While I'm waiting for progress on my J.P. game to get sorted, I started up another idea of mine. It's pretty simple as far as story. I wanted to write up some fluffy slice of life and to work on my technical skills in the process. I've been doing pretty well by myself, but I always have more fun with a team. So here I am.
I'm not a coder or an artist, as you can probably tell from the screencaps I'm gonna toss in from time to time. While I can do very basic things (parrot established code and work photoshop filters) anything complicated is really beyond me. That's okay for this sort of project since I want it to be simple and light hearted, but I have higher standards than my capabilities. I'd love to have a mini-game or two in it (right now it has solitaire since that's available premade) and some sprite art. So far there are only five established characters with only four of those requiring at least a waist high sprite.
Anyway, let me get to the good part.
The Plot
Mary Carol just drove six hours to check on a man she's never actually met. She knew it was crazy, but she'd also known her online friend for three years and two months ago he just dropped off the face of the Internet. She may have never seen his face or heard his voice, but she was closer to him than anyone in her real life. So she rented a hotel and went to the return address on a package he'd sent her once. However, it turns out that more than one guy could have sent her that package, and Mary can't bring herself to tell them why she's actually there. So she lies that she's just moved into one of the apartments in their complex and gets to know them while asking herself why she never just went back home. Pretty soon she realizes it's because she's in love with her online friend. But which guy is he? Will he be like the guy she fell for online? Or will she fall for someone else while she tries to find out?
The Characters
Mary Carol
Mary is really her only obstacle when it comes to solving this mystery. She's a socially awkward bundle of nerves who doesn't often understand her own feelings. This whole experience will certainly help her grow as a person, but which direction that is depends on which guy she ends up falling for.
Brian Reed
Brian is a pretty busy and serious guy. He either doesn't pick up on social cues or decides to ignore them most of the time. He isn't an asshole, really, just tired since he spends most of his time either at work as a surgical assistant or writing articles for a medical magazine. He also happens to be a pretty big video game fan, playing them pretty much being his only form of recreation. Brian is really the easiest one for Mary to get along with.
Lewis Reed
Lewis is a very friendly and happy go-lucky guy. He lives next door to his brother Brian and is a social butterfly. He loves to go out and just be around people. Something that Mary is just not at all familiar or comfortable with, but the guy is just so nice and friendly that she finds herself drawn to him.
Jack Diamond
Jack was the cute one of the newly broken up boy band House of Cards. He's started to strike it out solo, but is finding that being a musician is hard work when you don't have everything manufactured for you. Jack isn't entirely certain what his personality is outside of the one he'd been forced to project since he was a teenager, but Mary can help him figure it out.
Dominic De Luca
Dom is a mysterious guy. He lives in the apartment complex, but isn't really connected to the other guys outside of helping out Mary when she needs to keep up her lie about living there. He's a self proclaimed romantic, but Mary suspects that it isn't his only reason for helping out a total stranger like her. It doesn't help matters when she finds out he's a con-man.
The story is still pretty vague as I'm at the beginning of really developing it. Still, it'd probably help if I gave you at least a sample of the writing so far. So here you go.
Code: Select all
label start:
scene bluedoor with fade
play music "mus/tam-n06loop-mary.ogg" fadeout 0.5 fadein 0.5
play nature "sfx/158656__primeval-polypod__suburban-ambience.ogg"fadeout 0.5 fadein 0.5
"It didn't really occur to me how crazy, creepy, stalkery this all was until my finger hovered over the door buzzer."
"I had just driven for six hours to check on someone I'd never actually met in person."
"It wasn't too bad though, right? I mean, I'd been talking to TemporalChaos for three years!"
"Sure it was through e-mails, games, and instant messages, but we talked to each other about things we could never share with RL people."
"I may have never seen his face, or heard his voice, but I knew him, and I knew he had to be in trouble."
"Why else would he have just disappeared for two months?"
"And I wasn't the only one to notice, all of our other online friends were wondering what happened to him too."
"They were starting to joke that maybe he was dead."
"That's probably what put this crazy notion into my head."
"He'd sent me a fun puzzle toy from his trip to Japan this year, and I'd kept the box mostly due to being too lazy to break it down and take it all the way to the commons building just to put it in the recycle bin."
"Because he'd waited until he got home to mail it to me, it had his return address on it."
"If not for that I wouldn't have had any idea where he lived. Tempy was really paranoid about strangers being able to see his RL info."
"Not that I was a stranger."
"At least, I didn't feel like one."
scene driveway with noisedissolve
"My eyes lifted from the doorbell and I turned around. This was a terrible idea. Tempy was probably fine. He would think I was crazy."
"I was crazy."
"I'd just blown through six hours worth of gas."
"I'd decided to burn all of my sick days and rented a hotel room a block from here."
"And I didn't know what Tempy looked or sounded like. If he answered the door right now I wouldn't even know if it was him."
"This is the single stupidest most impulsive thing I have ever done."
"And I needed to just go back to my car and go home before-"
"My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an opening door."
scene bluedoor with noisedissolve
show b
"I turned around and my mind rushed for an explanation that didn't make me look like I was insane."
"The face that greeted my stunned stare was a blank one."
mc "H-hi. Hi there."
"I cleared my throat and scrambled for the right words."
"???" "Can I help you?"
mc "I. Um."
"My eyes flickered around the neighborhood until I spotted a moving van. Then I constructed my paper thin lie."
mc "I just moved in. I thought I'd come and meet my neighbors."
"???" "Uh, okay."
"He blinked at me after that. I should take my chance now and just leave before-"
show l at right with noisedissolve
"???" "Hey, who's at the door?"
"A man in glasses showed up. Wait, did Tempy ever mention a roommate? Actually, they look pretty similar. Maybe they're related."
