Software:Project Love and Cafe

PROJECT: LOVE + CAFE
File:Unused Cover or Poster for PROJECT Love and Cafe.png
Developer(s)	Moonwriter's Tale
Publisher(s)	Moonwriter's Tale
Director(s)	Frederick C. Borromeo
Writer(s)	Joachim Emilio Antonio Frederick C. Borromeo Erika Hernandez
Series	Love Cafe Project by Joachim Emilio Antonio The Moonwriter's Project by Moonwriter's Tale
Engine	RPG Maker MV
Platform(s)	Windows, MacOS
Release	Q2 2022
Genre(s)	Interactive drama

Project Love and Cafe (stylized as PROJECT: LOVE + CAFE) is an upcoming interactive drama video game created by an amateur-indie studio Moonwriter's Tale. A light-hearted version of the game features five different stories in a single game set in the 2010s, based on a collection of stageplay "Love Cafe Project" by Joachim Emilio Antonio. The video game each stories deal with the themes of conversation about food and friendship, as well as dysfunctional relationship, love, hate, references of popular culture, and suicide.

The full version of the game will proposed the release date of Q2 2022 for free, when all of the acts are fully developed at the same time.

Gameplay

PROJECT: LOVE + CAFE is primarily a story-driven game with semi-anthology chapters using the RPG Maker game engine, which is used only the original assets. Unlike many RPG Maker games, there's no such system as battle, inventory, party, and puzzle due to much lacking of a role-playing elements, which resulting that element converts into a slow-paced cinematic experience and visual-novel style autorun event system to emphasize the storyline.

It added a "Call Menu" system, which it ables to pause or save/load the game during the dialogue (except the choices and movement route).

It added a "free-roam two choices" selection system, almost similar to Bandersnatch, with some limited-time and choice notification features, if the time runs out or optionally press to skip the choice, each one of the main characters remain quiet, which was technically inspired by Telltale Games, although it does not affect any choices.

Synopsis

It tells about a collection of narratives that hope to spark conversations on love—and by love, we don't simply mean the romantic kind. We believe that, to understand the nature of love, we need to look at its different types and how we, as human beings, express them.

Although the game title is romance, it tells five different stories and some characters that discuss about food and friendship.

Act NO. 1 - Stay Healthy / Cancerous Kang Carrot Ka!

“All things are poison and nothing is without poison,” said Theophrastus von Hohenheim, Father of Toxicology. But why worry about toxins when we’ve got friends?

Act NO. 2 - A Very Delicate Night / Napakaselan ng Gabi

Five years ago after the present day. Matt stopped studying and his twin sister, Ari, could graduate. But tonight.

Act NO. 3 - The Dust in Your Place / Ang Alikabok sa Kusina

A comic strip artist must tell her writer what’s plaguing his relationships with other girls… even if it may be at the cost of their own friendship.

Act NO. 4 - Midnight Storm (formerly known as Newspaper Dance / Bangko ni Noe)

After a couple breaks up only to find themselves, twenty minutes later, stuck in the same waiting shed on a stormy midnight.

Act NO. 5 - A "Depression Quest"? (formerly known as Stray Cat / Pusang Gala)

A dropout finds a young-adult woman wearing a cosplay who contemplates suicide on the rooftop, later on the park, only himself to ask her how to stop from killing or befriend her.

Characters

• Will - A 17 year old "Century Historical and Literature" class-rep highschool student.
• Sophie - A 18 year old "Visual and Media Arts" honorable highschool student. She was reading a newspaper about food's toxicity and nutritious.

• Matt - A math prodigy who was working on his studio. He's a fraternal twin brother of Ari.
• Ari - (short for Ariel) A fresh graduation who is a fraternal young twin sister of Matt, which is ten minutes younger than him. She's also a housewife of Jesse. Originally intended "Arie" as a boy, who was scripted by Antonio.
• Jesse - A husband of Ari and best friend-turned-brother in law of Matt. Originally intended "Jess" as a girl, who was scripted by Antonio.

• Rick - A comic-strip writer who befriended Claire and tells her about plaguing her relationship with her friends.
• Claire - A comic-strip illustrator who distressed about her friends and unable to cope herself until Rick befriends her.

• Benedict - (nicknamed Ben) A civilian who is Danielle’s ex-boyfriend.
• Danielle - Another civilian who is Ben’s ex-girlfriend.

• Damien - A dropped-out senior college student who plays Good Samaritan with Chisato, and tries to contemplate kill himself along with her. Originally named "Dom".
• Chisato - (real name as Christine) A freshman young woman with wearing a gothic schoolgirl as a cosplayer. She's also tries to contemplate kill herself, but she wanted to befriend Damien. Originally named "China".

Development

After his negligence of trial-and-error game development over three and a half years, Borromeo turns depressed and stressed all day about his works or friends before deciding to finish his examination and performance task overall of the first semester, but he notices about "Drama Analysis" in 21st Century Literature. He found the title "The Dust In Your Place", made by Antonio, who also wrote the short film adaptation of the same name.

