Planet EVN - English Visual Novelshttp://planet.renai.us/atom.xml2019-04-02T04:35:48+00:00Planet/2.0 +http://www.planetplanet.orgChronotopia: the comprehensive summaryhttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=19012019-03-29T17:00:58+00:00<p>I must say that I had not really planned to post on the devblog again any time soon! Given that the development of <strong>Chronotopia: Second Skin</strong> monopolizes all of my free time, silence ended up settling. I could have certainly given news more regularly but this is already an exercice I engage in every month, be it on <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/traumendesmadchen/chronotopia-second-skin-forgotten-fairytale-visual">Kickstarter</a> or through <a href="https://tinyletter.com/traumendes-madchen">the team’s newsletter</a>, and I didn’t want the devblog to merely be a copy-paste of what I already write there.</p>
<div id="attachment_1816" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Fairy-Romance.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1816" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Fairy-Romance-1024x576.jpg" alt="So, you don't come here any more?" width="584" height="329" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">So, you don’t come here any more?</p></div>
<p><span id="more-1901"></span></p>
<p>However, I’m slowly realizing that some of you are quite confused about our progress or <strong>Chronotopia</strong>’s story in general. It would seem to me that I’m not exactly shy with details but it’s entirely possible that not everyone follows Kickstarter’s updates closely!</p>
<div id="attachment_1817" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Nahima-Romance.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1817" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Nahima-Romance-1024x576.jpg" alt="You're missing quite a lot of pretty stuff, incidentally~" width="584" height="329" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">You’re missing quite a lot of pretty stuff, incidentally~</p></div>
<p>Instead of answering individually, I think it may be smarter to use the devblog to rectify this in a simple way. During our last crowdfunding campaign, I had written numerous spotlights about the game’s features: I intend to republish them here throughout <strong>Chronotopia</strong>’s development, at a rate of two articles per month. That way, those who had missed the spotlights can discover them and it will allow the others to refresh their memory before the game’s release. Here’s a list of what awaits you! I will take advantage of the opportunity to add the corresponding links when they’ll be available so that this post can be used as a recap~</p>
<div id="attachment_1820" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Meeting-Aalis-V1.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1820" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Meeting-Aalis-V1-1024x576.jpg" alt="Dry your tears, I haven't forgotten about you!" width="584" height="329" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Dry your tears, I haven’t forgotten about you!</p></div>
<p><strong>Table of contents:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><em>* Donkeyskin and forgotten fairytales</em></li>
<li><em>* Princess Kionna</em></li>
<li><em>* Nahima</em></li>
<li><em>* The castle (common route)</em></li>
<li><em>* The Fairy</em></li>
<li><em>* The King and the magical dresses</em></li>
<li><em>* Romance and love scenes</em></li>
<li><em>* Game structure & Fleur the farmer (B1 route)</em></li>
<li><em>* Prince Griselde (B2 route)</em></li>
<li><em>* Dynamic shots + RenPy 3D camera</em></li>
<li><em>* Prince Thalie (C1-C2 routes)</em></li>
<li><em>* Background Animations</em></li>
<li><em>* Prince Genèse (D route)</em></li>
<li><em>* The ‘Purgatory’</em></li>
<li><em>* Lys, guardian of memories</em></li>
</ul>
<div id="attachment_1818" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Bear-Hug.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1818" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Bear-Hug-1024x576.jpg" alt="Need some solace? Luckily the bear is here!" width="584" height="329" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Need some solace? Luckily the bear is here!</p></div>
<p>And for those who like numbers, I leave you with <a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/progress-page/">this brand new page which presents our progress stats</a>, route by route, so that you can have a better overview of the work remaining to do on Chronotopia. It will be updated as we go along and I will explain what said numbers mean in the spotlights dedicated to the game’s routes.</p>Träumendes Mädchen Devbloghttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blogHello Everyone!http://darksirengames.com/?p=6932019-02-25T22:30:56+00:00<img src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/D0NRie3X4AAE9rV-1024x666.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-694" />
<p> I didn’t stop working on my creative projects. I’ve moved to a new location and moving takes a lot of time. I’m world building <em>Heart of Ganima </em>(<strong>BoyXBoy</strong> visual novel)<em> </em>during my lunch breaks and developing better drawing skills in the mean time. It’s important that I sit down and practice drawing anatomy before posting another character sheet or fan art.</p>
<p> Tumblr did a NSFW clean up some time ago. You might see me post less on my Tumblr account in the future since there is no telling what posts of mine are appropriate for that website. <em>Heart of Ganima</em> will not be a safe for work visual novel. Rest in peace my <a href="http://darksirenftw.tumblr.com/">Tumblr account</a>?</p>
<p><strong>I’ll POST MORE UPDATES SOON!</strong></p>
<p><em>Captured </em>(GirlXBoy visual novel about merfolk and humans) can be downloaded for free <a href="http://www.darksirengames.com/games">here</a>. </p>
<p>My <a href="http://twitter.com/darksirengames">Twitter</a><br />My <a href="http://patreon.com/darksirengames">Patreon</a></p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comCinders is now available on Nintendo Switchhttp://moacube.com/?p=30932019-02-14T15:43:21+00:00<p><span class="mce_SELRES_start"></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Our little fractured fairy tale is now playable on that cool new console that clickety-clicks. We have some feelings about this. Warm, fuzzy feelings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Check it out on <a href="https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/cinders-switch">Nintendo eShop</a> and Happy Valentine’s Day! <3</p>News – MoaCubehttp://moacube.comCinders is coming to Switch on V-day!http://moacube.com/?p=30872019-02-05T16:02:16+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-medium" src="http://moacube.com/img/news_pics/cin_switch_vday.png" alt="Cinders comes to Switch on February 14" width="500" height="375" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>As promised, Cinders is coming to devices. The coolest one first!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We’re teaming up with <a href="http://crunchingkoalas.com/">Crunching Koalas</a> for this one and are <del>absolutely ecstatic</del> pretty cool with launching on a console by a company that shaped our childhood. No big deal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The game comes out on Valentine’s Day and that’s great — Cinders is a perfect date. Unless she ditches you for the belt-positive Captain of the Guard. ‘Cause, you know, choices.</p>News – MoaCubehttp://moacube.comIntelligent characters and the “brains vs brawn” fallacyhttp://kineticliterature.com/?p=2152018-12-28T22:16:24+00:00<p>There’s a huge audience for stories that involve characters who solve problems using wit and intelligence rather than force and physical strength, particularly in written fiction. Part of this, I suspect, has to do with the fact that the audience for written fiction mainly consists of people who enjoy and spend time reading books, which is usually seen as an intellectual pursuit. People who read books for entertainment are usually the kind of people who identify more with Bruce Banner than with Hulk. We’d like to solve our problems by being clever and adroit, rather than transforming into a giant green monster and solving our problems by smashing them.</p>
<p>We have an easier time empathizing with characters who are like us, and a story about character who solves problems using the same skills that we possess feels validating. The issue is that there are a lot of situations where Hulk is better at solving problems than Bruce Banner, and if you want to construct a story where every problem can be solved with wit (and no problem can be better solved with brute force), then you’re going to have to warp the events (and sometimes the logic) of the story in the service of that goal, because that’s not always the way the real world works. And a lot of times, this has the effect of making stories more about using a very narrow idea of intelligence, rather than actually approaching problems rationally.</p>
<p>One of my favorite examples of this comes from a scene in the movie Sneakers (a delightful 1992 thriller and heist movie about cryptography and espionage) where Robert Redford’s character goes to steal a cipher device from a researcher’s office. After socially engineering himself past the front desk, he finds his caper brought to a halt when the door to the office is protected with an electronic keypad. He radios the guys in the surveillance van and says, “Anybody remember how to defeat an electronic keypad?” Because this is a thriller about computers and cryptography, we expect them to come up with some kind of backdoor solution to breaking this lock, the cyberpunk equivalent of “recite this magical incantation and the lock will open for you.” The audience waits in tense silence as Robert listens to the voice of the computer guys speaking into his earpiece and mutters to himself, “Alright, that might work.” And then he takes a step back and kicks down the door.</p>
<p>This is what actual intelligent problem-solving actually looks like. In this scene, the crew identifies the fact that when snooping around in an old academic research building, it’s easier to kick an old wooden door off its hinges than to try and defeat an electronic keypad. They do the smart thing, which in this case is to use physical force. And I (and most viewers) are delighted by this moment, in part because you see the thought process behind it: Robert Redford encounters a problem, asks the computer guys to solve it for him, and they realize that real problem is not “How do I hack this electronic keypad,” but “How do I get to what’s on the other side of this door.” This moment of hesitation is important, because if he had just marched up to the door and kicked it down without taking the time to consider the optimal solution, he would feel less like a smooth operator executing the perfect heist, and more like a Jack Bauer who just charges into situations and resolves them with force.</p>
<p>It can be easy for stories to fall into the trap of breaking things down into a dichotomy of “brains vs brawn,” as if any energy spent doing physical tasks subtracts from the energy that would otherwise power your brain, but in fact a lot of the times the smartest thing to do is to punch the bad guy, or kick down the door.</p>
<p>The dichotomy of “brain vs brawn” suggests that these two are somehow mutually exclusive, and it feels like an example of a common fallacy where people see real-life skills and talents like some kind of tabletop RPG stat sheet where you have a finite number of points to distribute, which means that any points invested into things like charisma and strength necessarily subtract from stats like wisdom and intelligence. In reality, “talent” is not an evenly distributed thing; at best, it seems like athleticism and intellect are orthogonal, as plenty of people seem to have both in great abundance. (At my high school, the class valedictorian was also a star player on the high school baseball team.) There are also lots of smart people who have realized that investing time in their health and fitness is a smart use of their time, and usually the most fit people are the ones who treat optimizing their health as a worthwhile undertaking. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence that physical fitness and mental performance are positively correlated in a number of ways: for example, cardiovascular health affects brain function, and so engaging in physical exercise increases your mental fitness, rather than draining away a finite number of stat points from intelligence to boost your physique.</p>
