Update?

Many people have asked if I have any updates. Unfortunately, even after half a year, the answer is no, I do not. I'm suffering from a pretty massive writer's block that I just can't seem to get over, spurred in large part by the fact that I'm graduating soon, but more importantly my lack of confidence in fiction writing. It's sad, yes, but it happens.

That being said, I played a game recently that inspired me to possibly start working on Starlit Dreams again, which would involve much less writing. The game was an otome game for the PSP called La Storia Della Arcana Famiglia. An anime adaption of it is currently airing and caught my eye, so I decided to check out the game, and I'm really glad I did.

I loved the animated comic book style and simulation aspects of it, as well as the comedy, relationships, and of course, characterization. As soon as I started playing it, I thought, "I want to make a game like that," and realized that that kind of style would work great for Starlit Dreams.

I may end up changing up the plot for Starlit a bit to make all of the characters connected somehow. As it is currently, the main character just meets most of them by chance, which I think is kind of lame. It would be much more interesting if they were all connected by something. So, I'll stew on that for a bit and see if I can't get fired up about making games again.

For those of you who haven't given up, thank you for your continued patience.

Outfits and Hairstyles Continued

For the last few days, I've been cranking out sprite stuff for Zuleika like crazy.

First, I came up with a few more hairstyles, this time with the intent to make something a little more "mature."

Then, I started working on outfits. Determining color schemes was difficult, because while, as a default, Zuleika tends to wear almost exclusively black and white, I realize that not everyone appreciates neutral colors as I do. So, I came to a compromise: her default outfits (i.e. her class outfits) will be black and white as planned, but "for fun" outfits that can be won or purchased will be in different colors. It's amazing how varied she can look now. xD

If you have any suggestions for specific outfits or hairstyles you would like to see, please send them my way. :) I'd like to add as many as I can.

New Outfits and Hairstyles

A while back, when I first started working on the Memoirs remake, I thought it would be cool to let players customize the colors of Zuleika's hair and outfits. While that was a nice improvement, I always wished I could have added more customization options.

Well, now I have. After doing a bit of messing around this weekend, and I managed to come up with...*drum roll* new hairstyles~!

There are now 7 hairstyles in total (though if you count the fact that you can show or hide the ear on each one, then it's actually 14). The color options are the same as before, but have been redone so they look a lot nicer.

In addition to the new hairstyles, there will also be new outfits. Actually, all of the characters will be getting new outfits, but Zuleika is the only one you can actually choose the outfit for. The other characters will automatically change outfits when they change classes (which will be after a time skip of sorts halfway through the game), and the new outfits will reflect the class they changed to and whether it is a "light" class or a "dark" class. For example, here is Chael after he's turned into a knight (which a "light" class) and here he is after he's turned into an assassin (a "dark" class).

Zuleika has five different class possibilities depending on what she asks Osirus for in the beginning, so she'll have at least five new outfits, but I plan to make a few more that can be won in boss battles or bought (for extremely high prices) in certain shops.

With all these new additions, I had to completely restructure all the code regarding the sprites. If only I knew then what I know now about how to properly structure code! Ah well...

Anyway, that's what I'll probably be working on for the next few weeks. Yay. :)