Hi all! We're .... wait hold up we haven't figured the name part out yet --

 Ah yes okay

Hi all! We're XxShadowlordxX and we're super excited to participate in this season's jam!
Our game is a Visual Novel /  Restaurant Sim set in a space cafe. If that's not immediately exciting to you, read on. 

The main backstory is that once humans advanced and started to communicate outside of Earth, they became part of the intergalactic community.
A main citadel evolved where all species sort of cross-over and that is where a council with representatives of each of the four main factions/species can come and discuss the laws and rules between the worlds
Tegan wanted to create a cafe where all species could feel comfortable and so, in the safe neutral zone of the galaxy, set up shop.

Tegan, a human on the citadel who has always dreamed of making a café where all species can come in and get along. She wants to make things equal and fair for everybody.

Along the way you'll meet and get to know 8 unique characters, a few of which I'll introduce in the coming days. 

DAY 1: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 2: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection-connection?before=7#post-337715
DAY 3: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection-connection?before=8#post-337964
DAY 4: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 5: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
Day 6: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 7 & 8:  https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 9&10: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection... 
DAY 11: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 12: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 13: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...
DAY 14: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-winter-2018/topic/180457/devlog-confection...

OKay okay okay, this is gonna be pretty long for the first day so bear bare with me.

Alright so we kinda did a lot so if you're here for the pretty pictures ill get those out of the way and then you may go.
Our artists, Banrabbit and Iris were hard at work creating mockups for desserts and characters

I feel the need to break up the pictures with meaningful text but I cant think of anything so ....... 

You'll meet our first character tomorrow but for now all I can say is that he ........ rocks....... thats not even a pun on his name or anything he's just a real cool dude.

Our writer Tibby  got a solid feel for the personalities of the 8 characters and began working on the many (MANY) different endings you can achieve with the smattering of characters.

And after a long discussion and debatably too many strawpolls (though you cant have too many strawpolls)

we decided on MC's name and attributes ... i think

we did right guys

okay I think its Tegan. Yeah Tegan, who's snarky and fun, a little sarcastic but optimistic and kind.

We started talking about character races and design choices for them and Banrabbit drew up this design for an alien race: 

Banrabbit and Iris also chiseled down the desserts to a tentative 25 or 23

And finally, banrabbit the mighty un-resting boy made this:

And with that, he rested. 


Lastly but not leastly, our programmer began putting together the first build of the game, complete with lovely placeholders and everything:

And here's all the implemented features for those of you who are boring (jk love u)

CUMULATIVE STRAWPOLL COUNT:

6

making decisions is hard

And none of this would have gotten done had the team not shared cat and dog photos in our brainstorming channel parody channel called the Dog Cafe .... what a concept

Thanks all for reading and I'll see you tomorrow with an update on the music and audio in the game ... hopefully

-Myserval <3

oh no oh no oh no I missed it ... sorta 
this is day 2!

As promised, I'll be introducing new characters along the way, starting with this one. Gaius!

Well, Gaius and his bird companion, Emily. Gaius is a musician at heart and an earth elemental in body. Here's how Tibby describes him:

Flirty, somewhat egotistical, mischievous but nonchalant

Couldn't have said it better myself. Cause I didn't say it. But still.
Gaius is a master shredder and an amazing flirt. 

Guy's a free spirit, and doesn't care about much, but unfortunately, the citadel isn't so free. His requests to have a concert at the citadel keep getting ignored and his music keeps not appearing in various shops around.

His bird Emily, however, isn't quite as big a fan of rocking out as he is. But she still loves him. But I don't wanna spoil too much else!

In other news, we all began planning out what we could do in 2 weeks, in particular cutting back on the scale of dialogue. We're gonna flesh out two characters for the Jam version, and plan on fleshing out the rest of them after the jam is completed. But I'll still be introducing the rest of them over time cause it's still fun! 
ONWARDS!

The audio team (Tibby and Myserval) have been hard at work on themes for characters. Here you can find a sound test for some of the early theme sketches.
https://clyp.it/uj33qidq?token=a0a44972ed96392ff2f3fd481a840d5d

And then in programming, 

worked on clock and scheduling code, because I got stuck on a dumb edge case I didn't have time to write up example data and plug it into the UI, but a clock/time management system is there and works and I'll make it playable in the morning.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'll have more for you day 3~!

