Good evening, everyone...

This post marks the beginning of the bizarre adventure that is the development of Closing Time, a game created for Game Art Pipeline at the Columbus College of Art and Design.  Though this may be just the beginning, I feel like we're off to a pretty solid start.

So let's talk about Closing Time:

Inspired by the over-saturation of 80's and 90's nostalgia in the entertainment industry, Closing Time is an interactive narrative (with some point-and-click elements) about a teen trying to escape a Cassette-Futuristic/Vaporwave-styled surreal shopping mall after being locked in for the night. 

Since Closing Time focuses heavily on characters, let's take a moment to Meet the Team (of of now):

Benny:

Benny is a sixteen-year-old mall rat with a bit of an attitude. He frequents arcades to the point of it being a borderline addiction, and often finds himself out past curfew-- much to the ire of his parents. Deep down, though, Benny's got a good heart and wants to follow the rules; the only thing standing in his way is his impulsive nature.

Mannequins:

After the mall closes up for the night, strange entities begin to inhabit its dark, mysterious corridors-- and the Mannequin is no exception. This creature appears like your everyday department store mannequin at first glance, until its limbs and neck start to elongate as it criticizes your fashion choices. While commonly standoffish and rude, the heart of a mannequin is easily won over: do them a favor, and they'll become your best friend. Refuse a favor, or return their rudeness, and they become the most annoying roadblock yet. 

TV Head:

Inspired by pop culture icon Max Headroom and 90s "robotic" comedian Mr. Zed, the TV heads are a serpentine entity with old box-style televisions for heads. TV Heads are master salesmen, and can often be found operating makeshift stores after the mall has closed. Generally, the TV Heads are pretty friendly, but will easily give you the cold shoulder if you're not buying.

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That's it so far for character concepts, environment element concepts will be coming up very soon, so stay tuned for those.

In the meantime, I'll post these environmental concepts for good measure:

The bottom concept also serves as a wireframe-- what y'all should expect in terms of how the game's going to look. 

So far, the current plan/priority list for Closing Time development goes as follows:

• Create Scene BGs for the first narrative path
  
  • Environmental Animations?
• Develop at least one talksprite for each character to start with
• Program the first story path

That should do it for now. I'm very excited to be documenting this process, all the while learning something along the way.

Catch y'all on the flip side,

-- Decopvnk