Adulting – Interactive Visual Novel

Growing older has nothing to do with feeling grown up.

Face the challenges of adulthood with Liv, Albert and Finja in this interactive visual novel by exploring their everyday lives through point-and-click interactions as well as mini games and figure out the secrets of how to be an adult!

This entry introduces you how to adult, from early concepts to final realization.

We hope you enjoy our game and can relate how hard it sometimes can be to be grown up. - The Adulting Team

»Adulting« is an interactive visual novel tackling the topic of being an adult. It is a third person side scroller and a single player. It's unique style combines two-dimensional as well as three-dimensional art to reflect the look and feel of comics and graphic novels. Set in different apartments it should give the player a closer look into the lives of the three main characters.The goal is to embed the feeling of insecurity that accompanies the term »being an adult« in the form of a visual, interactive story and to enable the recipients to deal with this topic individually but also socially. The game takes around 20–30 minutes, depends on how much time you invest in mini games and reading the dialoge carefully.

The topic of the perception of being and becoming an adult in society is personified with three main characters and their individual struggle with the theme. In preparation the development team invested in a 3 month long research by interviewing psychologists and collaborating with the Sigmund Freud Private University Linz as well as making an online survey with over 80 participants. Furthermore we looked at different publications, articles and talks as well as looked at the topic being discussed on social media channels like Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

These are some of the responses we got from our survey:

At the beginning of the project, we started a Miro board to collaborate on different ideas and brainstorming. It was particularly useful for planning the style, as everyone was able to gather references and things they were inspired by, allowing us to sort these into different directions. In the end, we decided to work on a mixture of 2D characters living in 3D environments, which would be hand-painted. Additionally, since the main team is a huge fan of comics, graphic novels, and zines, we wanted to incorporate the look and feel of these analog mediums into the UI.

After the first brainstorming phase, we started to work directly in Unreal Engine 5 on the mixed look of 3D and 2D components, focusing on how to achieve a stylized, hand-painted look for the 3D environment to complement the 2D characters and ground them in the world.

First thing we worked on was a post process material that incorporates watercolor and hatching shadows, a paper texture as well as outlines.

We then created a guide for the textures of the 3D models for specific materials, ensuring they had a hand-painted look that complemented the general post-process shader. We chose to keep the overall design in black and white, adding a distinct color to specific elements for each character to help the player quickly identify the current chapter and apartment. Additionally, each character has a signature color used sparingly on important elements, incorporating a hue from another character’s palette to symbolize the connections between their lives.

During the early development phase, we also planned out the storyline. The game features a linear narrative divided into three main acts, with the player switching between three different characters. Each chapter includes 1-2 main interactions, along with point-and-click features and additional information about the characters' lives and thoughts. A more detailed explanation of these interactions is provided further down.

Throughout the game, there are five different environments, including the characters' apartments, a flower shop, and a rooftop terrace, which appears at the end of each chapter.

LIV APARTMENT

Concept Art

Process in the development

ALBERT APARTMENT

Concept Art

FINJA APARTMENT

Concept Art

process in the development

ROOFTERRACE

Concept Art

process in the development

ALBERTS FLOWER SHOP

Concept Art

process in the development

To achieve a hand-painted look for the environment assets, we created a style guide for specific materials like metal, plastic, and glass. We then hand-painted the textures of each asset using Procreate or Adobe Photoshop. The assets were a mix of custom models created by our team and those sourced from the Epic Games Store.

Texture Guide

Liv is a 23-year-old single student who is pursuing a university education in the creative industry as well as a part-time job. She has financial difficulties, as her parents also have to support her other siblings financially. The pressure to get her adult life together financially in addition to education and work is growing.

We took a specific approach to designing our characters: leveraging the team's strong interest in 2D design, we maximized our concept art output. Everyone contributed by trying different styles and approaches, all based on the same brainstorming board. As a team, we then decided on the best features and styles, and one artist integrated all the different elements into the final design.

Final Design of Liv

ANIMATIONS

For the animations, our animator used Toon Boom Harmony. Our character designer created rigged versions of the final designs in Adobe Photoshop. The animated characters were then imported into Unreal Engine as flipbooks using the free "PaperZD" plugin from the Epic Games Store. Each character has idle, walk, and run animations (except Finja, who can't run due to her age), and Albert's children also have jumping animations.

Turntables and Rigged Versions of the Characters for the animation in ToonBoom Harmony

Albert is a man in his mid-40s with two children. He has difficulty taking care of his two children and all his other adult responsibilities, such as his own florist store, because his partner‘s job often prevents him from being at home.

Final Design of Albert and his Children Alva and Quinn

ANIMATIONS

Finja is a 70-year-old pensioner who has particular difficulties with loneliness, as it is difficult for her to stay in contact with her friends, as she no longer has the possibility to travel long distances due to her age. Her family through their busy adult life also do not have much time to visit her.

