I'm bootstrapping a collaboration/project to produce short, story focused games. Homages, recapturing the spirit of detective adventure pulp novels, TV-shows and soft-core sexploitation movies while not taking everything too serious.

Art style

"Western comic" art style, resembling the graphic novels of the "coming of age of bande dessinée" era or any other style that fits the overarching theme; thinking of Milo Manara, Paolo Serpieri or comparable styles from e.g. "Métal Hurlant".

As part of the collaboration, preferably long term, the artist is having vital influence on the development of the whole series, from art direction and stories to gameplay elements.

Content

The initial inspiration came from articles and discussions about the ongoing resurgence of light reading. 
Same can also be said for "light gaming"; story focused, short games with an easy to grasp gameplay.

Mix episodic detective/crime stories like TVs "Magnum" or the original "The Avengers" with comic booklets, retro adventure games, humour, spice and some weird happenings.

Gameplay

Current episodes in production are a mix of "Visual Novel" and classic "Adventure Game".
Puzzles to "solve cases" and drive the story are done in dialogue, avoiding "click/item puzzles" of Adventure Game as well as long story branches of Visual Novel.

This fits the theme of "light gaming" very well while leaving room and focus on story and visuals.

Gameplay can be expanded in the future, there's basic functionality for character skills, relations, currency, time and a (knowledge-) inventory already in the framework.

About me

I started programming in the times of Vic20 and made my first games (adventures) on the C64. Went on to be a software-developer and -architect, project management and such. I always made hobby games for fun and was responsible lead for a kids game by a publishing house that went to win an award.

What's already there

Over the course of around two years I built a full engine and framework with Unity and YarnSpinner that is perfectly capable to do everything described above.

A simple prologue and a text-only beta of the first case are available over on https://wackymelange.itch.io/