This is written on DEC 30th, 2025 and revised on Jan 18th, 2026 with additional details.
Recap
Because it has been a while since my last Devlog, let’s go through a little timeline of what happened in between the 3rd (11/23) and this 4th Devlog! (and so our future selves won’t be confused what happened in that gap)
~Thanksgiving Break~
- I went to spend time with my family in Maine while Caelan went home to Connecticut.
- During my few days in Maine, I went to beaches, lighthouses, and looked at many rocks!
- Also, worked on our UI mockup for the sticker chat messenger. (which we currently have a version of in build)
~Winter Showcase on 12/11~
- The specifics of the build we had at showcase will be in Current State of the Game
- But simply, we have a build that goes from the player’s character’s house to the school, where the player can pick up and collect rocks, and at school use the sticker chat to interact with friends and their statuses.
- Overall, we think the showcase went well! We got many feedbacks and reactions from first-time playtesters as well as returning ones.
- It was the first time the status system, including the close friends, was played by other people, and we were able to see how the statuses and UI were being interacted with, where it caused confusion, etc.
- Many playtesters were enjoying the rock collecting and finding ways to interact with the rocks aside from what we had in mind, which was fun and inspiring!
- Also!!! We didn’t pull any all-nighters leading up to this build at all and honestly got a good amount of sleep most of the time, which we’re proud of.
Current State of the Game
This is the build that was shown at the Winter Showcase 12/11!
What – Status System, Proximity, Close friends
This system where players can react with a sticker to another NPC’s status came from a suggestion from Lawra after we showed them the previous sticker dialogue versions, “What if you’re reacting to statuses?” This was a suggestion that guided us towards an answer for our dialogue system that we were trying to find! The status system keeps the interpretive and expressive stickers’ importance, while reducing the complicated act (both to the player and to us designing it) of trying to form a sentence with stickers that you have to assign meanings to yourself.
It also keeps the playfulness of using stickers and forming interpretive conversation with friends, which is what we were inspired by from the DS PictoChat in the first place. We wanted to apply more limitations to the conversations, making the player more passive in receiving and learning information and therefore feeling not like a detective sleuthing around but a child chatting with friends and obviously oblivious to many things the adult would be talking about.
There’s also the feature where close friends to the player will be more responsive, changing their statuses in response to the player’s reactions. This would form the positive feedback loop that we want, where the closer the player is to an NPC, the more they talk to them, and the more that NPC’s perspective informs their belief. This is also done through the physical space, where the radius of the player’s close friends will be bigger, so that the player will always see their statuses faster and more often than other NPCs.
Also, we will explore DM with this status system!
What – Less direct, more interpretive and expressive stickers
Just like how there’s not one objective truth to be learned in the game, we also want the stickers to follow that and not have one objective definition. These stickers that players have to assign meanings to allow and nudge players to form their own meanings, opinions, and thus truths.
We have tried a version with more direct stickers like thumbs up/down and face emojis, and have come to realize that it is simply less fun to have such direct stickers. These direct stickers prevent the player from expressing themselves and forming their own meanings to the stickers, and reacting becomes an act with almost no thinking involved, and that’s not what we want. (Also it’s not facebook❗)
What – Rock collecting with Drag and Drop
Currently, our rock collecting mechanic is pretty straightforward, the player can click and drag a rock that’s within a pickup radius to the player character’s self, which opens up a pouch UI where the rocks can be dropped into. We want this mechanic to feel playful and childlike, and also make use of the drag and drop interaction as with the stickers in the status system.
It is also the main ‘vacation sim’ aspect of the game, and we want the players to have the most fun interacting with rocks alongside talking to friends as the events in the game unfold. With that, we are planning for more uses of the rock collecting that will help tie the player’s character to the in-game world, for example giving rocks as offerings to shrines or as gifts to friends.
What – UI theme & In-game Mockup
The current UI we have in build right now is a rough version of how we think the layout of the status UI could be, since we had to change from a dialogue to status UI pretty quickly.
Basically, the player’s device stays in the bottom center of the screen and can be opened with mouse hover, which the player can then click and drag the stickers to 1) another NPC’s status box which appears on top of their head when in proximity or 2) to their own status box which is on top center of the screen and can be opened with mouse hover as well.
We wanted the player to be able to navigate in and out of the device interface quickly and intuitively, while also when actively interacting with the device interface still see the world around them. The animation feedback that happens when a sticker is placed on a status is to make the interface feel reactive.
As for the art direction of the UI, it is currently in a pixel art style form the previous devlog’s moodboard. THIS WILL BE CHANGED!
This is because there’s a disconnect between the pixel UI against the hand-drawn/painted world and characters behind it, like they are not from the same world! The device itself being drawn in pixel style (not just its screen) in particular made it look not like a device a player would hold in their hands, but just an in-game screen. As a result, the art style of the UI will be changed drastically to match with the more drawn/painted style of other items in the game world.
