Yesterday I discovered something very terrifying, so please bear with me.
Well, it's a very old artist trick, but it's something new to me...

I was playing around with Photoshop and I decided to flip some of my drawings (Image > Rotate Canvas > Flip Canvas Horizontal ) and I was astonished to find numerous serious mistakes in my art. It was like it was not even the same picture I was looking at!
It was scary because I immediately thought "so that's how people see my art" ... When you're drawing a picture your brain gets used to the mistakes and you end up to not notice them at all. But somehow, when you flip the picture up, your brain makes you see it like it's a new one and not the old one you're used to see.

To sum it up:


Aww... finally the pictures are finished. Hey, it doesn't look so bad (the text-box is bit out of place, I will fix that).
However... Anne looks odd, doesn't she?


FUUUUUUUUUUUUU WHY ;_;
For you, reader, this might not be different from the original (except the fact that it's reversed).
For me it looks like it changed drastically. Look at the errors, they're so ugly ;_; .



Should I redraw the only thing? Yes, I think so. Hmn... But if I keep redrawing everything this Visual Novel is going to take a long time till it's finished :'( .

Yay, it's time for Wordcount Wednesday! Alliteration is FUN.

The game contains 591 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 5,524 words,
for an average of 9.3 words per screen.
The game contains 7 menus.

For those of you looking for something to measure that number against, that's about one fourth of the words in RE: A++. Also enjoy the pretty sketch of the heroine, Teisen, drawn by Misteen.

In other words, the second episode of Vera Blanc, “Ghost In The Castle”, is officially out. To find more about it, just visit the game official page at http://www.verablanc.com
This time, Vera must investigate a mysterious ghost that is haunting a old castle in the italian town of Bargi. It’s the ghost real or is a myth? is Roberto Anastasi, the man who hired you for this case, hiding something? why Eva and the Master are still following you?

You’ll find answers to all those questions in the second and for now last episode. As I said before, it’s very unlikely that a 3rd chapter of the game will be released in this format, since the production costs are much higher than those of a traditional visual novel, but maybe next year something might change. I would like to make a “real adventure game” based on Vera Blanc character since I think would be perfect for that kind of game.

Imagine something similar to those good old Lucasfilm adventures with many puzzles to solve, less texts to read, and maybe a fully voiced version.

However, first need to finish several other projects I’ve started (many RPGs and otome games) and then next year we’ll see. Meanwhile, if you like the games I’m producing, and if you like the character of Vera Blanc, please buy the game and spread the word so the chances of having a 3rd great episode will increase

So for now, au revoir Vera Blanc. Hopefully she’ll come back next year in a completely new gameplay system, and why not, maybe with a more manga-oriented style!

During the writing of a story  some characters can develop in very surprising ways. I’m sure other authors know this well. In the early stages of Blue Rose, I mapped out important characters and the roles they were going to play along with their personalities and stances on the main plot. But as is usually the case, things take sudden changes in direction when these characters jump off the drawing table and are actually let loose in the script.

It doesn’t matter how much preparation and planning is done, the real development happens in the actual writing.

One of these is Gavin, for who I first finished writing the final ending and epilogue. Gavin is the superficial skirt-chaser who would say a nice word to any lady walking past, without that necessarily having any deeper meaning to him. At least that’s what he was supposed to be. That part of him still exists, but he has taken on quite a life of his own and shown me sides of him that I never knew would come to be. When I yell “come on Gavin, you shouldn’t care about silly things like that!” he’ll reply with a defiant “but I DO!!”

It’s the same with the rest. Erin who was supposed to be the frail, sensitive girl has ended up kicking aside anyone who gets in her way (especially Gavin gets to feel this), determined to make it on her own. Due to that she sometimes borders on being somewhat of a troublemaker and pain in the ass, but I hope the readers will be able to see past her flaws and see her good intentions

Simon has moved from passive non-caring role to someone who is serially confused about what to do with Lena. (Serially confused. I love that phrase. Guess where I stole it from and I’ll give you a cookie).

Especially Simon has changed so much and acted so opposite of what was originally planned that for a while I wasn’t even sure how he would shape up in his own route, where he finally gets the chance to step up front. The result has been… interesting. As usual he has a tendency to draw the short end of the stick, but I like what he has turned into – even his bad ending feels important to me, and really show what kind of person he is. For a short (insane) moment I even considered making it canon when thinking of what general consequences that ending has for Lena’s future life. (But that’s just too sad, isn’t it? Let’s hope for things to turn out better than that!)

Just like the other two characters I have written so far, Simon is now a hard competitor for being my favourite. Now it’s Tobias’ turn.

Which means I am done writing the first 3 out of 5 routes in Blue Rose. Hurray!

