Lameness

I'll be honest: I've been very...distracted lately. So distracted, in fact, that I've gotten absolutely nothing done, whether it be with my game, school, or MMORPG. No progress what-so-ever. Just watching Dexter and doing...other things.

Well, I guess I did get Ustyz colored (flat only, no shading) a few days ago, but I never finished shading Honhelm like was supposed to. And I started filling out characterization sheets for everyone, but only got through Zuleika's. Still, even that one alone was quite enlightening. I can't believe I'd never thought about her fears before, and how those would impact her actions and relationships.

So...that's the story. Not that I actually told the story, but...well...there it is. I'll get back to work soon-ish, I swear.

Characterization

Warning: Big block of text and possible spoilers ahead!

First things first, I did continue my coloring work today. Specifically, I got Honhelm the governor tweaked and colored in, but haven't shaded him yet. He's like a strange cross between Dracula (because of the clothes and creepy expression) and an Asari from Mass Effect (because of the hairstyle).

...Is it weird that I think he's actually kind of handsome? Ustyz even more so. Even though he's a grumpy old man now, I bet he was quite a stud back in the day.

The other important thing I did today was think about characterization. This thread on the Lemma Soft Forums reminded me that 2D characters aren't nearly as interesting or attractive as multi-dimensional ones. Unfortunately, the way I think of characters tends to be very simplistic; I come up with one or two words that sum them up, and then base everything on that one characteristic. Then I'd throw in a short back-story and call it good.

In my head, there's actually much more to these characters, because I've been developing them for several years now. But it's hard to get that down onto paper, specifically in the medium I've chosen. In many cases, I had to deviate from the true image of the character to make them more appealing, since the main point of the game, after all, is the romance. So even though I have these very detailed characters, I end up falling back on classic stereotypes and simple character traits to incorporate them into the game.

For example, Chael is, originally, not a friendly person at all, mainly because he can't feel anything, neither physical sensations nor emotional "feelings," due to years of extreme physical and psychological abuse. The only reason he "rescues" Zuleika is to use her as leverage; in other words, she was his hostage. He generally sees people as tools (because that is how he was treated all his life and has never known anything different) and would therefore reject any sort of intimate connection with another person. The fact that Zuleika falls in love with him anyway exemplifies her fatal flaw, which is her belief that people are inherently good and refusal to see the bad in people. She believes she can "fix" him, but she can't.

While that wouldn't be a bad story by itself, and it's realistic in that you don't always get the happy ending you wish for, it makes for a pretty lame romance path! Imagine spending years trying to woo this hot, single elf prince, only to have him say, "No matter how much you love me, I can never return your feelings. No, really, I literally can't." But this is a game; the point is to fight to achieve a goal so you can get the reward at the end. Complete rejection is not much of a reward.

And so, stereotypical "quiet guy" Chael comes to the rescue. He starts out as the stoic, silent type, but watch as his cold exterior magically melts away due to the warm, friendly influence of the MC, leaving a cute, blushing, shy boy in its wake. The fangirl chorus goes "awww" as he awkwardly admits his feelings for the heroine, then gives her his first kiss, then goes back to being serious...except when he's around the heroine.

See what I mean? While "quiet guy" Chael is cute and loveable, he's lost all of the dimension he had before. Thus, my task over the next few days (in between all the coloring) will be trying to add dimension to my characters (or bringing the dimension back, as the case may be) without alienating possible players of the game at the same time.

...Why is writing a story so difficult? ;o;

Pretty Sprites

I forgot to post yesterday...oops! Ah well.

What I did yesterday is the same as what I did today: coloring my sprites. Much to my surprise, they're actually coming out pretty well. All the practice I got from coloring all those chibis did me some good after all. :)

So far, I finished the two simplest sprites, Ahzi the enchanter and Rothkin the merchant, as shown below (click to see the big versions):

Some observant people may have noticed that they look quite different from their respective linearts. That's because I had to do a lot of tweaking - mostly erasing extra lines and cleaning up other lines - in order to get them close to the simpler style of the other sprites. It's unfortunate, but yes, details were lost in this process. Specifically, Rothkin looks younger and significantly less wrinkly than he did before, and Ahzi's creepy grin has been turned into a pleasant smile.

Despite all my efforts to make them look similar, they still look a bit out of place when placed next to one of the old sprites. With the exception of Ahzi, I'll probably make an effort to have them be the only one on screen when they need to be shown.

I also received the animal form linearts today, so between those and the sprites I still have to finish coloring, I've got lots to keep me busy for the next several days.

