#YMHaT dev

[nighttimepixels]

Alright, this is possibly the biggest bummer of a thing I’ve had to admit to myself, but...

You Might Have a Type, the dating sim, is no longer in development. As in, further development is cancelled.

For those of you new here, a while back (almost two years, yikes!) I started playing around with developing a Dating Sim- in the end (via polls) it was decided the dateable options would be UT Sans, UF Sans, US Sans, and SF Sans.

tl;dr: I have to stop working on YMHaT due to technical, revision, and time struggles. BUT, there’s a browser-playable build of the intro up on Gamejolt! You can’t progress the game, but once the interactive intro is done, you can explore the game area (Grillby’s), talk to at least a few NPCs, and observe the back areas for multiple observation texts.

There’s no ending set, however, so just stop playing when you’re done looking around, and have a bit of patience as occasionally new talksprites take a moment to load.

More info about why I’ve had to let this project go below the cut:

I reworked the project from the ground up no less than three times (even switched entire game engines once) - and finished what should have been 95% of the art. However, I hit more and more problems in development - which I was doing alone. From realizing the ‘story’ wasn’t working, to needing to create much more art to ‘fix’ it (a year after I’d finished the majority of the art, creating style problems to say the least), to realizing the game was lagging upon export no matter what I tried to do to fix it... well, that is what I get for trying to manhandle RPGMaker MV into a different shape. The elements (used a bunch of plugins, along with other tactics) worked independently, and even running in my own environment, but they suffered as soon as I took that away.

In the end, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection and have to admit that having this unfinished project hanging over my head has been severely messing with my creative output. Guilt and worry, personal pressure (the longer I let it sit, the harder it’ll be to fix/copy the previous art style/etc), and just the mental real estate even a semi active project takes had a huge toll. This was supposed to be a fun, free fanproject, but my income is solely commission/art/freelance based- time spent desperately rehashing and working on a free fanproject is a worrying amount of time spent not making money to help make ends meet.

So, though it’s hard to accept I failed on this... I’ve got to throw in the towel. If I want to move forward and make new, cooler things, things that I’ve now got a lot more experience through the struggle of this game to make even better, I have to let this go. It’s obscenely sad, and don’t mind me I’m crying a bit, but! I want to continue having some time for other fanworks - fanart, fanfiction... and YMHaT was just the ball and chain I was only adding more weight onto this whole time.

That said, though I obviously was unable to release a finished version of the game- I have a workable intro, and have put up a browser-playable build! Like I mentioned above, there are those caveats - and seriously, once you’re done exploring, just exit out of the game tab. Nothing more will happen :C

I put a lot of work into this game (hundreds of hours...) so, upon the encouragement of the few friends I opened up to about this, I’m sharing at least this much. That way at the very least, some of the assets can be enjoyed, however briefly, and won’t go to absolute waste. TvT

I’ve certainly learned my lesson, and any future gamework I’ll probably stop trying to bend RPG Maker MV (a perfectly good game engine!) so out of shape to make it do things I should just suck it up and learn how to program in Unity, for example. But yeah, time is unfortunately money, especially for a freelancer, and we’ve all got to hustle, sigh. I just can’t justify sinking another hundred - or likely, two hundred plus - hours into a fanproject that’s already struggling and I can’t make any money off of. I know it sounds cynical, but y’know, thanks capitalism TvT

So, onwards, to new and better projects - I hope to still make a dating sim someday, but I’m afraid that unless I can find some crazy loopholes (or someone wants to drop several, several, several thousands of dollars on me) it probably won’t be a Sans-centric dating sim.

Hope you enjoy the unfinished demo - if you like anything, a comment left there or here would mean the world, so I’m not just chucking all that work completely down the drain ╥﹏╥ cheers to you all (esp those who read all this, wow!) and thanks for the support and interest you had in the project at all. I’m so sorry to let you guys down, but I thank you for the opportunity and damn if I didn’t learn a lot that’ll make me a better creator for the future.

[nighttimepixels]

Will the Dating-Sim be Gender Specific?

I think I answered this just the other day, but either way - nope! If you mean ‘will the player character be designated X gender’, then nope, not one bit :) You get to choose your name in-game too!

This is the biggest mood Anon. Literally every time I write “YMHat” I just read it as “,,, Yum Hat,,” ♡

I’m clearly excellent at serious video game work. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[nighttimepixels]

Please inform me if this is a rude question, but I was wondering if the protagonist was limited to female. Or will there be other options?

Oh, it’s not rude at all! Especially since I haven’t talked about You Might Have a Type in a while.

But no - the player character is of whatever gender you choose! And there are a few varied appearances to choose from as well.✧( •̀ ▿•)ゞ

[nighttimepixels]

Um, I was just wondering if there was a definite release date for YMHaT??? No rush or anything I know these types of projects take awhile uwu

Ahaha, but really- I know when I’d like to have it out by, but I’ve thoroughly learned my lesson on announcing any such things (the lesson is: don’t do it bc you’ll jinx yourself). All I’ll say is… the very vague… soon!

