CARAMEL MOKACCINO – OTOME VISUAL NOVEL
Penelope Miller (Penny), an 18 year old girl, moves back to the city she grew up in to attend college.
When she first arrives, she finds lodging with the Salviatis, a family who has been friends with her own for many years, but she soon begins to feel out of place. Determined to find the means to live on her own, she applies for a part-time job atCaramel Mokaccino, a café close to campus that is owned by a member of the Salviati family.
As she settles into her new life, she meets lots of new friends, both at school and at work. As time goes by she gets to know them better, and helps each of them to solve the problems that arise in their daily lives.
Your job as the player is to guide Penny through this new life, to help her learn more about the people around her and grow close to them, to learn about the troubles in their lives. It won’t be easy, but with care it may lead to new bonds of friendship. Or perhaps even romance?
Caramel Mokaccino will feature 5 “pursuable” characters that for Penny to either befriend or start a romance with by the end of the story, and several side characters that will add flavor to the story.
There will be 10 endings, over 20 beautifully illustrated locations and over 20 pretty event illustrations!
Choose what to Penny does during her free time, study hard, work out, keep the apartment clean and hang out with characters! All while keeping the Caramel Mokaccino waitress part-time job.
While most of the main characters are 18 and older, the game won’t have any ‘mature’ situations except from the occasional alcohol consumption.
… and more!
Our Alpha Demo was developed during March and early April for NaNoRenO 2016. It also features a couple of finished Background art we had previously commissioned, along with the original logo by Adyrn.
It has some placeholder sprites, sketched backgrounds and the game CGs are incomplete… but it should give you and idea of the direction we’re taking! :)
We’re currently polishing the assets (finishing the CGs!) and adding the missing features, so it can be good for the campaign launch.
The GUI is currently also a placeholder, the final game will have a GUI designed by KingV.
——–
Caramel Mokaccino has actually been in the backburner and worked on on an on and off fashion for many many years.
Since around… 2007? Yes, it’s an old project!
It was actually the first Visual Novel idea of our artist, who has been working on commission for other Visual Novels since 2009.
A couple of years ago, after finishing our first personal Visual Novel as Apple Cider, we decided this would be our next project and started slowly working on it, again very on and off between work for other people’s projects. Sadly, other projects got priority and things got forgotten or just plain outdated.
First things first, though: why crowdfund?
We basically want to be able to commission the rest of the finished backgrounds we need, and also be able to work on the rest of the art, writing and programming without having to sacrifice our living expenses during the development time. That way we could devote more time to the creation of the game and deliver it earlier. It’d also let us hire assistants to help us speed up the process.
Working on a personal project versus doing the same work for other people’s ideas is priceless…. but bills need to be paid!
According to our current math, all this comes up to a grand total of US$9500.
Where will those funds go?
> Art assets will be the more costly. It involves a few extra sprites that show up later in the game, All the CGs, all the Backgrounds, new GUI elements and also hiring assistant artists to speed up the process.
>Next big chunk is writing and editing.
While some people don’t pay themselves to work on their projects, we believe on paying everybody fairly – including ourselves (an artist and a writer), so we can devote a decent amount of time working on the game instead of being limited to spare after-work hours and weekends, and sacrificing sleep and much needed life outside work.
> The core programming will be mostly done (and paid for) during the demo, so the price on the chart reflects only extra coding (including coding in the new GUI we want to get done) and scene directing (adding changing expressions, animations and transitions to scenes), which actually takes a lot of work!
> Our Reward fulfillment item is low, since we’ll try to keep most rewards digital. We’d love to have more physycal rewards, but in the end they cost money to make and the amount that goes towards the game gets severely cut.
> We’ll keep 10% for contingencies, aka “safety net money”. In case something goes wrong, this money will cover for it :)
>Wait… where’s Music? We have found a very talented composer that will contribute to the game as part of his hobby. Yes, we’re as blown away by this as you are! In case things don’t work out for any reason, we’ll use contingency money for this item.
Our original plan is to have Caramel Mokaccino developed in a timeframe of 6 months, regardless of funding. We’ll aim for a December 2016 release.
If we can’t get funded (we hope that’s not the case!) we’ll still work on it, albeit it’ll be a much smaller and simpler game since we’ll be working during our off time and will have to scrape for money for a limited amount of commissioned assets.
Worst case scenario (and best case scenario, in case we reach all our stretch goals!) our timeline would be stretched for a year at most, meaning a Q1-Q2 2017 release.
We are considering mostly digital rewards, to maximize the money going towards the project itself!
That being said, we still want to make merchandise of Caramel Mokaccino and will most likely add small physical rewards when certain stretch goals are met.
We’re still considering this, so any feedback is very appreciated! :)
All reward tiers include previous tier rewards, unless otherwise specified.
$5
You get an exclusive backer wallpaper that we won’t release anywhere else! This will also be included in all the subsequent reward tiers.
$10 – limited to 50
The digital copy of the complete game, with its 5 character routes and 10 endings! The “basic” edition of the game (funded or not), will have a basic Visual Novel approach with some simple stats and 20+ event CGs.
Get an early bird discount at $10!
*the game will be distributed via digital vendor and/or Steam, if we get CM Greenlit during campaign :)
$12
The digital copy of the complete game, with its 5 character routes and 10 endings! The “basic” edition of the game (funded or not), will have a basic Visual Novel approach with some simple stats and 20+ event CGs.