<p>Kicking down the door may be intelligent, but it does not always live up to the <em>romantic ideal</em> of intelligence, which is less about actually making the best choice in any given situation, and more about believing “reading books is a better use of your time than sports, scientists are always better at solving problems and winning conflicts than linebackers.” This partly feels a bit like concession to the fact that the crowd of people who read for recreation tend to be the same kind of people who spent much of their youth indoors reading books rather than flipping tires on the football field, and people like reading stories that serve and flatter their own sensibilities. But to be charitable to this line of thinking, it is true <em>in the aggregate</em> that people who engage in intellectual pursuits tend to do better: education is correlated with things like higher income, longer lifespan, most of the things that we’d define as “higher quality of life,” and more generally, “winning.” The issue is when you take that general idea (“the person who had a good SAT score tends to have a better life outcome than the person who spent high school playing sports associated with head trauma”) and try to apply it universally to every situation, you wind up in bizarre situations where people would rather try to hack the keypad instead of kick down the door.</p>
<p>The convenient thing about fiction is that the author can simply fail to introduce the sort of problems that would be best solved by a well-placed kick. (If you want to have a story about hacking the electronic keypad lock, just make the door out of some kind of reinforced material that can’t easily be kicked down.) In fact, it’s possible for an author to create an entire setting based on the idea that people who are more intelligent (here defined as “reading lots of books”) always win. I suspect that a major reason why “kid goes to wizard school” is so popular as a trope of fantasy that is that it’s essentially created a genre where studying and reading books makes you more capable of dealing with violent conflict. In general, bookish and studious people rarely intersect with violence, and when they do they tend to find their skills poorly matched for dealing with violent conflict, but a wizard school setting allows for a logically consistent story about a character who is a brainy academic who also solves their conflicts with with superior force. In this case, we don’t have to choose between being Bruce Banner or being the Hulk. The wizard doesn’t have to trade their intelligence for strength; the wizard becomes a powerful combatant by burying their nose in books.</p>
<p>The issue with a character who solves their problem just by studying is that when they acquire that skill and then apply it to solve a problem, they’re not really demonstrating <em>intelligence</em>, they’re demonstrating <em>expertise</em>. The wizard’s power appears to be the triumph of brain over brawn, but this is true only in the most superficial sense of what is meant by “brains.” A wizard who defeats his enemies by throwing fireballs at them is not really showcasing his intelligence, even if his method for learning to throw fireballs involved reading a lot of books.</p>
<p>Intelligence is powerful because it transcends expertise within a single domain. It’s also narratively useful, because it would feel unrealistic for a character to be an expert on every single problem that they encounter. You can mitigate this somewhat by creating a story about an ensemble cast of experts who are capable of dealing with anything that comes at them (which is the level on which heist stories like Sneakers operate), but there’s something about the ability to solve a problem in a simple and elegant way that just sings to us, precisely because it bypasses the need for expertise. You could spend hundreds of hours studying this field to become expert enough to overcome problems in the conventional way, or you could be clever, think outside the box, redefine the problem into terms that you’re equipped to deal with, and kick down the door.</p>Kinetic Literaturehttp://kineticliterature.com2018 review & 2019 planshttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=17702018-12-28T16:50:18+00:00<p>Happy Holidays everyone! In order to properly bring a close to the year, here’s the traditional look back on Träumendes Mädchen’s activities. <a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=1658">After a more than stormy period in 2017</a>, was 2018 more merciful? Find out right away!</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1773" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/NewYear-2018-en-1024x576.jpg" alt="NewYear 2018 en" width="584" height="329" /></p>
<p><span id="more-1770"></span></p>
<h1>2018, a year of many new developments</h1>
<p>I won’t hide that this year looked a lot like an emotional roller coaster! The first few months were the logical extension of 2017: not only did we made progress on <strong>Chronotopia</strong> very slowly but on top of that the first financial issues related to that slow speed started to rear their head. My goal of simply surviving had never been so realist considering the atmosphere in the team was deteriorating more and more and my own mental state was pretty weakened. It’s quite simple, I was on the verge of ruin. I kept working, of course, but it was clear that I could not hold much longer, and neither would the company. And it’s precisely when I had hit rock bottom, that the situation was taking a disastrous turn (the game’s development stopping dead and almost no more money) that something unexpected happened.</p>
<div id="attachment_1777" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1777" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CG-atmospheric-preview-1024x576.jpg" alt="My state of mind at the beginning of the year" width="584" height="329" /><p class="wp-caption-text">My state of mind at the beginning of the year</p></div>
<p>If you follow our Kickstarter updates, you must already know it but we had to change our main artist in May. This decision seemed like suicide at first glance, and I would have never imagined taking it only a few days before, but it turned out to be a life-saving one. Inevitably, <strong>Chronotopia</strong> fell behind yet again until Mae, our new artist, joined us and got used to our organization. But the change has been overall very positive as, overnight, the toxic and heavy atmosphere that had made any work unbearable has purely and solely vanished. It felt like I was breathing again. Of course, this doesn’t meant that the rest of the year has been a walk in the park for all that but I finally regained my motivation. I’m not dragging my feets anymore when it comes to taking care of my own projects and that’s just incredible because it’s so basic!</p>
<div id="attachment_1778" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1778" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Bear-in-the-forest-1024x576.jpg" alt="There's nothing better than an adorable ball of fur to cheer you up!" width="584" height="329" /><p class="wp-caption-text">There’s nothing better than an adorable ball of fur to cheer you up!</p></div>
<p>The team was finally raring to go but bankrupcy was increasingly close, so I decided to stake it all and launch <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/traumendesmadchen/chronotopia-second-skin-forgotten-fairytale-visual">a new Kickstarter campaign</a> in the hope of saving the project. It was once again a time full of learning opportunities since it’s been far easier than the first time for me, notably because I had prepared a great amount of updates in advances and because I had enough assets available to do something nice and clean. Even the fact that I had to focus on marketing non-stop for about a month was beneficial as it allowed to find what I loved in that project again and share it. Rekindling the flame was, I believe, more than necessary. The fact remains that you came forward once more and that thanks to that little extra campaign (and more importantly your support !), the project could start again on a sound basis. And for that I cannot thank you enough!</p>
<p>Paradoxically, after this Kickstarter I chose to limit my communication to the bare minimum and above all not yield as much to external pressures (personal and professional alike). Until now I had the tendency to feel guilty because I could not be very active in the community, publish a lot of articles on the devblog or reply to the messages I regularly receive. If I still appreciate all those little things, from now on I would rather spare myself and keep my energy to work on <strong>Chronotopia</strong>, even if it means not replying at all. It’s a bit silly but people need to establish their priorities and finishing this project is mine.</p>
<div id="attachment_1774" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1774" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Chronotopia-EN-1024x559.png" alt="Chronotopia EN" width="584" height="319" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Our new promotional illustration for those of you who missed it~</p></div>
<p>The end of 2018 also marked the achievement of an important milestone for <strong>Chronotopia</strong>: the completion of the scenario’s writing. That simple act completely changed how I look at my own work. Since 2016, I did not understand why I was spending so much time writing yet never seemed to arrive at the end of the story and I had, stupidly, assumed that I was not writing fast enough. In truth I’ve written a fair number of words in 2017 just as in 2018, it’s just that the project itself is gigantic compared to my original estimations. From a medium 100-150k game, <strong>Chronotopia</strong> turned into a monster of 230k words and that changes everything. In short, let’s just say that we would have never been able to release the game this year even with the best will in the world…</p>
<div id="attachment_1779" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1779" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Fairy-Kingdom-WIP.jpg" alt="Alternative version of the fairy kingdom" width="800" height="450" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Alternative version of the fairy kingdom</p></div>
<p>This revelation is double-edged: I admittedly regained some confidence in my work but I’m all the more depressed now that I finaly have a clear overview of what’s left to do (in other words too much). The mass of text is such that it inevitably impacts programming in turn, as well as translation editing which unfortunately is going to take me even more time than expected. Since I’m headed for working on <strong>Chronotopia</strong> for months just on these tasks alone, may as well make that waiting time productive! It was the other goal of the Kickstarter campaign: make the most out of the fact development is not done to add a few extra illustrations and I must that I don’t regret that for now. Not only does it give me some company but the result is clearly worth going out of your way to see~</p>
<h1>2019, the year-of-all-wishes</h1>
<p>Once this has been said, what are our expectations for 2019? The biggest one is, once again, to finally release <strong>Chronotopia: Second Skin</strong>! We’ve never been this close: the music is done, the art is quite advanced, the writing is done, the translation is almost done. In short ‘only’ programing and translation edit are remaining…which are the most boring and time-consuming tasks. But I do have a new strategy which is to focus on making the routes playable (and releasing them <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Helia">on Patreon</a> in order to test them). The first two ones are almost ready so the finish line is finally starting to appear on the horizon!</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1725" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Wbw-promo-art-1024x576.jpg" alt="Wbw promo art" width="464" height="209" /></p>
<p>But we won’t have just that to offer in 2019 as we still have to release the Steam edition of <strong>Wounded by Words</strong> by then! I must say that I intended to work on it right after <strong>Garden of Oblivion <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/761070/Garden_of_Oblivion/">(available since March)</a></strong> but I finally preferred to focus on our main game instead. It will be an opportunity to correct that. And then, I should also work on other projects from <em>Lupiesoft</em> so I can’t wait to show you all that~</p>Träumendes Mädchen Devbloghttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blogTell a Demon 2019 Calendar & Newshttps://www.sunlabyrinth.com/?p=16262018-10-31T22:17:45+00:00<div id="aesop-image-component-1626-1" class="aesop-component aesop-image-component text-wrap">
<div class="aesop-content">
<a class="aesop-lightbox" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MailChimp_Calendar.jpg" title="">
<p class="aesop-img-enlarge"><i class="aesopicon aesopicon-search-plus"></i> Enlarge</p>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.sunlabyrinth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MailChimp_Calendar.jpg?ssl=1" alt="calendar" />
</a>
</div>
<div class="aesop-image-overlay-content">
</div>
</div>
<h3>2019 Calendar</h3>
<p>I’ve had many requests now for a new Tell a Demon calendar after the last printer canceled theirs. I think calendars are a great way to get high quality prints of Tell a Demon art, so I went in search of another printer and finally settled on Lulu.com. I purchased a test copy and was pleased with the quality of the print, so I’ve decided to offer Tell a Demon 2019 calendars through Lulu this year.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/s-a-welland/tell-a-demon-2019-calendar/calendar/product-23855321.html">Tell a Demon Calendar on Lulu.com >></a></p>
<h4>News</h4>