Arts!!

Let's just say this up front... I got absolutely nothing done today.

But someone was actually productive today. My sprite artist finally finished the set of linearts I commissioned, and they look great~

I'll start the long process of coloring them tonight...or rather, I'll try. If it turns out that my coloring is no good, I'll have to find someone else to do it, I guess.

A particular Abba song always comes to find at times like this...

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world

Titleless

As promised, I finished coloring Ahzi's chibi today. I have no real sense of how to shade correctly, but...I tried. It turned out pretty well, too, if I do say so myself.

Click here to see awesome cuteness~

That's...really all I did today. To be fair, it does take a long time to color something like that. And I'm still waiting for my linearts. And I still can't figure out what to do with my damn GUI.

Moving away from the topic of my utter laziness...I was inspired by a thread I saw on the Lemma Soft Forums today about ideas for classic fairy tales in which the roles are switched (i.e. the girl is turned into the beast, and the guy has to find a way to love her anyway). Me, being the feminist I am, thought this was a great idea. I was particularly enamored with the idea of Sleeping Beauty with roles reversed - the prince falls into an enchanted sleep and it's up to the princess to wake him up. I want to doooo eeeet~ Seriously, I think it could be a great story, even if I don't turn it into a game.

Tomorrow, I'm going to spend some time with Lord of the Rings Online, which I've been neglecting lately. So... I may or may not get anything done tomorrow. We'll see.

GUI Blues...

I spent most of the day avoiding working on the game because I felt, once again, that my GUI is inferior and that I might as well scrap the whole thing.

I tried messing around with it a bit, but after asking for suggestions, the consensus was that I was better off with my original design. But I don't like my original design. It's not bad, but it just doesn't reach my standard of what is "professional." So....I don't know. I guess I'll just have to mull it over for a while. Maybe some miracle will happen and I'll wake up tomorrow with the inspiration I need to make an awesome GUI.

On a brighter note, I now have a chibi for Ahzi to go with the others. It's by a different artist, but I spent quite a bit of time tweaking it to make it match the others as closely as possible. Hopefully my efforts weren't in vain...

What will make him stand out more than anything is the colors. If you look at the other characters, it's...black, black, white and black, white, blue and black. Then suddenly it's BAM! Yellow, brown, green, white, all in the same person. He's the most colorful character in the game, which I guess reflects his personality well. xD

Anyway, he's just got flat colors for now. I'll finish shading him tomorrow.

Blog Pages Added

Pages weren't really added...rather, I just filled the empty ones that I'd created at the beginning. So now there's a complete information page for "Starlit Dreams," as well as some stuff about donations on the Support page. And see that new shiny "Donate" button to the right? ;)

On the game front, I did some more random tweaking today. Previously, I had it so that the sprites would darken when a character was idle and light up when they were speaking, but...that was pretty lame. I mean, yes, it made it more obvious who was speaking - that was the point - but it was kind of ugly, to be honest. I decided to go with a little "portrait" system similar to that of SD (Starlit Dreams), so when someone is speaking, a little portrait shows up next to their name. Serves the same purpose, but looks a lot better.

Unfortunately, since I can only have one side image per character, that means I won't have the little heart stamps in the corner when they speak... but I couldn't get them to look good with the new black textbox, anyway, so that's okay. There will be other ways to view the boys' current relationship with you in the character panel.

I also hired a watercolor artist to color the final couple linearts I got a while back. For being the ending art...they're pretty plain (totally not worth the $80 I spent on them, but that's beside the point). I'm hoping that the addition of pretty watercolors will make them more worthy of being in the finale.

...Yes, I'm still putting off the writing. I'll get into it for real once I receive the last set of sprites I'm waiting on, I promise. ;o;

It's Friday

Warning: Big wall of text ahead!

As I was telling a friend of mine earlier today, it's amazing how changing one little thing can create a domino effect that requires a dozen other things to be changed.

For instance, I added a header to each page a while back that shows the current chapter, how much money you have, and what time of day it is. Well...the fact that that and everything else is black made my textbox look out of place, so I made my textbox black. But then that made my backgrounds look too bright, so I added a small black fade around the edges. But then the drop shadows I'd added to my sprites weren't visible enough anymore, so I had to darken the shadows around all my characters. But then the shadows got cut off on some of them because they didn't have enough extra space around them, so I had to go through and resize them all. But then that broke all of the composite images I'd defined, so then I had to go through and recode all of my sprites.

...That's what I spent my day doing.

