HTML Java [WIP] Dream Academy [v0.020] [Mantis]

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Overview
Accused of misconduct with an adult student, a former lecturer loses everything and slips away to a forgotten village to start fresh. In a place where his name means nothing, he keeps to himself, does small favors, and sees more than people admit. From those small gestures grow bonds, temptations, and secrets, and the past returns without knocking.
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Thread Updated: 2025.18.08
Developer: Mantis -

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Censored: No
Version: 0.020
OS: Windows, Linux, Mac
Language: English
Genre:

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Changelog:

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Showcase:

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Plans:

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[Mantis - Dream Academy]

I’m currently working on syncing the girls’ appearances with their actual in-game locations. I need to match each scene with the correct girl models so they don’t look artificially placed.

The main challenge is that there will never be fixed girls – you choose and add them to the game world via the Mod Manager. Because of this, the models need to follow certain standards to ensure they fit the world and keep the atmosphere consistent.

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Today I worked on allowing an unlimited number of girls to appear in the same location, along with proper rendering for them and it’s working now. I’m also considering switching the art style to something more photorealistic, so the girls would blend better with the game world. On top of that, I’ve started working on interactions like trading, conversations, flirting, and more.

 

[plastic-fantastic]

Seems interesting. I used to play around a bit with the same sort of image placement on an old Twine project of mine. Changing to photo realistic backgrounds is the way to go so scenes don't look too jarring.

Is the player the only male in town? Will he have to deal with rivals?

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Seems interesting. I used to play around a bit with the same sort of image placement on an old Twine project of mine. Changing to photo realistic backgrounds is the way to go so scenes don't look too jarring.

Is the player the only male in town? Will he have to deal with rivals?

Right now the core goal is building an advanced life simulation. At some point, men will also be part of the world - same as women, they’ll compete with the player for jobs, try to buy property in better locations to escape the starting zone, start their own businesses, etc. Later on, they’ll also be able to pursue relationships with women and basically simulate the same kind of actions the player can take.

The world simulation engine is already in a basic working state. For example, if a girl decides to go somewhere, she actually goes there. She leaves her house, walks along the path in front of it, travels through multiple intermediate locations, and eventually arrives at her destination. No teleporting, no “magic cut” — it’s all happening step-by-step.

Right now her decisions are based on basic needs like hunger or fatigue, but in future updates, these will be expanded to include traits, hobbies, and life goals. This means NPCs won’t just exist to fill space - they’ll have personal agendas, and sometimes those agendas will clash with yours.

Basically, I want the feeling that you’re living in a real, breathing world where everyone is doing their own thing, and you’re just one player in the middle of it.

 

[plastic-fantastic]

That's really ambitious. How many girls are you planning for your first release?

I share your opinion about making girls three dimensional. In my game I want different personalities for each girl, and while one might for instance be receptive to flirting, with one of her friends you won't get anywhere with her by flirting at first, because of clashing with her when you both met.

That does mean that for my first release which will hopefully be soon, there will be 6 girl npcs max. And even that is already proving a lot of work to make them have more than a throaway line and bam, clothes off and balls deep.

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

That's really ambitious. How many girls are you planning for your first release?

I share your opinion about making girls three dimensional. In my game I want different personalities for each girl, and while one might for instance be receptive to flirting, with one of her friends you won't get anywhere with her by flirting at first, because of clashing with her when you both met.

That does mean that for my first release which will hopefully be soon, there will be 6 girl npcs max. And even that is already proving a lot of work to make them have more than a throaway line and bam, clothes off and balls deep.

It seems we have a similar approach to developing our games. For the first release, I’m planning a maximum of 7 girls, which corresponds to the number of available houses in the first location. The characters will be designed in such a way that anyone can add their own (community mods), and the application will automatically load them and place them in the game world, provided there’s room for them. I also want to introduce a relationship system that doesn’t rely on maxing out all stats to 100%, but rather on skillfully balancing the NPCs’ feelings toward the player, shaped by the actions and decisions they take. This way, the development of bonds with the characters will feel more natural and varied.

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Over 600 lines of pure JavaScript, built in just 2 days.

This lightweight, drop-in system automatically blends any pasted PNG character into an SVG background - perfectly matched colors, sharpness, and lighting, no Photoshop needed.