<div id="aesop-image-component-1626-2" class="aesop-component aesop-image-component ">
<div class="aesop-content">
<a class="aesop-lightbox" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Promo.png" title="">
<p class="aesop-img-enlarge"><i class="aesopicon aesopicon-search-plus"></i> Enlarge</p>
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.sunlabyrinth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Promo.png?ssl=1" alt="Empress of Aeser screenshot" />
</a>
</div>
<div class="aesop-image-overlay-content">
</div>
</div>
<p>I’m making some significant progress on the Empress of Aeser demo (my point and click/visual novel hybrid). You can read more on my Patreon.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/sunlabyrinth/posts?tag=TEoA">Updates on Patreon >></a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/tell-a-demon-2019-calendar-news/">Tell a Demon 2019 Calendar & News</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com">Sun Labyrinth</a>.</p>Sun Labyrinthhttps://www.sunlabyrinth.comOf Voices and Prologueshttp://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/of-voices-and-prologues2018-10-14T07:00:00+00:00<div class="paragraph"><span>October has come around. For some, this marks the beginning of Fall, meaning fallen leaves, cold weather and Halloween. For others like myself, this is when the climate starts heating up… or it would if only global warming wasn’t a thing. But hey, at least Halloween is the same.</span><span> Halloween might be a time for scares in a safe and healthy environment, but there’s nothing scary about this blog entry! Quite the opposite, in fact, given that we have a couple of exciting news to announce.<br /></span><br /><span>But first, let’s get the obligatory information out of the way. Progress is going smoothly, with writers, artists and composers all making steady progress since the last update. Those who joined the team recently have caught up successfully with everything that has been done before, and all that’s left now is to keep working and finish this tale once and for all.</span><br /><br /><span>And talking about ongoing progress, the mythical voice patch is progressing smoothly and nearing completion. Soon, you’ll be able to play Lucid9: Inciting Incident again with the added benefit of NOT paying attention to the words on screen and instead listening to the wonderful voices of our talented cast of actors! We don’t have a release date (yet), but we promise to give you one once we have nailed down the specifics of this patch. I hope all of you are looking forward to this as much as I am.<br /></span><br /><span>As you know, it’s very difficult to give our followers a sneak-peak at the script itself, since Lucid9 is a plot-heavy visual novel, and any piece of writing could count as a potential game-ruining spoiler. That said, we are happy to announce that this is no longer the case.</span><br /><br /><span>After much discussion, us writers have decided to start work on releasing what we like to call “Prologue Scenes” to the public!</span><br /><br /><span>We call them Prologue Scenes, but they are not prequels of any sort to what you read in Lucid9: Inciting Incident. Rather, these short scenes serve as a prelude to the heroine routes, narrated from the point-of-view of the girls themselves. These occur shortly before the beginning of their routes (and in some cases, even further away in the past). While each scene varies in length, altogether they will add between 1 and 1 ½ hours of content to Lucid9. You will get to learn more about the society in Isamu 3 years in the future, as well as what sort of lives some of our characters have led after the tragic events at the Isamu Imperial Boarding Academy.</span><br /><br /><span>Originally, these scenes would only be accessible during the transition between Inciting Incident and the chosen heroine routes. But until the routes are finished and completed, you’ll have the option to read their prologues individually and at your leisure (after completing Inciting Incident, of course).</span><br /><br /><span>This is exciting news for us, since we’ve been itching to showcase our writing to the public! No release date for this either, but we will provide one (along with the voice patch’s, hopefully) in the coming months.<br /><br />On another note, Elphaze has been working on Yama's new artwork. Big thanks to her for sharing it with us to include in this update!</span><br /></div> <div><div class="wsite-image wsite-image-border-none "> <a> <img src="http://lucid9.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/3/1/20314597/published/yama-default.png?1539551534" alt="Picture" /> </a> <div>Yama Ishimoto's sprite, drawn by Elphaze</div> </div></div> <div class="paragraph">~ Via<br /></div>Lucid9 - Bloghttp://lucid9.weebly.com/blogAn extremely sketchy sketch! The art for the common underworld...http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/post/1780804053522018-09-14T17:00:37+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/5b430e3685d511667ee5d075106dbe19/tumblr_pf0yfvV1K01tkpfwho1_500.png" /><br /><br /><p>An extremely sketchy sketch! The art for the common underworld route (covering days 7-10, same as the kitsune common route) and Shuye’s route is being worked on. Writing-wise, we’ve progressed to Haiyue’s route.</p><p>It was nice seeing some of you at AnimeFest 2018 last month! Special thanks if you dropped by the visual novel reading room. I gave away a few vintage Spirit Parade stickers, which was fun. (We’ve still got lots of those, so don’t be afraid to ask for one.) Now that we have a launcher and I know I can showcase multiple games, I’ll definitely be working on including a Spirit Parade demo next year if we do the VN room again.</p><p>I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for their long-time support and patience. We know that Spirit Parade has taken a lot longer to get done than anyone anticipated. I can hardly believe the major changes that have happened in my life since we started. But we’re committed to getting this game released and we’ll continue working on it. Thank you so much and until next time…!</p>Lettuce Waltzhttp://blog.lettucewaltz.org/September is burninghttps://sovietgames.su/september-is-burning-2/2018-09-09T07:10:15+00:00<p></p>
<p>Dear friends,</p>
<p>It has been a long time since our last update – and now we are eager to fix this situation!</p>
<p><span id="more-19422"></span></p>
<p>We have visited Dat Fest 2018 just recently, where we have introduced our new game “Love, Money, Rock-n-Roll” and responded to numerous questions. Besides, we hired an additional artist to speed up the process of drawing sprites!</p>
<p>However, we have got some issues with the mobile versions of the game. It’s 2018 already, and the aspect ratios for smartphones are not restricted to 4:3 and 16:9 anymore…Due to the specific nature of our GUI application, we will need to remake it entirely to ensure that it supports all the resolutions. Therefore, the release of a full-fledged demo version (with animations, five game days, etc.) for the mobile devices is postponed to later period.</p>
<p>We have got another piece of news for our Chinese speaking friends: the game will get full Chinese localisation by the moment of release! We shall reveal more details in the next post.</p>
<p>Our scriptwriter is working on the roots and doing his best to finish it before the end of this year, but writing this line is far simpler than the rest of the script, which volume is already going beyond the planned one.</p>
<p>If you are interested in our project, your support will be highly appreciated. You can show it by making <a href="https://sovietgames.su/en/shop/">a pre-order with some nice bonuses</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, take a look at our new animated background! Do not forget that our game comprises not only love and rock-n-roll, but also money…</p>Комментарии:August 2018: Last Roslyn Pic For A Whilehttp://darksirengames.com/?p=6782018-09-08T01:48:44+00:00<p>This is the latest video available on my <a href="https://youtu.be/Z_v6CbViXHk">Dark Siren Game’s YouTube channel</a>. Instead of posting a speed process video, I’m posting update videos on my Youtube channel. Speedy recordings of me drawing something will play in the background while I talk.</p>
<p>For those that want to see longer versions of my speed painting videos, they are available as a Patreon reward on my <a href="http://patreon.com/darksirengames">Patreon</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/roslyn-battle-attire-1-logo.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-679" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/roslyn-battle-attire-1-logo.jpg" alt="" width="236" height="302" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s it for the Roslyn Abella Zaryllis pictures for a while. I struggled with the anatomy for Roslyn. I’m moving on to his twin sister after practicing some anatomy.</p>
<p>This blog will turn into an anatomy sketch blog for some time. It is frustrating to constantly to look up references on Goggle before I finish a drawing. Spending a few months drawing the human body will help me a lot. Anybody is welcomed to provide feedback on any of these sketches. Comments help me improve or give me things to think about.</p>
<p>Heart of Ganima is still in the concept stages. Please follow my <a href="http://twitter.com/darksirengames">Twitter</a> for updates, rough sketches of characters, and world building until my next <a href="https://youtu.be/Z_v6CbViXHk">YouTube video</a> and blog.</p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comGeneral MoaCube update on stuffhttp://moacube.com/?p=30482018-08-21T10:51:08+00:00<p>Yeah, well… Yeah! I guess I should update our page <em>a bit</em> more frequently.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Bonfire:</strong><br />
<img class="alignleft" src="http://moacube.com/img/news_pics/bonfire_news.png" alt="Bonfire " /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Its re-work is my main focus and is in fact almost done. I want to make a playable version available to people who purchased the alpha ASAP and then decide on a release date based on your feedback. The game ended up… a pretty sizeable RPG that became deeply personal along the way. I hope it’ll be worth the wait.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>New project:</strong></p>
<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://moacube.com/img/news_pics/newproject_tease.png" alt="New project will be pretty!" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>We’ve started a new project with the Cinders & Solstice team. It’s too early to talk about it in detail, but it’s our largest game yet. It’s also not a visual novel, even if it should feel quite familiar…</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Rumina:</strong></p>
<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://moacube.com/img/news_pics/rumina_news.png" alt="Rumina by Holy Pangolin" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Agata’s game is still in the works (and honestly looks pretty great!). Its development is an amazing story that I hope she’ll be able to tell soon. For now, you can check her growing collection of odd games at <a href="https://holypangolin.itch.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">itch.io</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Cinders & Solstice:</strong></p>
<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://moacube.com/img/news_pics/cindersdevices_news.png" alt="Cinders & Solstice ports" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Are coming to devices near you. Watch your smart fridge I guess.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>These days I prefer social media for news (don’t we all honestly?), so check our <a href="https://twitter.com/TomGrochowiak" target="_blank" rel="noopener">twitter</a> / <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MoaCube" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facebook</a> / <a href="https://moacube.tumblr.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tumblr</a>. I’ll try to keep the page up-to-date with bigger stuff, though.</p>News – MoaCubehttp://moacube.comVisual Novel are dead, long live Visual Novel!http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=16992018-08-20T19:23:18+00:00<p>I recently came across an article that claimed that English visual novel had reached a peak since mid 2017 and were now entering a new era, thanks to increasing popularity and developers eager to push the boundaries of the medium. Well, I hate to be that person but as someone who has been in the community long enough to remember its short history, I have to say that this couldn’t possibly be farther from the truth. Let me take you a few years back and I think you’ll understand!</p>
<div id="attachment_1703" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1703" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Always-Remember-Me-1024x300.jpg" alt="Always Remember Me" width="584" height="171" /><p class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://www.winterwolves.com/rememberme.htm">Always Remember Me</a>, by Winter Wolves (2011). See, VNs didn’t wait until 2018 to look nice~</p></div>
