Game Description

Emotions: A Day In A Life is a light-hearted, 2D-sidescrolling game with heavy focus on visual novel-like dialogue. As the player, you take control of the protagonist Jay, as Jay goes about a potentially not-so-regular day in a modern, medium sized town. You get to meet four characters and choose an emotion to respond to what those characters are saying. The emotion you choose determines how the other character reacts. With six emotions to choose in interactions with every character, there are several ways to play, and also several endings. With the game having almost fifty endings, almost no playthrough will be like another. Since it takes about 5-10 minutes to play through one ending, getting several endings in a row is not especially time consuming. If you like short, dialogue-based games, Emotions: A Day In A Life might be for you!

Trailer

Images

Image 1: The main character, Jay's, outdoor outfit

Image 2: The main character, Jay's, indoor outfit

Image 3: Terry, the bus driver

Image 4: Alice, the high school friend

Image 5: Susie, the cafe owner

Image 6: Patrick, the customer

Image 7: An example of angry facial expressions

Image 8: An example of sad facial expressions

Image 9: The main character, Jay's, outdoor sprite

Image 10: Screenshot of a neutral conversation with Alice where you get to pick an emotion

Image 11: Screenshot of a frightened conversation with Patrick

Image 12: Screenshot of a sad conversation with Terry

Image 13: Screenshot of a flirty conversation with Susie

Image 14: Screenshot of a happy conversation with Patrick

Image 15: Screenshot of a conversation with four out of five characters

Image 16: Screenshot of the street

Image 17: Screenshot of the outside of Jay's house

Image 18: Part of the game's "How to play" or tutorial as seen from the main menu

Image 19: Background for one part of the game

Release Plans

The game has now been released and is available for free here on itch.

https://pinefall-studios.itch.io/emotions-a-day-in-a-life

About Pinefall Studios

Pinefall Studios consists of a group of Swedish computer game development students. Emotions: A Day In A Life is our first game as a group.

Social Media

Facebook: Pinefall Studios

Twitter: @PinefallStudios, https://twitter.com/PinefallStudios

 An Insight Into Game Development:

Branching Narratives

Nowadays, many games use so called branching narratives. A branching narrative is, simply put, when the story is non-linear and the player gets to “choose” the way the story goes. In some games, the way branching narratives emerge is very subtle, while in games like Emotions: A Day In A Life, it’s pretty obvious: the story gets impacted every time you pick an emotion in an interaction with the other characters.

Making branching narratives can be a daunting task, especially for larger games. Even in a short game like Emotions: A Day In A Life, creating branching narratives is tricky. There has to be enough options to make the game replayable, but there can’t be too many so that the development of the game gets too long or it gets too complicated to implement all the different story aspects. Therefore, it’s necessary to weigh workload and replayability against each other.

In Emotions: A Day In A Life, a branching narrative emerges through picking an emotion in an interaction with a non-playable character. Because of this, every conversation can end in six different ways, one way for each emotion you can choose. It would have been possible to make every conversationending lead to a completely new path of the game and a unique ending of the game itself, i.e. the game would be completely different from any other playthrough from the point where you pick an emotion. However, with the game having 6 emotions to choose from in every conversation and with 4 characters to converse with, that would create hundreds of endings with this type of branching narrative. With a development plan of 3 months, and for a game with a length of 5-10 minutes, this was not a viable option.

Instead, the branching narrative in Emotions: A Day In A Life works as follows:

1. The player interacts with the first character by picking an emotion to respond to what that character said. The dialogue plays out according to the chosen emotion.
2. When the player meets the second character, the conversation starts differently – sometimes covering a completely different subject – depending on which emotion the player picked in the conversation with the first character. If the player was angry with the first character, they start the conversation with the second character angry, and so on.
3. The player then picks an emotion to respond to what the second character says. That emotion is then the starting emotion used in the conversation with the third character, and so on.

All in all, this means each character except character 1 have 36 different ways their conversations can play out. Combinations of these narrative paths lead to one of the almost 50 different endings. The logic behind the endings are connected to the specific emotions you picked in the interactions with the characters, e.g. if you were angry with character 1, they might not appear in the ending.

This was a lot of text and information, so cheers to you if you read through it all. Hopefully it made sense and made you understand how the branching narratives in Emotions: A Day In A Life work.

Character Introduction:

Terry

We are proud to announce the first character you interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life: the cheerful, local bus driver, Terry.

