Robot Daycare [Slice of Life, Comedy, Horror] [NaNo2019] [Free]

[Syrale]

Summary:

Three perpetually bickering college students team up to create an AI robot,
but will their quest for a robotic child end up as a crash course in parenting or self-defense?

Discover the secret this group of "friends" is hiding and choose if you want to help them forgive and forget
...or fuel the conflict.

Play the game here: https://kigyo.itch.io/robot-daycare


Characters:


Lycoris - The self-proclaimed king of procrastinating is sarcastic and nerdy, but a very talented programmer.


Oleander - A tired and emotionally constipated engineering student. Surprisingly adores cute things.


Strelitzia - A psych major who's generally friendly and easygoing, but loves annoying his irritable friends.


Nano (name can be customized) - A freshly made robot. Just how will it behave?

Features:

18,000 words
2 wildly different endings
original soundtrack

Team:

Art, Programming, Writing: Kigyo
Writing: Functian, Honey
Music: aluminum



You can check out my Twitter for future updates!

Original WIP thread: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=54101

[JenneMK]

I really enjoyed playing this game! So far I've only gotten the good ending but it was so sweet I may have a hard time trying to go after the bad one.

I loved the dynamics between Nano and all of the guys. Watching them slowly become a family was really heartwarming. I was really shocked and sad when Nano tried to "cry" so you nailed that scene. I was also really surprised when Lilium returned, I did not expect that.

Congrats on finishing NaNoRenO! You guys did a great job. ^^

[Ermytarya]

Hi!
I finally finished playing this and i really liked your game! I have got the two endings. I like the fact that this game let the robot act like an actual robot!! <3
I like a lot the Bad Ending it was very enjoyable! She must fullfit her purpose of creation no matter what! Full free will does not exist!
Oh! yes~ The wonders of the AI and the headaches of what we are~

And i also love the GUI is so pretty and well designed, also i like how the characters have a "beep" when they talk it reminds me the old GBA games with this feature.

Kudos to all your team!

[andalusian]

writing:

* the morale of the story seems to be just: be nice, and receive niceness, be less nice and receive less niceness - which is a bit dull, half the VNs work based on this principle after all.
* i liked the sharp hop between genres/tones. bad ending was expected but still shocking, which means it was written well, i guess.
* the characters had nicely contrasting personalities. some of the dialogue towards the good end, when the 4th guy came back, seemed a bit unnatural - the "think more of yourself! dont bother caring about me!" part seems awkward and forced.

art:
* not my favorite style, but nicely consistent
* photo backgrounds fit fine, with the heavy effects

misc:
* no fullscreen? fullscreen is good!
* could use more music, at least for horrory scenes

[Syrale]

You can now play Robot Daycare on your Android device. Download it here!

I really enjoyed playing this game! So far I've only gotten the good ending but it was so sweet I may have a hard time trying to go after the bad one.

Thank you, I'm happy to hear that! I hope you will make it through the bad route safely, haha.

Hi!
I finally finished playing this and i really liked your game! I have got the two endings. I like the fact that this game let the robot act like an actual robot!! <3
Oh! yes~ The wonders of the AI and the headaches of what we are~

Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad Nano's personality felt believable, and that some of the philosophical themes seemed to have resonated with you!!

misc:
* no fullscreen? fullscreen is good!
* could use more music, at least for horrory scenes

Thanks for your feedback! I'll admit it doesn't have to most mindblowing message of all time, but we tried our best to create an interesting story within 30 days.
Concerning fullscreen... The images would look very blurry, so I didn't think players would want that. But I will consider it for future projects!
I hope you enjoyed it regardless!

[Zelan]

I played this back in April when all of the NaNo games had just come out and it was absolutely one of my favorites this year! The writing was fantastic, it was absolutely amazing to be how there could be two wildly different endings within a very short timeframe that both felt believable and realistic. The way that the AI and its learning was handled, in particular, was done so well and I really liked how the significant effect of the characters' influence on the AI was shown through the endings. The good ending was just the right amount of sweet and uplifting, where it didn't feel overly cheery given the heavy themes, but it left me feeling happy, satisfied, and hopeful. The horror ending was... suitably horrifying lmao. It was a little sad playing through it after knowing how much better the situation can turn out for the characters, but it was worth it to get the full experience of the game. (I also liked the "beep voice acting", as someone mentioned above!)

So yeah, I pretty much have nothing but praise for this game. It was super well executed (especially given the time constraints! color me impressed!) and left a palpable impact on me. The one single thing that I disliked was the lack of a fullscreen option, as someone mentioned above. I spent several minutes clicking around the menus trying to find it when I first booted up the game. I get that the images would have been blurry in fullscreen, but I find having my desktop visible behind a game I'm playing to be really distracting a lot of the time. Anyway, players tend to prefer the choice - if the blurriness bothers us to the extent that it ruins the game experience we'll just suck it up and put it back in windowed mode. ^_^ Regardless, it's a relatively minor complaint, and like I said earlier this was absolutely one of my favorite NaNo games (and I'll bet if I took the time to make a list it would fall within at least my top 20 if not top 10 VNs of all time) so congratulations and thank you so much for this game! (: