Convenience Wars [BxG][Thriller][Dark]

[cbx33]

Convenience Wars



Plot Synopsis:
Six months ago, Satoshi Kobayashi moved into a neighbourhood in Nagano to live with his aunt. He attends the local high school along with his best friend Yukito Kitsune and Yukito's sister, Sakura. Recently, Aunt Aiko decided that Satoshi needed to help out financially and set up an interview for him at a local convenience store. The store, Yuudai-Mart happens to be where Yukito and Sakura both work. Soon after, Satoshi is drafted into a secretive meeting between his fellow co-workers and members of a rivalling convenience store. "The Meet," as it is known, opens up Satoshi to a new world, where he begins to discover that there is more to the rivalry than he first thought. Now, Satoshi is forced to wonder whether his job at Yuudai-Mart was coincidence, convenience, or something deeper as events take a much darker turn.





Main Characters:
Satoshi Kobayashi
High School - Second Year

Satoshi is 17 and recently got a job at the Yuudai-Mart, where he works with Yukito and Sakura Kitsune. He's the protagonist in Convenience Wars and in all honesty, he's kind of a goof. He moved to live with his Aunt and since he eats....a lot....she made him get a part-time job to help out with the expenses. He enjoys gaming, his favourite being Dragon Kung-Fu Master 12. Strangely enough he's often misunderstood. That could have something to do with his best friend Yukito who is always getting him into trouble. Satoshi, often called Toshi by his close friends attends Kito-Oka High School along with most of the other workers at the Yuudai-Mart.

Sakura Kitsune
High School - Second Year
Sakura Kitsune is 17 and works at the Yuudai-Mart with her brother Yukito. She's a little shy and reserved and gets embarrassed about things rather easily. As she is such a model worker, her job is to greet people upon their entrance to the store and to show new employees around and make them feel at home. She'll always try to keep the peace in contrast with her colleague Rimi, who won't stand for any nonsense. Most of the other workers at the convenience store go to the same school as Sakura, Kito-Oka High School. Oh, and her favourite food is Taiyaki.

Yukito Kitsune
High School - Second Year

Yukito is 17 and attends Kito-Oka High School with his sister Sakura. Yukito also works at Yuudai-Mart, along with his sister Sakura, Rimi and Satoshi. He's a fun lovin' kinda guy, who's always up for a laugh, particularly if it's at Satoshi's expense. He's always embarrassing his sister Sakura, but doesn't dare cross Rimi. He's a pretty good drummer and like Satoshi loves playing video games. He's often asked to fix people's computers, something which annoys him to the core. Except if Risa asks him, as Yukito seems to harbour quite a soft spot for her.

Rimi Oshiro
High School - First Year
Rimi Oshiro is 15 and is in her first year of High School. She too attends the Kito-Oka High School. Rimi works at the Yuudai-Mart but she's not like the other workers. Rimi's father Mr. Oshiro owns the store and Rimi is in charge of the rosters and employees. She takes no nonsense at all and her first impressions of Satoshi are lasting. She's a little hot headed and incredibly competitive. Rimi also has to get things her own way. Seriously, if things don't go her way, everyone is in trouble. Thankfully, for the most part her requests are simple enough, even though they are sometimes a little 'out-there'. She's loyal to her friends and a lot of fun, just ask Satoshi.

Kazuko Urashima
High School - Second Year
Kazuko Urashima is 16 and attends Kito-Oka High School near. Kazuko works at the rivalling convenience store, Ryou-Store. She's bossy, rude and like Rimi, likes to get things her own way. Her first impression of Satoshi is not what you would call good. She finds him lazy, stupid and entirely unfit for "The Meet" that happens every Tuesday. Though she's bossy, Kazuko is a great leader. She looks after her friends and though Satoshi has yet to see it, she has a soft side that she keeps closely guarded.

Risa Minami
Works Full Time
Risa Minami is 22 and works at Yuudai-Mart, along with Yukito, Rimi, Sakura and Satoshi. She's had it tough, but that's only made her stronger. Risa is pretty well guarded and runs the store with precision and efficiency. The store owner Mr Oshiro, leaves the day to day running of everything to Risa. To Risa, working at the store is very important to her, and doing a good job is even more so. She has a soft spot for Satoshi, but that can surely only last for so long.