He was first interested in video game adaptations after he oversaw Antonio's works, and he decided to make it and gave permission to Antonio for adapting the stageplay to the game. Antonio accepts, allowing to experiment him with his game, and Borromeo's decision to publish the game as an alpha demo and update into cinematic experiences as a full game into Itch.io and RPGMaker.net for completely free as possible.

The game was Moonwriter's Tale's first video game adaptation and its feature-length debut, as primarily a solo-developed the game himself, following his experimental and underwhelming game jam short projects over three years as a teenager, before it shelved without reason.

Writing

The game was originally consists five separated stories from the play (except exesanonymous.com) as an anthology at the same time and almost all were scripted by Antonio where the play was based on, while Frederick C. Borromeo and his writing partner Erika in the studio were fashioning some script in every acts including cultural references and more scenes including prologue in the game. The game was written entirely in English, and it will added Filipino language as an addition.

During its development, the title of last two acts (Newspaper Dance and Stray Cat) were gradually changed due to much confusion for the audiences.

Mechanics

The game development uses his own game mechanics from the previous shelved games such as visual novel message style and horizontal choice with timer.

Style and Inspirations

Due to muck lacking over a role-playing experiences, it would likely converts the experience into a cinema-style using camera controls to make it more cinematic. According to this game, LOVE + CAFE, cited Lav Diaz's films and Telltale Games as an inspiration. It is also heavily inspired by the anthology films, Coffee and Cigarettes and Four Rooms.

Theme

The game characterized its narrative themes by using the human condition such as friendship, dysfunctional relationship, love, hate, self-harm and suicide, where it depicts two people having conversations with each other about themselves. Nonetheless, the studio allows to adapt and developing the game using the game engine, RPG Maker MV, to make it more playable for the young audience, which it later shifted for the older audience, but he felt uncomfortable when Antonio and some players condemn with this game due to massive usage of F-words. However, it reverts only teenage to adult viewers as a PG-13 rating.

Genre

The game uses elements of comedy, drama, coming of age, psychological drama, slice of life, and romance to explore each five different stories following the conversation about food and friendship.

Music

The game uses acoustic guitar and piano for the rest of the acts including Stay Healthy, but not adding the update yet. Borromeo's friend and former classmate, Youone Christian Clamar, who wrote his original song, "Pagkukulang" as a submission of Mikko Music Hearts Day, allows to adapt the song into a game.

Release

Pre-Alpha

The first act was released on February 14 as an alpha demo, which contains 100% a complete story and it's playable for more than 20-30 minutes but it needs more improvement and additions soon like grammar issue, sound effects, music, and camera controls. The rest of acts are underdevelopment.

Post-Alpha

Another release as "The Game Jam Edition" which contains an almost-completed first act and a demo of the second act.

Closed-Alpha

Similar to its previous versions, which contains an almost-completed first and second acts with issues and opening credit updated.

Pre-beta

Another update with a demo of last three acts.

Post-beta

Another update without beta-testing. Almost finished every acts, but some writings need to improve soon due to stress lately, though he's not ready to fix it now or later. Until v2, he's able to fix the update each day if they have feedbacks.

Differences between the stageplay and video game

As the video game progresses, the developer's decision to adapt the stageplay into a video game and added some writings included cultural references.

• "I love to Singa" was never mentioned in the stageplay before the developer's girlfriend decides to add into the game to make it funnier.
• In the stageplay, the 1898 novel War of the Worlds was mentioned along with the video game, the 2005 film of the same name was also mentioned instead on the novel.
• Damien and Chisato, originally named Dom and China in the stageplay. The developer change names for the game, and the latter named after one of the main characters from The Testament of Sister New Devil.
• In the stageplay, taxi stand was originally set. In the video game, there's no mentioned or took place of the taxi stand, but decides to set it to the park.
• The video game portrays Ari and Jesse as a girl and boy, despite being Arie and Jess as a boy and girl, who was scripted by Antonio in the stageplay.
• In the stageplay, Will and Sophie portrayed as university students, but in the video game, it changes the detail as a highschool students.
• In the stageplay, Damien was portrayed as a senior college student, but it turns out as a dropped-out student in the video game due to depression and mention of suicide.
• The main character, Arie, was supposed to be more than two years younger than his older brother Matt in the stageplay.
• The fourth and fifth act in the game is more different than the stageplay.

Reception

During the game jam competition, the demo received praise by some players for its slow-pacing and cinematic innovation, visuals, humor, and story with faithfulness to Antonio's script from the stageplay; although almost criticized the cliche dialogues due to its grammars.

Studio Blue, one of the RPG Maker Web's streamers, playing the post-beta version of the game (begins at the first act and ends at the first half of second act) and stated that he likes the core concept, sense of humor, and faithfulness to the stageplay, though some characterization and writing, as well as the title and pacing, drew occasional criticism.

Legacy

The first game expands as a video game trilogy, titled "The Moonwriter's Project". The first one as the studio's first adaptation will be semi-anthology and freeware, and the last three are premium originals will be one for reversed order-chapter by chapter and one for hyperlink cinema as an experiment.

External Links

• Itch.io