"???" "She just moved in."
"When he gestured at the moving van my skin chilled. Of course he'd think I lived there. I looked right at it."
mc "I. Wanted to meet the neighbors."
"I flashed a nervous smile and intended to add \"but I need to leave.\" or something like that. Unfortunately this other guy was way friendlier than the one that answered the door."
"???" "Oh yeah? Well come on in then!"
"Still steeping in my stun, I went inside."
scene bluelivingroom with noisedissolve
stop nature
play music "mus/tam-n12loop-lewis.ogg" fadeout 0.5 fadein 0.5
show l
show b at right
"The living room was pretty clean. Cleaner than my place, actually. I usually neglected putting up my stuff when I could just toss it somewhere and get online."
"The only person it really bothered was my mom, but she only came by once a month at best, so I usually just did a quick pick up the day before she'd come to visit me."
hide b with moveoutright
"The guy who answered the door went to another room without a word to me."
"I couldn't really blame him though. I mean, I was a total stranger, after all."
"???" "You want something to drink?"
"When I turned my gaze from the door the first stranger walked into and looked the second stranger in the eyes, his eyes glanced over at the door as well."
"???" "Brian works nights."
"He explained this with an apologetic smile."
mc "Oh, I guess I woke him up then."
"Did Tempy ever mention working the night shift? I remember him talking about how demanding his job was, but he was never very specific about it."
"???" "Oh! I'm Lewis!"
"Lewis extended a hand for me to shake. I took it after some pause. I was always so slow when it came to social niceties."
mc "Hi, Lewis. I'm Mary."
l "Did you want anything to drink, Mary?"
mc "Oh. Um. Maybe?"
"I need to calm down or this guy might think something is wrong with me."
"Well, something {i}is{/i} wrong with me. Why haven't I left yet?"
"Lewis laughed. Either he found my nerves charming, or he laughed in awkward situations."
l "I'll get you some juice."
hide l with easeoutright
"Why {i}was{/i} I still here? I wasn't being forced against my will, and if I waited too long I'd be getting home at a really ungodly hour."
"Did I want to stay? Did I, maybe, want to finally meet Tempy?"
"I think I did."
"I mean. I've known him for three years. We'd always talked about meeting at a con or something one day."
"And, besides, I came here for a reason. I wanted to know why he'd just disappeared."
"Maybe I should just be upfront and tell Lewis why I'm really here."
show l with easeinright
"Lewis came back in with a glass of something purple and smiled as he handed it to me."
"Now was the time to say it."
"I took the glass."
mc "Thanks."
"Instead of explaining I took a long drink from it. Grape juice. Not really my favorite."
"I turned to Lewis, gave him a good smile, and totally intended on explaining everything to him."
"And nothing happened."
"I just stared at him with a creepy smile on my face."
"Lewis laughed again."
"Well at least he seemed okay with the bundle of awkwardness that was me, and there was something about his easygoing nature that made me relax a little."
l "So what made you want to move to Honeysuckle? I mean, our only famous export is Jack Diamond."
"I paused on the name. I felt like I should know who that was, but it took me a moment to recall."
"Lewis laughed some more."
l "I guess you aren't a groupie, huh?"
mc "Uh. Oh, he's in that band. House of Cards."
"I sipped on the grape juice again. I think it was tasting worse each time I drank it, but so long as it was in my hands I'd keep slowly draining the glass."
l "He was, yeah. They broke up about two months ago though. He went solo."
mc "Oh yeah?"
"While I was happy we were focusing more on mindless chatter and less on my obvious lie, I wasn't very knowledgeable about pop rock bands."
"I thought about changing the subject over to something I knew, but the kind of video games I liked were very niche and judging by the total lack of comics on the bookshelf in the corner, he'd probably be lost if I brought up the new Kathmandu reboot."
"Besides all that, he seemed to really want to talk about Jack Diamond."
l "He's got the strongest personality of the group, but I don't know if he has the charisma to carry a solo career."
"I nodded and then immediately regretted drinking more juice."
"Lewis gestured for me to sit on the couch, which I did, and then I listened to him talk."
"He chatted the gambit from pop music to the psychological ramifications of forced public personalities."
"I didn't put in much of an opinion on the matter, but I didn't need to. In fact, when I realized I wasn't even needed for the conversion, I could finally relax."
"Lewis was pretty fascinating to listen to, he was a really smart guy and he was very easy to look at."
"I started to wonder if I was talking to Tempy. He seemed to share a lot of Tempy's opinions on psychology, but I couldn't remember a single time he ever brought up pop music."
"In fact, as far as I knew, Tempy only really listened to video game soundtracks."
l "Wow, it's getting really late."
"Lewis looked out the opened blinds to see the sun was setting."
"Despite having finished my glass, I hadn't really noticed that much time passing."
"It was way too late for me to drive home now. I'd need to go to that hotel room I rented."
"I may as well. I already paid for the whole week."
"I stood up and Lewis stood with me."
l "I gotta get Brian up for work. It was really great meeting you, Mary."
"I smiled, and it didn't feel awkward either."
mc "Yeah. I had a nice time."
l "Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?"
mc "Tomorrow?"
l "Yeah! Jack Diamond's doing a local show and I want to go see him. You should come too."
mc "Okay."
"I agreed on that without even thinking about it."
"But that might be a good thing. Maybe I could bring up the nerve to explain to Lewis why I was actually here after I spent more time with him."
l "Brain's going too. So you'll get to meet him when he's not all grumpy and groggy."
"Lewis laughed as I walked to the front door."
mc "Sounds great."
"I offered him my own laugh, and it didn't even sound super nervous."
"After some pleasant good-bye's I made my way out and to the car."