Let's start right off the bat with some music! Myserval whipped up a couple test themes to get a feel for how the music in the game should sound. 
Here's a mischievous one: https://clyp.it/1fjwwhxz?token=0c2fcaded34f30f0b373cc33ce2bae60
And here's one for the tutorial: https://clyp.it/bujhs1rp?token=da3ff8d720a496f56a9110755893513b

Tibby began work on another character's theme (whom you'll meet tomorrow) and started sourcing inspiration tracks for characters. 

Honestly I thought that'd be a lot more interesting but hey now you've got cool music to listen to while I talk about the next stuff!

Next stuff of course being art - duh i mean of course its art what else

Banrabbit created this for the kitchen layout - look at it! It's so pretty!

Speaking of the kitchen, we started talking about how interactive the cooking elements should be, and whether or not the interactions are worth creating more assets for. To start off with, it's a good idea to add some sort of intractability and chance of failure. Oh! I'm realizing now that I haven't touched at all on that yet so allow me to [copy and paste from what our programmer wrote up]. This would be a good time to start playing that tutorial music

(All numbers are fudged for the sake of example)

You have a 6 hour shift from 2pm to 8pm

When you start you see a clock in the corner it only advances when certain actions are taken:

• Taking someone’s order (5 minutes)

• Preparing food (10 minutes)

• Having a story conversation with someone (20 minutes)

Serving food consumes no time

People come in at different times of day and will have one of 3 possible indicators over their head to reflect their state

•  means they want your attention, if it’s yellow it’s to order food, if it’s red it’s because they have an urgent conversation

•  means they’re waiting on you to serve food they ordered

•  means they are thinking/eating/content, they’re not actively trying to get your attention but you can try talking to them anyways and you might get a story conversation

TL;DR: Actions take time and you're gonna have to balance them if you wanna ever have a chance at a connection.

Whew okay anyways we talked about having a mini game to play whenever you make a recipe, which determines how well you cook whatever you were trying to cook. Like, a candy crush sort of game with all of the ingredients you'll need, or similar scenarios.

Well there weren't any dogs either today which was somewhat disappointing but we're all working on the game so no dog cafe today! But tomorrow you'll be seeing the next character (one of the mainline ones) and hopefully soon you'll be able to play it a bit!

I think we're at 8 strawpolls now

Thanks!

ALllllright  ..... DAY 4!

We're really starting to make some solid progress! Today, quite a bit got done (for a weekday of course) - and we'll start with today's character; Heather.

To quote our character design document, 

She...is a mythic bitch. Sassy, snarky, quick-witted and ‘opinionated’

She's a great political leader running for office in the election .... but she's sorta racist. Erm, speciesist? ...... She has some old-fashioned opinions towards other species. Here's the conversational art for her (animated, too; oooooh!):

And here's her counter sprite, created by Banrabbit:

That's how she'll look sitting at the counter, more or less. She'll have multiple emotion states depending on how she's feeling. 

Speaking of the counter, here's Iris's finalized backgrounds for the counter and for the kitchen screens.

Pretty sweet, huh? 

Alright next up, audio. 

Myserval took to odd sound tactics (aka foley) to produce some food and counter sounds. M&Ms, sprinkles, plates and breads all went into the sound blender and came out sounding pretty convincing. Here's all of the final sounds, back to back in less than 30 seconds: 

http://clyp.it/e00rh4hb?token=cfb8fb2e20e32a077764cf65311bfda2

Oh, and foaming handsoap too, for some of the creamy sorts of sounds.

Our programmer made some headway on planning out the cooking mechanic. The recipe system  is already in the build of the game, so whatever we decide on in regards to a mini game should fit within that system. Also, we'll have to work on how exactly the whole mini game fits in in the context of the game, so it's not just some tacked-on time filler. 
That being said, though, we're planning on the prep method changing the mechanics of the mini game a bit, like the fridge vs a shaker.

