Happy New Year's Eve and 1st Anniversary of 2 Hours' release! 

Unfortunately, my original plan to celebrate with the 2.0 update is not feasible so I'd like to celebrate another way. By showing off concept art and talk about the development for 2 Hours a little bit! 

Sprite Sketches

Here are the sketches that were the basis of the final sprites in-game. Most of the changes were to cover hands because I struggle drawing them lol. 

Before the project officially became 2 Hours, I was writing an idea for a VN about Jordan going to the mall to buy a replacement to Greg's video game that he broke. It was more meant for me to practice writing rather than being a publicly released project. That is until I made the song, Frost Byte,  which became the basis for the game's art direction.  Since the game jam had to be winter-themed, I reworked that original concept to be about last-minute Christmas shopping. The idea for the time mechanic came while I watched a live-streamer play SMT: Devil Survivor Overclocked. I liked the time management mechanic and decided to try recreating the system albeit very rudimentary. 

Original Employee Lineup

The original plan for 2 Hours was to have 6 stores so you could do 2 playthroughs and go through completely different combinations. But the 6th store was scrapped early on (hence the closed button on the map) to lessen the scope of the project Beth and Bennett were originally going to work at the same store together and James' had a completely different tone to his store early on, so a lot of his concept art had him more chirpy/similar to his portrayal in "Do Not Kill Me Jacob Extra." 

Early Map Designs

Here are rough sketches for the game's map. I was struggling 😭😭😭 An early Idea would be that Blake would be on the map and you'd be able to talk to him, but that concept was cut due to time constraints. </3

CGs

Here are some rough sketches for CGs, The Blake one was meant for the music store and the other one was for the Journal ending. I eventually commissioned Ratrave to draw the latter one for the 2.0 update.

2.0 Cut Content

Razz (& the Candy Store)

One of the first things I wanted to add after the release of 2 Hours was the 6th store. Which I decided would be the candy store with Razz as the employee. I really didn't have a lot written for him but the gifts were going to be a gingerbread house kit and candy cigarettes. He was cut from the original release and he got cut from the 2.0 update. Maybe next time buddy...

Original Greg sprite redesign 

Before I revamped Jordan, Greg, and Blake's sprites in December, I had an updated Greg sprite from earlier in the year. 

That's pretty much it. there are some minor things l forgot but I'm in a rush lol. Thank you for reading and I hope my next post will be about the release of the 2.0 update. I hope you all have a great 2025!

-Bradley