Terry is a middle-aged man who tries his best to keep the people around him happy. Things haven't gone exactly the way he wanted in life, but he is very pleased with his current job as a bus driver. Despite having a generally positive and gentle attitude, he doesn't back down when he encounters something that goes against what he stands for.

With the introduction of Terry, you can also see the general artstyle the game is aiming for: semi-realistic with a flat-toned coloring style (no shading).

Be on the lookout for more character introductions and information about the game in the following days and weeks.

 An Insight Into Game Development:

Sticking To A Theme

Many, if not all, games have themes. Themes and genres are sometimes considered to be the same thing, so first it’s important to clarify what theme means in this context. For Emotions: A Day In A Life, the theme is emotions. The genre, on the other hand, is in a mechanical sense a 2D-sidescrolling game with a focus on visual novel-like dialogue, or in an aesthetic sense a modern, everyday life drama portrayed with a semi-realistic, flat-colored art style.

In some games, the theme isn’t the center of focus and can only be seen in the background – if it can be seen at all without deep analysis. In Emotions: A Day In A Life, the theme is pretty clear from the get-go. It is also emphasized by certain aspects of the game by changing them depending on which emotion is currently in focus.

The aspects that change are foremost the dialogue boxes. Each emotion has a color in the game and these colors are used on dialogue boxes that change from one color to another when one specific emotion is in focus. The same colors are also used for the icons that you use to pick an emotion to act with. These icons are also visible in the pause menu, where you can see which emotions you have in your inventory. The following picture shows the icons as they look in game when you pick an emotion, though not positioned exactly as such.

Another important aspect for keeping with the theme of emotions is the music. Like the dialogue boxes, the music changes depending on which emotion is in focus. The music also entirely consists of live-recorded piano music, which can often be very emotional.

Besides the previously mentioned aspects, all characters have character portraits where they convey each of the six emotions present in the game. Depending on each character’s personality, the way they express each feeling visually differs from the other characters to some extent.

To summarize, the most central aspects of the game are affected by the emotions. Therefore, the theme of emotions is strong throughout the game.

We hope you look forward to experiencing these aspects and the theme yourself next month!

Character Introduction:

Alice

Introducing the second character you interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life: Alice, the outgoing fashionista who was friends with the main character in high school.

Alice is a confident and successful entrepreneur in the fashion industry. Her own success has inspired her to help other young people trying to make their own way in the business world. Having a generally strong personality, Alice isn't one to back down from personal injustices and wrongdoings. She never hesitates to defend her friends.

Alice is one of the four characters you get to interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life. Release: December 8 2019.

Be on the lookout for more character introductions and information about the game in the following days and weeks.

 An Insight Into Game Development:

Learning How To Play The Game

Even if a game is part of a popular series or uses a well-known game formula, new players will want to know how to interact with the game. The same goes for many experienced players as well, since many mechanical details differ between games even in the same series. That is why it is important to give the player some sort of tutorial. Or – as the case is with Emotions: A Day In A Life – a “how to play” image gallery.

Since there are very few controls in the game and the time for a normal playthrough is about 5 minutes, it’s a bit of an overkill to force the player to learn the controls in-game. Besides, implementing a playable tutorial would take too much time away from developing other parts of the game. But players still need to know how to play the game and what different things on the screen means. That’s why it seemed appropriate to implement an image gallery that explains the general controls and gameplay elements.

There are two types of “how to play”-images. The first type conveys more detailed information via text, as the following image shows.

The second type explains controls via images of the buttons used to perform a certain action. The following image illustrates that. Please note that the following image does not have the correct accompanying picture, that’s supposed to help the player understand when to use the controls, and that the completely white square is a placeholder.

Hopefully, this image gallery will be enough to teach unsure players all of the necessary controls and gameplay mechanics, without taking up time for players who feel like they can do without an explanation.

Thank you for reading this post and following the development of Emotions: A Day In A Life. It’s not long before release and the game is coming together nicely. As soon as we have some backgrounds in place and proper character sprites, we will share screenshots of actual gameplay. For now, please look forward to another character introduction later in the week!

Character Introduction:

Susie

The third character you interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life is Susie, the calm and collected owner of the cafe that the main character works at.

