A Broad Semester - v0.01 Released! (Updated 4/30/24)

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Hi everybody! I’m eleeeckseye from over on DeviantArt, and I’m excited to share my new project with you all!

It’s a visual novel called ‘A Broad Semester’ that takes place on, as you might’ve guessed, a college campus and the surrounding town.

In addition, Firelord-Iroh (also over on DA) is collaborating with me on the dialogue and stories that you’ll see in the game! He’s been a huge help and he’s got lots of great ideas.

If you’ve played other visual novels like Filling Up My Roommates or D.I.E.T. (which was my main inspiration once I got comfortable using Virt-A-Mate for character models) then you’ll understand right away how this game functions.

The first build is now complete, and while it only features one young woman’s storyline to follow, it has branching paths and multiple endings that encompass a variety of scenes to enjoy! Teasers for the project are already up on my page on DA, with more to come as work continues, so I encourage a look over there if you’re curious!

Currently implemented features include:

  • Custom player name entry which will be referenced in-game
  • Ability to play as either male or female
  • A main menu/hub which will allow you to progress multiple storylines in whatever order you choose at your own pace

Future updates will include:

  • Additional characters with dedicated storylines to follow
  • A likely increase in visual quality/flair as I become more familiar with coding the game in Ren’Py
  • Varied events/scenarios beyond the traditional realistic/grounded setting of college weight gain
  • I’m also interested in implementing a system for the player character to gain weight as well and have it persist throughout other storylines via NPC dialogue

Version 0.01 is now available for download on both PC and Mac, so please try it out! Version 0.02 will add in Natalie’s story chapters (her design is up on my DeviantArt page if you haven’t seen it already!) and more characters will come after that as well.

Naturally, I’m also looking forward to any feedback and comments on the game once it comes out, or even teasers I post in between updates as well. Thank you all!

  • eleeeckseye

Download:
Here’s the link to download v0.01!

I also want to give a shoutout to CoastalBunny personally, who provided me with tremendous help in getting the necessary tools to put together the character sprite files for this game. Without that help I probably wouldn’t be nearly as close to making this project happen.

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Welcome to weight gaming @eleeeckseye.

If I understand you correctly the storylines and subsequent additions are planned to be contained narratives that start and end sperate from one another correct?

Looking forward to seeing what you have in store for your demo.

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That’s correct! Though currently even in the first initial build, there’s an instance where the game recognizes whether or not you’ve progressed beyond a certain point with another character (despite those events just being placeholders at the moment).

If you’ve only moved forward with the first character’s story, then the next dialogue exchange will play out one way, but if you’ve gone forward with anyone else, it will be slightly different. So while the storylines will be mostly self-contained, they may reference each other a little in minor ways to add to the immersion, if that makes sense!

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This sounds great! I really liked D.I.E.T and Filling Up My Roomates, very excited about this!

I do think that going the way you and DIET did of self containted stories that are in the same world is a great way to go an a little underexplored here. I also like the option of playing as a woman and possible player weight gain in the future. Looking forward to the release of the first playable version, whenever that is!

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Thanks for the comment! I’m targeting a release next week at the pace I’m going with creating the visuals, since it’s just me doing the coding and models I’m trying to work at a sustainable pace so I don’t get burned out.

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Version 0.01 is now available for download! I hope everyone enjoys the story in this first build, and please leave any feedback/bugs here or on the DeviantArt post for the release so that I can make improvements as we work on Version 0.02!

Edit: There was a bug found where the published links did not include several image files for one of Donna’s endings, this has been rectified and the files now should include all necessary images.

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I’m having trouble downloading the game, it says there’s an HTTP error

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That’s strange, the links seem to be working and going to Google Drive as expected from what I can see. Have you tried following the link from the DeviantArt post as well as the one here? Are they both giving you the same issue?

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Yeah both weren’t working. But it seems like it’s working now. Sorry to bug you :+1:

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Really liked the game! Donna’s story was sweet, can’t wait for future updates (and potential player weight gain)!

I especially liked how it wasn’t too long, but was still long enough to get attached to Donna and have a satisfying story. I think you got the length dead on.

I also think you made a good choice of location, a university/college campus is a great kind of hub location where it’s easy to cross over stories and meet a lot of different people without it feeling contrived.

For hopes for future content, this is unfounded but I’m hoping eventually there is a lindsay story where she feeds the player, that would be neat.

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Liked what was on offer. Can only ask for more! hopefully more food for Donna as well

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This was really enjoyable! D.I.E.T. is one of my favorite games, and this definitely was another great game in the same genre while still feeling like its own thing and having its own character/personality. I think my favorite part here is that this is really a CYOA game where the character can end up with a number of different sizes and almost completely different storylines depending on them. It is a fun difference compared to D.I.E.T, which has a much more linear gain with different scenes to get there.

The renderings are very nice! I really liked Donna in the sweatpants for the dining hall date. Overall these looked quite nice. There were one or two that looked a little bit off (the cameo shopping looked off to me). But overall these were really good and I’m sure will get even better as you do more. The writing is also quite strong! A couple of typos, but absolutely nothing that hinders the enjoyment of the piece. I also REALLY liked Donna as a character. She was well written and made for a great intro character for this piece.

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