Some insights into the concept art of Finja

Final Design of Finja

ANIMATIONS

For the User Interface, we drew significant inspiration from comic books and graphic novels. This influence is evident in various elements of the design, including speech bubbles, icons, emotes, stickers, the scrapbook, and the main menu. We aimed to capture the dynamic and expressive qualities of these mediums to create a visually engaging and cohesive aesthetic. The speech bubbles mimic the bold, dramatic style of comic dialogue, while the icons and emotes reflect the playful and illustrative nature typical of graphic novels. The stickers, in particular, which can be sent with text messages inside the scrapbook, are designed to evoke a playful, childlike feel, aiming to reawaken the player's inner child. The scrapbook and main menu also embody this style, offering a seamless and immersive experience that ties the entire game together with a consistent, visually appealing theme. By integrating these elements, we sought to enhance the storytelling and provide players with an interface that feels both familiar and creatively inspired by beloved comic book traditions.

Additionally, for the different mini-games, we maintained the overall look and feel of the base game's UI but added unique twists to match the individual style of each mini-game. This approach ensures a cohesive aesthetic while allowing each mini-game to have its distinct visual flair. By integrating these design elements, we aim to create a user interface that is both engaging and visually consistent with the game's artistic vision.

Progress of prototyping for the main menu to final result

Progress of prototyping for the scrapbook to final result

The game is an experience focusing heavily on storytelling and featuring engaging mini-games as well as point-andclick interactions with dialogue. The story focuses on three characters, each with 3 acts of the story whereas the storylines are linear. The setting is a multi-apartment building. All those light interactions and additional dialogue focus on different problematic aspects of our three characters who should represent different age groups who are struggling with different aspects of being an adult. Furthermore it features point-and-click events which trigger short animations or dialogues giving the characters and environments more context.

Throughout the story, the player will encounter light mini-games that must be completed to progress. There are 12 mini-games, each with a different gameplay style, representing daily tasks related to the adulthood challenges each character faces. For Liv, the tasks are related to money, university, or work. For Albert, they involve managing two children and work, as well as losing childhood passions due to adult responsibilities. For Finja, the tasks are related to loneliness and the reduced availability of family and friends compared to when she was younger.

an insight into some of the mini games that can be found in the game

Progress of prototyping different mini games to final results

Additionally the players can write messages and send them to other players. Here, own thoughts can be written down and decorated with stickers. Writing and sending these messages can take place at any time during the course of the action. With the help of a scrapbook that can be accessed at any time, the player can send messages and read and store collected paper planes. On the roofterrace which appears at the end of every chapter, the player can catch flying paper planes and read the messages inside. This place is for reflecting and sharing thoughts.

Progress on Prototyping the Scrapbook, Writing Messages, and the Final Result

A coherent soundtrack with individual themes per character ensures that players are immersed in a calm but emotional atmosphere. The musical concept is to bring the experiences and emotions of the three characters closer to the player while leaving room for their own thoughts and feelings. Additionally, the music is meant to support the game's "slow-paced" nature, encouraging players to take their time with interactions and reading the story, without the music becoming repetitive. To create a calm and emotional atmosphere, a blend of melodic and atmospheric scoring was chosen. B-Lydian was selected as the central key, which, especially when alternating with D minor (as a secondary tonal center), conveys a dreamy, happy, and melancholic character ("Bittersweet"). Through the use of random playback of melody sequences (each about 10 seconds) in Wwise, the musical flow of the apartment levels is constantly changing.

Full Soundtrack is available on Spotify.

Audio Showreel

CORE TEAM

Marie-Christin Aufinger – Concept, Research, Projectmanagement, Art Direction, Visual Development, Modelling, Writing, Texturing, Game Programming

Anja Lechthaler – Concept, Research, Lead Sounddesign & Music

Hannah Fehkührer – Concept, Research, Visual Development, Modelling, Texturing, Game Programming

Renaldo Rohrmoser – Concept, Research, Visual Development, UI, Modelling, Texturing, Graphic Design, Social Media

Mira Schobesberger – Concept, Visual Development, Character Design, Modelling, Texturing, Game Programming, Research, Social Media

ADDITIONAL HELP

Theresa Pochlatko – Character Animation

Max Wöß – Additional Sounddesign

Victoria Werner – Additional Game Programming

Ekkehard Damisch – Additional Game Programming

Christian Keiler – Additional Game Programming

Jonas Pfannkuche – Web Programming

Ursula Holub – Additional Modelling & Texturing

Benjamin Typplt – Additional Projectmanagement

Thelonious Hamel – Additional Music

Dominik Kerschbaumer – Additional Game Programming

Jenny Huang – Additional Game Programming

Simon Seebacher – Additional Game Programming

Daniela Hader – Additional Game Programming

Fabian Sonnleithner – Additional Modelling & Texturing

Nico Urthaler – Additional Modelling & Texturing

Michelle Raab – Additional Game Programming

FOLLOW  US!

Follow us on Instagram : @adulting.the.game

Or look at our linktree!

Play the demo on itch.io: adulting.itch.io

Soon on Steam!