First Map

The first Map is ready!
This is what I have made for Zoe's apartment. Her bedroom and bathroom will be upstairs, and I'll work on that next. For now the Main room of her apartment is what I'll be using as the main play space. I've made a sprite for her that I'm not married to, but not considering changing anytime soon either. I also started programing some of the main functions in the game. I have a phone in her apartment but I made the only equitable item a cellphone and I'm working on using that to perform a skill that prompts phone conversations from wherever you are in the game as well. As of right now she has hungry, tired, and stressed out states that you can reduce by taking actions in the game such as going to sleep, cooking and eating food, drinking chocolate milk, reading a book or watching TV. So far the cooking seems to be working out well but I have some animations I intend to make for them. I've also animated the lighting and the TV, which you can both turn on and off and change the channels on. Because I'm having so much fun with the artwork this is turning into a much more complicated game than I originally intended.

I looked into different ways to parallax map and this is actually my third attempt. The first two I toyed with making look less pixely, as well as changing the perspective, and while I could get it to work for the most part, I decided it was best to keep the top down approach for now.
I really wanted to do something that was 100% hand drawn but that's going to have to be a different project. I also am planning to keep different areas of the game color themed. Zoe's apartment is obviously purple :P There will be a pink super market, green friend's apartment, and then the park will be the most colorful place. I'm having a lot of fun with animated parallax mapping as well, and may even play with some overhead effects.

The last thing I'm particularly proud of for no reason is that you can change your clothes in the game, with multiple color options and even some PJs to wear to bed, which is a cute touch in my opinion. Once I have the bedroom/bathroom (which will sort of function as a main menu if I do it right) I'll add a *work from home function* that I'm picturing as a sort of mini game and then release a preliminary play test. This way people can play with the general functions of the game like working, making food, and taking care of Zoe. Then if all of that goes well, I'll add in the other maps, events, characters and story.