There is a tumblr for the game, located at thepointlessgame.tumblr.com for more consistent updates!
This was originally 'Fenbrook', but since then has been revamped to make it more awesome.
Putting everything together, this is SO MUCH MORE than just a dating sim. It's getting to be more like a random adventure game with dating sim elements in it. And it should be illegal to have as much fun with it as I'm having o_____o
This is the game I want to play. It has all the stuff that I wish all games had: Coherent storylines, quirky characters, a ton of totally kickass things to do, more than just two or three people to woo, very GLBTQ friendly, with a side of geek and the supernatural.
I'm doing art and story, and my fiance is doing the programming
:SPECIAL FEATURES:
In the main town of Fenbrook, you don't just get a map to click on various areas and immediately transported... you get to walk to streets. If you get to the bus station, you can travel to different towns as well, but I think you can only walk the streets in Fenbrook, so the other towns with just have the map.
The base for the playing character was drawn in such a way that it is genderless: So you can be a boy or a girl, your skin can be white, black, blue, green (there are a few alternatives!) and wear whatever clothes/hairstyle you’d like. And you can decorate your apartment, and upgrade stuff.
You can get clothes at the mall, and go to the Salon to change your hairstyle, and that sort of thing.
In your apartment building's foyer, you recieve snail mail. Literally: You have a mailbox in your apartment building you can check. And you get mail from your mom. She's sends you money! And care packages! You also will probably get notices there from the town and school telling you about upcoming events, and junk mail like store coupons.
There are seasonal events where you can get special items
As well as contests with totally awesome prizes.Achievments! There will be achievements.
It's free to play, but you can donate and get in-game money. You'll never have to donate to unlock new areas, or anything like that, donators and non-donators all have access to the same areas. (I hate it when online games do that
). However, there will be special donator items you can get, to make your avatar look pretty and there is a totally cool set of "Pigs with Clothes" Donator items that reset your stats to "0".There will be a lot of super-secret items and events for you to stumble upon as well! I'm also a huge fandom geek, so there will probably be a ton of sneaky references to Supernatural, Sherlock, Doctor Who, My Little Pony, Avengers, Gravity Falls, etc.
: DATEABLE CHARACTERS:
There are a LOT of them, both male and female. I've redesigned them (again, hopefully for the last time)! Benjamin Stroud::
He's the highest quality fellow that I've done so far
Almost everyone is dateable, male and female.
: SPECIAL ITEMS :
There are cards you can collect throughout the game which feature the characters. There will also be limited edition holiday cards.
: GAMEPLAY :
You have an item inventory and personality stats on a sliding scale. Like, one stat would be like a sliding scale from "Kind" to "Mean", basically your Good to Evil scale. And you start at "0" and as you go, decisions you make will move you: "+10 to Mean" and "+5 to Kind", which would leave you at a +5 to Mean.
Your stats effect how well people like you. Elian is fond of people who are kind, so if your stats are in Kind side of the sliding scale and you talk to him and give an answer that's a +5 to Kind, then you will also get a +5 to Elian liking you. But it's a double edged sword. If your stats are on the Mean side of the scale and you reply with an answer that gives you a +5 to Mean, then you recieve a -5 to him liking you. If your stats are in the Kind and you answer something that give you a +5 to mean, then you only get a -2 to him liking you. Alternatively, if your stats are in the Mean and you answer a +5 to kind, then you get a +2 to him liking you.
YAY GAME MECHANICS?
There are several choices and ways to affect your stats throughout the game.
Here's a mock-up I did of Elian hanging outside of your apartment door. This isn't an actual written scene in the game, but it might be.
And here's a mock-up of one of many sketch pages you find, during an event:
:THE WRITING:
Since I'm actually a writer in real life, I'm having a ball with this.
- FREE TACO COUPON!
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Oct 23, 2012: Finished the mainscreen UI design! YAY NARWHAL! Working on background stuff! In the UI, the black space is where the game part will go, where you move around areas and stuff. The little person to the right, is the playing character! I dressed it up in a face, hair and clothes for your benefit, so it wouldn't be just a blank slate!
Oct. 26, 2012:
Working on more GUI. Got the mail system done, working on the Love You Long Time Meter. My darling fiance started the coding today, and its going awesome. Seven different characters completed so far (in three outfits: naked, casual, formal) and nine backgrounds. YAY. Lots of new ideas for story, in-game play, and mini-games. Stay tuned for the Sheepasaurus Rex designs!
Oct. 27, 2012:
Finished most of the GUI - just a few left for the Love you Long Time Meter, working on writing out plots and character profiles. And then back to creating more characters, and college classes. Nicky is doing coding in HTML, PHP and JQuery. He got most of the HTL part done yesturday and a lot of swearing to accompany the JQuery. More swearing to come today!
Nov. 6, 2012
ELF SWAG.
Dec. 29th, 2012
A little lag there, over the holidays (I have a husband and two little boys so holiday swag hits this household full force). At the moment, Pointless has some really cool easter egg content, a few new characters and I've been working on the background art and developing some features (such as embedded flash mini-games).
Jan 30th, 2013
33% of coding completed. I've created and designed more player outfits (including themed ones), and some neat in-game swag. The GUI is about 90% done, now. My digital painting skills have gotten wicked better.
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Feb 25th, 2013
Coding is almost good to the point where I can do a test play of a scene! I'm excited like you would not believe.
I've decided to update some of the background art. It might take a little longer, but it will look 10x better, and I want it to be the best it can possibly be.
Feb 28th, 2013
This is going really well. Almost done all the Park backgrounds (There are 13 in total). I'm going to sweep through and do all the backgrounds lineart and then color them in a little later. I just really need to get their designs out of the way. They do look really cool though, with just the lineart.
June 21st, 2013
Still working on this! All the immediate locations are completed, which is nice. But I'm better at art now, so I'll probably be slowly redrawing it all when I get a spare moment xD Coding for some of the in-game computer and email functions is complete, as well as the inventory system. Some of the shops are being worked on as well. Almost all GUI is completed. A bunch of the writing, and items are completed. There are pets! (Tacosaur, Corned Beefadon and Pizzasaurus Rex are completed, to name a few). A lot of game mechanics have been figured out as well.
We have a Tumblr, for updates: http://thepointlessgame.tumblr.com/
