A Bureau of Monsters [All x All] [Romance, Turn-based Fighting, Plot Driven] [Update! Demo 2.0 Out!]

[pumpkin spike]

Link to Demo 2.0!

Updates
4/30/2019...ish- Demo 2.0 has been released! See the announcement here!
A demo will be developed for the Maximum Monster game jam. Due to the essence of time, a number of features are not completed yet. More details will be added once the demo is submitted.

Questions
1. What do you think of the premise? What do you think of the demo?
2. What is your opinion of unavoidable turn based battles in a visual novel? Do you consider this a minigame? Would it detract from your enjoyment of the story?
3. What sort of monsters would you like to see in the game?

Follow us for updates!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PumpkinSpike
Tumblr: https://pumpkin-spike.tumblr.com/

[parttimestorier]

This sounds like a really cool concept! I love time travel and I'm always excited for VNs that have both male and female love interests. For the battles, I guess it would depend on how fun and challenging they are. While I do enjoy some VNs that integrate gameplay, it can be annoying if it's too hard or just not that interesting, since the main thing I want to do is read the story. If you don't want them to be skippable, maybe you could make a super easy mode or something that people can choose if they want to breeze through them and keep reading. And for monster types, I never get tired of vampires, but it might also be fun to see some less common monsters that don't show up in other stories as much. Good luck with the development, and I look forward to reading it!

[pumpkin spike]

This sounds like a really cool concept! I love time travel and I'm always excited for VNs that have both male and female love interests. For the battles, I guess it would depend on how fun and challenging they are. While I do enjoy some VNs that integrate gameplay, it can be annoying if it's too hard or just not that interesting, since the main thing I want to do is read the story. If you don't want them to be skippable, maybe you could make a super easy mode or something that people can choose if they want to breeze through them and keep reading. And for monster types, I never get tired of vampires, but it might also be fun to see some less common monsters that don't show up in other stories as much. Good luck with the development, and I look forward to reading it!

They are fairly simple battles. As of now, there's only 3 options to pick during a fight and the fight itself can be performed on skip mode so it takes nearly no time at all to play through. When I first started developing the engine for the battles, I did not picture it ever being more complicated than a Pokemon battle (and there are currently much less mechanics than Pokemon).
Oooh~ yeah, good old vampire romances are always fun to read.
Thank you so much for your comment and support! (:

[pumpkin spike]

Demo 1.0 has been released!

[Zelan]

This is a cool idea, and the art is super cute! I love Gwen. ^_^ Can't wait to see further progress on this!

[pumpkin spike]

This is a cool idea, and the art is super cute! I love Gwen. ^_^ Can't wait to see further progress on this!

Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed the game so far! (:

[pumpkin spike]

Hello!
It's been a while, but I'm here with some updates! Feel free to follow me on Twitter for more updates: https://twitter.com/PumpkinSpike

The first draft for Gwen's good end has been completed with 45k+ words and is being reviewed by my editor.
Below is art of two characters that show up exclusively in Gwen's route (...for now??):

Shane is the love rival for this route, find out more about him here: https://twitter.com/PumpkinSpike/status ... 4318240768


I only have concept art of Annabelle for now, her sprite(s) are quite detailed... ;;;
Clicking on the images lead to the full image posted on twitter


...And that's all for today, thank you for your time ^7^/

[nerupuff]

Hi! Just wanted to pop by and say that I'm so excited for this game! I tried the demo and it definitely did not disappoint. I love the art style you have (yay, the sprites blink! the animations, so cool!) and it's so refreshing to see how dynamic the GUI is for the game. The personalized text boxes for each character's dialogue were a cute touch.

Definitely looking forward to Kai's route; the mystery is definitely entrancing. What was he doing there and why? (also because we share the same taste in music haha)

On unavoidable turn based battles, I do like the concept of it. It's fun trying to fight monsters, and I would definitely enjoy if it were further implemented into the full game. Maybe even add a timer to the battle to make your actions matter more and make it feel all the more combat like? (Or maybe that's hard mode, lol)

Shane and Annabelle look great! I'd love to see Annabelle's colored sprite soon. The details are awesome~

I hope there'll be mermaids... But that's just me. Best of luck!

[cedes]

Loved the demo! It started right in the middle of the action that I wasn'y expecting and I love it haha! Love Alex's personality, too! Can't wait to see more news~!

