(Previously "Yet Another Gay Dating Sim")
Yearning: A Gay Story (YAGS for short) is a coming-out-focused character-driven slice-of-life game set during your freshman year on a college campus (phew). You'll meet people, make friends, come out, and maybe start dating someone. (The game is part dating sim, with four dateable guys (with good and bad endings for each), but hopefully is enjoyable enough to play even if you don't manage to find a boyfriend.)
The game will be free, but donations for bonus swag will be accepted.
The game is also quite long. While it does not contain any explicit sex or nudity, it does contain adult language, implied nudity and sex, and uncomfortable situations, and is not appropriate for children.
This game is a lot of firsts for me: It's my first time using RenPy, my first time really doing any creative writing, and my first visual novel. I hope it's enjoyable, even in its current unpolished state.
The game will be available on itch.io on January 19, 2019 at 10 AM EST. Stay tuned for details.
Writing: 100%
Sprites: 100% (14/14 finished)
Backgrounds: 100% (19/19 finished)
Music: 100% (16/16 finished)
GUI: 100%
Current game stats: 26,491 dialog blocks, 234,551 words, 1,222,978 characters
(Obviously, not all text will be in a given playthrough, as the game tries to adapt rather heavily to your choices, but that's still a general idea of size.)
I think of YAGS as being about meeting and getting to know people. As such, I don't want to include any background information about the characters here, but here's the characters -- in their current finished-or-unfinished state -- in the game.
(The game itself contains unlockable character profiles where you can learn more about the people that you meet.)
My wehsite has a lot of behind-the-scenes posts and general progress notes, so you can always follow that to see how things are going.
http://yags.bobcgames.com
If you have played the game, I've been writing a series of backstory fics for each of the characters, which you can read here. It's a way to pass the time while waiting for art assets, anyway.
I also tweet general status updates, photos, and random thoughts in the development process.
https://twitter.com/bobcgames
I can't talk about this game without talking about Coming Out on Top, by Obscurasoft. I'd had a bunch of disparate stories and ideas bouncing around my head for years, but playing CooT kind of gave me the kick I needed and convinced me that I should write them down, try to connect them together, and present them in a way that a player could interact with and play through. At a superficial level, the two games are fairly similar games in terms of setting and general goals. However, it is my hope that I've created something that is also extremely different and stands on its own.
In YAGS, all of the characters you meet are intertwined, even (and if) you start dating one of them. While you can pursue different guys, and therefore go down different "paths", the main "story" remains the same, and you will see the same events from different perspectives and get to know different characters better. That's why I call it a character-driven game: the story as as much about the lives of the people you interact with as it is about your own decisions and experiences.
YAGS is also intended to be significantly darker than CooT, dealing with a lot more of the fear, uncertainly, and angst that surrounds the coming out progress, and attempting to paint a realistic picture of what it could mean to be gay and to find yourself. That's not to say it's a depressive slog, but it tries to have its realistic and serious moments, alongside the light-hearted ones. Has it succeeded at that? You tell me.
YAGS has followed an extremely non-standard development process. My goal, originally, was just to get stories from my head onto "paper". However, as the number of characters and story kept growing, I figured it was worthwhile pursuing an actual game release. Given my complete lack of artistic skills, I focused on what I was able to do (primarily writing and programming). Now that this project has grown more serious, I have signed on the talents of a couple of artists and a musician, and am replacing game assets as they come in.
You can follow asset status (sprites, backgrounds, and music) on either my tumblr or Twitter. (I'll update this thread sporadically, but post much more frequent updates on social media.)
Any and all feedback is appreciated. (And thank you for playing!) However, here are some specific things I was curious about:
- Did you finish a full playthrough? If not, was there a particular reason or moment that caused you to stop playing, or did it just not hold your interest?
- What do you think of the gameplay length? Does it feel too long? Are there any scenes that feel like they should be cut, or that don't add much to the game?
- Are the characters sufficiently compelling? Do you have a favorite or least favorite character?
- Are there particular scenes or situations that seem out of place or just don't fit into the game?
How does the current lack of art assets affect your enjoyment of the game?- (New) What do you think about the sprites and backgrounds so far?
- (New) If you didn't play, what is your impression of the game concept?
)
).
I understand not wanting him to just be the fallback option, but making it too hard to get him when I had been after him all along just makes it more frustrating than anything else. Maybe he could be made easier again? Or is it always a doomed romance? In which case, it would be more depressing than frustrating...
