Week 2 Group work Discussions And Chat

—-Write By Cindy

In the second week, after clarifying our individual tasks, our first thought was to research and finalize the characters, as this relates to designing the subsequent plot and setting up affinity levels. Based on Oliver’s character guides, we identified three main interactive characters: Tyler, Olivia, and Sarah. We established four key aspects for designing a character: Habits, conversation style, relationship with the protagonist, The Boy, and appearance.

Regarding conversation style, we concluded that affinity changes should follow the protagonist’s speaking style, depending on their interests. For example, if the protagonist rejects an NPC’s hobbies, their affinity will decrease. Therefore, determining the protagonist’s interests is crucial. We discussed what boys and girls of this age might like, and to differentiate them, we might add hobbies to solidify their image. For instance, we concluded that Tyler is a sunny, sociable person, so we assigned him and the protagonist the highest initial affinity and placed him as the first character to interact with the protagonist. This allows the game’s difficulty to increase gradually.

This week, we determined our group’s working style through keyword selection. Our goal is to create a playable game, allocate time effectively, and work and communicate in the afternoons. We prefer in-person, face-to-face meetings, as this is very helpful for note-taking and reducing misunderstandings within the group.

Each person’s assigned tasks included designing character sketches, determining the backstory of three main NPCs, researching the elements needed to create a visual novel, and conducting research on ASD (Advanced Visual Disorder).

A part of initial draft of character design concept Cindy send on Slack:

Maria’s sketch based on the text description on Slack:

Nam found some video research：