<p><span id="more-1699"></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>The very humble beginnings</strong></p>
<p>You can find traces of the first few English Visual Novel (or EVN for short) back in the early 2000’s where they slowly attracted creators excited to try out this new medium. Around 2007-2008 is when most of the current veterans actually started : names like <a href="https://vndb.org/p648"><em>Winter Wolves</em></a>, <a href="https://vndb.org/p646"><em>Hanako Games</em></a>, <em>Christine Love</em> or <a href="https://vndb.org/p851"><em>Sakevisual</em></a>, who all ended up managing their own companies. And from then on, visual novel kept growing more and more, with <a href="https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/">the Lemmasoft forums</a> (the historical place for creators to hang out) getting bigger as well. 2011 was an especially good year for that time but it’s in 2012 that it truly exploded.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2012, the turnaround year</strong></p>
<p>By all metrics 2012 is probably the pivotal year for English visual novel. It notably gave us several extremely influential games that I’m sure you’ve heard of.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1732" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/katawa_shoujo_release-1024x583.png" alt="katawa_shoujo_release" width="584" height="332" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/"><strong>Katawa Shoujo</strong></a> got released in January. It was one of the biggest hobbyist project of the time, both in terms of length and ambitions, and became a beloved classic despite (or maybe because) of its many flaws. It inspired a brand new generation to make their own visual novel, what we later called the « katawa shoujo generals » trend. Until 2017, <strong>Katawa Shoujo</strong> was probably the most popular EVN of all times in a specific part of the community.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1707" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Analogue-intro-1024x640.png" alt="Analogue-intro" width="584" height="365" /></p>
<p><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/209370/Analogue_A_Hate_Story/"><strong>Analogue: A Hate Story</strong></a>, the commercial debut of Christine Love became the first visual novel ever to be released on Steam and attracted a lot of attention for its political themes, proving that the medium could be suited for all sorts of stories. Christine Love also became a figurehead and one of the few to manage to transcend the community by attending huge conventions and answering interviews from major press outlets. You could even say that she’s the closest we ever got to an EVN star.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1708" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Cinders-menu-1024x640.jpg" alt="Cinders menu" width="584" height="365" /></p>
<p><em>Moacube</em> managed to take things a step further with <a href="http://moacube.com/games/cinders/"><strong>Cinders</strong></a>. One of the very interesting things about <em>Moacube</em> is that it’s a team made of Polish veterans from the game industry who chose to make visual novel, which in itself is quite the compliment. And <strong>Cinders</strong> is everything we needed: the artstyle is absolutely gorgeous yet completely different from the usual anime style, proving that visual novel don’t always have to look that way. It also strongly relies on its story and an amazing amount of choices, which is still rare to this day. And just like Christine Love, <em>Moacube</em> injected some progressism in a medium traditionally seen as conservative.</p>
<div id="attachment_1709" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1709" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/lltq_wallpaper-1024x600.jpg" alt="lltq_wallpaper" width="584" height="342" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Long Live the Queen, by Hanako Games (2012)</p></div>
<p>The VN community itself was thriving as it was one of the best year for the veterans I mentioned: <em>Hanako Games</em> received critical and commercial acclaim with<a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/251990/Long_Live_The_Queen/"> <strong>Long Live the Queen</strong></a> and <em>Winter Wolves</em> produced their most popular game yet with <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/257970/Loren_The_Amazon_Princess/"><strong>Loren the Amazon Princess</strong></a>. Lemmasoft became an especially active place and their dedicated game jam (<a href="https://www.nanoreno.org/">called Nanoreno</a>) attracted many new developers like <a href="http://cyanide-tea.net/visual-novels/"><em>Cyanide Tea</em></a> or <a href="https://dischan.co/#games"><em>Dischan</em></a> who rapidly gained a name for themselves. Similarly several of the regulars there started to consider going commercial.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1711" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/COOT-cover-art.jpg" alt="COOT cover art" width="800" height="490" /></p>
<p>If the earthquake wasn’t big enough, it’s also at the end of this year that Obscura, one of those regular, launched <a href="https://obscurasoft.com/"><strong>Coming Out on Top</strong></a> on Kickstarter with massive success: <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obscurasoft/coming-out-on-top-a-gay-dating-sim-video-game">the campaign obtained 772% of the original goal</a> and paved the way for future projects to come on the platform. Which hold even more meaning considering that <strong>Coming Out on Top</strong> was also a gay dating sim, something of a rarity at that time.</p>
<p>And with Greenlight’s creation in 2013, the most popular visual novel started to appear on Steam.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2014-2015: Rise and Fall</strong></p>
<p>If 2012 was a pivotal year in many regards, it didn’t end there either as the medium moved up a notch for better or for worse, in no small parts thanks to the arrival of a new publisher: the <a href="https://sekaiproject.com/"><em>Sekai Project</em></a>.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1712" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fault-milestone-1024x576.jpg" alt="fault milestone" width="584" height="329" /></p>
<p>What’s so peculiar about them is that they promulgated a new style by using crowdfunding a lot during the Kickstarter boom to promote Japanese visual novel and rather varied ones at that. Historical publishers like <a href="https://jastusa.com/"><em>JAST USA</em></a> or <a href="https://www.mangagamer.com/"><em>Mangagamer</em></a> were mostly doing erotic games and requested safe licences whereas the first projects by <em>Sekai Project</em> had more of an indie flair on top of being all ages. Those were <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/world-end-economica-complete"><strong>World End Economica</strong></a>, a trilogy about economics by the author of <strong>Spice and Wolf</strong>, and <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/fault-milestone-one-directors-cut"><strong>fault milestone one</strong></a>, a fantasy series with a presention that strives towards cinematic with each episode.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1721" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Sunrider-1024x427.jpg" alt="Sunrider" width="584" height="244" /></p>
<p>Another avant-garde move was to become <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekai_Project">the first publisher to make extensive partnerships with English visual novel</a>. There had been some in the past, of course, but those were rather limited due to the fact many game publishers wouldn’t touch the genre at all while visual novel publishers were specialized in adult titles and couldn’t reach major press outlets because of that. But with a more diversified catalog, <em>Sekai Project</em> managed to dive into a more mainstream audience. Their first partnerships all became important players in the community as well:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>*</strong><em> Love in Space</em> had tremendous success at that time with <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1500482054/sunrider"><strong>Sunrider</strong>‘s Kickstarter campaign gaining 1467% of their original goal</a> and established their own fanbase.</li>
<li><strong>* </strong><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/developer/Lupiesoft"><em>Lupiesoft</em></a>, though they cut tie with Sekai rather quickly, became figureheads in western erotic games, which as a niche was still rarely explored and certainly not very tastefully.</li>
<li><strong>*</strong> And a little later the very prolific <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/developer/ebi-hime"><em>ebi-hime</em></a> gained traction as well, becoming one of the few to be known as a visual novel writer first and foremost. Which might sound weird for a medium based on text but is still an issue today.</li>
</ul>
<div id="attachment_1714" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1714" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Asphyxia-itchio-banner.png" alt="Asphyxia itchio banner" width="960" height="350" /><p class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/386990/Asphyxia/">Asphyxia</a>, ebi-hime’s top seller (2015). I admire the fact that she’s not afraid to regularly experiment with her projects.</p></div>
<p>In the meantime, the historical VN publishers were also having a moment with more and more Japanese famous licences being translated into English. And with Greenlight becoming less strict over time, more and more games were rushing to get released on Steam, Japanese and English visual novel alike.</p>
<div id="attachment_1716" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1716" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/huniepop_gameplay_screenshot_8.jpg" alt="huniepop_gameplay_screenshot_8" width="620" height="465" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Huniepop (2015)</p></div>
<p>Sadly, it’s also at that time that the first less encouraging signs started to appear as the most successful projects of the period are all full of the tasteless fanservice visual novel had been rejected for by a wider audience. There’s the <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/333600/NEKOPARA_Vol_1/"><strong>NEKOPARA</strong></a> series which became famous for its beautiful artstyle…and its steamy sex scenes, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/339800/HuniePop/"><strong>Huniepop</strong></a> that became extremely popular for its mix of match 3 gameplay and dating sim elements (including sex scenes) and <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Winged%20Cloud">the now infamous Sakura series</a> by <em>Winged Cloud</em> that started as bland sexy ‘teasing’ before adding sex-scenes as well. It might not seem much individually but together all those games helped reinforcing the stereotype of the genre being basically mindless porn for straight men, slowly overshadowing the more creative part of the community.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1717" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Hatoful-boyfriend-title-screen-1024x576.png" alt="Hatoful boyfriend title screen" width="584" height="329" /></p>
<p>Yet 2014-2015 was not just about fanservice: <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/310080/Hatoful_Boyfriend/"><strong>Hatoful Boyfriend</strong></a> got picked up by <em>Devolver Digital</em> and caused unexpected enthusiasm. The silly premise (you’re dating birds) managed to win over a more mainstream audience while proving that it had more to offer than that. Despite itself, <strong>Hatoful Boyfriend</strong> also started a new trend of hobbyist gimmicky/satirical dating sim based on the most unlikely things possible. While fun for the most part, those tended to forget the deeper story the original had going for itself.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>2015-Now : The invisible decline</strong></p>
<p>So to me, 2012-2015 is what you could consider the peak of the genre: it’s when most of the influencial games got released, when most of the critical acclaim happened, when visual novel were the most profitable and when the future seemed the brightest. Unfortunately 2015 is also the beginning of the end because, since then, things have changed drastically for the exact same reasons visual novel started becoming more popular in the first place.</p>
<div id="attachment_1718" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1718" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/SakuraSpirit.jpg" alt="SakuraSpirit" width="730" height="411" /><p class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/313740/Sakura_Spirit/">Sakura Spirit</a>, by Winged Cloud (2014). The one that started it all…</p></div>
<p>In the game industry at large, <a href="http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-indie-bubble-revisited-or-are-we.html">a lot of developers are talking about something called the indiepocalypse</a> and <a href="http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-indie-bubble-is-popping.html">while it’s still a controversial subjec</a>t, there is no denying that the landscape since 2015 is overall harsher and less forgiving. Since Steam’s doors gradually ended up being wide open, an uninterrupted flood of new games are published every day and it’s extremely hard to get noticed. And of course visual novel have not been spared by the over-saturation of the market, Japanese and English ones alike.</p>
