Title
Yumemoire
Literary Genre
Gothic Science Fiction / Dreampunk
Game Genre: Varies
* Interactive Fiction / Roguelite ( Prototyping )
* Visual Novel / Active Time Strategy / Adult Language Learning
Target Audience:
Fans of Shadow Hearts and Grandia.
Cross Over Potential:
Dark Cloud and Kingdom Hearts, weirdly RPG Maker.
Unique Selling Point
Gothic Atmosphere with Pet Farming and Language Learning
Language Learning
Meant to help with learning French and Japanese for gamedev students working in French and Japanese speaking companies.
DESIGN
Whom you play as: You play as a mad
scientist in a old laboratory exploring the ruins of old settlement,
including Japanese Dojos and French fortresses. Some of these involve
interacting with townsfolk to do chores that will pay money to help
raise your spider pet, for which you upgrade rather than conventional
leveling and grinding.
Every now and then you'll also be turned
into a zombie, from which you will need to collects and cursed currency
in order to maintain zombie versions of your default spider pig pet.
This means that there is no traditional death in this game, rather
different flow challenging based on whether you are currently human or
zombie. With the ability to either self-cremate or consume your own
flesh to maintain your current zombie state, which can make it harder to
become human again.
Intended Feeling: The player, rather
than traditional fear, is suppose to be something closer to anxiety and
isolation, taking inspiration from games like Shadow Hearts and Silent
Hill.
Style
Right now the current style is ASCII or
text-based graphics, while I learn how to develop the systems for a
game. Although eventually I'm wanting to switch to a darker anime and
manga look, but with inspiration from Gothic fiction like Mary Shelly's
Frankenstein. This includes backgrounds done in a Gouache like style
that blends Oil painting and traditional Gouache.
I'm wanting to pursue a limited color
palette, but in the film making sense. The majority of the game will be
cyanotype or sepia tone type monochromatic, with important people or key
objects in a blood red, lime green, dark blue indigo. I prefer
cinematic captions over traditional graphic novel captioning.
Software Used
Currently Ruby, XML, Prolog, and other
things to build the main engine. But eventually for the tiles version, I
may switch to using Gosu or Renpy.
Weighing the potential for retro game development at a later point, specifically for Dreamcast and maybe Super Famicom.
DEVELOPING
"Smart" Dungeon Generation that goes beyond Procedural.
Extending the basic Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanics.
Fleshing out hangman into its own detail system.