Two New SITA Sets

I’ve been doing lots of cool stuff for the sequel game Something’s In The Air (SITA), but I don’t want to show it all because that would spoil the game.  But a few teaser renders wouldn’t hurt.  Back in October 2010, I was showing off sets I built for downtown locations.  Those sets will show up in SITA as well, but so will a few others.

Heidi’s Salon

The above picture is Heidi, one of the datable characters in the game, but the salon shows up in three different stories, so I had to build a set for it.  After searching every 3D source I could find, no one has ever built a “hair salon”, not even a barber shop.  I found a few pieces scattered here and there, and found a tanning salon that I could convert.  Basically it took a while to come up with something resembling a beauty parlor.

For you sticklers of continuity, Heidi’s Salon does make a brief appearance in the Date Ariane game:

And if you are really a stickler of continuity and still upset about Ariane’s change of hair style.  She does shows up at the salon for a change of hair style:

Looks, like Heidi has her work cut out for her.

The Dress Shop

The second set I’ll share with you is the new Dress Shop.  The dress shop is of course very familiar to players of Date Ariane, and was built using props from The Sims 2.  In fact it is the last thing in the Date Ariane game that uses stuff “borrowed” from other games (earlier versions were mostly made from video game screenshots).

Well I had much better luck finding a pre-made boutique set I could exploit. So dress shopping in SITA looks like this:

Maybe if I have time, I’ll redo the dress shop in the first game to match.  I’ll add it to the bottom of a very long “to do” list.  Hope you enjoy the preview.  Next on my list to do is a giant crowd scene at the night club. What was I thinking when I wrote that scene?

The “Sequel” Has a Title

It has been about 6 months since I actively started working on the “sequel”, so you are due for an update.  The biggest news is that I have settled on a title, which is quite an accomplishment considering that the original Date Ariane Simulator never really had an official title.  After toying with “Second Date” (which is the project folder name) and the lame but descriptive “Date Night in America”, the title I have finally settled on is “Something’s In The Air“.

Not only is it a more poetic title, which evokes a romantic feeling, but like all good titles it is actually descriptive of a couple of different plot points, which I am not going to describe here.  Above is one of 7 title screens which circulate when you get to them each showing 2 to 3 characters you will meet along the way.

I’m now in mood for development again, and doing as much as I can while the feeling is still here.  Above is one of the pictures I did this week.  Part of the fun I am having in doing these crowd pictures is putting in little stuff in the background.  In this scene, you are in a bar chatting it up with the girl in blue, while your friend Dave is hitting on the owner of the strip club next to her.  At one point, he disappears, only to return with a copy of the magazine she is in.  Meanwhile, the red headed dude in the back is ogling the bartender whenever she is not looking at him.  None of this is in the dialog, it is just fun throwing in little details like that.

The game plan is 6 main stories, each with a different style, and different objectives.  The first story is The Second Date, and its style is similar to the first date.  Traditional date stuff, with a slightly surreal twist.  The second I can only describe as “noir” featuring two women, one poor, and one rich.  There is a mystery to solve here, too.  The third I have decided on a “storybook romance” theme between a rock star and a temp “roadie” (you). I have not written this one yet, and I may even outsource it.  I’m using this story as inspiration.  The fourth is a true “visual novel” storyline involving many possible paths, probably the most complicated one with lots of possible endings.  The fifth has two possible women, I decided to do this one comic book style: occasional multi-pane, and dumping the first person perspective for stylish angles, flashbacks, and onomatopoeia action descriptions.  The sixth and final story is “video game epic”: an adventure game in the style of an alternate reality game.  Its the “end game”; you can only play it after playing the other 5 (which can be played in any order).

While I have done some work on all 6, only story 1 is near completion.  My plan is to release story 1 (the second date) as a demo within the next 6 months.  Depending on what I have done and the rate of completion, I’ll decide how to release the rest of the game.

Here’s the other 6 title screens:

Finally, A New Comic

I’ve been updating my web pages recently, and noticed I hadn’t updated the “Aspiring Video Game Character” comic section in 3 years.  Figured I should either do another comic, or just dump the section.  So I did the hard thing and created a new comic.  While I use a lot of games for these comics, I decided I should do one with the new version of Ariane.

Click the image for a higher resolution version.