The average person probably wouldn't have been bothered by any of that and would have avoided the whole chain, but I am, unfortunately, a bit obsessive when it comes to things like this. To be fair, I have somewhat of a reason to be: in this "market," the best way - and in some cases, the only way - to get your game noticed by any decent number of people is to have a "professional"-looking game. Free games like mine are generally made by people who don't have a lot of money or skills, so they feature "okay" stories and "okay" art. But in that kind of environment, if you can make something that isn't just "okay," and is praised to the point of being "professional" quality, then that is true success in the world of free games like this. "Professional," then, is my goal, and it's not easy to achieve.

What else did I do today besides feeding and justifying my obsession? Well... I read a bunch of feminist articles about the gaming industry that were pretty interesting. That made me stop and reflect a bit on Zuleika's character. I figure that even though she starts out representing everything that is bad about how female characters are portrayed in games - infantile, irrational, overemotional - she does develop into a strong, independent female character who is (hopefully) worthy of being the heroine of the story by the end. That character development is important and shows how different environments affect people. Zuleika starts out child-like because that's how Osirus treated her; even though he tells her that she can "choose her own path," the choices he offers are superficial, with powers granted by him, reinforcing her dependence on him. He wanted her to rely on him for everything, and she did. There is, of course, also the way that she is viewed by society, which impacts how she views herself. Tyraca is definitely not a nation in which women are well-respected or have many rights (and this will probably come up in-game). Chael's country, on the other hand, is based on a matriarchal society, so from the get-go he expects Zuleika be the leader and to take charge....which is completely opposite from how she has always viewed herself. It slowly forces her to reevaluate who she is and what she wants to get out of life.

Okay, that's enough ranting for today. :) Makes me want to take more Women and Gender Studies classes...

Assorted Graphic Stuff

Yes, I'm still putting off writing the end of the prologue...
But that just means that I'm being productive in other ways instead. :)

First, I implemented the second of the CGs I recently commissioned. Some of you may have been thinking, "Why the heck would I want to date the evil douchebag who got me kicked out of the castle?" Well, here's a preview of your answer:

 I'll make Neffy fangirls out of some of you yet!

And on that note, being inspired by the CG, I decided to try to fix up Duren and Nef's sprites to make them look a bit better. This is the second time I've given Duren a facelift; if I had the true original I'd show it to you, but alas, I've already destroyed all evidence of that hideous honker he used to have... This time, I tried to shorten his face a little. It may not even be noticeable, since I just changed the positions of the nose and mouth by a few pixels. Nefferon's facelift should be a little more obvious. I slimmed down those big, bushy, ridiculous-looking eyebrows to make them more like in the CG. Also made his mouth smaller so it's more...um...proportional, I guess.

                                       Before                         After

Finally, I spent some time working out the layout for the new-and-improved battle system. I cut out different colored scraps of paper in the shape of the elements I wanted using the screenshot from Aleema's game, featured in my last post, as a reference. Once I had a layout like that, I moved the scraps of paper around into several different arrangements until I found one that I felt was interesting and dynamic, but made sense. Then I threw together some shapes on a background in MS Word and added a few images to create a "sketch" of the layout. Here is what I came up with.

In the blank areas, there will be things like name, class, health bar, rage bar, etc. The big box on the bottom-left is for your current fighter. The tabs are to display different things in the box - stats for health, rage, and EXP meters; attacks to choose which attack to do; items to use an item from your inventory; and "run" will probably be replaced with "Options" to run (skip the battle), switch characters, etc. The three rectangle boxes to the right of that are to display the current status of the other members in your party.

The big box above that is to display the enemy and their health, status, etc. The large rectangle is for the current enemy you're fighting, and the smaller squares under that are for the other members of the enemy party. Yes, the enemy can have more members in their party than you can, but I doubt I'll ever actually use all those slots, except for like big end-of-area battles.The final piece - the box currently showing a random background - will eventually display little illustrations corresponding to the attacks being used.

Hopefully, this new set-up is an improvement over the last with its sucky silhouettes and even suckier animations. Yay for dark black and red themes. :)

Lazy? Yes.

Today I did, as my cousins would say, diddly squat.
In other words...nothing. At least, nothing tangible.

I'm still stuck on how to go forward now that I've perfected the opening scene. Or rather, I have an idea of how to handle it, but it's hard to plan it out without a decent battle system, which I promised myself I would save for later.