[pumpkin spike]

Hi! Just wanted to pop by and say that I'm so excited for this game! I tried the demo and it definitely did not disappoint. I love the art style you have (yay, the sprites blink! the animations, so cool!) and it's so refreshing to see how dynamic the GUI is for the game. The personalized text boxes for each character's dialogue were a cute touch.

Definitely looking forward to Kai's route; the mystery is definitely entrancing. What was he doing there and why? (also because we share the same taste in music haha)

On unavoidable turn based battles, I do like the concept of it. It's fun trying to fight monsters, and I would definitely enjoy if it were further implemented into the full game. Maybe even add a timer to the battle to make your actions matter more and make it feel all the more combat like? (Or maybe that's hard mode, lol)

Shane and Annabelle look great! I'd love to see Annabelle's colored sprite soon. The details are awesome~

I hope there'll be mermaids... But that's just me. Best of luck!

o//w//o I'm so glad you like the demo so far! I am hoping to add a bit more info about Kai in the next demo update, time permitting. I've also been thinking about implementing different modes of battle difficulties... might give timing a try if I can get it to work.

I'll see what I can do about adding mermaids ouo I do like designing them.

Thank you for taking the time to play and comment~!

Loved the demo! It started right in the middle of the action that I wasn'y expecting and I love it haha! Love Alex's personality, too! Can't wait to see more news~!

Thank you so much for playing and commenting! I'm glad you like the action and characters >u<
I will have more updates during NaNo, please stay tuned!

[Letitia_L]

Hi!

I just tested the demo, and I really liked it
I'll answer your questions :

1. What do you think of the premise? What do you think of the demo?
The premise and the world setting is interesting. I really like the humouristic side of the first scene and the little chibi scene with Kai where he is out lying on the ground.

2. What is your opinion of unavoidable turn-based battles in a visual novel? Do you consider this a minigame? Would it detract from your enjoyment of the story?

I don't have any problem with unavoidable turn base battles It doesn't distract me from the enjoyment of the story as long as they don't become too hard and that I don't have to do 5 times the same fight ( or in this case, there should be an easy mode ^^ )


3. What sort of monsters would you like to see in the game?
Hmmm hard question. I tend to like aquatic monsters and mythologic monsters more, so I would say that

Keep up the good work

[pumpkin spike]

Hi!

I just tested the demo, and I really liked it
I'll answer your questions :

1. What do you think of the premise? What do you think of the demo?
The premise and the world setting is interesting. I really like the humouristic side of the first scene and the little chibi scene with Kai where he is out lying on the ground.

2. What is your opinion of unavoidable turn-based battles in a visual novel? Do you consider this a minigame? Would it detract from your enjoyment of the story?

I don't have any problem with unavoidable turn base battles It doesn't distract me from the enjoyment of the story as long as they don't become too hard and that I don't have to do 5 times the same fight ( or in this case, there should be an easy mode ^^ )


3. What sort of monsters would you like to see in the game?
Hmmm hard question. I tend to like aquatic monsters and mythologic monsters more, so I would say that

Keep up the good work

Hi, thank you for your response! I'm glad you liked it so far! <:
I'm thinking to implement difficulty choices to make it easier or harder for the player, depending on what they want. There will definitely be some mythological creatures included in the game (: Someone also mentioned mermaids so I'm definitely tempted creatures from watery depths... owo

[pumpkin spike]

It's here! Demo 2.0 is ready! I'm kicking it out the door a bit early cause well... I have work at 6AM tomorrow and won't be able to update until the evening. I decided it's better to be early than late in the evening.

My NaNo project to create Demo 2.0 is "finished" a month late, but I weathered through it... mostly xD; I didn't have enough time to complete the last background, which means I'll be going back to finishing it in a minor update. Everything is colored, just not to the level I want it to be.

Without further ado, you can find the updated content by clicking the image below!


2.0 Updates
★ An updated and revised script
★ Finished GUI with a CG gallery
★ Revised CG art
★ A Training and Inventory section
★ A Book of Monsters screen to view info about each species

If you're interested in what future updates will have in store, you can find more information here! If you're interested some behind the scenes screenshots and work I did throughout the past two months, it's all cataloged in this thread. I am hoping to follow a similar format as I did for NaNo for future updates here, but at a somewhat slower pace ;u;" I'm thinking an update once every two weeks or so with smaller, but more frequent updates on my twitter.