Okay, but also storytime re YMHaT’s dev:

I actually put down working on it for nearly 5 months. A mixture of burnout on the project and other life things just made it to where I was burning tires and going nowhere- but I’m back on it again, in between commissions… anyways, long explanation short, there’s an absurd number of images I’m generating in this game.

And by absurd, I mean right before going on dev hiatus for a bit, I literally made 28 headsprites for unique, non repeating NPCs…

… and then completely forgot I made them.

The file title didn’t quite match my other naming conventions, too, and I’m usually dead on with that sort of thing but with the burnout creeping in at that point I slipped up just enough that it got lost in the large group of working files I have for the game. And so, as part of gearing up for the final leg of dev, last week I was like “Oh right, gotta do those 40 NPC headsprites for dialogue.” Had a file with the sketches and everything, so I opened that up and started chipping away at them periodically throughout the week…

Last night, I go to open up the file again. Get distracted briefly, eyes rescan the folder- and I find a differently named file that also has “NPC” in the title… but not ‘headsprites’ or 'fullbody’ or anything. It was 'Busts’, a convention I reserved for main NPCs (not crowd type NPCs). Confused, I opened it…

And in horror, realized that I had spent a week doing work I’d already done.

I just…

Worst part was, I DID keep all the sketches in a logical order for the game in each file, so… the 30 I’d just done… perfectly overlapped the 28 I’d done previously TvT

My only mild consolation is I’ve definitely improved since then so my… accidental redos… are much more nicely styled, but… still… my heart is still hurting from that one (=▿= ||||)

Though hey, I suppose maybe it shines slight insight onto how much art I’ve made for this game that i just completely forgot doing 28 unique headsprites. I’m clearly a mess, but I swear I’m doing my best to make a good, fun game for you all, not just a half patched rush out to be done with it or anything X)

[nighttimepixels]

O-out of wild curiousity, I gotta ask: How... how many pictures HAVE you made for YMHaT??

That is... a very good question.

Er, honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out how to answer this for nearly ten minutes. See, a lot of my exported art is in spritesheet form - it allows games to reference a ‘section’ of a single image, thus cutting down the ���size’ of the game. Plus, with animations, it’s even more of a grey area - walking animations for example, should I consider that ‘one art piece’ or... as many as there are frames...?

Also, backgrounds - they’re technically one image but uh, you guys’ll eventually see that there’s a lot to them XD

So. Hm. Leaving out the question of backgrounds, and saying that animations count as one ‘image’...

Probably...

At least 250 character-type sprites (fullbody map sprites + headsprites), 50 effects, + [redacted] special unlockable images in the

so.

330 ‘pictures’ + [redacted] unlockable images, not including backgrounds because I genuinely can’t quantify that, and not including animations?

If we, ah, include animations as frame counts, then... we’re definitely broaching 500, I’d wager, but forgive me for not counting XD

[nighttimepixels]

Hey! How's game dev going? Are you taking care of yourself? I hope so!! Good luck wherever you're at, and don't work yourself too hard!

awww thank you so much! ;0; i’m doing my best, and thankfully my wrist is finally recovered as of yesterday or so, so i’m full speed ahead!

that said, there’s the usual dev hilarity. in fact, adjusting a certain sprite earlier resulted in Papyrus really being King of Mood™, because gods forbid my art program do the thing i want it to do:

Game Dev: Definitely Not 90% Nonsense.

[nighttimepixels]

So if you were to give a percentage, how much of the game would you say is complete?

[nighttimepixels]

that moment when you’re going through your sprite files and realize you forgot to do nine sprites and their interaction alternates for a group scene...

time to pull another nine original NPCs outta my ass

[nighttimepixels]

in the vein of publishing my original versions of the YMHaT sprites (since i’m redesigning them all for the new/final version of the game), i wanted to share Fellby and Grillby’s sprites - because how could i not? i’m weak for these flame men, hot damn.

they interact a lot in game, and both writing and re-writing their interactions with each other and you as the player is one hell of a ride ~ ∑d(ᵔ▽°d )

[nighttimepixels]

alright, gonna go work some, but in the meantime: the results of me asking whether you guys wanted a teaser were surprisingly landslide in favor of no teaser! not gonna lie, that caught me by surprise, so i’m glad i asked! <3

that said: i’m thinking later this week when i’m working on the title screen i might stream it. how many people would be interested in joining that stream? it’s going to be largely environmental pixel work - no characters on screen - but it’ll tease a primary location in-game. just so i know whether to plan to stream it or not, i want your input! <3 i’m thinking of having mic on, too, so i could answer questions/just chat better ^^

[nighttimepixels]

If you don't mind me asking for your new game is it possible to make all of your potential love interests hate you or love you? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. :3

oh, this is one i’m happy to answer publicly!

so obviously, the general raison d'êtreof You Might Have a Type is to get close to the boys, so naturally there is the entire possibility of getting them to fall in love with you!

