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An important gameplay mechanic is the dialogue system, which I want to make feel dynamic and natural. This means that when you talk to a character for the first time, you really have to pay attention, because you can't repeat the dialogue right after you finish it, and the character might get annoyed with you the more you try to talk to them.
No worries, the timeloop will save your socialising skills! You can repeat the dialogue every day, as the NPCs will forget what happened before and unlock more answer options to steer conversations in certain directions. There will also be a log in your device, also known as the player menu, where you can re-read the conversation and remember any forgotten information.
As you talk to different characters or find out information about them through the ongoing story, more options will be unlocked.
Don't worry about seeming like a weirdo who knows everything about a person and shocks them with all their information. I came up with the idea of memory fragments that can be unlocked at certain key events with the characters. So if you trigger a memory or a feeling in them by asking them certain questions, or telling them something profound, or even giving them a gift, they will remember you and that conversation throughout the time loop. This way, you as the player don't feel like an outsider because you're always the new face, and everyone else isn't seeing you for the first time. This could lead to some déja-vus, controversy and confusion.
As you build deeper relationships with characters by collecting memory fragments and increasing the level of friendship or even romance options, you'll be able to visit them in their rooms (which you can also hack into as a hotelier, but that's another story) and unlock more tasks, information and items that you'll need to continue the story. I also want to make some things optional so that you don't feel the pressure to date every single character and just play as you like.
First, I started writing the dialogues in a spreadsheet before even thinking about the final structure. For some of the dialogues, which are shorter and easier to keep track of, a graphical solution would have been best. For more complicated conversations and different entry points, the graphs would have exploded and made it difficult to follow all the arrows.
There are ways of structuring data in software and one of them is JSON. In GDScript I can read a JSON file and translate it into a dialogue dictionary that makes the dialogues in the game accessible.
Then I added the dialogue options. Each option also has a next key to define which node comes after the player chooses a particular option, of course it also has a text and a flag to define if the option is unlockable.
To make the whole conversation more immersive, I added emotions to the nodes to change the portrait image of the character we are talking to.
In addition, the nodes have some things they unlock when a certain dialogue node is reached. For example, one dialogue unlocks an item that the player collects right after the text is displayed. Another dialogue option increases the level of friendship with the character.
With the memory fragment, the player can trigger a completely new dialogue with new nodes and options the next day when the time loop is reset.
EDIT: I almost forgot to mention it. At the moment we (my partner and I) are trying to visualise the dialogues with a graph generator to make it easier to spot mistakes and track the dialogues in a similar way to Detroit: Become Human.
That's it for today :D
One of the first things you can do in the game is to create your own hotelier signature drink at the lobby bar. You decide the shape of the glass, the ingredients by taste, aroma and texture, as well as a range of different toppings. There are endless ways to mix a customised cocktail, and once you've found more ingredients, there's even more. When you're done, you can name your cocktail and if the hotel guests are curious enough to try it, they'll order it. You can mix everything from completely neutral water to the creamiest sour-bitter-earthy drinks.
A somewhat simpler game than Cocktail Mixer is Code Hacker. You gain access to some hotel rooms by 1. having the corresponding level in electronics and 2. guessing the room code with the code hacking function. The higher your level, the more difficult the codes you can crack. I'm thinking about limiting the guessing to a certain number of attempts or adding more letters or symbols, but this is the current state for now.
The third mini-game can only be played inside the arcade room. So I designed that first.
One of the three slot machines is not broken. The game that can be played on said machine is called CapsulePets, and being a 90s kid who grew up with Pokémon and still plays Pokémon games, it's heavily inspired by Pokémon battles. You can battle and collect pets to earn points and level up on the leaderboard.
I published the game on Itch.io, so if you want to check it out, go ahead! The leaderboard is already quite full!
That's it for today :D
As with other games, you start out as a bored employee - in this case in the hotel industry - dreaming of a better life, when suddenly a job offer appears on the screen: "Hotelier Wanted".
It's not long before a shuttle arrives to pick you up. A shuttle? Yes, and it will take you for 4 days through space to a hotel spaceship, the Lodestar Hotel.
There you are greeted by an unusual pair of twins called Paige and Paige, both androids and receptionists at the Lodestar Hotel. They explain your new duties as the hotelier and soon send you to bed.
The next day gets off to a turbulent start. Robots try to clean your room and kick you out, there's an explosion in the kitchen with casualties, guests complain about the poor state of the rooms and argue with each other. It feels like everything is going wrong. How do you cope?
You try to familiarise yourself with the technology and the administration, offer to help the guests, look after the equipment in the infirmary and then go to bed exhausted in the evening, hoping to take care of the rest tomorrow.
Suddenly, strange things start to happen. People, silhouettes and sounds appear to you. Guests remember conversations they had with you. Some of your actions don't undo themselves overnight. The hotel seems to have some sort of memory. Can you use this to your advantage? Can you manipulate your guests and staff to get more information? Can you save yourself and the hotel and escape this madness?
I've already introduced you to the NPCs, but there was still a lot missing to breathe life into them. These include walking and idle animations, the portraits and the dialogues. I've already finished a few things, but there's still a lot to do.
Each character has their backstory, character arc, daily routines, relationships, purpose, dialogues with different choices, etc.
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