Behind the Paradox Ep. 2 - The Failure (Patreon)

   First, I decided to start by creating the game mechanics. Taking advantage of my free time to put the story together step by step.

   I wanted to include a lot of concepts, which would give the player a lot of tools and concepts to focus on. A real time clock, where the player would have to manage his time in the best way to be able to play the story. There was also a fatigue bar, which would go down as the player did some activities, and when it got to zero the character would be exhausted and and get back to his room. I have to admit that both concepts were copied from the games I had taken as my inspiration xD.

Stardew Valley

My Time at Portia

   Eventually the game had a status system, which changed according to the player's state of health. He could feel depressed, sick, with an stomach pain and other things. This also affected our level of endurance and limited the amount of actions we could take.

With these concepts, the focus of the game was on restaurant management, but from a more managerial point of view. You had to build it from scratch, buy the supplies and make improvements. At that time, the character cast was different. Maxy, Layla and Yui were not part of the game (But I'll get to that later when I talk about each particular character).

   During that time, which took me about two months, I dedicated every free moment to learn Python and create a first version that allowed me to see everything in motion. I created everything from scratch, with basic drawings and blank backgrounds. Everything went pretty well, interesting and with a lot of possibilities. 

   After that, I started adding the story, characters and everything else. A drugstore to buy remedies to improve our status in case of being negative, energy drinks to increase stamina and gifts to increase the characters' hearts. It was all very basic at the time, but it gave me a general idea of what it would be like in the future. I didn't want to start a project that would take years to develop I wanted it to be fun to play and not just an excuse to unlock a gallery of erotic content.

   When I finished what would be the first demo, I was very excited about releasing the game. I had been playing the content as development progressed, but before I took the next step, I decided to play it from the beginning. To have the experience that the first people to play it would have... And it was a disaster...

   The time system was unintuitive, the resistance and status only limited the character's freedom, forcing the player to gather money and grind, the many elements that needed attention were a pain in the ass for the gameplay (complex and shallow). But that wasn't all... The story was losing protagonism, the characters were being left behind, and what's even more important (at least for me) there was no feelings.

   At that moment I had to make a decision. The game wasn't fun even for me, but I could keep working on it. The complexity of the mechanics generated bugs and the story was paused until certain attribute barriers were overcome in order to progress. It would probably lead to a game that would get stuck in the future. I had to admit, what I had created was crap and if the base was bad, everything built from there would be bad.

   At that point I decided to erase everything and start over...