Rockfish Island [VN] [GxB] [GxG] [Survival|Modern] [Resource Gathering] DEMO IS OUT!

[Ada Sheep]

Rockfish Island is a visual novel set on an island in the Pacific Ocean.
You, the main character, are stuck on this island and must try to survive with eight other people.

The Demo version of Rockfish Island is out!
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD ON ITCH!

We also have a survey for after you play the demo.
For a limited time, if you fill out the survey you'll recieve the Rockfish Island game guide for free upon full release! After release the game guide will be a paid only perk.

Credits:

Programming/Writing/Direction/Editing: Lavender Lemon (on these forums as Ada Sheep and Playful_Reverie)
Itch.io Tumblr Twitter Instagram

Art/Resources/Music: Various paid and free (including Pixabay, DLsite, Eric Matyas and more)

Made otome/dating sim style with Ren’Py, the main feminine character is played by you, the player. There are six love interests available (five men and one women) for you to romance, or not.

The storyline is a mixture of suspense and lightheartedness as you and everyone else try to survive with whatever you can find around you, and learn more about each other in the process.

We’re planning to release Rockfish Island on itch.io with their pay-what-you-want (or don’t) model.

Rockfish Island has implied (fade-to-black) sex/romance scenes. While the game is a survival game, it's not horror.

There is an element of survival gathering to the game, where you as the main character have to gather food to feed yourself or everyone. Food can be found through various point-and-click maps or mini-games. This element of the game is not meant to be difficult.

Details:

• Feminine main character

• 6 romance-able characters

• 9 characters total

• 3 character traits to be built upon

• multiple endings including:
  - 2 bad endings
  - 6 character endings
  - 6 true character endings

• persistent replay data

• inventory system

• Character bios and points system

• day system

• randomized encounters

• 2 minigames

Where we're at:
All character sprites complete
Most backgrounds
2+ hours playtime
Inventory system complete
Routes completed for Levi and Shae and Matt.
Routes in progress for Jayce.
34,822 words in dialogue according to Lint.
186 menus, 412 images, and 115 screens

To do:
Two more character routes
True endings
Ending gallery
Persistent replay changes
Random scenes
Various GUI tweaking
“Quality of play” tweaking
Music tweaking
Debugging
Make a playable demo

Cast/Characters:

• You:
  The main character. You play as a member of a band travelling overseas for a concert. The other members of your band are your boyfriend and his younger brother.

• Noah:
  The drummer in your band. Noah is the younger brother of your boyfriend. He’s quiet and isolates himself from others.
  

• Jayce:
  You meet Jayce on your flight overseas. He’s eager to help out when on the island, and strikes up a bantering friendship with Matt.
  

• Matt:
  You meet Matt on the island. He copes with your survival situation with lots of alcohol and pessimism.
  

• Levi:
  Levi adopts a leadership attitude on the island. He makes most decisions and explores the island with Tobias.
  

• Shae:
  An airplane stewardess. Shae holds a lot of guilt for what happened and doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone.
  

• Xiaoli:
  Xiaoli is a medical doctor. She’s quirky but ultimately helpful and positive.
  

• Tobias:
  Tobias keeps out of other people’s business. He spends most of his time on the island with Levi.
  

• ?:
  This character will be unlocked with more playthroughs.

Screenshots:

Anything you want to know about this game? We’re gathering questions for an FAQ.

[papillon]

You mentioned the character starts with a boyfriend - is he one of the characters? Is he killed or lost in the crash? (I'm *guessing* that it's more likely he's missing because dead would be pretty depressing)

I know a lot of otome fans may have trouble with what they see as a 'cheating' plotline, if the character is supposed to be already dating someone. I don't mind it, but I know some people will object, and if you're not prepared for that I thought maybe I should warn you

Since you have more characters than you have datable options, is it meant to be a surprise who has routes and who doesn't?

[Ada Sheep]

We are trying to be considerate of the cheating aspect. The character does start with a boyfriend, for plot reasons. It's one of the things we've been talking about a lot recently; how to get the MC over the boyfriend in a genuine way and not make the player feel like they're cheating on him. (spoiler: He does die. Noah's plotline in particular is pretty depressing for this reason.)

It is a bit of a surprise as to who has routes, yes. I hope that in playing the game it'll become clear when they never get obvious love points, and the reasons why are character related and revealed through play. One of the characters is gay, which is why there is no dating option for him. It's also why we chose not to go with a choice of gender for the MC, because orientation is important to some of the characters.

Thank you for the important questions! It's hard to know how much to reveal about the story beforehand.

[Ada Sheep]

The demo of Rockfish Island is now available to play!

What's included?

• A playthrough of the full 18 days on the island.

• Almost 35k words

• One character ending - Matt

• Two bad endings

• 2+ hours of playtime

• minigames/resource gathering

• other characters present and available for interaction

• love points/character traits system active

• 11 days of free time

• music! sound effects!

• probably some bugs

Basically it's a full playthrough of the game, with the only fully available scenes being Matt's.

[Ada Sheep]

A little bit more about what we'd love to hear feedback-wise, is about the food gathering system.

Our goal is to have some fun gameplay elements while not trying to force much on people that just want to read. That's why our fishing and gathering have choices; a minigame, or a button click. Each have different percentage drops. The percentages are affected by your traits/stats, but because we don't want our game to be about stat-raising, the stats don't actually block you from any endings or item drops. They make it easier to get certain item drops, and change a little about the scenes, but you could get the ending you want without trying for certain traits. (Traits are also persistent, so on replay, your traits will be added to the ones from the last replay, so replays are progressively easier. We don't want it to be a slog to get all the endings!)

How well do you think we're meeting that goal? Of not forcing stat raising, or not making the gathering too difficult.

We're looking to have a full release in mid-to-late June. It's a little ambitious, but it's good to have a goal!