What is this?

Summon a Sweetheart is a sample game project made by myself, in (roughly) a month, using the RPG Maker MV engine.

This sample project served as a learning experience, where I taught myself how to use the engine from basically nothing. The game itself is not much of a "game" in terms of fighting or combat- though instead, the main objective of the game is to search the main protagonist (Penelope)'s room; to find a gift for an eldritch monster she summoned. Depending on the gift you find (or craft), you reach a different ending. The game is incredibly short, but if you're going through all the endings, I suppose around 20ish minutes would be the runtime??? I'm not really sure how you would estimate these kinds of things, but I doubt it would breach a half hour.

The themes of the game are somewhat dark and depressing, though it's handled in a somewhat lighthearted manner. Not to make light of such things, of course- but to try and find some sense of humor or laughter, in a reality many people can't seem to escape. Or at the very least- not without a great amount of effort and support.

You can't really "win" the game, as all endings, in some form or fashion, end badly for Penelope. It's only a matter of how bad it will be.

Penelope

Penelope is intended to be an amalgamation of all the terrible coping skills, thoughts, and experiences one person could possibly go through, all at once. Condensed into a character that doesn't have the mental bandwidth to handle it, or do anything to fix the sorry state she's in. Thus, she accepts it- falling further and further into brokenness, where all she wants to do is alleviate some of the pain, without actually fixing the problem(s) that's causing it.

She lives in a shitty, run down apartment, has hoards of trash all over the place, and can barely muster up the energy to eat something aside from liquid sugars. She flips and flops between wanting to erase herself from the world, and desperately wishing she had the desire to stay. Due to this uncomfortable mindset, she often makes rash, unwise, spontaneous choices, in an almost manic state. Which is how she found herself in the events of the game, spontaneously summoning an eldritch monster, without knowing- or caring, about the risks.

Galatea

The eldritch monster, Galatea, named with the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea in mind- is meant to represent a toxic partner that people who are suffering often find themselves dating, or wed to. At some points, she is explosive and reactive, her anger sometimes makes no sense at all. Other times she takes everything personally, deeply offended by simple offerings. Sometimes she's unnaturally calm and lucid, seeming normal despite her volatile behavior. Most of all, she reads Penelope like a book. She is far too knowledgeable of what makes her tick, what gets her upset, and exactly what kind of bait she needs to put on the hook, in order to make her bite.

Pygmalion had made Galatea perfect, exactly as he wanted. His "ideal woman," if you would. She, in a sense, is the same to the mythological Galatea in that way. When individuals who aren't in a healthy state of mind or body, dream up someone they think is "perfect" for them, often times, I would assume, this perfect person isn't actually all that nice. Due to their self image being so low, I'd assume, their ideal partner would reflect that, giving them a temporary sedative for the emotional pain, but still treating them the same way they treat themselves- badly. It's simply the small crumbs of attention or affection they would receive from them, that earns them the title "ideal." Galatea is intended to be Penelope's "perfect person." Her "Galatea."

Throughout the game, there are sparse hints and nods to certain aspects of Penelope's life that don't get mentioned again. This was done purposefully, with the intent of (hopefully) building her character without needing to really spell anything else out. Since her whole... deal, is already kind of obvious, it felt redundant to keep smacking the player over the head with just how messed up she is. What I did keep obvious, I still tried to make natural in some way. I tried to portray how screwed her way of thinking is, and her mentality on pretty much everything, by using her words- via the narration. Despite it being written in the second person, it has the tone and understanding of a first person narration. It was, in theory, to make the process of the player getting all that info, rather quick and painless, by just... listening to her. Hopefully, in that sense, it wasn't really an infodump.

In any case- Penelope has things that were hinted at, and then never mentioned again. If you cared enough about this game to find your way here, and cared even more beyond that to read this thing, you're probably curious about it, and want to know what that's all about. So I'll list them here for you.