*the game will be distributed via digital vendor and/or Steam, if we get CM Greenlit during campaign :)
$25
We *love* artbooks! So making a digital artbook is one of the things we definitely want to do. You’ll get the digital version of the artbook with concept art, old sketches, coloring process and all the sprites, backgrounds and CGs. And also some random talk from the team :)
Oh, wait, this tier also includes the Original Soundtrack! :D
$45
We could use some help testing the game! If you’d like to help us with that, you’ll get early access to the game and be able to give us feedback so we make the best of this game :)
(psst! If you subscribe to our artist’s Patreon on a $5+ tier, you’ll get access to early builds and in progress shots of spoilerific art during the whole development process!)
$60
While we can’t promise a physical artbook or figures and whatnot, since that’d involve raising a lot more funds, we *can* send you some little physical things!
Goodie Bag Basic includes a postcard set signed by the artist, a sheet of stickers and a little handwritten thank you note :)
* Not an actual bag, mind you ^^;
$100 – limited to 25
Goodie Bag medium includes what comes in the Basic version, plus a sketch of a Caramel Mokaccino character of your choice, signed by the artist :)
*If the CGs level up stretch goal is reached, this tier will also include an acrylic charm of a character of your choice as well.
$150 – Limited to 15
All the items in the Goodie Bag Medium, except the sketch will be replaced for a colored sketched portrait of the CM character of your choice! And we’ll also throw in a poster.
*If the CGs level up stretch goal is reached, this tier will also include a set of acrylic charms of the CM cast (to be determined).
$200 – limited to 10
A special little digital booklet containing illustrations and sketches of the Caramel Mokaccino cast in… very little clothes and in sexy and cute poses and situations that won’t be available anywhere else, ever.
This tier includes the Goodie Bag Plus, or if you’re not fond of physical rewards, a digital colored sketch of one CM characters of your choice on any kind of outfit you ask for ;)
$500 – limited to 5
Do you want to show up in Caramel Mokaccino? Or have a character of your own you’d like to show up in the game?
Our artist will design and draw a simple sprite based on your likeness or a likeness of your choice (within artistic game direction) and it’ll be included as a side character cameo on the game, as one of Penny’s classmates or as a random character, with a few lines of its own.
As a bonus, you’ll also get beta access to our next game!
*Please contact us before pledging to see if the design is feasible and to discuss further details.
$1000 – limited to 2
Our artist will design and draw a basic sprite with the Caramel Mokaccino café uniform plus an extra set of casual clothes, based on your likeness or a likeness of your choice (within artistic game direction) and it’ll be included as a minor character on the game as a Caramel Mokaccino waiter that will show up every now and then.
Like with the Cameo, you’ll get access to the beta of our next game!
*Please contact us before pledging to see if the design is feasible and to discuss further details.
Not sure what each of the tiers includes? Here’s a handy and colorful chart!
[[Amounts may change before our KS campaign launch depending on the final quotes we get from creators!]]
$11,500
If this stretch goal is reached, we’ll be able to add a second pose for all the ‘main’ characters plus basic sprites for all the secondary characters! (Meaning they’ll also probably will get more scenes too!). It also means more outfits for the main cast as well!
*Current one pose main sprites are being made with 2 arm positions, a ton of facial expressions and a couple of outfit variations.
$13,000
If this stretch goal is reached, we’ll be able to add a cute mini game to Caramel Mokaccino!
$16,500
With this stretch goal, we’ll be able to raise the final event CG count to 40+! CGs for ALL THE THINGS! (okay, not really xD)
This stretch Goal also unlocks Acrylic Charm rewards :D
$18,500
We’ll be able to add two Poly/3P/OT3 endings: Penny + Ian + Barbara, and Nico + Penny + Annie, plus some extra scenes to the game, including more CGs!
We are very excited about this stretch goal in particular >w<
$22,000
If we reach this stretch goal, we’ll be able to hire Voice talents to partially voice the game. This means we’ll have reaction noises/words and short lines to set the mood for regular dialogue scenes and fully voiced special scenes.
Why only partial? Because it’d be irresponsible of us to ballpark a full voice acting amount or get an estimate from voice talents without even knowing the full wordcount of the game!
$26,000
if we reach this much, well make a free GirlxGirl visual novel after Caramel Mokaccino. (Because we just love GxG games.)
We have something vaguely planned for 30k+, but we’ll see if we get there ;)
Hi! This is half of the Apple Cider team, the ones behind the cute, cuddly and friendship-y fantasy adventure with dragon boys Autumn’s Journey. (It’s completely free, go play it!).
After we released AJ, and before we tackle the sequel that will be a different can of worms in itself, we decided the next project we’d make would be our artist’s little neglected project: Caramel Mokaccino.
We originally planned to work on the demo and launch this campaign during 2015, but… Cute Demon Crashers! happened. (Also completely free! Go play it if you’re 18 years old or older )
While CDC is not an Apple Cider production, both Artist and Writer came up with the idea and worked hard on its development.
We’d love to hear from you! Regardless of your intentions of pledging in the upcoming campaign, we’re very open to all kinds of feedback! So, by all means, let us know your thoughts, theories, ideas, anything! We may not take everything into consideration because of our own vision, but we’d love to hear what people think, especially about the campaign itself.
If you want to support us beyond the crowdfunding campaign, feel free to support the other games we’ve been working on! Even if they’re not our “personal” games, they still mean a lot to us, so be sure to check them :)
Buying merchandise from our other personal games (Autumn’s Journey and Cute Demon Crashers) will also help us move this little thing forward!
And if you feel like helping on a monthly basis, our artist Deji has a Patreon that basically funds all her personal art endeavours. If you pledge $5+ a month, you’ll get to see Caramel Mokaccino sneak peeks and early builds during all its development.
Lastly, please spread the word! :D Maybe you don’t like this kind of game at all (hey, what are you doing here reading this anyway? :P ), but you know somebody that does? Let them know about Caramel Mokaccino!