<div id="attachment_1719" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1719" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Grisaia-Kickstarter-1024x507.jpg" alt="Grisaia Kickstarter" width="584" height="289" /><p class="wp-caption-text">One example of the many SP campaigns that ended on a sour note for the backers.</p></div>
<p>The <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/sekaiproject"><em>Sekai Project</em></a> who started the trend has now lost most of the trust of their consumers by abusing crowdfunding and not delivering on their many promises, on top of a jarring lack of transparency. Despite being swamped with unreleased licences, the publisher still keeps announcing new ones to the point that <a href="https://vndb.org/p162">it’s impossible to remember them all</a>. And given <a href="https://www.rpgsite.net/news/7581-report-sekai-project-has-laid-off-its-entire-staff">the latest news of them laying off their physical staff</a> and their current track record, it is highly rumored that they’re financially struggling.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1722" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/KS-Total-projects-pledged-per-year.png" alt="KS - Total-projects-pledged-per-year" width="964" height="559" /></p>
<div id="attachment_1723" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1723" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/KS-Total-amount-pledged-per-semester-for-successful-projects.png" alt="KS - Total-amount-pledged-per-semester-for-successful-projects" width="997" height="582" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Some necessary statistics to put things into context. Check out Ico Partners’ website for more!</p></div>
<p><a href="http://icopartners.com/tag/kickstarter/">Kickstarter itself has fallen from grace over years.</a> With several catastrophic failures and a number of games coming out not quite as expected, customers are less willing to put their trust in new projects and <a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=1142">the hype has sharply faded</a>. This has direct consequences on the visual novel market: since those are niche products, developers have more and more difficulty funding them properly. From experience, the average a modest EVN can ask for went from 5-10k to 2-4k in a mere years. Which is a shame as it’s often the only method small creators have at their disposition to obtain funds and visibility.</p>
<div id="attachment_1720" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BCH-waves-studio.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1720" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BCH-waves-studio-1024x623.jpg" alt="BCH waves studio" width="584" height="355" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">50 000 achievements for a crust of bread? Lucky you… Oh yeah, and there’s also games but who cares about those?</p></div>
<p>Meanwhile, fraudulent practices are becoming increasingly common on Steam, mirroring the trend of « <a href="http://crappy-games.wikia.com/wiki/Asset_Flipping">assets flips</a> » in the general game industry. Applied to VN, those take the form of <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=bch%20waves%20studio">dirty cheap and short products made of stolen art and THOUSANDS of achievements</a> as a way to both bait customers and shut off complains. There are also machine-translated Japanese visual novel that barely work and shady practices such as turning said VN into raffle tickets to win unrelated prizes (such as a PS4), most of which can be directly imputed to <a href="https://www.lewdgamer.com/2017/11/15/lewdgamer-expose-sakuragame">newcomer Chinese publisher <em>SakuraGame</em></a>. Sexual games don’t have it any better as the market has been flooded with low quality <strong>Hunipop</strong> clones, some of which arrive on Steam barely censored like <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/644560/Mirror/"><strong>Mirror</strong></a>, the highest selling game of <em>SakuraGame</em>, which is somehow allowed to include sex-scenes with rather extreme content almost as is.</p>
<div id="attachment_1724" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1724" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Mutiny.jpg" alt="Mutiny" width="620" height="355" /><p class="wp-caption-text"><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/669050/Mutiny/">Mutiny!!</a> by Lupiesoft (2017) was one of the adult games at the heart of Valve’s initial threat of removal</p></div>
<p>And yet, the greatest paradox is that Valve keeps going back and forth between allowing some light mature content on Steam and prohibiting it entirely, while providing no clear guideline developers could follow. At some point, 18+ patches were allowed as long as the core game was properly censored on Steam but advertizing them was forbidden. But then a wave of mature EVN found themselves being targeted by a conservative groupuscule and the creators were threatened to have their game removed from Steam entirely. <a href="https://kotaku.com/valves-inconsistent-rules-on-sexy-steam-games-continue-1826153796">It caused quite a stir in the community</a> until Valve finally spoke up to ensure that <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/6/17435260/steam-visual-novels-adult-violent-games">‘all’ games were welcome on the platform</a>…before <a href="https://screenrant.com/valve-delay-adult-steam-games/">privately bringing to a halt the release of several upcoming visual novel</a>. As for now, there are still no clear guidelines nor the features promised and developers are kept in the dark, some in a compromising financial position. Speaking of a bias against the genre could be hasty but this is nonetheless the impression many get from this weird treatment only visual novel seem to receive.</p>
<div id="attachment_1725" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1725" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Get-in-the-car-loser1-1024x576.png" alt="Get in the car loser1" width="584" height="329" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Get in the Car, Loser! (TBA) Not very visual novel-like, is it?</p></div>
<p>On the other side of the scale, some of the very same developers who helped popularizing visual novel back in 2012 have already made public their decision to distance themselves from the medium. It’s the case for Christine Love who stated that <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/560000/Ladykiller_in_a_Bind/"><strong>Ladykiller in a Bind</strong></a>, a mature visual novel released in 2016 (<a href="https://www.destructoid.com/love-on-winning-her-first-igf-award-i-guess-i-proved-sex-is-maybe-real-after-all--424738.phtml">which ended up getting her her first IGF award</a>), <a href="http://loveconquersallgam.es/post/73634301229/actually-ladykiller-in-a-bind-is-very-easily">would be her last</a>. She has since then moved on to her next project, <a href="https://loveconquersallgames.itch.io/getinthecarloser"><strong>Get in the Car, Loser!</strong></a>, a RPG with pixel art. Similarly, despite releasing <a href="http://moacube.com/games/solstice/"><strong>Solstice</strong></a> in 2015, <a href="https://twitter.com/TomGrochowiak/status/1029057548064833536"><em>Moacube</em> is discreetly leaving the genre</a> to focus on more traditional games, <a href="http://moacube.tumblr.com/post/170681822087/its-unfortunate-truth-that-the-cinders-sequel">cancelling a potential Cinders sequel in the process</a>. It should come as no surprise that <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/8wpse6/with_the_recent_leak_of_steam_sales_figures_heres/">both games, though positively received, didn’t earn nearly as much as their previous projects</a>.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1726" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/dream-daddy-1024x576.jpg" alt="dream daddy" width="584" height="329" /></p>
<p>In this rather bleak atmosphere, the only visual novels that truly manage to capture some maintream success seem to heavily rely on the same gimmick <strong>Hatoful Boyfriend</strong> inadvertently generalized and a lot of viral marketing. One of the best examples would be <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/654880/Dream_Daddy_A_Dad_Dating_Simulator/"><strong>Dream Daddy</strong></a>, one of the two true popular successes of 2017, which offers you to play a dad and date other dads. While the subject is adressed tastefully and is a welcome touch, there is no denying that the humor and marketing (urging people to create their own « <a href="https://twitter.com/dreamdaddygame/status/888082739366199296?lang=en">dadsona</a> ») do play into the gimmicks and memes the internet love so much.</p>
<div id="attachment_1727" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-1727" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/The-super-patriotic-dating-simulator.jpg" alt="The-super-patriotic-dating-simulator" width="1000" height="273" /><p class="wp-caption-text">The Super Patriotic Dating Simulator a.k.a. <a href="https://twitter.com/FuckISISGame">Fuck ISIS</a></p></div>
<p>I unfortunately cannot say the same think about the bewildering <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/835422767/the-super-patriotic-dating-simulator"><strong>Super Patriotic Dating Similator</strong> currently on Kickstarter</a>. The game’s synopsis sounds incredibly tasteless and cynical as you’re supposed to follow a teenager spy who infiltrate ISIS to date hot terrorist guys. Though this dating sim is not funded yet and might not even be, I’m bringing it up to make a point: nowadays visual novel are constantly expected to be satires of themselves.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1728" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Doki_Doki_Literature_Club-1024x576.png" alt="Doki_Doki_Literature_Club" width="584" height="329" /></p>
<p>And no other product could demonstrate it better than <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/Doki_Doki_Literature_Club/"><strong>Doki Doki Literature Club</strong></a>, the viral sensation that took the internet by storm in 2017. While it looks like a fairly standard story at first, the cute part turns out to be a front (and not a very subtle one at that), revealing a rather shallow horror game with meta elements. It quickly became THE game of the summer and the most popular VN EVER with streamers and youtubers trying it out to scare themselves and their audience. While its success proves that the genre’s codes are mostly integrated by a wider audience, <a href="https://medium.com/@lesmocon/doki-doki-literature-club-is-a-pointless-celebration-of-itself-538e733f4b14">DDLC is quite explicitely a visual novel for people who don’t really like visual novel</a>, which is probably why I find it so ironic and demotivating to see it grab the number one spot.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Where do we go from there?</strong></p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that good visual novel are not coming out nor that critical acclaim has become impossible. In the same period, we got <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/447530/VA11_HallA_Cyberpunk_Bartender_Action/">the mega successful cyberpunk bartending action <strong>VA-11 HALL-A</strong></a>, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/549860/One_Night_Stand/">the short but sweet <strong>One Night Stand</strong></a> whose dev quickly rose to fame (even becoming a finalist for the same IGF award Christine Love won), and <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/523210/A_Normal_Lost_Phone/"><strong>A Normal Lost Phone</strong></a> on the more « interactive fiction » side of the genre. Similarly, hobbyists never go away and will likely continue making more personal and quirky games. But it’s hard not to feel that commercial products are looking more and more the same by the year. Making a commercial visual novel in 2018 is riskier than ever, which is likely to drive away the creators who have a unique vision that doesn’t translate well into viral marketing. Which is an immense shame.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1731" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/VA-11-HALL-A-cover.jpg" alt="VA-11 HALL-A cover" width="790" height="448" /></p>
<p>That’s why I wanted to make this article as I believe the one I read could be harmful to newcomers. I used to believe around 2012 that visual novel had a bright future because I thought and I still think that the genre is full of potential (I wouldn’t be making <a href="https://traumendes_madchen.itch.io/chronotopia"><strong>Chronotopia</strong></a> otherwise). But things have changed since then: EVN developers have it tough to survive and are fearful to take risks, which means that the medium is stagnating creatively. Some commercial games still become hits as there will always be winners regardless of the context but you shouldn’t let them fool you into believing that the road is going to be easy.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1730" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/One-night-stand.jpg" alt="One night stand" width="960" height="386" /></p>
