by minyan »

Toil and Trouble now has an official tumblr! It's awful HAHAHAHA I SUCK AT TUMBLING https://toilandtroublevn.tumblr.com
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Fantasy・Dating Sim・ Mix potions!]

#7 Post by minyan »

Salem's sprite is done AHHHHH
I'm so happy with how he came out.
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#8 Post by minyan »

Abbadon's lineart is done! The style of the game is pretty cutesy, so I'm like: eh, maybe I shouldn't give him a happy trail... but his shirt is just begging for it

exline.png
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#9 Post by Averxy »

Hey all! Just a quick writing update!

We're currently at 11,084 words without even touching any of the main characters or route (Meaning that's all side characters, and they aren't even half done!)
Completed: Heartbaked, Ellaria: Cotton & Cream, Plain
WIP: Toil & Trouble, Twisted
Check out Arena Circus, The Pretenders Guild, and Mnemonic Devices by Minyan!

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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#10 Post by minyan »

Art update

Working on the textbox! I like it, but I feel like maybe it's missing something? At the same time, I don't want it to get too complicated/busy... The save/load/prefs buttons will go at the empty space at the top.
textboxx-01.png
What do you guys think?

We're planning on having the potion on the left change color depending on who's talking, rather than the text.
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#11 Post by minyan »

Art update

Abbadon is finished! I updated the character profiles a bit. I'll probably change the graphic as I get more of the GUI done ^^

General update

I realize I miscounted the sprites- there will actually be 10! Silly Min. 3 down, 7 to go!
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#12 Post by minyan »

Art update
Muffy's line art is done! I might color her after work today. There are a lot of sprites, and I want to keep progressing on them so I can make sure they all keep a consistent look... it's easier to do them one right after the other.
exlines.png
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#13 Post by minyan »

Sorry for all these updates! I didn't expect to be working on this so fast. Inspiration struck for the choice boxes.

GUI Update

Idle:
choiceboxidleex.png
Hover:
choiceboxhover.gif

I'm so eager to get to the potion GUI AHHHHHH
But first I guess I should do prefs and such... boo.

edit: Sorry also about all the watermarks, they make it look so ugly ; ;

It was my first time attempting animated boxes, so I'm pretty proud of how it came out!
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#14 Post by runadial »

You guys are flying through extremely quickly! If I were to do the UI I probably would have done an orange kind of scheme for the hover... or maybe purple would be my preference! I like the little animations; it's very thematic but not distracting, too. I might not comment here much, but know that I am supporting it some way, somehow! Just don't work so fast that you actually end up tearing your hair out...

I'll look forward to more updates, even if I may not end up being able to buy this in the end, unless I end up doing testing or something more involving, then I guess only then will my heart and soul finally rest in peace that I can actually have a set-in-stone opportunity to play this game, haha.
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Re: 🕯 Toil and Trouble 🎃 [Halloween Dating Sim・Mix potions!

#15 Post by Averxy »

runadial wrote:You guys are flying through extremely quickly! If I were to do the UI I probably would have done an orange kind of scheme for the hover... or maybe purple would be my preference! I like the little animations; it's very thematic but not distracting, too. I might not comment here much, but know that I am supporting it some way, somehow! Just don't work so fast that you actually end up tearing your hair out...

I'll look forward to more updates, even if I may not end up being able to buy this in the end, unless I end up doing testing or something more involving, then I guess only then will my heart and soul finally rest in peace that I can actually have a set-in-stone opportunity to play this game, haha.
Min flies through everything haha. She did amazing with the animation!

We appreciate any and all comments <3 It really helps boost our spirits and shows us that people actually want to play! As for testing... We'll see when we get there haha ;)
Completed: Heartbaked, Ellaria: Cotton & Cream, Plain
WIP: Toil & Trouble, Twisted
Check out Arena Circus, The Pretenders Guild, and Mnemonic Devices by Minyan!

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