Note: I am hoping to develop this game for Yuri Game Jam '17, which starts next month.
Premise
The story of a mad scientist, and her struggles to find love.
Our setting: a normal-looking house in a normal-looking neighborhood. In its basement lies a very abnormal laboratory, where Lavinia von Adeline concocts her scientific experiments and devises her strange patented technologies. Her latest experiment? An artificial intelligence. But not just any AI. Lavinia is finally sick of being alone, and decided to put her formidable mind to the task of building herself the perfect girlfriend.
You, the player, will aid her in this task.
Plot
We follow Lavinia through her days and nights as she tries to balance life and work, spending her nights in the laboratory with her experiments, and her days trying to appear as normal as possible. Along the way we meet some of her friends and neighbors, friendly or obstructive. Success will allow Lavinia to create the girlfriend of her dreams, but first she needs to figure out what it is that she actually wants from her.
On her side is her own formidable intelligence, a loyal hardware store employee, and a very friendly barista at her favorite coffee shop. Opposing her are her nosy next-door neighbor, her overbearing mother, and an ex-girlfriend whom she never quite got over.
Characters
Lavinia von Adeline - main character
Lavinia is brilliant but socially awkward. Lavinia is confident in her scientific abilities, but as soon as she steps outside of her lab she is plagued by insecurities, and her discomfort makes her lash out in anger. Naturally this has done wonders for her social and love life.
Jenny Jones - mythological ex
An old ex-girlfriend from their shared university days. Jenny has found a more traditionally successful career path in the sciences, but her love life is plagued by poor decisions. She last saw Lavinia during their final break-up, when she told her that she's "just not girlfriend material, I guess".
Désirée - friendly barista
Désirée works at Lavinia's favorite bakery/coffee shop, where she often escapes to self-medicate with heavily-frosted cupcakes. She works in the service industry, so she's friendly to everyone, even Lavinia.
Professor Eugenia - overbearing mother
A world-renowned researcher in her field, Eugenia had always held high hopes for her brilliant only daughter. She doesn't mean to meddle, but she can't help but worry. Above all, she just wants her daughter to be happy, in love, and tenured.
Ms. Margaret a.k.a. Peggy - nosy neighbor
Peggy lives in the house next-door to Lavinia. She is retired, and either a widow or a divorcee, and at any rate has plenty of time to snoop into her neighbors' personal affairs.
Kasper - hardware store employee
Kasper is the cashier and clerk of his father's hardware store, where Lavinia frequently shops for parts for her many inventions. Mercifully, he had the good sense to stop hitting on her every time she came to the shop, when he found out she just doesn't lean that way. He does know his way around the shop, though, and will never hesitate to special order anything for Lavinia, provided it doesn't land him and his dad on some sort of watch list.
Girlfriend Models
Model 1 - Blueberry
Made of sugar and spice and other nursery rhymes, Blueberry is sweet, gentle and adoring. Her model is defined by fawning devotion to her creator and girlfriend.
Model 2 - Georgiana
A highly polished model built to keep up with her creator's intellectual whims, she has a voracious curiosity for all things scientific. Defined by her refined taste and build around a sophisticated, perfectly logical mind.
Model 3 - Raven
Mysterious and slightly ethereal, she was pieced together from out of context quotes taken from works of classic literature and mythology. Her main motif is her independence and changeability, and she is designed to maintain her creator's high level of interest by her unpredictable nature.
Gameplay
The course of the story is determined by the player's choices. As Lavinia, you can respond to events however you see fit, building some relationships and tearing down others, all while working on your experiment as well. Building your model girlfriend will take up most of the course of the game, and the final result will depend entirely on your choices as a player.
Each day is divided into a number of time slots, where different activities will be available to you based on the time of day, as well as other factors. Building your robot goes through several phases, interspersed with the need to interact with your fellow humans. These human interactions can serve to build your external relationships, if you wish to do so. Alternatively, you can use them to refine the design of your experiment.
Now and then, your schedule will be interrupted by an unexpected event. How you respond to these interruptions can affect the course of your experiment, but the final outcome is up to you, the player.
Questions
- What do you think of the basic premise of the game? Do you find it interesting, funny, romantic?
- How do you feel about Lavinia as an MC? Is she likable, relatable, interesting?
- Would you be happy to see her succeed in her experiment?
- Which of the regular NPCs do you find most interesting? Which do you like best and least?
- Do any of the Girlfriend models appeal to you as love interests?
- Would you be interested in pursuing the Girlfriend models as love interests, or do you prefer one or more of the regular NPCs to also be romance options?
- What would you consider a good end to the game? How about a bad end?
- Do you prefer to be absolutely sure which Girlfriend model you're building from the start, or to discover it through various choices throughout the game?
- What do you think of the gameplay aspect? Does it sound interesting, or like it would get in the way of the story?
- Any other questions or comments?