The Doomed Diner [Yuri Jam 2016]

[Fuseblower]

And, once again, the ship has set sail to fail! I'm so in the right frame of mind for this one

The Doomed Diner for the Yuri Jam 2016 is essentially the same as The Doomed Diner for NaNoReNo 2016, only now the girls are gay (it was quite convenient that my main characters were women). By the way : the "Yuri Jam 2006" on Lucy's sweater is not a typo. The story takes place in 2007.



So, to recap : three girls (Helen, Lucy and Mary) work as Scream Queens in the no-budget movie business. Helen (the smart one) figures they won't be able to be scream queens for ever and she finds a diner they can buy for really cheap. The three girls restore the old building themselves.



But, of course, the bloody thing is haunted and spooky things start to happen quickly...



Well, he's not really spooky (at least Mary doesn't think he is). He's the neighbour. But I don't want to give away too much

It's a short game (my guess is about 30 minutes or so).

The whole gameplay revolves around 6 choices that are given : "Suspicions", "Dark Secret", "Wickedness", "Don't Go There", "Wrong Turn" and "No Escape". Once an option is chosen then it cannot be chosen again the next time. This gives 720 possible permutations (6! = 6x5x4x3x2x1 = 720). If "Dark Secret" is chosen first then it leads to a different story path then if it would have been chosen as the second one. Of course, I'm not going to make 720 different stories but the order is very important and some story lines can only be reached when all six options are in the right order (and they give achievements). I like to think this setup will invite replay.

As can be seen when comparing it to the NaNoReNo incarnation of The Doomed Diner, the drawing style is different. I opted for a drawing style I can execute quickly. I keep them black and white first. If time permits then I can color them.

There are no sprites, it all works with BGs that illustrate the story. I might or might not us side images (talking heads). They're not essential. It all depends on how much time I will have left.

[minyan]

This sounds very interesting, and I love the art! 720 possible outcomes /would/ be crazy, but the system sounds intriguing. Excited to try this!

[Fuseblower]

Thank you Minyan.

So, when I read the topic about 2D animation, I went through my old pencil tests. I found this skeleton and thought it was a nice idea to add it to the GUI of The Doomed Diner, given the whole Halloween theme and all.

It only needed to be inked... so after 2 days, here it is :



Just over 700K in size for 112 frames, who says gif doesn't compress well?

Anyway, the original Doomed Diner was meant to look like the old 50s horror comics. Complete with a horrible 64 color CMYK palette.

The original was completely done in Manga Studio but now I've opted to do the drawings by hand with my trusty nib pen and only do the colors in Manga Studio.

This is how it looks on paper :



And colored with Manga Studio :



Just to re-iterate, these are the only colors I can use because these were the colors used in the halftone process in the 50s :



Personally, I like the hand drawn version better. It looks closer to the 50s comics. Doing the line work in Manga Studio makes it look too smooth to my taste.

[Fuseblower]

A quick update.



The astute reader might notice a slight difference in art style. After doing 16 CGs I noticed it took too long. Also, the story visited too many different locations and this ballooned the number of CGs I needed. I've changed the story and the style half way through, this also ensured I stayed true to my common M.O. I really have to study how NomNomNami works, she's almost finished already!



The "wonky" style is really quick to execute. I can do about 6 completely different sprites in a day or a couple of BGs. The main route of the story is almost finished, half of Mary sprites are finished (they're the most work). If I get into time trouble then I might just opt for a kinetic story.



Yeah, what she said

[Mythee]

Spooky indeedy. Great artsy feel to this game, hope to be able to play it!

[Fuseblower]

Thank you Mythee! I hope to finish it in time.

Speaking of being pressed for time : I've decided to cut some corners. The title page, for example, is just one of the in-game backgrounds with title and buttons on it.



Of course, the same has to go for the sprites. Only basic emotions to reduce the number.



Basic emotions like "Helen gesturing with a hammer", "Mary trying to act normal while wearing no panties", "Lucy feigning sympathy but secretly gloating at Mary's misfortune".

Yep, just the basic emotions. I might even have some time to throw in some CGs.

I got complete faith!

[Mythee]

Those basic emotions thar sound like they convey quite a lot of information xD
I love it when there are more than little face talksprites for characters @u@ Like in Fire Emblem! Really looking forward to this! Good luck finishing it on time!