That, of course, led me to start thinking about the battle system. I originally had it set up in a Pokemon-style format, of which you can see a quick preview here. I decided to use silhouettes to represent the characters because it was a waste of money to commission someone just to draw the backsides of my characters, especially since the sprite artist's style has changed so drastically since then (which you'll see when I get Ahzi and the other allies' sprites up). There's also the issues of enemies, many of whom, again, don't have sprites, and I simply can't afford to commission all of them.

But I was never really happy with the silhouettes, and a friend who tried the demo said that they were a bit off-putting. So, as I often do when I get stuck on layouts, I took a look at some of the work of my GUI hero, Aleema. She has a unique battle system in one of her games that manages to look good without needing battle sprites or a grid system or anything like that. Now, if I could go for a graphical layout somewhat similar to that, but with the battle system I currently have in place... I think that could work out well.

Even with something like that, though, there is still the issue of the angels' beast forms¹ and enemy sprites. To help rectify that, I went ahead and commissioned some lineart for their beast forms (I managed to find a bargain >D). It'll be good to have the art, anyway, so it's all good. What about the enemy sprites, though? There's no way I'm spending the money to buy 20+ sprites for stupid characters that you're just going to kill off anyway. I'll figure out something, I guess, but in the meantime, I'm open to suggestions. :)


¹ = In battle, as an angel takes damage, they accumulate "Rage." When they have enough Rage (the "enough" amount is different for each character), they transform into their "true," or beast, form, which features a new set of more powerful attacks that can save you in a pinch.

Yay, Prologue

After receiving one of the two beautiful new CGs I commissioned, I was inspired enough to actually do some writing today. I didn't have time to do much, and being sick certainly didn't help, but...

At least I got something done. And I'm happy with it. Considering how many times I've redone that stupid opening scene, it's truly a miracle. But you know, creating the perfect opening scene for a game or movie really is a delicate art. If you don't hook the player in the beginning, they may decide "this is too boring" and not even give it a chance! So you have to make it exciting and interesting, which can be very difficult to do with a medium like this. Sure, an action-packed chase would be awesome, but with my limited budget and resources, it's also not very feasible. Such is the life of an independent developer...

The prologue still isn't done. It's like...half-done maybe. I'll work on it more tomorrow if I'm feeling better. But at least I got the hard part out of the way.

Also, for those who may be curious, here is a small preview of the CG I mentioned (I was experimenting with the eye blinking animation):

Maps Implemented

As promised, I got my map system up and running today, complete with all working links and even a cute little indicator to show your current location.

I also planned out the town system a bit. The way I'm imagining it, you'll be able to go to the different locations and possibly find one of your companions there (it'll be a random chance sort of thing). Not every town will have all of the 'facilities,' so smaller towns may not have a library or a training hall or something like that. The large towns - the Imperial City, Duggary Village, City of Jarconia, and Port of Sileas - will have everything available.

That's...really all I did today. I was hoping to start working on the prologue again, but alas, I just don't have the time or the energy to do it tonight.

As a head's up, this week will be a very busy week school-wise. I have a major exam nearly every day this week. That means I probably won't have much time for game stuff. ):

Maps Created

Tyraca, the land which is home to the Osirian (and later Neffronian) Empire, takes up the larger portion of a crescent-shaped continent. The empire is then divided into four provinces - Normund, Mendebal, Cadmus, and Dimona - each named for the kingdom which ruled there before Osirus conquered the area. To the west of Tyraca are the "Wildlands," home to the demons, and to the south is "Witch Territory," home to the elves (you'll learn the proper names for these areas in-game, but this is what most people call them).

Today, I managed to finish all of the maps which will be used to travel to the different areas, including the empire map and a map for each of the provinces. They're fairly plain and aren't all that great (the areas look too small to be provinces...), but at the very least, they're better than the last several versions I've come up with. xD See for yourself:

In addition to what you see above, there will be buttons on each province map to go to Camp (which is where you can talk to your companions and such) and to go Back to the empire map.

Tomorrow I'll start actually programming the map system.


Aside from working on the maps, I made an important decision today regarding the romances. I decided that since this is an adult game and all, it would be acceptable and would even make sense for sex to be involved somewhere down the line. Nothing explicit, no graphic details or full nudity, but certainly implied. It wouldn't be anything worse than what you would see in a PG-13 movie, probably. And then I started thinking...if I were to commission just one CG for each couple (because the artist I want to hire is pretty expensive), which would be more important to show: confession or sex scene?

