YAKO: July 9 Check-in

Week-six push on YAKO, and the night finally walks.

The loop clicks

The core loop is what I keep coming back to: a girl who ran away from home, phone dead, two nights gone. She walks a low-poly midnight street, and the whole thing is just her moving through small moments and short encounters. No talking. The mood does the writing.

What now works

• The PS1 crunch is real in-engine now — 320×240, dithering, vertex snap. It looks like the 90s remembered it wrong, which is the point.
• The night reads as night: pixel stars above, cold blue moonlight, warm sodium lamps bleeding into bloom.
• The cigarette loop is done — carton out, smoke, burn through three stages, toss the butt, do it again. Speed halves while you smoke, which slows the whole night down.
• The NPC system holds. White outline when you look at someone, a blip voice per character, typewriter lines. It all runs without audio files.

No talking. The mood does the writing.

Where it is heading

Map 01 (the convenience store street) is the focus. After that, a crossroads, an overpass, an arcade alley, and a quiet school rooftop to carry the ending. One small duck waits on each map to say something, then leaves.