Susie has a mild temperament but a strict view on anything business related. Having started her cafe Mary-Sue's from scratch, she is a competent business owner. Despite the cafe once being exactly what she had always wanted, time has made her discontent with what she has. Yet, because of her strictness and professionalism, she is too scared to take the plunge into what she really wants in many parts of life.

Susie is one of the four characters you get to interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life. Release: December 8 2019.

Be on the lookout for more character introductions and information about the game in the following days and week.

Character Introduction:

Patrick

The fourth and last character you interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life is Patrick, a sleepy customer out for some coffee at the cafe the main character works at.

As the only character that the main character Jay has never met until the events of the game take place, Patrick is all new to both the player and player character as of the first introduction at the cafe. And the first introduction isn't always a good one, since Patrick is pretty upset because of personal circumstances. But once you get to know him, it's clear that Patrick has an open personality and is eager to get to know other people. Carefully chosen words may not only make Patrick a friend, but also ease the heavy burden he's carrying.

(Also, despite some interest in music, Patrick is in no way similar to or based on the skilled composer for the game, who's name happens to be Patrik.)

Patrick is one of the four characters you get to interact with in Emotions: A Day In A Life. Release: December 8 2019.

Be on the lookout for the character introduction for the main character and information about the game in the following days.

 An Insight Into Game Development:

Character Personalities

In a game that focuses on dialogue, the characters are crucial. To make the dialogue interesting, the parties of the conversation need to have distinct personalities and not be cardboard cutouts too similar to each other. Although, it is important to give the characters something to talk about, so common interests are a good idea.

Emotions: A Day In A Life’s characters have different personalities that are expressed by their appearance and interests. Some interests are the same between characters to, as previously mentioned, give them something to talk about and bond over. Still, each character is unique with their own traits, good and bad, and unique way to react to things.

Since the game’s theme is emotions, every character has an expression for each of the central emotions. The expressions are one way to show the personalities. As an example, the image below shows Terry’s more explosive anger (when he actually gets angry, he gets angry) next to Susie’s more strict frustration.

Below is another example, this time of sadness. The image shows Patrick’s grief and Alice’s more collected disappointment. This example also shows that generally more expressive characters like Alice can have expressions that are a bit more muted, depending on which emotions are more dominant for their personality.

Hopefully, this gave you an idea of how we have approached the characters and their personalities in Emotions: A Day In A Life. We would love to go into more detail about every character and emotion, but we want you to experience things for yourself in-game without spoilers.

Be on the lookout for the character introduction for the main character, Jay, this Thursday.

Emotions: A Day In A Life releases on Sunday the 8th, this week.

Character Introduction:

Jay

Last but not least, the character introduction for the main character, Jay, is here!

Some story based games decide to have their main character be a self-insert character or a character that reacts more to player input than a predetermined story. Jay is that type of character, but has a personal history with personal interests that most likely don't align with the player's. Jay has a generally calm and not too attention-grabbing mannerism - that is, until the player picks an emotion that pushes Jay's normal energy aside. So, Jay has a personality and unique desires and interests, but those things can be ignored if the player wants. It's all up to the emotions the player picks.

Also, Jay has two outfits, as shown below. The outfit above is for outdoor areas and the one below for work/indoor areas.

Below is a look at one of Jay's two character sprites. These sprites are used when you walk around in the world. The character sprites and backgrounds are deliberately simpler than the character portraits used in conversations, since the focus is supposed to be on the character portraits and the dialogue.

We are only a few days away from release now. Tomorrow and on Saturday, we will update our devlog with screenshots and the official trailer for the game. We hope you look forward to the release of the game on Sunday, December 8!

Trailer

The trailer for Emotions: A Day In A Life is live! View it below to get a feeling of what the game looks like and how it works.

Screenshots

The following images are screenshots from Emotions: A Day In A Life, showcasing all the characters in action and parts of the environment. The first image also shows what it looks like when you pick an emotion in a conversation. The game will be released tomorrow!

Just to showcase the progress of the game, the following two images show what the graphics looked like for most part of the development. The images are from the very start of the game, when you wake up inside Jay's house. Those placeholders don't really represent the game well, do they?

We hope you are excited to try Emotions: A Day In A Life tomorrow, Sunday December 8!

The game is now published and available here on itch for free!

https://pinefall-studios.itch.io/emotions-a-day-in-a-life

Thank you for following the development of Emotions: A Day In A Life. We hope you enjoy the game!