[Fuseblower]

October 25th already. Well, I'm making good progress with the sprites and animations. I only need a couple of BGs but there's no way I'm gonna finish this in time unless I truncate the story or simply post a demo (there's still the little issue of making the whole program).



Posting a demo seems lame to me and I don't want to truncate the story because I think the whole idea with the "Don't go there!" options is a good idea that I want to explore.

So, I'm not going to post it in time for the Yuri Jam but, as Tom said, "The important thing is that it gets finished at all". It also gives me time to make more branches out of the 720 possible ones and throw in some more CGs and animations.

[minyan]

October 25th already. Well, I'm making good progress with the sprites and animations. I only need a couple of BGs but there's no way I'm gonna finish this in time unless I truncate the story or simply post a demo (there's still the little issue of making the whole program).



Posting a demo seems lame to me and I don't want to truncate the story because I think the whole idea with the "Don't go there!" options is a good idea that I want to explore.

So, I'm not going to post it in time for the Yuri Jam but, as Tom said, "The important thing is that it gets finished at all". It also gives me time to make more branches out of the 720 possible ones and throw in some more CGs and animations.

I think it's better to keep the story how you want it to be, even if it does take more time. All the art looks fantastic, and you can't go wrong with more CGs/animations xD Looking forward to seeing this finished! I think my favorite is that witch at the bottom there. I especially like her skin tone.

[Mythee]

I seem to recall Yuri Jam last time had incomplete submissions (with no download option available yet) which became complete+available after the 'deadline' timestamp, so there's that option, too!

[Fuseblower]

Thanks both! All of the colors are still the CMYK colors. I'm beginning to like them although they are a bit heavy on the purples and too light on the browns.

The option to post an incomplete game is interesting. I'll look into it although I'm a bit hesitant about it. If it's finished way too late, is it really a Yuri Jam game then? It also feels a bit like cheating to the other games that did finish in time.

[Sunlit-Dreamer]

(Oh my goodness it's alive again, yes!)

I was pretty sad that it wasn't finished on time for nano (and vanished) so I'm pretty ecstatic to see you're recreating it. (Rebooting???) Sure, I'm not a yuri fan, but I'm still looking forward to reading it~

You may have changed the art style (farewell glorious butts from the nano, but now we have cars.) but it's still very fitting. Just love how you kept the comic book feeling to it.

Hoping that The Doomed Diner will make its official debut! Yuri Jam or not, I shall be patiently waiting for its completion.

[Fuseblower]

(Oh my goodness it's alive again, yes!)

I was pretty sad that it wasn't finished on time for nano (and vanished) so I'm pretty ecstatic to see you're recreating it. (Rebooting???) Sure, I'm not a yuri fan, but I'm still looking forward to reading it~

You may have changed the art style (farewell glorious butts from the nano, but now we have cars.) but it's still very fitting. Just love how you kept the comic book feeling to it.

Hoping that The Doomed Diner will make its official debut! Yuri Jam or not, I shall be patiently waiting for its completion.

Thank you. Yes, Mary's butt. I need to pay special attention to that. It doesn't read that well in the frontal views of the sprites but in the CGs and animations it needs to come more to the foreground.



The three girls have different body types. Helen has a bit of an androgynous look to her (flat chested, narrow hips), Lucy is the long-legged one and Mary is the cup G, wide-hipped one.

As for the yuri thing : I no longer need to have Mary and Lucy being lesbians since it's too late to add the VN to the Yuri Jam anyway.

To make the original Doomed Diner a Yuri VN, I just made Mary and Lucy lesbians but it's not a story about lesbians. It's a story about a haunted diner ran by girls who just happen to be lesbians. I added kissing and groping to the original NaNoReNo story but their sexual orientation doesn't play a central part of the story. I can take it out easily. Perhaps that would be the right thing to do.

[Sunlit-Dreamer]

Whether you decide to remove the yuri or keep it in I'll be perfectly all right with it. After all, it's the story I came for. =3 Although now I wonder if this will stay in the short wip thread or not since you mentioned you might add on more?

[Fuseblower]

Ah yes, the time thing. Well, I still got a month for that but a number of VNs in this forum took longer than 2 months to finish but were not moved to the regular forum. Tenkeiteki Tokyo was never moved although that one is now well over 2 months in development.

I guess it goes like this :

- Non-commercial : check!
- Under 1 hour playing time : check!
- Two months to develop : well... it was meant to