What – Story 👁️👁️ & Our Ending??
Our goal with the showcase build is to have a prototype that gives the players the “this is fun, but something is going on” feeling. Thus, the player can walk past a body, which gives intrigue and disrupts the vacation sim flow a little bit, before going back to the vacation sim, childlike vibe again with the interaction with other kids, where mention of the body is almost non-existent.
About our ending, up until this point, we were thinking about a big tropical storm coming in and basically destroying the whole town, told through the older kid’s perspective in the 2nd loop. HOWEVER, THIS WILL BE CHANGED! We are still ways from having settled with an ending, and more about this is on C: A Note About our Ending.
What – Art Style, Hand-drawn characters and painted backgrounds
Feeling Goal: All the life and nostalgia of a tropical beach town combined together with the moody New England seaside, experienced through a child’s eyes.
We want to convey the warmth and nostalgic feeling prominent in vacation sim games, and combine that with the childlike quality of the mechanic and conversation as the player plays as a 9-year-old child. Still, the art style should also be able to convey moody feelings and more serious tones as the narrative unfolds.
As a result, we have chosen a scribbly outline & watercolor wash style for the characters and man-made structures. The background and nature objects will be in a hand-painted, gouache style which can look more expressive as the storm creeps into the story. A more detailed exploration of the art direction will be in the Artlog!
What – Scene Setup & Art Style Technical Test
Alongside the playable prototype, we have also set up a scene where mostly I get to test out the visual side of things! What seems to work best right now with our art style is a flat plane with the painted background placed at an angle (see image below).
This also requires the characters to be at an angle so that they don’t look too flat when the camera moves around. We are also testing out separating the head from the character’s body for the NPC and tilting the head sprites through code according to the camera position, to create further effect that the characters aren’t super flat.
As for the environment, the trees are at a 90 degree angle standing straight up, same for the buildings but they are also stacked to create a 3D effect. The shadow casted onto the ground helps tie the environment together and give an illusion of not being super flat.
It is important to note that this is still a WIP and we are still exploring how to set up our environment! This is because there are some cons to this scene setup, mainly being:
- The backgrounds would have to come together as a big painting, which means they are not modular and cannot be moved around/ fixed in-engine as easily.
- This version also raises the question of the possibility of having sloped locations in the game and how that would work😵💫
We would either have to keep this scene setup and keep some constraints for ourselves, or if we found a more suitable solution, to go with that one!
Post Showcase Meeting with Winnie (IMPORTANT STUFF!)
- This was a meeting where we had to look back on the showcase and Thesis 1, as well as looking into the future of Thesis 2 and setting our goals!
- We also drafted up our artist statement & pitch.
- This artist statement is what we are going to use as an anchor to focus ourselves as we move forward. Throughout Thesis 1, we have figured out what are the technically feasible stuff, so now we are going to really hone in on high level concepts of what make this game what it is, and what we wanted it to be without worrying about technical capabilities.
- This anchor will also guide us from swaying with different feedback every time we playtest which happened a lot during Thesis 1 and showcase.
- We also discussed a little bit about external advisors, which we felt quite lost on at first. However, we have decided to think about whose work has inspired us on a more conceptual level, meaning instead of looking first and foremost on advisors for technical expertise, we are going to look at people who have created concepts and stories that reflect one or more part of what our project is about.
- Also!! Winnie has convinced us that we probably will need to do 2 loops for our final version in Thesis 2, as it would reflect what the heart of the game is (multiple truths & sensationalization!) in a shorter version.
Instead of having a list that directly lays out the next steps and fixes we have to do based on the showcase feedback, this list is going to be more loose in tasks and focuses more on exploration, concepts, and our creative process as we go into Thesis II.
- Replaying our prototype and rereading our artist statement to ask ourselves questions, thinking of concepts at a high level, what we want this project to be!
- Think about our production plan and what would work best for us going forward
- Come up with an ideal version for the flow of the game and the version for Thesis II
- Think more and discuss external advisors!
~Personal thoughts Section : Xmas Break Edition ~
The break was restful!!! Though I was really really sick right after the break started for the first 2 weeks so of course all I could do was rest.🤒
After that, I did a bit of work on Thesis which will be talked about more in Artlog, basically researching devices and learning how to draw trees. Other adjacent research(?) and just-for-fun things I did were watching Knives Out Wake Up Dead Man and Anatomy of a fall, played Despelote and half-playing Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, read a lot of Manga, and played with Caelan’s cousin, an actual 9 years-old!
With 2026 and having a semester left from graduation though, I’m also in DOCUMENTS HELL. There are so many documents I need to keep track of, especially for my international student statusT^T. This also means that I have to plan for Thesis II well so that I can be on track for everything! AaaaH!