Given the nature of this visual novel, one thing I wanted to add to make it even more fun was some audience input- giving people a say in just how some of this story would turn out.
At the time of this posting, there is currently a twitter poll running to determine the secret identity of the protagonist's secret admirer- A secret admirer that will not be in The Alien of the Occult Club, mind you! Whoever they are, whatever they are, they're a character that will be exclusively for this game and this game alone!
However, as fun as that might sound, the most important choice of all of them will be coming on Valentine's Day itself:
Who will be this game's main love interest?
While The Alien of the Occult Club proper will have multiple love interests (as well as the option to pursue no love interest at all), with this being meant to be a short, self contained story (and a themed one at that!), I want to go in with a single love interest in mind from the onset... but the identity of that love interest is something I'm leaving up to the audience starting on Valentine's Day.
Meet Miu (on the left) and Fuu (on the right). These are two of Ichiko's potential love interests in The Alien of the Occult Club, but only one of them will be the leading lady to Ichiko's leading alien in Attack of the Valentine.
You can read more details and look over character profiles and descriptions on this developer blog post I made announcing this project last week, or just follow along on Twitter to give your input, support whoever you want to be the love interest, or even just wait here and watch the game's development as it moves along.
Over the next few days, I'll be tweeting some things about both Fuu and Miu each (as well as the currently ongoing poll) so voters and, well, just anyone who might happen upon this crazy project in general will feel like they'll be able to pick someone for more than just a character design.
Anyway, that's about it for now!
Personally, I've found this whole idea (and experience thus far) to be a lot of fun, and I really hope some of you might as well. If all goes well, maybe I could even approach it again someday once The Alien of the Occult Club is finished-- but I'm getting way, way ahead of myself.
For now, have some (very, very early) screenshots of how the game's shaping up so far! And please, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well!
Happy (early) Valentine's Day!