As a mechanics designer my main task was to create and code a love meter into the game. It would change its value based on the player’s choices and it would indicate how much the person Violet’s on date with likes her. The first version of the love meter was made in Unity as in the beginning we had not decided on using Ren’Py yet. However, it turned out that Ren’Py would be the most efficient when designing a narrative-based game, therefore the asset made in Unity was not used in the final version.
Initially, the bar I created was round at the bottom but when I started coding in Unity it turned out it would be more convenient to make it rectangle-shaped. Although I still preferred the first design, in the end it wasn’t that much of an issue as both versions were quite similar.
After we established we were going to use Ren’Py as our game engine, I had to write a code for the love meter again. As I wasn’t quite satisfied with how asymmetrical the heart in the first design was, I made a second version, this time using a drawing assist in Procreate, ensuring symmetry of the heart. I also experimented with different decorations around the frame – at first I tried bubbles in various shades of pink. However, they blended in with the background too much so I opted for shiny light flares instead.
In the beginning I added three flares, though the ones on the frame were not very visible so eventually, I left only one light flare on the heart.
Ren’Py required separating the love meter’s frame from its fill. Initially, the fill was a solid shade of pink but I decided to diversify it by adding a gradient to it.
To make a bar in Ren’Py I watched a tutorial on YouTube but it only showed me how to add a default one. To make a customised bar I asked ChatGPT for help. At first the solutions it gave me were not working properly, however, as I explained to it what errors occured, I finally managed to put together a code that made the love meter fully functional.
This is how the love meter looked like for the final playtest. Although it was difficult to adjust the fill to ideally fit into its frame, it was fully functional – its value increased or decreased based on the player’s choices. After uploading the game to itch.io, a weird bug occurred, where the fill went back to being a solid shade of pink, however, the love meter worked perfectly fine so I decided this visual bug could be fixed later on.
The last love meter asset was prepared for the horror fragment. I changed its colour to a dark shade of red, to match the „evil café” background and added blood droplets for a more disturbing effect. I was excited to implement it to the game, however, we were running short on time so we ended up using only the pink version of the asset.
