Crush Clue

I decided to use characters of a pre-existing narrative of mine, but rather than follow that narrative, which would’ve been far too out of scope for the project, I chose to work with one of the side characters, Jess. In my original narrative, Jess was hinted at having a crush on one of two other characters, Payton or Zane. In this game, the player plays as the same main character as the original, a younger girl named Skylar, but is tasked with trying to figure out who Jess has a crush on, with hints from her friend Maddie.

As the player progresses through their investigation, they’ll slowly get more clues leaning towards one character or another, until they’re able to confront Jess about her crush and obtain either Payton or Zane’s ending of the story. Alternatively, if the player gets all clues for both characters, Skylar comes to the realization that Jess actually has a crush on both characters, and alongside Maddie, is able to persuade her to confess to both and obtain the true ending of the game.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted all three of these endings, so a lot of time spent on the game was writing out all the narrative and branching options, since each question the player could ask to get clues required different responses from each character. In the pre-production phase, I created an entire story bible in order to map out the narrative and what writing needed to be done. I also had to create all the sprites for all four characters the player would see on screen, as well as backgrounds for the locations. I also created CGs for each ending of Jess and her potential partners, rewarding the player for unlocking it.