Good morning!  This weekend I managed to get a base pose done for (NSFW) Aurelia.  This time I mainly used the watercolor tool to do shading on the skin.  I think the application turned out smoother than the airbrush tool.  Is it just me or does her skin look very clean and vibrant than the other girls?

I also tried a different technique to shading her hair by looking up tutorials on how to draw hair.  Much different than my previous post on Julia huh?   I love the detail in it. I will have to go back and edit the others’ like this.

Please let me know what you think.

-Richelle (artist)

Progress update ahoy! For those who have played Jisei (or even those of you who haven't), you probably know that it's the first chapter in a series. The question on everyone's lips is "When will the next chapter be out!?" The answer is "Not yet." But we ARE hard at work on it. We've gotten some wonderful feedback on the first chapter, and we're striving to incorporate your thoughts into the second chapter to make an even better game. A huge thanks to everyone for all the comments, constructive criticism, and amazing support. Here are a few tidbits about the second chapter for you to enjoy.

Tidbit #01: The name of the game will be "Kansei." (Spelled as 感性 for those of you who are curious.)

Tidbit #02: Kansei will be significantly longer than Jisei. A lot of people felt that Jisei was too short, so the next chapter will have a lot more meat to it. It will be longer on a single play through, and it will have more endings (that aren't terrible, bad, dying endings). Keep in mind that this also means it will take us significantly longer to complete. >.> But hey! More game!

Tidbit #03: We're getting the band back together! If you liked the art or the music in Jisei, then you'll be pleased to know that Kansei is bringing back the same artist and composer. Woooooo~!

More tidbits on the way, but that should hopefully whet your appetite.

Woo! This poll was pretty straightforward. We had 129 votes, and pretty much everyone agrees.

This blog needs more...
Sketches - 65 (50%)
Progress Updates - 116 (89%)
Photos of Stuff - 30 (23%)
Video - 22 (17%)
Cookies - 31 (24%)

I have heard your cries. Expect an update shortly (like in a few minutes). And from now on, I declare every Wednesday to be "Wordcount Wednesday," a day set aside for me to give you the word count of one of the visual novels we're currently working on. The one you get will change each week, but it'll be a semi-useful way for you to know how far along we are. Of course, that only counts words, with nothing about art, music, or anything else in the VN, but at least you'll get a little peek into things.

--

Next up! I've gotten a lot of requests for tutorials on making VNs. I'll be happy to whip up a few basic ones, but I'd like to know what you're most interested in learning. So poll away~

In an RPG, when you finally fill all your party member slots, you know you’re finally in business. Well, all of Homeward’s party member slots are now filled with character graphics. This is a big reason to celebrate… right Sora?

Filed under: Homeward

Maybe some people will remember Midnight Noize, my very first publicly released Ren’Py-VN. It had a German and an English version…the German one is the one you see above. Why did I decide to remake it? Well, I’m glad you asked!

• Testing stuff: I want to play around with a few new Ren’Py functions, in real-world examples
• The art and writing are embarrassingly bad. I feel guilty for having this float over me like a sword of Damocles x,D
• I want to practice. I’ve been writing quite a lot lately, but regular novel/short story format is a bit different. Plus, I can’t afford to mess around too much with the sprites in PH =<
• Screw this list, redoing crap is just fun.

The story is easily five times as long now, which actually justifies that single event CG I had in the old version x,D There will be only four endings instead of seven, two of them are written and I’m roughly 4k words into the story…trying to keep it under 10k. I don’t want to go overboard >=< Oh, and before I forget…you can check out WIPs of Mayura’s new sprite on the art blog.

Lawls from our IRC channel made a transcript of the Manifest katawa Shoujo Panel, and I (Suriko) edited it. Many, many, many hours later, it's finally done.

Edit: And it's on the forums. Way too long to post here.

» Discuss this post on the forums

The above screenshot is an actual game play example and not a mock up. All of the buttons on the UI are fully functional, courtesy of Pytom.

Well, now this is finally starting to look like a visual novel at last!

Filed under: Homeward

Since the release of Act 1, we've added a new class of visualization to KS, called "cutin CGs". They are basically images somewhere between sprites and CGs, not full screen CGs but also not a part of the bg + sprites system. Artists like doing small, focused pics and they are useful to stick here and there, where script describes an object of particular interest, or something apart from "two people talking to each other" happens.

However, the fascination with these small flavourful pictures has its downsides too. Just because something can be a cutin CG, it doesn't mean it should be. Sometimes the cutin CGs end up causing conflicts with script or direction. Sometimes they are too superfluous. And sometimes... producing art can just become an unexpectedly difficult task, truly the opposite of the nice and refreshing breather that they are supposed to be for the artists. To showcase, here's the woeful story of that one time when Suriko asked climatic to draw a cutin CG. Delta had made a note in the script of a scene where Hanako plays chess against Lilly that it could be nice to have the chessboard depicted, so Suriko goes to climatic for it.