<p>We need new voices, we need diversity, we desperately need what you might bring the community to grow so don’t let it dishearten you. Just don’t expect tremendous commercial success.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1754" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/600x150-banner-promo-art.jpg" alt="600x150 banner (promo art)" width="600" height="150" /></p>
<p><strong>P.S: If you like dark and mature story-driven visual novel, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/traumendesmadchen/chronotopia-second-skin-forgotten-fairytale-visual">Chronotopia: Second Skin is on Kickstarter at the moment</a> so consider supporting us~</strong></p>Träumendes Mädchen Devbloghttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blogSome random screenshots from the first half of Shuye’s route,...http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/post/1768763043402018-08-11T13:01:13+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/085760faf7097bdf009c8171c5634f9f/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho1_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/94494d3ab32187442202eec0be34e1db/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho2_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/06da92f7b99f57ed3267374279d65bcb/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho3_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/142399bdd576d63f8731fcda3bd9f57f/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho4_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/5375edb87f1527e4d62d336661c06a41/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho5_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/d550eb28eae92655038e0359bcfe5c51/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho6_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/b9b4db1fe60d0dc9984568de6ade2f99/tumblr_pda6li8QcR1tkpfwho7_500.png" /><br /> <br /><p>Some random screenshots from the first half of Shuye’s route, which is being coded and scripted. Lucky and Iwao’s sprites are still placeholders!</p><p>I’ve gotten used to staring at a lot of purple while working on this part of the game. It’s nice and relaxing.</p>Lettuce Waltzhttp://blog.lettucewaltz.org/Finally….http://darksirengames.com/?p=6642018-08-04T19:18:51+00:00<p>Hello!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Roslyn went through a ton of changes throughout the years. In 2013, he was blonde with blue eyes and an android. Then I drew another drawing with him holding a helmet and armor made from a dragon. Two years later, black hair and fairy wings.</p>
<p><div id="attachment_665" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/1.-perfect.jpeg"><img class="wp-image-665 size-medium" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/1.-perfect-202x300.jpeg" alt="" width="202" height="300" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-665" class="wp-caption-text">2014</p></div></p>
<p> </p>
<p><div id="attachment_522" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Final-Twin-Image-for-now.png"><img class="wp-image-522 size-medium" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Final-Twin-Image-for-now-300x169.png" alt="" width="300" height="169" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-522" class="wp-caption-text">2016. I might reuse this outfit. I’ll draw his twin sister later.</p></div></p>
<p><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/front-back-2-.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-662 aligncenter" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/front-back-2--198x300.jpg" alt="" width="198" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Somehow, he lost the wings and gained a tail. I’m fine with this version. I don’t feel like rushing home and making any adjustments anymore. So on to redesigning his twin sister Levia. Please tell me what you think. I try my best to view every single comment posted. Have a nice day guys!</p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comChronotopia: Second Skin – Back on Kickstarter!http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=16902018-08-01T12:40:52+00:00<p>We haven’t really posted that much for the previous couple of months, have we? To be fair, we were quite busy with <strong>Chronotopia</strong>’s development.</p>
<div id="attachment_1707" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-large wp-image-1707" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Kickstarter-Promo-Art-1024x576.jpg" alt="Kickstarter-Promo-Art-1024x576" width="584" height="329" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Our brand new promotional art by the talented Eirlysa Lawrence</p></div>
<p><span id="more-1690"></span></p>
<p>We’ve made plenty of progress and are getting closer to the finish line but then we realized that we were lacking illustrations. And it’s especially important for such a long visual novel like ours to break away from the sprites/backgrounds monotony once in a while. That’s why we’ve decided to make a small supplementary Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a few extra illustrations and make the experience more pleasant overall! We also changed the game’s name to add clarity: it’s now called <strong>Chronotopia: Second Skin</strong> to better reflect Kionna’s adventures. Speaking of her, here’s a reminder of the story for those of you who didn’t follow.</p>
<p></p>
<p><em>Princess Kionna lives a peaceful existence in her castle, enjoying her days with her best friend and confidant, Nahima. That is until her father, gone mad since the death of his beloved, decides he should wed her instead. Kionna has to find a way to escape from this fate, but how? She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the beginning of a long nightmare that will take her to the edge of madness…</em></p>
<p></p>
<p>Of course, we’ve also made the most of that time to improve the old demo and add a few features. Expect a revamped UI, new content, new illustrations, better effects and the apparition of the archives system which allows you to get a better insight on folklore and fairytales’ references!</p>
<p><strong>What to expect of the new Chronotopia:</strong><br />
• A unique take on a forgotten fairytale with many twists<br />
• Branching story with around 10 endings and 30 hours of playtime<br />
• An optional archives system to learn more about folklore<br />
• Two GxG (Nahima and the Fairy) and one GxB (the “Prince”) romances possible!<br />
• Beautiful artwork, with animated backgrounds and special stained-glass illustrations<br />
• A full original soundtrack with celtic influences<br />
• Extensive use of RenPy 3D camera for a more dynamic presentation<br />
• Several segments allowing you to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IML2LXrQORk">freely explore the castle</a> to discover its secrets</p>
<div id="attachment_1709" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1709" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Fairy-intro-contrast.jpg" alt="Fairy intro contrast" width="800" height="900" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Beware, the Fairy is not going to be pleased if we don’t reach our goal~</p></div>
<p>So, if you’ve missed the first campaign, now is the perfect time to fix that. <a href="https://traumendes_madchen.itch.io/chronotopia">Take a look at our updated demo here</a> and if you like what you see, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/traumendesmadchen/chronotopia-second-skin-forgotten-fairytale-visual">consider pledging a few bucks to our Kickstarter!</a> And promised, after that, I’ll try to post more often here~</p>Träumendes Mädchen Devbloghttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blogRevival & Explanationstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169952780106822418.post-376397369260094132018-07-24T23:34:10+00:00Hello! Anna here, it's been a while. :)<br /><br />Some <a href="https://twitter.com/ripandtir/status/1021465818952060928" target="_blank">may have already read this on my twitter</a>, we're back in action! The past few months we all carefully started dev-work again, and so far it has been going well. While full-time employment means we can spend less time on it than before, we still believe in making it happen. So here's a little update on what has been going on and what we're working on.<br /><br /><br /><b>What the heck happened</b> <br /><br />Since there's no way to bring it lightly: I lost my mom two years ago and almost my dad as well right in the middle of the project we were doing in 2017 for NaNoRenO. Obviously, my productivity went down the drain, so we decided to let it be until the time came I was feeling up for it again. <br /><br />I'm OK now and actually being productive again at a pace I'm comfortable with.<br /><br /><br /><b>What now?</b><br /><br /> First of all, we're going to focus on finishing the last project we worked on, the fantasy story <i>Path of Dreamers</i>. It'll be a free visual novel with a small scope, meant to be a small taste of what's to come: it's a spin-off story of our mega-project <i>Locus Magici</i> (LoMa). The main character of that project will actually make an appearance in Path of Dreamers too, but otherwise it'll be an entirely self-contained side-story.<br /><br />Note that we'll likely limit the scope on LoMa a lot, and introduce lots of changes (like the name), but we'll go into more detail on those after the release of Path of Dreamers.<br /><br />For now, here's a quick peek of the synopsis of Path of Dreamers, since it's been a while: <br /><br /><div><u>Path of Dreamers</u><br /><br /><br /></div><div><div class="separator"><span><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jx16FAKKsDo/W1d72g4JSdI/AAAAAAAAAIA/E4soUMZ267oAfNC2VtC_fz9-7EVhwdVkgCLcBGAs/s1600/1.png"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jx16FAKKsDo/W1d72g4JSdI/AAAAAAAAAIA/E4soUMZ267oAfNC2VtC_fz9-7EVhwdVkgCLcBGAs/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><i class="text-italics">"Please, help me free my beloved."</i><br /><br />With those words, the young spy Keir pleads for help to one of his more skilled peers. <br />For without an effective escape plan, his loved one is certain to die. <br />He accepts, but even together the flight from the castle will be anything but easy. <br />Can Keir reach his dream?</div> <br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator"><span><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KDFJ2ogwK3A/W1dy_JBGyfI/AAAAAAAAAH0/F1_8uCtDw3sV8HkRehsvmeEvp9GqhFE4wCLcBGAs/s1600/wink.png"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KDFJ2ogwK3A/W1dy_JBGyfI/AAAAAAAAAH0/F1_8uCtDw3sV8HkRehsvmeEvp9GqhFE4wCLcBGAs/s320/wink.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />More will follow later! Also, <span><a href="http://tirrific.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">I'll post art-updates on my Tumblr again</a> :3!</span><br />Time for dev now.<br /><br /><br />~AnnaAnnanoreply@blogger.comhttp://pegasi-dev.blogspot.com/search/label/visual%20novelJuly feverhttps://sovietgames.su/july-fever-2/2018-07-17T12:03:24+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-14920" src="https://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CG_33_1_en-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="394" /></p>
<a href="https://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Z-FEEL-Z-Hurt-Me.mp3">Hurt Me</a>
<p>More than a month has passed since our last update, and we have been working hard to achieve further progress in regards to the game.</p>
<p><span id="more-19417"></span></p>
<p>Currently, our artist is making finishing touches on CGs, and the script is being developed steadily. It takes time to make a game, and we know we have already used much of it, so we are very grateful for your patience. You may expect some breaking news in autumn.</p>
<p>Thank you again for your presence and encouragement throughout the entire journey! We appreciate every backer and every word of support!</p>
<p>And don’t forget we have 7 vocal tracks in the game!</p>
<p>Also, now you can preorder “Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll” on <a href="https://sovietgames.su/shop/">our site</a>.</p>Комментарии:Backstage Pass Auditionstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8714379400054757338.post-47797809758701245812018-07-17T12:11:34+00:00<div class="separator"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rjLV_iuYffU/Uor8ix9JrZI/AAAAAAAAAb0/Lc3jyCY0UCk/s1600/logo_small.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rjLV_iuYffU/Uor8ix9JrZI/AAAAAAAAAb0/Lc3jyCY0UCk/s1600/logo_small.png" /></a></div><br /><span><b>Edit:</b></span><br /><span>Auditions are closed. We will be recording all through this month, so if you are cast, you will be hearing from us during this time.</span><br /><span><br /></span><span>Due to the large volume of auditions received, we will not be able to provide feedback. If you are looking for advice or want to know more about a voice acting career, check out <a href="http://iwanttobeavoiceactor.com/">http://iwanttobeavoiceactor.com</a>.</span>Ayu Sakatanoreply@blogger.comhttp://sakevisual.blogspot.com/Two announcementshttp://winds.blue/?p=5212018-07-15T05:06:45+00:00<p>I will be publishing the first public build of Lapis Azurai V2 next week. It contains roughly double the wordcount of Lapis V1, as well a completely rewritten gameplay. Please look forward to it!</p>
