Sunset Passion ’76
Dating sim · interactive cinema-novel
A full-season dating sim staged as a visual novel in California, summer 1976: Leo “Lucky” Vance and nine heroines, each with an episode arc of her own — Technicolor stills, gamified choices, Heat & Trust meters on the frame, and a main menu that opens the arcs episode by episode. Built in FMV Builder as its VN showcase: dialogue reads as a script with speakers and expressions, the timeline lays out lines and staging, and the HUD carries the meters. The canonical graph keeps growing toward the full season; the browser build plays the opening slice via the FMV Builder player.
Author · Direction · Writing
Key features
Pick where the summer starts
Nikon on the shoulder, a full tank and all of Los Angeles ahead: the season opens on the poster collage with the protagonist’s meters already on the frame — Tension/Heat, Trust/Affection, Photojournalist Rep. Task: hand the player a summer that starts wherever they point the camera.
A date on the meter
Every date plays as a VN scene: a Technicolor still, a line of dialogue, a gamified choice — hold the warm gaze or play it cool — and the meters answer immediately. Task: make affection measurable without making it mechanical.
Endings you collect
An arc closes on its own ending card — the player keeps it, the run summary offers another try or back to the title screen, and the title screen remembers what has been found. Task: turn finales into a collection, one summer at a time.
- Episode menu — the title screen opens heroine arcs one by one, each labelled honestly with its frame count
- Nine heroines — character cards with looks, haunts and their own episode keys
- Heat & Trust — meters on the HUD track how every date is going
- VN script — dialogue reads as a script with speakers and expressions, editable in place
- Choices with memory — flags and variables carry between episodes