As I work on making Build 2, I keep finding old mockups of the original idea I had for this game. As previously mentioned, this was originally intended to be a full sandbox game, with inventory, quests, stat grinding, and even a battle system at some point. One of the leftover mockups I did was the previous version of the Dossiers, which included character stats. 

As you can see, we had a whole stat system, complete with Affection and Danger stats. In the previous version of the game, there were two significant threats to both the schools and your progress in the game. Cecilia was the reason the Danger stat was drafted; spend too much time with the same girl too often, and she might be attacked by Cecilia, which would put her in the infirmary for a week. And that would mean a week without being able to interact with her. A week without being able to complete her quests.

The other significant threat was a mass invasion I had planned. The stats were important because the game was going to randomize who found themselves being attacked and by which monsters, and different stats made the girls better against different monsters. Failure would mean, you guessed it, a week in the infirmary.

It was a big ol' complicated mess, and when my original coder left, I, of course, scrapped the whole thing. Intriguing idea, perhaps for when I'm more experienced, but I found I was getting bogged down in the stats and the systems and the math and mechanics, and the story itself was suffering heavily for it. Once I dumped all of that, the story really started to shine. 

Here's another remnant: the mock battle scene. 

It was going to be all JRPG styled with menu commands and all that and... I realized that all of this would work much better in a different engine, where things could be animated. Ren'Py, as far as I knew, really wasn't the choice for that. And my coder at the time had no idea how to make it work. Plus, again, it was really distracting from the story itself. 

Funny thing, when there was an inventory system planned, Nook was originally planned to be an obstacle character instead of a romance option. If you sat around with an item in your inventory long enough, she was supposed to steal it from you, which would prompt a bit of a manhunt - or Goblinhunt, if you will - until you caught her and got the item back. 

Then, of course, there were all the test H-scene images, but... I think I'll save those for the patrons ;)

Thanks for being interested in the evolutions this game has gone through before settling on the linear VN style. The Discord and the Patreon are always open to anyone, and new builds will be published on the Patreon first! The project could use your support, and if you decide on a high enough tier, you can even have me make characters for you and put them in the game with their own questlines for Aurum to navigate through! 

Discord: https://discord.gg/jHMX33VKuF

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emberwings

Oh yeah. One more thing. Build 2 Progress: 1.25/6 days complete. Coder and I are still working out a workflow. 

Until next time!

-Vic