<p>Also, I’ll be posting a link to my new web serial sometime in the next few days. Setting a slow pace at first, rather than starting bright and burning out. It will update twice a week, it’s scifi/horror/general weirdness. Not my usual genre, but I hope anyone who’s stuck with my multi-year dry spell will at least give the first chapter a read. :)</p>Lapis Azuraihttp://winds.blueHi everyone! Thank you for your patience as we continue working...http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/post/1755572959002018-07-05T00:20:23+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/395035ff768416a290f2a43de041c704/tumblr_pbda9zlX4E1tkpfwho1_500.png" /><br /><br /><p>Hi everyone! Thank you for your patience as we continue working on <a href="https://lettucewaltz.itch.io/spirit-parade">Spirit Parade</a>. </p><p>We’re all hard at work on Shuye’s route. The CGs, Underworld BGs, and extra art (for the minigame, sprites for the side characters) are being worked on. The script’s first draft is nearly done now, too, just need to finish off the two good endings before moving into editing and sprite coding.</p><p>We hope you’ve been enjoying the kitsune routes and we’ll be sure to announce a release date for Shuye as soon as we can!</p>Lettuce Waltzhttp://blog.lettucewaltz.org/DSD is moving to a new serverhttp://dsd.faceroll.net/?p=7742018-07-03T05:01:51+00:00<p>Hey all, it’s been quite a while since our last post here. As you might’ve seen on the forum or the last blog post’s comments, there’s been on and off progress on ESR, although not as much as we’d hope for in the last 2 years. It’s time to renew our efforts soon, but one thing we need first is a new web server.</p>
<p>Sigma has very generously hosted DSD’s home at Faceroll for at least 8 years now, but he doesn’t have the time to actively maintain it anymore. We’ve decided it’s best if Graph and I set up a new server, and migrate the blog and forum data over with Sigma’s help.</p>
<p>Once the new server is up, dsd.faceroll.net will redirect to the new DSD homepage. We’ll be getting to work immediately on figuring out the details and setting this up, and then we’ll see about moving forward with ESR development again. See you on the other side!</p>Dai-Sukima Dan Blog - Home of Eastern Starlight Romancehttp://dsd.faceroll.netArc 1 Progresshttp://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/arc-1-progress2018-06-18T07:00:00+00:00<div class="paragraph">I was going to write this post yesterday but remembered that it was Father's Day. I hope you guys had the chance to spend some quality time with your old man/father figure!<br /><br />Writing progress has been consistent, and we haven't had many issues in the writing department as of late. But given how some of our writers have been around longer than others, those that joined us just recently not only had to focus on catching up on their route, they also had to read the other writers' work and provide feedback. Naturally, this became increasingly difficult, and a lot of our writing meetings ended up being one-on-one sessions with Dia rather than an open discussion. Dia suggested the writers spend two weeks reading, commenting, and leaving suggestions on what was currently written without having to worry about writing their own routes. We'll be scheduling another meeting next Monday now that everyone is caught up with each other's work.<br /><br />The writers are also planning to experiment with the phone system that was present in Inciting Incident. Our hope is to include phone applications—such as Patter—where the reader can learn more about the world of Lucid9 and its characters. It's still in the developmental phase at the moment, so we'll share mock-ups once we make more progress.<br /><br />Concerning art, all of the main characters in Lucid9 (with the exception of Shigure) have completed sprites. Of course, there are still varying poses/clothing that need to be done, but those will be finished in due time. Dizzy, Elphaze, and Eufonie have been fairly active, and we're always excited to share some of their work with you guys. Below is a mock-up of the heroines and background art!<br /></div><div><div class="wsite-image wsite-image-border-none"><a><img src="http://lucid9.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/3/1/20314597/teaser_orig.jpg" alt="Picture" /></a><div></div></div></div><div class="paragraph"> <br />Ziassan, one of our composers, had also uploaded a few drafts for the sequel's soundtrack. This one will be played during the darker segments of the story, and will have a two other variations of intensity—a bit similar to the Melancholy tracks in Inciting Incident. We'll be working to harmonize the tracks so they don't transition too abruptly, which was an issue in our first release.<br /><br /></div><div><div id="633866874368655357" align="left" class="wcustomhtml"></div></div><div class="paragraph">That's about all the news for now! While these past few months weren't easy, we've made quite a lot of headway despite the changing of so many writers, so a big thank you to DJ Horn, ReddlyB, and Via for helping us out in that department.<br /><br />If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to write us here. You can also reach us on our discord channel. A lot of our members are very active there. <a href="https://t.co/QwpUOxmLil" target="_blank"><span>discordapp.com/invite/q3fyjT2</span></a><br /><br />Until next time!<br /><br />~ David A. "CardioPen"<br /><br /></div><div class="paragraph"><br /><br /></div>Lucid9 - Bloghttp://lucid9.weebly.com/blogSummer of hopehttps://sovietgames.su/summer-of-hope-2/2018-06-11T09:40:29+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-4067" src="https://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/RitaKhimitsu-1024x1024.png" alt="" width="700" height="700" /></p>
<p>It’s good to be back at y’all, dear followers, especially when it’s finally Summer!</p>
<p><span id="more-19414"></span></p>
<p>First things first and we have some good news for you: Himitsu route is finally finished! 3 routes left to go, but please do not think that they will take years to be written – text is progressing at a great pace. Also, we are planning to get some feedback from our testers (you can become one of them <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-money-rock-n-roll-animation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>, perc Beta contributor). Finally, our artist is doing his best, drawing like 3-4 CGs a week!</p>
<p>Not much to tell you in addition, but rest assure – we are working to bring you a great game, despite all the troubles we had these past years!</p>Комментарии:Roslyn Abella Zaryllis Final Drafthttp://darksirengames.com/?p=6602018-06-10T18:19:04+00:00<p>Hello everyone! Its’s been a long while.</p>
<p>Real life has gotten me pretty busy, but I’ve found time to start working in Photoshop CS6 again. Unlike with my first <a href="http://darksirengames.com/games">visual novel</a> <i>Captured</i>, I’ve grown used to digital painting. I’ve also pledged to Sakimichan on Patreon in order to receive her helpful tutorials once a month. These tutorials have helped me become a much better artist.</p>
<p>If you have been following me for a couple of years, I’ve tried to join a few offline starting video game companies with little success. I held off on completing <em>Captured</em> out of fear of creating creative conflicts.</p>
<p>Finishing <em>Captured</em> with me as the artist, programmer, writer, and with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/blipsoundz/">Blipoundz</a> as the music composer was a good feeling for me. I’m not much for teams (of more than two people) anymore so <em>Heart of Ganima </em>will have me as the sole creator for a majority of the project.</p>
<p><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/front-back-2-.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-662" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/front-back-2--198x300.jpg" alt="" width="198" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Roslyn Abella Zarllyis is one of the point of view characters for <em>Heart of Ganima. </em>I’ll be working a ton on my anatomy-especially my male anatomy- in the future. I was not happy with the <a href="http://darksirengames.com/roslyn-abella-zarlyis-concept-design-heart-of-ganima-bxb/">last draft</a> of Roslyn, so I redrew him. There will be a <a href="http://youtube.com/user/darksirengames">YouTube video</a> soon on Roslyn Abella Zarllyis soon.</p>
<p><strong>This post was already available on my Patreon (05/13/2018)</strong> <a href="http://patreon.com/darksirengames">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comPrivacy Policy & Updateshttps://www.sunlabyrinth.com/?p=16022018-06-02T19:54:43+00:00<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
<p>We now have <a href="https://sunlabyrinth.com/privacy-policy">one</a>.</p>
<h3>Website Update</h3>
<p>The website was feeling a bit clunky – messy to the point where I didn’t want to update it. Hopefully this will help. Anyway, you can now…</p>
<ul>
<li>…Subscribe to the blog itself via email if you want to be notified of new posts or comments. This is separate from the newsletter, which updates when there are new stories, or after big changes, not after every post.</li>
<li>…Connect to the site with Patreon if you are a Patreon subscriber. The goal is to post more Patreon-only content here.</li>
<li>…Enjoy all my newly broken links as I fix everything post by post. Sorry about that.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Asher (Remake?)</h3>
<div id="aesop-image-component-1602-3" class="aesop-component aesop-image-component text-wrap">
<div class="aesop-content">
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.sunlabyrinth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Thumb.jpg?ssl=1" alt="Thumb" />
</div>
<div class="aesop-image-overlay-content">
</div>
</div>
<p>You can now read <em>Asher</em> on your browser. This version has new content and is more in line with the story of <em>Tell a Demon.</em></p>
<blockquote><p>All of Tetrine’s life she’s been told in no uncertain terms that letting on that she can see the magical Nell marks is a Bad Idea. Which is unfortunate, because several people, two of whom have suspicious intentions, find out. A kidnapping and an attempted murder (or two) ensues, and Tetrine’s life will never quite be the same again.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/asher-remake/">Read it here.</a></p>
<h3>The Empress of Aeser</h3>
<div id="aesop-parallax-component-1602-1" class="aesop-component aesop-parallax-component ">
<div class="aesop-stacked-img">
</div>
Work in progress shot for the Empress of Aeser
</div>
<p>I’m now working on the Empress of Aeser, another story set in the same world as that of <em>Asher</em> and <em>Tell a Demon</em>. It is part point and click, part visual novel. You can see more blow-by-blow updates on my twitter.</p>
<p>Art style wise, it combines my more realistic style with my cutout style. More on that later.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/privacy-policy-updates/">Privacy Policy & Updates</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com">Sun Labyrinth</a>.</p>Sun Labyrinthhttps://www.sunlabyrinth.comAsher (Remake)https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/?p=14842018-05-31T16:17:53+00:00<p><em>This is an interactive visual story.</em></p>
<p>Asher is a short visual story about a librarian<i>—</i>all right, librarian’s assistant<i>—</i>named Tetrine Reish who lives in the city-state of Asher. Things are going swimmingly (except for perhaps her brother’s debt/bootlegging problem and an ominous dream or two,) until a woman comes along asking for a book. Not a library book<i>—</i>that would be too easy<i>—</i>but a book that doesn’t belong in Tetrine’s library. The book turns out to be written in a magical script called Nell marks that only a few people can see, and Tetrine is one of them.</p>
<p>However, all her life she’s been told in no uncertain terms that letting on that she can see the marks is a Bad Idea. Which is unfortunate, because several people, two of whom have suspicious intentions, find out. A kidnapping and an attempted murder (or two) ensues, and Tetrine’s life will never quite be the same again.</p>
<p>Mild graphic blood and language. Teen+</p>
<ul>
<li>9 endings</li>
