Hey everyone! At long last, I’ve cobbled together a serviceable demo for my newest game-in-the-making, Cicada Springs!
Some of you might have seen/played my last game, Coven of Calahree - a long, seven-chapter story about witches biting off more than they can chew as they begin to worship a new patron deity that urges them towards corrupting those around them.
This game is… different!
While there’s still an emphasis on character writing, Cicada Springs is set in a modern small town where you move in and start mingling with the townsfolk. How you play and the decisions you make will affect the relationships, stories, and (of course) waistlines of the five “main” characters!
Featuring full-body portraits courtesy of weightcomicguy, Alex, Charlie, Clover, Kendra, and Margot all have individual portraits for moods and four levels of weight - with all but Kendra having a “secret” weight stage that will only be available by making the right choices throughout your playthrough!
With a much faster pace and (hopefully!) much more replay value than Coven (not to mention a few other bells and whistles that I picked up while stumbling my way through that game for the better part of a year and a half ) I wanted to give y’all a chance to get in on the ground floor of this one if you’re interested!
If you’d like to play through the most current version (without the day limit), consider signing up for my Patreon! The support helps me out immensely, and any tier after $5 gets you access to updates as they come out!
Each character has their own schedule, likes, dislikes, and favorites foods! The friendlier you are with them, the more conversation you’ll get from them! It’s a little simple now, since this is the ground floor of this version of the game, but it’ll hopefully grow more complicated over the different releases!
Ask other folks what they think around town - what kind of commentary might Clover have about her coworker Margot if Margot suddenly started to get fat? Unveil hints about their likes and dislikes through conversation, even unlocking special Secret Endings depending on how you decide to influence their relationships with one another!
Getting rid of the old Day Count system from previous versions, this game can now be played indefinitely! Each character has 4-5 unique sprites at each of four weight stages, with four characters having special Secret Ending sprites. There’s a cap to their weights right now at the “Chubby” stage - but March’s update will include the “Fat” stage and revamped dialogue to make it a little less repetitive on the first two stages.
Here are some of the indoor areas in addition to the overworld map - each NPC (even the ones that aren’t the main focus here) has a place to be on certain days to help the city feel more alive. Over the course of development, I want to include some background storylines and gains for other characters.
Not sure what I did wrong. I played the first day, spent all my cash on a $20 special brownie from the truck and gave it to Alex. The next day I bought a mocha and gave it to the moody girl.
Then I went to sleep again and the game popped up with “That’s the end of the demo!” and kicked me out.
You didn’t do anything wrong at all! There’s just a day count on the Demo version to get players acquainted with the game before deciding if they want to get the latest version on Patreon.
The Patreon version doesn’t have a day count limit and allows the player to just keep going indefinitely. As progression of the game goes on, I’ll continue to update the demo - just with the Day Count limit in effect.
That being said, it should have been three days, not two - and that’s almost definitely a mistake on my part. I’ll adjust that next chance that I get.
EDIT:
I didn’t notice the 0.2.0 title card - I’ll have to fix that too! Sorry!
Fun little intro, definitely need to play around with it some more still, but one more fix I should mention: You have 2 characters that are labeled as “Alex” when you talk to them. I found that both the bookstore owner (real Alex I think?) and the coffee shop owner (Margot?) are “Alex” when talking to them.
Thank you! I’m hoping to flesh out the main character’s personality a bit more as I go back and improve the dialogue and stuff. Nothing much, but something that makes the player feel a bit more “in control” of their voice
The (admittedly quite short) demo definitely set up a great game. This looks like it has a lot of potential. The demo does have some questionable collision areas though.
Duly noted! I’ll make sure to revise some collision areas in the next version, as well as lengthen the demo. Again, originally it was going to be 3 days as the demo and then cut off, but I put in a ≥ when I should have put in a >
Hey all! There’s a new update available on the Patreon - v0.5.0! This one introduces the “fat” stages for all of the characters - after that, all that’s left are the “huge” and “secret” sizes!
I try not to run around telling people that things have been hard for me this month, because that’s not cool. Even during hard months, I try to get out as much as I can for clients, players, and readers regardless of personal struggles.
That all being said, I’ve been dealing with a very difficult and disheartening diagnosis of a family member that, unfortunately, has greatly shortened her life expectancy. Between hospital visits, multiple doctors’ appointments, and occasionally filling in for sitters now that we have her in her home, I haven’t had as much time as I would have liked this month to work on this or many other projects.
As such, the update doesn’t do much more than introduce those “fat” stages and address some bugs that cropped up during the previous edition of the game. The next planned update will address the other half of what I wanted this update to be, and hopefully, there will be enough time for me to put in the “huge” sprites as well.
Whether you are/were a patron, a demo player, or just someone who casually follows my game dev stuff on here, I really appreciate you all supporting me throughout the making of this game! I swear I’m not trying to bring anyone down, just provide context for why this update’s a little on the skimpy side.
) I wanted to give y’all a chance to get in on the ground floor of this one if you’re interested!