• Penelope takes Anti-Depressants (not as prescribed) and Anti-Anxiety medication (not as prescribed.) That's what the "phone alarm" was during her monologue in the "good" ending. It was the alarm to take her meds.
• Penelope had a small group of friends in high school that, for one reason or another, cut her off. I posit that it's due to her being unreachable, unpredictable, and the strain of dealing with someone so riddled with anxiety and depression- eventually drove them away from her. I wouldn't say there was a grand fight or anything, they just... quietly drifted away, and never bothered to take her with them.
• While Penelope's room is absolutely disgusting, she doesn't pee in cups. She still uses the bathroom like a regular person. Hence her one comment while inspecting a trash pile, about how the cups "only held drinks," so she's not too concerned with it touching her.
• Penelope used to be an artsy type. She used art as a way to express herself, but as her mind deteriorated, so did her desire to do anything crafty, fun, or creative. Remnants of the now dead hobby can be found in her room.
• Penelope has an unhealthy relationship with food. Throughout the game, she recounts multiple times; how she doesn't like the taste of water, eats lots of sugary candy, energy drinks, and wine. She's bordering on becoming dangerously anorexic, and is already very, very thin. She's likely malnourished, since despite her eating some solid food, (takeout) it's not nutritionally valuable at all. Her diet is pretty much exclusively caffeine, sugar and empty carbs. Not a veggie or a piece of protein in sight. I haven't fully decided if this aversion to certain foods and textures is simply a matter of being stressed. When "new" or "unfamiliar" sensations appear in food, it stress her out too much and she avoids it... Or, I accidentally gave her some ND traits I didn't intend to, but it fits like a glove nonetheless. Honestly, at this point- I think both. Both fit her.
• She reacts strangely to Galatea calling her parents 'genetic donors.' Her relationship with her folks is absolutely abysmal. Her parents were so unpleasant to be around in any capacity, that a lot of her unhealthy habits were not only formed during this time- but remain in adulthood. Her parents were overly aggressive types, not the kind to neg you, or give backhanded compliments- they're the type to insult you to your face, and expect you to take it with a smile, or else. It is here, in her childhood, that she developed two key mentalities she hasn't shaken off yet; The fear of failure: why try doing anything if it's not going to be perfect the first time? You'll just be screamed at if you mess up, etc. etc. And a fear of people, and the outside world: Since, after all, parents are supposed to be the "good" people in life, if they're torturous to be around- what on earth could a "bad" person look like? I don't want to find out!
• The "funniest video" she was showing Galatea is that black and white low polygon model of a cat sitting loafed, spinning quickly to 'the world revolving.' I swear to god, I saw a video that was exactly that somewhere- but I cant remember where I saw it. For something that general, I'm not bothering to look.
• Galatea clarifying what she meant by "eat her alive" is exactly what it sounds like in both senses. Penelope may be a pathetic loser, but she is also a bit of a freak.
• Due to Penelope being so mentally fragmented, she never really got to know herself. Her entire personality is just a bundle of trauma responses. However, there are moments where she seems sassy, or slightly more confident when she gets fired up enough for her brain to stop thinking (i.e.: making her anxious for a moment.) This happens when Galatea freaks her out with her blunt, and uncomfortable accurate read of her psyche. Those few quips and sassy remarks, for a moment, is a bit of Penelope poking out from under all the mud.
• Penelope isn't too fond of women's clothing, or overly feminine clothing. She wears exclusively men's pants. There is a mention that her pants pockets are quite deep, since they're men's.

Ending 1 - Wine Bottle

In the first ending, Penelope gives Galatea a wine bottle.

Inspect the lone wine bottle on the floor near her bed. Pick it up, and give it to her.

This should trigger the 1st ending

Ending 2 - Sugar Stick

In the second ending, Penelope gives Galatea a sugar stick.

Inspect the pile of trash highlighted in the image. It is the last one you can reach, to the bottom right, before moving up a tile.

Give Galatea the sugar stick, that should trigger the 2nd ending.

Ending 3 - Water Bottle
Ending 4 - Energy Drink

There are two items in this spot, that give you multiple different endings. The water bottle, and the energy drink.

Inspect the minifridge, and take the water bottle.
Give Galatea the water bottle, that should trigger the 3rd ending.

Inspect the minifridge, and take the energy drink.
Give Galatea the energy drink, that should trigger the 4th ending.

Ending 5 - Energy Drink Sludge

In the 5th ending, Penelope crafts a disgusting sludge that she gives to Galatea.

Inspect, and take:

• The wine bottle on the floor
• The energy drink from the minifridge.

Go to the craft cart (highlighted with a '?') and interact with it. The game should automatically sense you have the necessary items in your inventory, and prompt you to craft an item.

Craft it, and give the sludge to Galatea to trigger the 5th ending.

Ending 6 - Sugar Water

In the 6th ending, Penelope crafts sugar water that she gives to Galatea.

Inspect, and take:

• The sugar stick, hidden in the pile of trash.
• The water bottle from the minifridge.

Go to the craft cart (highlighted with a '?') and interact with it. The game should automatically sense you have the necessary items in your inventory, and prompt you to craft an item.

Craft it, and give the sugar water to Galatea to trigger the 6th ending.

Ending 7 - Old Plushie

In the 7th ending, Penelope gives Galatea a plushie.

Inspect the plushie on the dresser to the left. Pick it up, and give it to her.

This should trigger the 7th ending

Ending 8 - Favorite Shirt

In the 8th ending, Penelope gives Galatea her favorite shirt.

Inspect the wardrobe next to the bed. You should be prompted with a choice to take the shirt. Take it, and give it to Galatea.

This should trigger the 8th ending

Ending 9 - Diary

In the 9th ending, Penelope gives Galatea her old diary.