Featuring:
3 different main endings
Non-linear branching narrative
22 Characters
RPG-like Battle System

Progress:
Script: 20%
Plot: 80%
Sprites: 15%
BGs: 10%
Coding: 95%
GUI: 100%

Look'n'Feel Demo


Looking for feedback on all aspects, any suggestions/comments welcome. Specifically,
Does this sounds like the kind of game you would be interested in?
How do you like the artwork, both character and background?
Does the premise sound interesting to you?

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[shwippie]

It's an interesting idea. It's unexpected to have a dark theme centered around convenience stores! I'm curious what about them is dark (aside from the rivalry), but I'm guessing you're saving that reveal for later! The character and background art are both nice, but they are a bit mismatched. The backgrounds are atmospheric and fit the tone you're going for, but the characters look more like they belong in a comedy or slice-of-life story. It's not that one is better than the other, but they could be somewhat more cohesive? Others may disagree Looking forward to more about this!

[Katta]

I really like the video, though it also suggests comedy.
The bg is beautiful and I like it that gui and logo are so colorful, but they certainly don't look like dark thriller.

[cbx33]

I can see about the mismatch, and there is a little more work yet to do on the backgrounds. The video depicts the first scene and is more about showing the look and feel of the game, rather than being a fully fledged demo. If you've seen the series Angel Beats! that's the mesh of comedy and thriller/dark we are probably aiming for. The series has a lot of lighthearted moments but is very deep and has some severe trauma. This is the same with Convenience Wars!

Thanks for the comments and critiques, we will definitely be taking that on board. This IS our first visual novel after all. It's going to take us a while to finish, but we'll be posting regular updates here and always love to hear from people with regards to their likes/dislikes.

The actual "demo" is pretty much done from a scripting point of view and stands at around 45mins - 1hr in length. However we are still working on the art assets etc. I think the full demo gives a much better idea about what the game is like from a "content" PoV, but won't be available for a little while yet. Hold on to your hats people, this is gonna be one awesome ride!

[Tempus]

I remember coming across this project when I was looking for a way to make painted looking BGs with Blender. I don't really have a criticism for the classroom off the top of my head, but for the school exterior my thoughts are:

1. The sky colour looks off. This is the colour I used to make the sky too and it may be that you want it like this. If so, ignore me But I usually pull it a little closer to purple on the colour wheel now. Also, the sky is just one colour. I've found making the zenith saturated and the horizon slightly desaturated (i.e. closer to the center of the colour wheel) then blending between them looks good. Like this test I did. If you twist the camera angle weirdly (not parallel to the ground) you may need to check "real sky" so that the sky doesn't stay oriented to the camera. (I'm not sure if it even does to begin with XD don't quote me on this!)
2. On a bright summer's day like that the sky actually gives off a subtle blue light on things. So enabling "environment lighting" and setting it to "sky colour" on low energy will tinge everything in the scene with a slight blue colour. It'll also help unify the image in terms of colour.
3. This may be just me, but the tree leaves seem too dark. If you've got them set to receive (not cast) shadows, I'd turn that off. It'll add to your render time and since leaves are usually partly translucent they don't cast solid shadows usually. On the ground it'll look right though because the light has to pass through a whole bunch of leaves and hence gives a solid shadow.

That's all I can think of. I watched the video and it seemed cool. I liked the music ^.^

[cbx33]

Hey Tempus,

Yeh, the school exterior needs some work over the classroom, the classroom was very polished. Thanks for the tips on the leaves etc. I need to take a look at it with sbx34, our other CG artist. I was out recently taking some good sky/cloud photos, so I'll try a new texture when I can.

Thanks for the comments on the music, I don't think those are the final tracks, but they're pretty close in terms of musical content.

cbx33

[Evolution]

I just had to stop in and compliment you on the absolutely amazing UI! I do agree that it's a bit misleading depending on how dark this story gets, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it's SUPPOSED to lull you into a false sense of security!

Also, that open sequence with the video camera was brilliant. To be honest, I tend to prefer being introduced to characters naturally rather than via some sort of exposition, but it looked really cool. At least it was a bit different from the norm!

[Kikaharu]

is this coming a long or is it being on hiatus or dropped? Just curious.