Room to Grow - Demo Release!

Hi everybody! Following the full release of ‘A Broad Semester’, I’m excited to share the demo for my new project ‘Room to Grow’.

This demo is just the prologue for the game, meant to introduce you to the characters and gameplay loop. Things will really open up more in various ways in the next part of the game that picks up following this demo.

You can see the previous teaser posts and character reveals below in my Gallery!

https://www.deviantart.com/eleeeckseye

This is another visual novel style game, but with everything I learned while developing ‘A Broad Semester’, I’ve added some refinements and features that I think take the quality up a notch.

Background:

This time around, you’ll be leaving the familiar college campus town behind and starting your new life and a new job. You’ll meet your roommates and coworkers, and get to know their unique personalities as you settle in. The goal was to make everything in the narrative cohesive, so time progresses in a linear way and the people you meet have other things going on in their lives.

Our protagonist is a character herself, so while you will still have choices to make and get to influence those around you, she’s less of a player self-insert this time around, and can have more to do in the main story events.

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. I think we’re doing a good job so far of making the world feel bigger than just you as the player.

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.

Survey and Download:

Naturally, I’m also looking forward to any feedback and comments, so I put together this quick survey for after you play the demo! Thank you all!

Download:
Here’s the link to download the demo!

Special Thanks:

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 my projects.

I have also started a Patreon as a sort of “Tip Jar” for anyone who wants to support the project that way. Updates will remain free but any contribution helps me invest more in my projects! The page will have status updates and extra information on upcoming work if you’re interested though!

https://www.patreon.com/eleeeckseye

To those of you who have already joined to show your support, I cannot thank you enough! A little bit goes a long way, and I’m very grateful for everything!

-eleeeckseye

24 Likes

I just wanted to say, I thought this was fantastic. I really loved A Broad Semester, and while this game has a different feel with it being linear and time based, I think it works really well. Obviously some of these things are hard to provide much feedback on until the game is more fleshed out, but I really enjoyed the character models and backstories, the game seemed to flow really nicely, the core gameplay mechanics seem to work really well, and the writing is very good. I’m looking forward to seeing the game progress!

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loving the characters and gameplay so far! really excited to see the updates in the future

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The writing is fantastic! The little details really make it feel like a world you really could visit.

Also, Camilla, call me.

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Yeah I have to agree with the others. Obviously, it felt a little empty, since it’s just a demo, but I think the character design is great, the story works well and the dialogue is pretty strong. Very excited to see where this goes!

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Hi everyone!

I just made a public post on my Patreon detailing some of the work that’s been going on since the Demo release, as well as responding to some of what I received back from Survey responses. Give it a look if you’re interested in some of what you can expect moving forward!

Thanks!

5 Likes