Study Time, Aya!
A downloadable game for Windows
Aya is a { FREE } interactive desktop buddy designed to be your work/study partner. Give her gifts and get to know each other as you work together toward your goals! The game runs on your desktop clock, and she recognizes major (US) holidays.
* GIFTS - Earn points by "studying" with her and use those points to buy gifts to raise her affection. 3 items per day are always unlocked and change daily. Additional unlockable gifts include items to permanently decorate her room and items she can wear.
* DIALOGUE - Hundreds of lines of unlockable and variable-based dialogue. The closer you get to her, the more she'll have to say, and she'll remember things you tell her about yourself.
* MOODS - Aya has different moods on different days, and her mood can change based on what you say to her, or how much you annoy her while she's working.
* CLOTHING - Many different outfits, including unlockable outfits and seasonal clothing.
* OST - The radio plays an original soundtrack by brutalmoose!
* EASTER EGG EVENT - Discover a hidden event that unlocks the final gift from the gift shop!
Q: I'm giving her gifts but her meter isn't going up!
A: The meter you can see is a condensed reflection of her current friendship/love points. You might not always see it go up, but it is increasing when you give her gifts and occasionally when you answer questions in ways she likes. To be specific, the meter will visually increase by 1 for every 4 points you earn. The rotating daily gifts will net you between 2 - 4 points each, depending on how much she likes that specific item.
Q: Help! She's mad at me and doesn't want to study with me anymore!
A: You've annoyed her, probably from talking her ear off. Give her some space and try again later. If she likes you enough, eventually you can speak to her an unlimited amount without making her angry.
Q: Any hints about the hidden event?
A: It's not tied to her affection, and it's unlockable pretty early in the game. Good luck!
Q: How do I listen to the soundtrack?
A: The radio has an on/off button, as well as buttons to turn the volume up and down.
Q: I wasn't paying attention and my game is no longer open! I think it crashed!
A: Aya will sometimes ask you how your studying is going. If you don't answer in a timely manner, she'll close the game. Don't worry, the game saves your progress whenever it closes!
+ Made by unico
+ Music by brutalmoose
Special thanks to friendlycosmonaut for designing & coding the day-to-night lighting system!
NOTE: You can update to a newer version without affecting your save data, just redownload the game and run the newest version.
Oct. 23rd, 2023 - A little more tweaking, added a few more dialogue lines, and fixed a typo. Nothing major.
Oct. 19th, 2023 - I tweaked the timing on the auto-advance text so it stays on-screen longer.
Oct. 16th, 2023 - Released the game!
Download
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Comments
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Thank you for making this beautiful study companion!
I've been really enjoying my time with Aya so far, together with an impeccable music selection and gorgeous pixel art that makes for an immersive and atmospheric study room experience. I also appreciate that it's more lightweight compared to other study companion games which tend to slow my computer down with 3D graphics, to the point where they actually distract me from being productive!
However, can I ask whether the gifts will affect her mood/relationship? I noticed that she gives a questioning reaction after certain gifts like the corn candy are given, which makes me wonder whether there is a likes/dislikes mechanic here like Stardew Valley where gifts can affect her relationship with the player.
I also have a suggestion: an option to turn off or adjust the volume for the ambient sound. Sometimes I leave the application open in the background during online classes with the sound off so I can hear the lecturer more clearly (especially when it's raining in-game since the raining sound effect is quite loud), but this causes me to miss dialogue from Aya since I can't hear her "voice" asking me if I'm still working, forcing me to reopen the application when it closes itself. It would be nice to be able to turn off the ambient sound like the music so that I can have a quieter experience while still being able to hear Aya's "voice" when she needs my attention.
This is long. Sorry in advance!
I do a weekly radio show that I prepare material for ahead of time, and I've recently taken to having this game open as a way of providing some entertainment/positive reinforcement for the work that I do which can get a little repetitive or intellectually draining at times. I broadly like what I've experienced so far, but I have a couple of gripes, both around Aya's interpretation of time.
Because of my show's schedule, I only open the game once a week. I then have it open probably for about nine or ten hours straight. I just got chastised for apparently "slacking off", presumably because of how far apart my sessions are. Maybe I'm taking this game too seriously, but this incident has pissed me off, and I've closed the game and very possibly may not play it this week in the hopes that that will teach her something about not holding others to her own standards without them agreeing to such standards first.
I can think of two possibilities for why this scene is in the game. First, this may be something everyone gets in order to give Aya more depth as a character and make her feel more realistic. If that's the case, genuinely good job, because I'm actually kind of mad at her.
Second, this may indeed be an indication that I'm not playing the game as often as intended. If that's the case, I think that's a pretty limited scope of intention. My work schedule isn't the same as a student's study schedule, and I'm not particularly inclined to have the game open while I'm not working because I think I would lose my association of the game with work, and it would stop helping me keep my concentration when working. I would prefer to have an option to set my weekly "study"/work schedule with Aya (by clicking on the calendar behind her, maybe?), so she knows what to expect, and possibly an option to disable Aya's expectations of how often you have the game open entirely.