that said, something really important to me in making this game was to not make it feel like an inevitability no matter what you did, or make it to where you could ‘buy’ their affection with items. none of the four are a ‘consolation prize’ - they’ve all got their own personalities, interests, and how you interact with them & what you do will affect how they feel about you... just like a real potential relationship ;D i’ve put a lot of effort into feeling like you’ve earned any bonus scenes with whomever based on your actions; and i’ve also put a lot of work into rewarding choices vs punishing them. i’ve always best liked games where doing the right thing is ‘rewarded’, as opposed to ones where doing the ‘wrong’ thing gets you ‘punished’. that very much plays true in how i’ve set up the game.

also, though, i’m working hard to make a proper friendship ending - that’s also not a consolation prize. sure, it’s possible to get on a ‘failed’ romance attempt, but it’s actually not easy either. friendship isn’t a 'runner up’ sort of result, after all - it takes work too, and is absolutely valuable as its own separate thing!

... yeah, it’s a lot of work putting this all in, but dammit it’s worth it (ง TヮT)ง✧

as for making them hate you - i’ll be honest, routes are a lot of work as is, and i tend to lift a brow at extensive ‘bad endings’ and those playing them...

so let’s just say that yes, you can make them hate you if you’re a dick, and there’s a very tongue in cheek sort of ending you can receive for it.

[nighttimepixels]

i finally managed to rig You Might Have a Type to have alternating ‘character voices’ (a la Undertale itself, with different sounds for Sans, Pap, etc).

sometimes, you just gotta celebrate the little things.

[nighttimepixels]

omfg Night, you said in the tags you have 52 sprites for that scene??! How many sprites do you have total???? Good luck, seriously, we're all rooting for you and excited for what you make!!

awww thank you! ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` ) i’m doing my best, re-adding more in than i’d originally forced myself to cut down to because after some work i decided that the elements added to the game experience a lot.

er… as for the number of sprites total… i’m not gonna lie, i don’t really… want to do that math…

but a cursory folder index check tells me that i have over 100 bust sprites alone, and only the core characters get those, so… maybe that answers at least part of your question? X)

[nighttimepixels]

Is the game everyone is talking about a dating sim???

yep! originally started the project back in the beginning of the year (YMHaT is the acronym - You Might Have a Type), but took a break because about halfway through i didn’t feel like it was shaping up to my standards. it felt too formulaic, and i wanted something more if i was going to keep investing my time in it.

a couple months ago i finally redux’d the concept, and picked up development again! it’s just me working on it, heh. the graphics are completely new (you can see some of the older ones under the ‘ymhat’ or ‘ymhat dev’ tags on my blog), and the approach of the gameplay is better and i think more fun than it was originally going to be.

in it, you’ll be able to get to know & potentially fall for Sans, Red, Blue, or Black. for the record, yes, their brothers do show up, but they are not dateable options. (i have to have limits somewhere, pff - the decision was made after a poll in the beginning of the year).

i’m finally getting closer to being done with it, so i’m aiming to kick my own ass and get it done very soon!

[nighttimepixels]

YMHaT - Player Character Appearance Voting!!

hey ya cuties - so i’m at a point in the development of You Might Have a Type where i’m trying to swing having a character choice screen so you can better ‘insert’ yourself. this would be similar to how it was in [Soul Redacted]!

the thing is, this game isn’t black and white like (most of) [Soul Redacted] - it’s full color. dev for the sprites is thus time-consuming (you’ll see even more why so once i post finalized sneak peeks), so i’m trying to be economical and limit it to 4 or 5 sprites.

This is where you come in! Please take this strawpoll, and choose 1) the hairstyle that’d reflect you, and 2) general skin tone!

i want a variety of sprites (ie, they’re not just going to be a bunch of white characters), but i also would like to better reflect the actual playing audience. <3

so, for you, my actual followers, i’d like your input on this. voting in this poll has a direct impact on what my final choices will be for the player sprites, so it’s of direct interest to you to vote so you can have a solid chance of seeing a sprite that looks more like you in-game ;Dc

important note 1: in case it becomes relevant, even if there are an overwhelming number of one or two sink tones/hair colors, i won’t just toss out the others. i’ll make sure to include at least some variance, so don’t worry that your vote won’t count if you think you’re in the minority - i’ll take note of it.

important note 2: you might notice that gender isn’t a question in the poll - that’s because i’m not going to be strongly gendering the sprites, nor will any of the characters in-game be speaking with gendered language when it comes to you, the player. so don’t sweat that side of things! (  • ̀ω•́ )9✧

EDIT: poll closed! thank you so much to everyone who participated, you’ve made a huge difference and i’ve finalized their appearances now :D

[nighttimepixels]

RED'S DATE OUTFIT IS KDCJSNCJDN GOO D S TU FF SJHXHS👍👌👍👌👌👍👍👌👌👍👍👌👍👌👍❤❤👌🦄👍👍👌

these warmups are dedicated to you two beautiful souls then ;D