As some of you may know, I started working on a little game last year [tentatively] called Nana Soup.

The cover I made for Nana Soup last year. Unfortunately, it may have to change if I decide to change the title...

It actually started out as the prototype for a really ambitious project I've called Anachronic (working title), but when "Finish Your Game" Jam (FYGJ) came around last year, I thought I'd simplify the concept and make a much shorter game. I thought I'd do that, and yet here we are. lol

The original concept is a... well, frankly it's a bit of a mess conceptually. My idea was a time loop game in the vein of something like Majora's Mask, where there's a real-time ticking clock, but for various reasons, I wanted to encourage the player to slow down and take their time. Smell the roses a bit. Play around. Accept your limitations. You'll get it on the next loop, champ.

My initial idea was to incorporate shop sim elements and cozy crafting mini games into it, but that might be a thing that I have to break into two separate games. I wonder if it would just be frustrating to have those kinds of mechanics in a game with time pressure, or if people would even ignore that side of it altogether... But I'll figure that out when I get to it. Haha. My other thought was just to include some sort of endless shop sim mode where you can take your time and manage your shop and not have to worry about the imminent end of the world.

Nana Soup is the pared down version of that, which I worked on for FYGJ2023. It's basically a shop sim with a ticking clock but turn-based instead of real-time. Time only moves when you do an action. Each action takes a set amount of time. Forage for ingredients. Go shopping in town. Open your apothecary. Craft. Cook.

The player has to figure out how much time they have and where to spend it foraging or shopping in town before opening your shop every day.

My original idea was just to make a short, 3-day story as a proof of concept, but in the time I allotted for it during the jam--even working on it for about 1-2 hours every day--I had barely written enough interactions for one in-game day of content. It turns out that writing is hard. Haha.

Nana Soup takes place before Anachronic, so Eurie is a bit younger and still living with his grandmother -- the titular "Nana" as it were.

Working at about half that pace, I'd estimated that I could finish the full game (consisting of a week rather than 3 days) by March 2024, but as we can all see, that didn't happen. 🙄 I ended up making Zoo-ika with my friend instead (which I think came out pretty good and you should go play it). By the time I got around to working on Nana Soup again, I began to dream of new and exciting mechanics... which is dangerous in gamedev. The dreaded scope bloat.

I spent a couple weeks picking away at that stuff about two months ago. I think the stuff I've added will be fun, but also, maybe probably completely unnecessary. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's also increased the amount of art that I need to make by like 3x. lol. help. Maybe I'll cut it, maybe I'll keep it. I'll try to decide before FYGJ2024 rolls around so I can make a real battle plan and actually release a playable thing this time around.

Anyways, I've got a lot of work to do in the mean time, so I might be pretty quiet until then. See y'all in November!

Stay Fresh!

Have some original concept art of Eurie from early last year.