Inspect under the bed, by walking behind the trash pile. You should be prompted with a choice to take the diary. Take it, and give it to Galatea.

This should trigger the 9th ending

Ending 10 - Protein Powder

In the 10th ending, Penelope gives Galatea old protein powder.

Inspect the dresser to the far right, the tile with the poseable doll on it. You should be prompted with a choice to take the protein powder. Take it, and give it to Galatea.

This should trigger the 10th and final ending.

Game Complete!!!

March 29th & 30th screencaps

I looked over every ending and rewrote some lines, since some of them we're kind of awkward. (I'm not much of a writer, if that wasn't evident enough already.) Made the remaining sprites and cutscene images, and fixed the few placeholder sprites that were still on the map.

But at this point... it's... done? I think it's... actually just... complete?

I could already feel myself getting trapped in a loop when I was looking over the endings- where I would just keep checking over, and over, and over, again. Never satisfied, and weirdly scared of it not being good enough to go public. But, honestly at that point, thats when I do one final spellcheck, call it done, and just hit deploy so I cant obsessively check over everything forever lol.

The Final Stretch . . .

March 29th screencaps

3/29/26 -
FINALLYYYY OOUUGHH MY GOD okay I finished all the endings! And I added the flavor text events! Now I just need to tweak the SE and music, finish up some cutscene pictures and a few more of Penelope's sprites, and I'm good to go, I think!

Mostly done?

Feb 15th screencaps

At this time, I finished basically all of the sprites, save for the book and poster placeholders. This is where most of the work was basically done, and I started to lose steam since that sense of progression started getting smaller and smaller now. I planned a few stupid short endings, and 2 "long" endings. I had done one long one at this point and a few stupid ones. I still needed the last longer one and like 2 more dumb ones.

I also need to start adding sound at this point, since everything thus far is dead silent save for a sting that plays when Galatea speaks and some intro sfx.

Rewriting, like, everything.

Feb 10th screencaps

The grand rewriting... A lot of the dialogue wasn't very... good? Make no mistake, it's not like I'm Shakespeare or anything, but I think that even if this still sucks, it sucks way less than what it was before. So, improvement! I finished up some more of the cutscenes, and put a placeholder one with Galateas sprite since I redid her design at this point. I also did a few more stupider endings.

Coming Together . . .

Feb 4th screencaps

I worked quite a lot since the last screenshot I took. I did all of the tile sets for the room (with some placeholders still) and this screenshot is actually the updated room tile set. I didn't end up getting a picture of it beforehand, but because of the way some of the trash tiles were interacting with other furniture and the player, I needed to shuffle around what was on which tile set sheet, so I basically needed to redo the whole room. I also figured out (feverishly googled) how to make light effects, and ended up doing the only thing that I could understand and looked decent without plugins. So that's what those solid color events are. A majority of the endings are written at this point.

Taking Shape . . .

Jan 29th screencaps

Some of the cutscenes have been finished, the top-down sprite is complete for Penelope, and, you get to see Galatea's old poo poo design that I hated so much I did 2 other drafts of it before reaching the one I decided on. I believe I also started the tile sets but I didn't finish them yet at this time, and wrote a few more endings and interactables.

You can also see the text formatting is terrible. I unwisely continue like this before fixing it later on, same thing with spellchecking since I was just raw dogging the dialogue right in RPG Maker. (Do not do that, for the love of god, learn from my hubris, do not. It was SO annoying and tedious to fix.)

First Steps

Jan 19th - 27th screencaps

Ah, the beginning... As you can see, I slapped together a bunch of placeholders, since I'm the type that HAS to see what the final product is going to look like, empty boxes wont do for me. I also wrote some notes in one of the screenshots for myself in the placeholder files. Galatea was original supposed to be more liquid-y. More acid-trip-y.

For those wondering, yes, that placeholder sprite is NOT something I made, it's the sprite from Dreaming Mary that I slapped the word "placeholder" over, since... well, I was using it as a placeholder. Games like dreaming Mary were a major inspiration for me while making this- and more specifically, not only was it an inspiration, but Mary's sprite is 2 tiles high. Not one. The creator of dreaming Mary answered an ask here, answering how she made Mary's sprite such an odd size. She also provided Mary's sprite sheet, giving the ok to use it as a playtest file. Due to the ways different versions of RPG Maker sizes the tiles, when I used this for a placeholder, she was actually off center. I ended up fixing it for MV later on for the placeholder, but it was really helpful to be able to play with another sprite sheet that already did what I wanted to do, and all I had to do was figure out how they did it.

I also overcame my fear of plugins. The message Busts is GALV's Message Bust plugin. The textbox for the name is the YEP_MessageCore plugin, but I ended up not liking how it looked (and lord knows I'm not messing around in the plugin code since I don't know what I'm doing) so I ended up removing it.