It analyzes the background’s look and feel, then:
• Matches colors and brightness while keeping skin tones and highlights natural
• Adjusts sharpness for a seamless fit
• Adds light wrap from the background colors
• Softens edges and removes halos
• Tones down harsh highlights and balances shadows
• Paints a soft contact shadow under the character
• Adds subtle grain for a unified, polished result

Includes advanced configuration to fine-tune effects globally or per character.
Will continue to be developed for even better results - so no matter what image the community drops into the mods, it will always be automatically adapted and perfectly blended into the scene.

 

[plastic-fantastic]

Impressive work. So your scenes have multiple layers? Background, furniture, etc?

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Impressive work. So your scenes have multiple layers? Background, furniture, etc?

Yes, my scenes are built in multiple layers: I start with the background, then add matching objects (covers), followed by the characters, and finally color filters that give all elements a consistent mood; I’m currently also working on simulated motion animations during interactions to make everything feel more dynamic and alive.

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Camera that actually walks up to the girl!
I spent all of yesterday perfecting a new effect where the camera smoothly moves toward a girl at a steady pace, with subtle sway and bob that mimic a walking rhythm, precise zoom that keeps the head perfectly framed, and click detection that only registers on visible silhouette pixels. Today, I plan to replace the current panel with a massive, dynamic interface that appears right after walking up to the girl, built to accommodate every interaction and feature planned for future updates, opening the door to a far richer set of possibilities.

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[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Dropping an early version of the dynamic interface for the girls - it’s working, but this is just the beginning. Now I’ve got a lot of work ahead to set up the interactions and actions that will be available through it. It’s probably going to take a while, since I consider this the most important element in games of this type and I want it to be polished in every detail.​

 

[mynameiscoollook]

Using gifs instead of regular photos sounds like a tough one. Havent really seen a project pull that off well yet. How are you planning to make it work?

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Using gifs instead of regular photos sounds like a tough one. Havent really seen a project pull that off well yet. How are you planning to make it work?

I don’t have a clear idea yet, but I know it won’t be easy. Right now I’m just making a poll to see if people might like it. I haven’t seen any HTML game with this feature, so maybe there’s a reason. Does anyone know what usually goes wrong?

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

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[mynameiscoollook]

I don’t have a clear idea yet, but I know it won’t be easy. Right now I’m just making a poll to see if people might like it. I haven’t seen any HTML game with this feature, so maybe there’s a reason. Does anyone know what usually goes wrong?

You can adjust the size but it often make the quality worse or the frames goes out of sync. The speed can be problem too, with one frame too slow and other too fast, so all looks wrong. Cutting is posible but it takes lot of precision and patient...

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

You can adjust the size but it often make the quality worse or the frames goes out of sync. The speed can be problem too, with one frame too slow and other too fast, so all looks wrong. Cutting is posible but it takes lot of precision and patient...

Thanks for the explanation! I’ll definitely keep it in mind if I decide to give it a try. If you have any suggestions in the future feel free to share. Every bit of feedback is like gold to me and really helps speed up development.

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

After a marathon session I split ~2,000–2,500 lines of pure JavaScript into 30 modules. Result? Game development is speeding up and everything’s been heavily optimized - scenes now load instantly, with zero cooldown.

 

[Mantis - Dream Academy]

Added a script that enables dynamic, smooth UI scaling. As more content gets added in the future, the zoom will automatically decrease so that text and images never go outside the map area. Also added 4 new icons along with controls for them. Implementation went super quick thanks to the new JS modules.

 

[peterppp]

a few thoughts:
1. remove the java prefix from the thread. javascript is not java.
2. i think your automatic image tuner makes it look worse in the examples given. i rather have the girl pic look a little unnaturally bright (but looking good) than a darker, lower quality look.
3. no one wants to click on a girl and then wait for a second or two while the view zooms in and bobs. it may look cool once or twice to some (i just find it annoying), but you'll soon get tired of it. it's not even realistic. we dont see things move up and down as we walk.

overall impression is that you are too in love with implementing technical features to see whether they are actually a positive to the player experience. if player experience is important to you, leave your coder mindset and put yourself in the players' shoes.