Anyways, thanks as always for reading and I hope to see you here again tomorrow for another weekday

-Myserval 

Today was a bit quieter but nonetheless: 

Let's kick today off by looking at where the build of the game is at. 

It's crazy what a little art and a font change can do, huh? The clock functionality is in as you can see in the top right corner, and I'll be posting videos of this in action as we get closer to a finished product.

The kitchen features tabs for keeping track of the orders from customers in the top left corner.

As Iris and Banrabbit begin to create UI elements, they'll be added to the build.

Iris and Banrabbit began working on the second mainline character, who you'll see soon enough ;) I can tease a bit though; she's not human.

Tibby created and Myserval transcribed into the computer the theme for that same second character, which you'll also hear soon enough ;)

Myserval worked on some UI sfx, including page turns, saving, and various fanfare.

Tibby finished day one dialogue for Heather, our first mainline character.

Sweetheart, I know you must be starstruck but try to keep it together. Surely you recognise me? Heather Brawen, politician. Remember - Branwen can win.

I'll refrain from posting the whole thing in here so you can read it for yourself when you play the game, but trust me, it's great! She also worked on day one for that second character ... I really should just introduce her ... don't get too blue though!

We're definitely getting to the part where I've gotta be careful what I show, but today I just genuinely don't have much to show you guys other than to just say "X did this, Y did that" so hopefully you weren't looking forward to anything huge!

also no dog. Yeah I know, I'm disappointed too

Thanks and I'll see ya tomorrow!

-Myserval

Alright I may not be able to post anything big tomorrow so today's gonna be a pretty big one(for a wednesday)! Prepare your butts!

OKay okay okay so I'm gonna finally show you guys the second mainline character (at almost halfway through yeah ... okay)

Ready?

Its ....

Theo! Yes, its two girls and yes, the main character is a girl. shh there'll be boys in the full game. But for now these two characters pose the most interesting and variable writing styles we'd like to shoot for in the finished game, so we thought they'd be fitting for the demo. Anyways, 

Theo is an Aerian fashion designer. Well, her full name is Theokleia Lycholos, but she goes by Theo. 

Theo is gentle, level-headed and mature but clever and quick-thinking, with a mischievous and rebellious streak

Here's some concept art from way back at the beginning of the process for Theo. 

So I don't wanna show you her final design yet so there can at least be a little dramatic tension, so let's take a bit of a detour, to the audio department!
Here's that theme from yesterday for Theo:

 https://clyp.it/fdmgr1z3?token=5bf885deefc0b7e0ee55d8704f01dfcf

It's pretty unfinished but that's generally sortof the sound it could maybe sound like ... or it'll get scrapped all together. Who knows?? Game Jams! (aka tibby hasn't even heard this version yet... time zones!)

In writing, Tibby went through and finished day one for Theo, and started day two for heather. Iris went back through and provided script editing and that means that the writing for day one is just about finished! 

Iris then made a starry background for the cafe.

Okay enough stalling! Here's what Theo looks like! (hopefully you're playing her theme in the background here we go!)

Theo has always been a gentle soul and dislikes her people's idea that humans are impure or not worthy of her designs. She fell in love with a human who showed a great interest in her designs but her own people won't accept it and forced her out.

And once again quoting Tibby's backstory document (The pun was too good to leave this one out!)

MC should save these star-crossed (literally) lovers and preach acceptance!

Let's take a look at some of the concepts that brought us to theo:

So from the beginning we wanted Aerians to have two sets of arms. You even saw in the first day's log if you were looking close enough that there was an Aerian concept sketch. IDK if Iris even wants me showing that one so if you didn't, iris, oops

We also had a bit of trouble deciding what the coat should be. We thought that the lepoardprint looked just a bit too primitive for the Aerian race, so we went with a sort of ghost-y transparent overcoat.

Also, Iris began working on other generic characters to fill the other seats so that the whole restaurant sim part becomes more of a real portion of the game. 

That's what I can tease for now, but tomorrow, there'll be more of em!

Thanks again for reading! We're almost halfway there, hope you all are holdin' up well! take frequent breaks and stuff and I'll see you around!

-Myserval