#2 LoveLoop - Features

     It has been a while since I last updated this page. The project is still in progress, I just had a few things come up in the recent months. I had to schedule surgery and deal with a lot of medical appointments. I've also been aiming to get some more artwork done to show off here, but due to recovery and getting back to work, I haven't had a ton of time to dedicate to working on the game. So, with all of that stuff out of the way, I'd like to talk a bit about what features I am planning on including. All of these features and mechanics are supposed to revolve around the themes of self-improvement and second chances.

Conversational Skills

The aim of these skills is to unlock more storylines and branching dialogue paths. The way that these skills will work is pretty simple, I think. while in a dialogue scene, there will be a set of gray boxes off to the left side. If you have a relevant skill unlocked, then once the requirements are triggered, you can either hover over, or click the skill button to use it. Alot of these skills will give insight or context to the conversation going on, and some will be required to get to certain parts of the story. Some of the skills that I have planned are:

• Observe (Partially implemented)- Pay attention to the speakers' body language and tone to get more information about how they're feeling.
• Truth - Can tell if people are lying to you and have the ability to call them out or steer the conversation.
• Intent - Can intuit what someone's motives are. This can help you navigate maze-like conversations or can get you out of bad situations like being interrogated.

These skills will be taught to you by both love interests, and characters that are on their routes. I don't know how many I want to include in the full game, and I don't want to make skills for incredibly specific uses. I plan for these skills to have some interesting visuals too. For instance, when using intent, I think it would be cool to have the background change colour, and maybe have a bgm change for the time that its active. I imagine it would be kind of like the Phoenix Wright psyche-locks.

Player Debuffs

The player character will start the game with a set of debuffs. the purpose of these is to restrict the players choices until they get to a certain point in a love interests' story. I don't know how many I want to include, but the ones I have some ideas for are:

• Picky eater - Every 6 hours (early morning, morning, afternoon, evening) the player will need to eat food. Food will affect skill checks for that time block and can be a requirement for an event to trigger. At first, you will only be able to eat one type of food per time block, but you can progress towards being able to eat more exotic foods. I would like for gaining permanent stats to be a rather difficult thing to do, and for there to be some sort of strategy or thought to be put into what stats you want to boost. The main problem that I want to avoid is locking a player into an ending because of their stats. Let's say you need 10 strength to go down a story branch that you're interested in, and once you're on that branch you need 10 intelligence to progress down one path, or 12 strength to progress down another. Finding out that you need so many stats would be quite frustrating. 
• Unaware - The player character is woefully unaware of their surroundings and the people that are around them. The player will also fail to read the subtext of many conversations. Once you start making progress to get rid of this debuff, the changes should be noticeable right away. There will be more random events happening, and more characters to talk to. Much like antisocial, this debuff can help manage story flags and it has the added benefit of adding more content to the game once certain conditions to remove the debuff are met. The game is all about do-overs and second chances, so I think people will enjoy how this debuff can interact with the story.
• Antisocial - The player cannot go to places that they aren't already comfortable with unless they are forced to. Locking the player to only a handful of locations in their initial loops is very important for managing the progression of the game. This debuff also helps me coding wise by letting me use and manage alot less flags to keep track of story progression. Eventually the player will be able to travel to almost any part of the map on almost any route. But before you unlock everything, another way to travel around the map is...

Urban Exploration

This essentially functions as a second world map. There are abandoned and dilapidated buildings all over the city and taking the time to explore these areas will give you special items and information you need to move forward in the story. I got inspiration for this feature when doomscrolling on youtube shorts instead of working on this project. I saw what I assume to be a heavily edited urban exploration video where underneath a mall was another floor in the middle of renovation, and that floor of the mall connected to an office building and then to somewhere else. I think it's so interesting that tunnels and rooms could be under our feet, and we wouldn't even know. If the player agrees to go exploring with a love interest, they could take them through a tunnel in the city and maybe end up in the mall. This could let the player get into maps that are either inaccessible because of places closing at certain times, or inaccessible by the player character not wanting to go out. The lore behind this feature needs some work, but I plan for this to be unlocked once you speak to a certain love interest about some of the hobbies, and they ask you to download an app on your smartphone. Smartphones are expensive and you probably don't have the budget for it. If you go down Akemi's route, you may be able to get an item called...

Akemi's Smartphone (Partially implemented)

Akemi is one of the love interests that the player can start on right away. She is eccentric, promiscuous, loves to have fun with her friends and whoever else wants to tag along. She wants to get as much out of life as she can in the limited amount of time that she has. In one of her endings, she asks you to hold onto her phone for safekeeping. You lose sight of her, your vision starts to blur, and you loop back to the beginning of the month, that can only mean that something tragic happened to her while she was away. When you start the game again, you'll notice that you're still holding onto her phone. This item is an integral part of the overarching story. Since the phone is an exact copy of Akemi's phone, you're able to see things like her call log, text messages, find my friend and her private accounts, if you can find a way to unlock her phone that is. All of these can be used to find out more about why people around her are disappearing all of a sudden. 

The player character, and maybe even you will think that this is a massive invasion of this Akemi's privacy, and you're right, it is. There is alot of content in this game that has alot of negative connotations, like can someone really give you consent if you have unlimited chances to make a perfect first impression, and then study their reactions over and over to find the best way to get them to fall in love with you? What would happen if you told someone that you were doing this to them, and then you traveled back in time to prevent them from even finding out in the first place? How would someone feel if they found out their entire relationship has been orchestrated to please one person? These I believe are very interesting questions that I want to delve into in this game. 

Next update I would like to show off some characters. Ideally I'll be able to show off Akemi and Junes sprites along with some of their backstory and personality.