Hey eyeballs! For anyone of you who didn’t know, we’re making a new game called "COCOA". [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/cd963f3712e6109eb19ab689a41eeb434709c4d2.png[/img] [img]https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/3180660/ss_12b26f1242fc5908bd23321601945e237140f8fa.jpg?t=1729119109[/img] [img]https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/3180660/ss_7da895563cc29c15e0ff51f6059c6b3ffae6f950.jpg?t=1729119109[/img] To put it simply, it combines two main genres: RPG and management, all into one package. It tells a dark story behind the chocolate industry, between corporate businesses and real life consequence, between greed and humanity, between Mr. Theodore, a wealthy businessmen who wants to expand his food company and Issa & Asante, two best friends in South Ivory, Africa who are trapped in their tiresome everyday life as child laborers, all working for Mr. Theodore’s chocolates. You’ll be switching roles as both sides; managing a chocolate factory: placing conveyor belts, machines, and upgrading them while on the other side feel the routines of child laborers trying to complete quests and avoiding guards to escape the labor camp. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/da254930dab26ea0f4f393c13ca270b9ee681ade.png[/img] This game will have a raw and haunting emotional vibe that leaves you on edge every second you play it. Our goal for this game is to raise a level of awareness about unethical practices made by large businesses, whose minds are just about gaining money, money, and MORE money without caring about the damage that they made around them. How has it been going? Development has been going since March, 2024 (though “development” in this context also includes prototyping and concepting. “Real” development has been going since April or May). We can say that progress has been running pretty quickly. Although it has been declining as months passing by due to burnouts and unrealistic deadlines. For the last months, we focused solely on the game’s systems. As this game has two genres, RPG which is not that hard and management which has complex systems build around it. We’re trying really hard to construct comforting game mechanics that ties into the story perfectly. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/ea782f8fc03c2f0803e18a0ab204f871d83eecfa.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/835561e3c52355ac56bf8dfd87226628ff526392.png[/img] Talking about story, it has also be revised multiple times during these months. The most vital revision is the removal of an initially planned third character, “Sam”. He was planned to be a lifeless consumer of Mr. Theodore’s chocolates, but later removed due to time and resource limitation and how less of an effect he has on the story. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/8acd7182aef7572e5545a91f566e7d2df377b957.jpg[/img] [img]https://shared.fastly.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/3180660/ss_f64d37e06f983b8d25a7fed3d067937aebdf2174.jpg?t=1729119109[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/a63cf0cdc539bf1f21a75a1481efcdc5c9d1b745.jpg[/img] One of the hardest thing about the story are cutscenes, that requires many artists with their time and energy being placed to make them all. We must cut down scenes to their very core and know which ones are worth making and which ones are just a waste of time. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/780130529541968be6ab0e8881c785dcc380c26b.jpg[/img] Promotions also have been making us overwhelmed. We feel the pressure to promote although the game is not yet ready to be promoted. One of these examples is when we attend a festival called “INTI”. On that festival, we showcase [url=https://pupilentertainment.com/shop/smells-good/]Smells Good[/url] and a very early dumped down alpha version of Cocoa. Though the festival itself was fun as we get to meet players and other developers, making the INTI version for Cocoa was extremely stressful, even making our game director and programmer, NicDev to get sick before and after the festival. And in the end, players seem to be confused as to what they must do in the game, giving its very rushed version resulting in very few explanations with many bugs which just makes the experience even more frustrating. That’s why lately we’ve been trying to slow down. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/8953259294e862c4f7c9c96b41db3961afca788a.png[/img] We made a steam page which [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/3180660/COCOA/]you can wishlist by the way :)[/url] (so you can be notified through an E-mail when the demo or full game is out or discounted). We originally planned to participate in October’s NextFest, but learning from INTI Festival’s mistake, we decided to skip and move it to February’s NextFest where we will put out a demo that you can play. The team have been taking a rest for the next 8 to 9 days, primarily Nic who has been working non-stop on this game without any major rest. After those short breaks, we’ll be back in making the game and mainly focus on implementing the story, cutscenes, and polishing the game’s mechanic, so stay tunned. We originally planned to make these progress reports weekly, but knowing that it’ll cause development to be rushed and potentially spoil the story, we’re just going to promote it every… time we think that it is ready to be promoted :D. This is probably going to happen when development is fully done and we’re on a serious state of marketing it, though we can still share small glimpse of the game along the way. We can’t wait to share Cocoa to all of you out there, and we hope that you too are looking forward for the release of the game :). [h1]Join our Newsletter![/h1] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45185261/47160a3b1dee06c924f4e9690ecce0951be316c5.png[/img] By joining our [url=https://pupilentertainment.com/newsletter/]weekly newsletter[/url], you’ll get access to our latest game progress, behind the scenes, and freebies (game keys, printables, etc), and many more!