"I note that the chessboard they're using has holes in the middle of each square and pegs on the bottom of the pieces, and has each dark square slightly raised."

That's the description, from game script. It's the kind of chessboard that makes playing easier for blind people, something you'd expect to find at Yamaku. Climatic says "yeah sure, I'll do it", the five words he regrets saying the most this year, and sets out to work. This task proves to less simple than what it would seem to be. In fact, turns out it's very complex, one could even describe the effort required to make a chessboard that meets climatic's own standards "colossal" or perhaps "gargantuan". First, climatic quickly models the board in 3d because the raised squares make its geometry a bitch at the angle he's drawing.

<climatic> asdfasdga
<climatic> agfakfhgadrgra

However, once he moves to the painting phase, every single one of those raised squares still has to be drawn individually, and despite having the model helping, it's excruciatingly detailed and exhausting work.

<climatic> AAAAAAA

After the board is complete, it needs the set of pieces. 32 pieces of 12 different kinds, each has to be drawn individually. And now, every single of those pieces and every single one of those raised squares needs to be lighted (individually) and shaded, you guessed it, individually.

<climatic> there is no end in sight
<climatic> for this fucing cg
<climatic> askdjkj

All in all completing the chessboard takes almost three months (mostly because massive lack of motivation, understandably), and it's only completed because climatic finally gets so frustrated that he refuses to finish it.

<climatic> goddamn
<climatic> ahsdd
<climatic> adsnkljlgf
<climatic> I do not care anymore

Luckily the board itself is fine by now and moekki quickly adds some effect layers on it to finalize it and it's ready to be inserted in the game. However! At this stage we find out that there's been several critical communication breaks and incomplete information relayed to climatic. Turns out delta has meanwhile directed the scene so that the cutin is not really needed, but never removed the request. Also, not only the chessboard doesn't fit the description (it's missing the holes) but also is heavily inconsistent with another pic of the same chessboard that already is in the game. So now climatic has spent three months drawing a picture that doesn't fit its description in the game and doesn't fit the second image of it in the game. Also it doesn't fit in the game. This hopefully teaches you to check and doublecheck with everyone involved before you even cough in the direction of game files.

<climatic> thank you for wasting several hours of my life, suriko
<climatic> I need to go stick my head in an oven

Not to worry! Moekki edits the second image of the chessboard to fit climatic's cutin CG (she has to redo it twice because she forgets to save), weee adds the holes in the cutin itself and delta tweaks the scene direction so that everything plays more or less together.

And the end result after all this blood, sweat and tears?


Wow! All that effort paid off tenfold. There's a bunch of other cut in CGs in the game, such as this cute plushie Hisao wins for Shizune at the school festival (I call it the Eggplant Cat)...


... or this mysterious box!


...I guess if development always went smoothly there would be nothing to blog about.


» Discuss this post on the forums

Image Time!


New clothes menu! ...Again. Fashions change from season to season, so you might have to hurry if you want that dress you've had your eye on...


...Don't hate the player, hate the game.


Let's all go to the movies... to buy ourselves some snacks!~

To those of you in Dallas, or otherwise planning to attend AnimeFest next weekend, please drop by and say hi to us. We'll be running a panel on making visual novels and you have TWO shots at seeing us (yay). Both panels cover making VNs from the planning stages to releasing your game. If you can't come, tell any local friends to come instead. We love having people. ^-^

Friday 4:00pm
Sunday 9:00am

We'll also be in the dealer's room all weekend selling fun stuff and giving away whatever I feel like. See the above video for a preview of the plushies we'll be selling.

Too early for spoilers but…

Double the trouble, Double the Fun… well, except for Eileen…

“POOF” (Disappears)

So here I am… doing what supposed to be is a remake of my old project Lucy’s Revenge… OK… so it’s not a remake… it’s actually a sequel… No kidding really…

Anyway… GUI is now done (ah… I love me reusable template) and here are previews (I love my English)…

Not much technical marvel here. For this project, I’m gonna have to rely on reusable image-map template… I seriously love the new Screens (and it’s documentation) and the potential they hold but I’m still learning how to use them but the lack of an example which I could dissect makes learning them slightly slower since I learn faster using copy and paste method (yeah… I’m a slow learner without working examples… my fault)… Lol. I seriously wish Doomfest would release an unarchived version of his awesome screen based GUI preferably with comments (since I doubt I’ll understand that wall of text he wrote without comments)  so I can also be as awesome as him… oh envy much… oh well…

“POOF” (Disappears)