Confessions are cute and make girls squee, but they're also...awkward. The boy in question doesn't really know how you'll react, so he's testing the waters and hoping he doesn't drown. On the other hand, by the time you have sex, it's already established that you're deeply in love (no one-night stands here!). Thus, it's a much more sensual experience, and for that reason, I think it would be more valuable to have CGs of that moment rather than the confession. Another reason is that the character sprites I have are just completely insufficient for something like that, whereas I can probably make due with using sprites for the confession. But nevermind all the minute details, who doesn't want to see nearly naked men (or...um...a nearly naked Zuleika)?

Now, if I received some donations by some miracle, I could commission two CGs per love interest... ;D

The Plot Thickens...

Warning: Long, boring post (and possible spoilers if you haven't read the game description) ahead.

My project for today was to work out the kinks in the plot. Before, what I had planned out was all the main activities that Zuleika is focused on: traveling to different areas, fighting bad guys, saving villages, etc. But that's not all there is to a story, especially not one as complicated as this!

So I started thinking about all the different layers to the story. On one hand, you've got Zuleika trying to save the day, but on the other, you've got Nefferon leading her along. This second layer - the bigger picture that Zuleika can't see from her perspective - is what I call the "meta plot." It's the plot behind the plot, the overarching story behind the main story. Since I've already scrapped the idea of trying to make the whole game like a journal, it's okay to include shots of Nefferon's perspective even though the game is mostly shown in Zuleika's first-person point of view. More importantly, the story doesn't make sense without Nefferon's perspective; without his overarching scheme, the events you play through just seem random and thrown together without reason. Well, now there is reason.

But between Zuleika's story and Nefferon's story, there's also Osirus' story. I can't imagine Zuleika saying, "Yes, I was framed for his murder, but I don't care who actually killed him. All that's important is that he's dead." No, she would be compelled, even obliged, to find the true killer. Thus, a third layer comes into play: the murder investigation. Clues are hidden throughout the empire, some of which tend to imply that the killer wants to be found, but he (or she) certainly won't make it easy.

And what about Zuleika's past? She didn't just get where she is now by chance. She is the way she is because that's how Osirus taught her to be. So another layer, then, is flashbacks showing their relationship, which help to give some insight into Zuleika's history and background. More importantly, they add additional insight to related events that she's going through now, and why she reacts to them the way she does.

Finally, no GxB visual novel can be complete without the romance layer. The thoughts, beliefs, and actions of the boys are influenced by Zuleika's thoughts, beliefs and actions, and Zuleika's actions will also be influenced by her feelings towards them. These are her trusted companions and the only friends she has ever known; they travel together for months on end, sometimes without ever seeing another soul as they cross the unpopulated areas of the empire. Therefore, it is obvious that they would become close, close enough to ask great things of each other out of trust and friendship (i.e. companion quests). Along with these companion quests, their conversations and heart events also fall into the romance layer, which spans across everything else.

In summary, the complexity of the story is now better fleshed out, and more of it should be able to make its way into the actual game rather than just being stuck in my head.

For those that are curious, the way I keep all this organized is with color-coded index cards which are then sectioned off into major sections with paper clips. After my work today, the stack of cards is now very big. C:

Drop Shadows

Tonight was my night class, so, unfortunately, I wasn't able to get much done. Such is the life of a busy college student, eh?

What I ended up doing was adding drop shadows to all of my character sprites. It's a very minor change, but it helps to add some dimension to an otherwise flat screen. I got the idea after seeing how much better it looked when I added a shadow to my text box, so now lots of things have shadows. :D

See if you can spot the difference (click for a larger view):

                    Before                                          After

As a side note, I officially decided today to include Ahzi as a love interest (he's just too cute not to be!). He won't be one of the advertised ones, but rather more of a secret bachelor whose romance option has to be unlocked.

In the same way that Chael and Kirile will be rivals of a sort, Ahzi and Duren will have a friendly rivalry going on...and maybe something else entirely if you choose not to pursue either of them. ;)

Blog Created

After seeing the awesomeness that is the Tailor Tales Blog, I just had to make a little dev blog of my own. But rather than it just focusing on one game, it'll encompass all my games...all two of them, that is.

"Starlit Dreams" is still on hold, but I've recently started working on "Memoirs of an Angel" again after falling into depression for a few months and losing interest. I promise to get at least one thing done every day and post about it here. Hopefully, that will help keep me going. C:

There's not much here on the site yet. Most of the pages are empty, but I'll fill them up as I go along.

I don't expect to have many followers, and I won't even try to advertise this place until I get a bit closer to completing Memoirs, but... I figured I would get this out there regardless. To anyone who may be reading this, thank you for your support.