In February of 2001, I began what one person claimed to be an ambitious project. Eight months later, I’m still working on it, and I’m doing it slowly. But I’m confident that when it’s released in June of 2034, the results will be very nice. So what is this so-called ambitious project?

It’s called "Blind Date" and is about finding the right girl to marry.

The idea for this game began when I finally got the chance to play "Hesitation" by Mewmew (I think that’s the author’s name). There was a scene in the game where the heroine and her man were sitting on a bridge under the moonlight. As I watched the scene play out, I thought, "What if this scene were to stretch out into an entire story?" Well, it might make for an uninteresting game since the scene was only a couple minutes long, and it worked better in the context of a greater story. But then it occurred to me that there had yet to be a game made about blind dates and finding "the one." So I decided I would make one.

Of course, I wasn’t about to just jump right into it. I still needed a feasible story. That’s when I decided to make it an adaptation to a screenplay I wrote in 1997 entitled "Job Hunt." The premise of this story is that Mike Wright, the main character, is a college graduate who has nothing going for him in the way of a future. He has no job, no girl, and all his friends are getting married off one after another. And in a world where a twenty-two-year-old is pressured to make something of his life—often in the fields of love and money, he decides it’s time to do something. Step one is obviously to find a job. Thankfully for Mike, his best friend John is always watching his back. That’s why he volunteers Mike for a cashier position at the local fast food place, which snowballs from there. As time goes on, John catches the hint that Mike is feeling the sting of losing his friends to marriage. So he decides to find a girl for him too. Naturally, his choice for setting up Mike on a blind date happens to be with the local psychochick Allison, which once again snowballs from there.

So that’s the principle foundation of the story. The main idea is that Mike is looking for the "right one" so that he can join the bandwagon and not be affected by the pressure of life and loss. The point of the game will follow the same pattern.

Even though I plan on doing an extensive preview for OHR Monthly #7 or #8, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to at least give a small glimpse of what to expect.

As of right now, my plan for this game is to make it completely non-linear, allowing room for multiple endings, depending on which girl Mike proposes to (and who accepts). The difficulty in winning a girl’s heart will depend on her character. For example, the psychochick will be so easy that saying hello to her will pretty much be all Mike needs to do to win her over. But the dream queen will be so difficult (and relationally unavailable) that Mike will have to get extra creative, extra ambitious, and remarkably rich to catch her heart.

The basic idea should be pretty simple, but the results of victory will depend on how clever and hopelessly romantic the player is.

Mike will have his choice of ten main girls to choose from, and some possible hidden ones if he’s feeling gutsy. Each will have their own personality and set of standards and conditions for winning. However, only three will be available for the initial blind date, and his choices will determine where he goes from there. All girls will ultimately be available to meet during the course of the game, but he has to get through the preliminary date first before the others will cross his path.

Even though the plan is to make this non-linear, there will be a story holding it together. I’m not sure how I’m gonna pull it off yet, but there will be a reason for Mike to reach his goal. After all, the other girls can’t cross his path if there isn’t a story to go along with the game.

And there is much more to mention (like the whole job system involved because what good is basing the game off a story entitled "Job Hunt" if there’s no job system?), but I’d rather save the rest for the extensive Monthly preview in the next few months or so.

As I mentioned before, this game is slowly progressing, mainly because it’s my way-to-the-side project. My other reason for turning this into a slow development is because the best way for me to do what I want to do is to get all my maps drawn before I do anything else. And drawing maps is not my favorite part of game development, so I’ve been doing it in extremely short sessions. It is also important to mention that I will not be finished with the map design until I draw Mike’s entire town from border to border, and I assure everyone who reads this that Mike’s town will put anything ever traveled in Powerstick Man to shame. Figure that one shopping center will include two parking lot maps, two breezeway maps, and multiple indoor shop maps. With several shopping centers, two distinct neighborhoods, a downtown area, an outskirt area, and the beach to name some locales, the project will likely be in development for quite awhile.

Of course this isn’t to say that nothing has been done yet. This also isn’t saying that each map will be drawn from scratch, since I like to reuse object tiles from one map to the next (unless a scene calls for diversity). So as I make more tiles, each map will get progressively easier and faster to develop.

But what have I done so far? Well, as of right this moment (October 21, 2001), I’ve completed the interior maps of Mike’s house, the video store, and the local ice cream shop.

I also have a sports bar that is mostly complete, but could use a few extra details to spice up its appearance, and a Chinese restaurant that’s still under construction, but not far from completion.

Naturally, these places need a common area to connect them. That’s what the Meridian Point Plaza is for. As of now I have the eastern portion of the plaza’s exterior completed. This includes both the parking lot and the breezeway that connects to the shops. I also have Mike’s house connected here, but that’s only for now. I promise that will change when I start working on his neighborhood.

Once I finish all the indoor shops of Meridian Point Plaza (which will also include a pet store, a chocolate shop, and some other things I haven’t thought about yet), I’ll begin work on the western side of the plaza. The western side will provide a grocery store supermarket in the breezeway, a stand-alone fast food place (Burger Hut), and a stand-alone pizza place (Pizza King) for such dining and dating pleasure.

Even though it will be a long road to reach completion, I do have a crudely drawn map of how I’d like the town to look. The north side of town will have all the medium grade locations. Midtown will be city owned locales, such as the college and the hospital. The south side will have the beach and the ritz. The eastside will lay claim to the rural areas.

The map below roughly shows what I have in mind for the town.

So that’s what to expect so far. Look for the more detailed gameplay preview in an upcoming issue of OHR Monthly.

Hope you find it interesting.