My other annoyance is that closing the game and then reopening it gets an annoyed comment as well, something to do with "not taking it seriously" because the game wasn't open long enough last time. I think this is a poor metric for that assessment. Consider that Aya regularly leaves her desk to go clear her head, or get a snack. Why shouldn't I be able to indicate that I'm doing the same by closing the game and reopening it when I come back? I think that a better metric for "how seriously is the player working" would be a count of how long the game has been running across all sessions within the last 24-48 hours. That way, if I need to step away and don't want Aya to time out when she asks how work is going (which feels kind of rude on my part, frankly), I can just close the game and reopen it when I get back. If you'd rather still have "closing the game" mean "work is done for the day", then another post-it near the Exit one to indicate "BRB" or something could serve a similar, satisfactory purpose.
I also have more of a comment than a gripe. I would enjoy if Aya could give me the occasional hint on how to unlock new items in the store. I'm still on the first three items only, and I've had the game running for at least eight hours once a week for the last five weeks. I've clicked on everything I can think of. I'm stumped! I'm not asking for the answers on a silver platter, of course (though I wouldn't turn that down), because the idea of discovering the new items does sound fun. But a nudge or two in the right direction every now and then would be welcome.
And the only wish I can really think of would be more music on the radio! I found out about this project from being a fan of brutalmoose, so I know this wish is mostly up to him, but the songs in the game are good, they just repeat a little too quickly for my taste. That would be helped by having more of them! That, or integration with local media files on my computer or services like YouTube Music, SoundCloud, internet radio, etc. That would be cool as well. It'd be pretty amusing if I could find and plug in a playlist of Radio New Vegas songs and have actual DJ announcements from Mr. New Vegas, haha.
I'm very happy with the game, and it has definitely made my weekly news grind less foreboding. I would enjoy it even more if some of my feedback could be taken on board. Thanks for making it and for reading my thoughts!
And she just did it again, despite the fact that I've since had the chance to explain that I'm doing work (something that I would expect her to understand doesn't always have set hours), not studying, and her opinion of me was supposed to have increased since then. And the fact that I last had the game open around this exact time on this day last week, consistency which I would expect to be noticed in a conversation like this.
There are a lot of things I like about this game, but the inflexibility of Aya's expectations is a major flaw. Worse, it distracts me from my work, and puts me in a bad mood to start with, which I can't imagine is going to lead to more productivity. I would really appreciate if you could take a second look at how this part of the game is handled.
Hello! First of all, I'm SO SORRY it took me so long to reply to your feedback. I was heavily pregnant when I released this game and have since had my baby. I had a long and difficult recovery and it's hard to get around to anything with a newborn!
I combed through my coding to make sure things were triggering the way I had designed them and I wasn't able to find any issues upon inspection. Aya is designed to only get annoyed with you leaving if you open the game and close it again within about 5 minutes (this variable runs on an in-game time system, so it's not tied perfectly to your clock.) I've verified that this is working. This is to discourage people from opening her up just to check the gift shop and then closing her. Naturally, that would be distracting for her. You shouldn't be having long sessions with her and having her get annoyed at you leaving. If you think this is not the way it's working, it'd be massively helpful if you'd take a screenshot of the text you feel is triggering incorrectly and send it to ohunico.contact@gmail.com. If you are going to leave temporarily to take a break, you can always leave her open. You don't get penalized in terms of raising her distraction level, building resentment points, or triggering her 'annoyed' mood if you don't answer her when she asks you if you're still studying. That mechanic is there to prevent the player from leaving her open overnight to farm points for gifts. Again, she won't be any more distracted/resentful/annoyed with you if you just don't answer and reopen the game when you come back if it's closed.
All of your suggestions are honestly great. Unfortunately, with the way the saves work, it's very difficult for me to change or add major things to the game without corrupting everyone's save files and forcing everyone to restart, which I don't want to do. BUT I've already written your suggestions down and I will implement them if I ever do another game in this style, which is an idea I'm toying with c: I could definitely tweak her conversation when you come back after a while and she gets annoyed with your absence. I'll look into this and add it to her next update. You should get an alert here on itch every time she gets an update!
As for the gifts in the gift shop: they're all tied to her affection points except for the very last gift, which is tied to the easter egg event. You don't have to unlock all the previous gifts to unlock the last gift.
What a wonderful pixel-art calming room!
I have already launched it many times as a desktop accessory to work with Aya together.
Aya seems a bit serious, but that has allowed me to work diligently without slacking off when I have this application up and running.
Thanks for a great application!
And I played this software on streaming and I'm so glad that the people who watched me also downloaded this and seem to be working with Aya.
Aww, thank you so much! I'm so glad you're enjoying her and she's helping you get some work done!!
Spoiler Thoughts
Every week I would decide to work on my PC, launch Study Time Aya, and concentrate on my work.
Finally, during this time, Aya affection level reached Max!
And today, after a special conversation, her affection gauge entered the second round!
I am looking forward to working with Aya and thinking about the many more events that await us. (Of course, we will continue to work together even after the events are over.)
So far I have not found it inconvenient as a gameplay experience.
If I had to say something, I would say that the meteor shower event lasted for a few days, so it lost some of its freshness.
But the beauty of the first meteor I saw with Aya was amazing.
And Congratulations on your new arrival!
Thank you so much for playing! I'm so happy you're enjoying your time with her <3