<li>Free</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://sunlabyrinth.com/Asher/">Read Asher</a></h3>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/asher-remake/">Asher (Remake)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.sunlabyrinth.com">Sun Labyrinth</a>.</p>Sun Labyrinthhttps://www.sunlabyrinth.comTKOT_Character Polltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6687319464839466952.post-51843366846204258472018-05-31T15:25:49+00:00This is something I did a while ago but never posted it...orz<br />I made a TKOT character poll last year, and the winner was Corvus!<br />This is a little interview with some facts of him: (Spoilers ahead.)<br /><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b> Hello Corvus, I'm going to start the interview as we planned a while ago. Please cooperate!<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png" /></a><b><span><br />Corvus:</span></b> T-this is a little awkward for me, but I will t-try!<br /><br /><b><br /></b> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b>Me: </b>Don't be shy! You won the character popularity poll with 67%. Following by Gervase which had 52%.<br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span><br /></span></b> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png" /></a><b><span>Corvus:</span><span>(Gyahaha, take that furball!)</span></b><br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><b><span><br /></span></b><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b><b> </b>Thank you so much for your votes! It brings tears to my eyes, as a servant, I'm not used to this kind of treatment.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><br /></b><br /><b><br /></b> <b>Me: </b>How long have you been Lady Os's servant?<br /><span><br /></span> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><span><br /></span><br /><span>Corvus:</span> I've been serving my lady since I was 7, so I guess those are 13 years...<br /><b><br /></b> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><br /></b><br /><b>Me: </b>Could you tell us how old are you now?<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><span><br /></span><br /><span><br /></span> <span>Corvus:</span> I'm 20. But actually, I should be 21. The pillar I cast for my lady took one year of my life.<br /><b><br /></b> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b></b><br /><b><b><br /></b></b> <b>Me:</b> I see. <b><span>(Does that even make sense??)</span></b><br />What can you tell us about your childhood?<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png" /></a><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> Err...I would rather not say...I had food and a place to sleep, and that's what matters in the end.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><span></span></b><br /><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b> <b><span>Me: </span></b>So I can say you had a hard childhood? Is it because of Lady Os?<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><br /><div><b><span><br /></span></b></div><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> My lady is free of guilt. I was a servant after all. A servant from the kingdom of Ulla. So being treated with an iron glove is something to expect.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><span></span></b><br /><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b> <b><span>Me:</span></b> Since we are talking about this, how was your relationship with her when you two were little?<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png" /></a><b><span></span></b><br /><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b> <b><span>Corvus:</span></b> ...<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-thh5yIyPg-c/URV3I2Ud2oI/AAAAAAAAAgo/SS_w2cPC6Cs/s1600/cor7.png"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-thh5yIyPg-c/URV3I2Ud2oI/AAAAAAAAAgo/SS_w2cPC6Cs/s1600/cor7.png" /></a><br /><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b>My Lady was incredibly cute! CUTE! Just to remember that...It moves my heart...<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b>Me: </b>Did you were close?<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H8LBvWjY21k/URVygAJ_2oI/AAAAAAAAAfk/huUezuNCR7w/s1600/cor5.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H8LBvWjY21k/URVygAJ_2oI/AAAAAAAAAfk/huUezuNCR7w/s1600/cor5.png" /></a><br /><br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span>Corvus:</span></b> Clo-close?! Wwwhat do you mean?!<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><span></span></b><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b> Close in a friendly way...?<br /><br /><div class="separator"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png" /></a></div><span><b>Corvus: </b></span>Well...We didn't get along at the beginning Gyaha ha...Probably because of me... But my lady was incredibly kind to me even if I did horrible things to her.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b><b> </b>So that's why you fell in love with her?<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H8LBvWjY21k/URVygAJ_2oI/AAAAAAAAAfk/huUezuNCR7w/s1600/cor5.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H8LBvWjY21k/URVygAJ_2oI/AAAAAAAAAfk/huUezuNCR7w/s1600/cor5.png" /></a><b><span>Corvus: </span>AS<span>ADS</span><span>AD...</span></b><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><span><br /></span></b><br /><span>Me: </span>Why are you so awkward on this, you already confessed and even ki-<br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png" /></a><b><span><br /></span></b><br /><b><span>Covus:</span><span> </span>OH MY GODS PLEASE STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF INTUUS, ENHRI OR EVEN LILJA!</b><br /><b><br /></b> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><span></span></b><br /><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b> <b><span>Me:</span></b><b>...</b>Ok, let's move to another question.<br />And what about the other guys on the tower. How is your current relationship with...Vosges for example?<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cIXwlRMwC5Y/URVyf0mG-BI/AAAAAAAAAfg/riVmQx7gsHI/s1600/cor4.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cIXwlRMwC5Y/URVyf0mG-BI/AAAAAAAAAfg/riVmQx7gsHI/s1600/cor4.png" /></a><b>Corvus: </b>...We don't get along.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span>Me:</span></b> How was your first encounter?<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><br /><div><b><span><br /></span></b></div><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> Well, I knew him after my Lady brought him to the castle. Everyone was very impressed by her decision. Many thought that she felt attached to him in some way and that's why she let him live.<b> </b><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9eTIAynx_Gs/URV3JHd7kRI/AAAAAAAAAgw/IS9Z_kidF4c/s1600/cor8.png"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9eTIAynx_Gs/URV3JHd7kRI/AAAAAAAAAgw/IS9Z_kidF4c/s1600/cor8.png" /></a><br /><b><br /></b> <b>Corvus: </b>But I could tell at that moment that my Lady was incredibly angry. One of the persons who died poisoned on that assault was lady Unna. She was one of the best warriors that Ulla had.<br /><br /><div class="separator"></div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cIXwlRMwC5Y/URVyf0mG-BI/AAAAAAAAAfg/riVmQx7gsHI/s1600/cor4.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cIXwlRMwC5Y/URVyf0mG-BI/AAAAAAAAAfg/riVmQx7gsHI/s1600/cor4.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b><span><b><span> </span></b></span>I couldn't think of Vosges to be more than the person that made my lady so angry and sad. I can't stand people like that!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><br /></span><br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span>Me: </span></b>But, you said you were going to try to get along with him. Of course, by your lady's request.<br />Do you think would you have been able to do that on your own will? Befriend Vosges?<br /><span><br /></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png" /></a><span><b></b></span><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> That's a hard question! To be the friend of Vosges means that I can stand him at first place.<br />I guess if we spend some time together I could find something that doesn't require to be "endured"- And friends are something someone shouldn't despise. Even for Vosges.<br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b><span></span></b></span></span><br /><span><span><b><span><span><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span> <b><span>Me:</span></b>...I don't know if that covers my question. LOL<br /><br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> LOL.<span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><br /></span></span><br /><b><span></span></b><br /><div><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b></div><b><span> Me:</span></b> How about Gervase?<span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> That pervert---Pfft. You know? I used to know Gervase when he was little. He was TOTALLY different from the loose pants he is now.<br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><b></b></span><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b> <span>(I actually know haha)</span> That's interesting! Tell us about that.<span><b><br /></b></span> <span><b><br /></b></span> <span><b><br /></b></span> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><span></span><br /><b><span>Corvus: </span></b> Well, he was incredibly shy. He blushed like a tomato when a pretty girl showed up.<br /><br /><span><br /></span> <span><br /></span> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYmhatFtS30/URVyfRHGcHI/AAAAAAAAAfU/7ClGAN6dYjs/s1600/cor2.png" /></a><span><b></b></span><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> And hear this, fans of Gervase. HE USED TO WET THE BED!<br />To be worse, it wasn't his bed, It was my Lady's bed! He used to sleep on the lower side.<br />Just disgusting!!<br /><span><br /></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><b></b></span><br /><b><span>Me:</span> </b>(I think you are reinforcing his cuteness...) So you did knew him well. Were you friends?<span><br /></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png" /></a><span><br /></span><br /><div><br /></div><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> ...I'm ashamed to say that I was. We used to play a lot back then. But let me clarify again that he was completely different back then.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><b></b><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> The change that my Lady had shocked him worse than anyone. He became rebellious, violent and ...It doesn't make sense! Why did he become a pervert...!?<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Me: </span></b>Haha, maybe that was on his genes...:u<br />Finally, I would like to hear about Lilja. Do you get along with him?<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjPVG5ZYzu4/URVyfXurJoI/AAAAAAAAAfY/17xtfbsqWH4/s1600/cor3.png" /></a><br /><br /><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> I...I don't know! He just disappeared into the sky without pants! We had a little time to talk.<span><br /></span> <span><br /></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png" /></a><span><b></b></span><br /><b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span>Corvus:</span></b> I still can't believe he is a God.<span><br /></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><br /></span><br /><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b> That's to expect.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b><span></span></b></span></span><br /><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span> <b><span>Me:</span> </b>Corvus, at this point, do you know that you became incredibly popular...Not because of your confession, not because of your unconditional love for Lady Os...But for this?:<br /><div class="separator"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zYbdFSNJXGc/URVy4i7YMdI/AAAAAAAAAgE/ZqNdzQVwj18/s1600/corvus_complete.png"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zYbdFSNJXGc/URVy4i7YMdI/AAAAAAAAAgE/ZqNdzQVwj18/s320/corvus_complete.png" width="120" /></a></div><div class="separator"></div><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9eTIAynx_Gs/URV3JHd7kRI/AAAAAAAAAgw/IS9Z_kidF4c/s1600/cor8.png"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9eTIAynx_Gs/URV3JHd7kRI/AAAAAAAAAgw/IS9Z_kidF4c/s1600/cor8.png" /></a><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> ...I don't understand...I am not handsome as a bird?<br /><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><b><span>Me:</span></b> Why yes of...course?</div><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <span><span><b><br /></b></span></span><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-thh5yIyPg-c/URV3I2Ud2oI/AAAAAAAAAgo/SS_w2cPC6Cs/s1600/cor7.png"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-thh5yIyPg-c/URV3I2Ud2oI/AAAAAAAAAgo/SS_w2cPC6Cs/s1600/cor7.png" /></a><b><span> Corvus:</span></b> *sniff*<br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b></b></span></span><br /><div><br /></div><b><span>Me:</span></b> Ermm...Could you explain us your choice of clothing?<br /><div class="separator"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a></div><b><span>Corvus: </span></b>Well, I'm kind of proud of them. You know? I made them myself out of old rags, and<br />reconstructed the textiles with magic.<br /><div class="separator"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a></div><b><span>Me:</span></b> I bet many people would like to know why do you have all those rings there<span><span>.</span></span><br /><div class="separator"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9eTIAynx_Gs/URV3JHd7kRI/AAAAAAAAAgw/IS9Z_kidF4c/s1600/cor8.png"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9eTIAynx_Gs/URV3JHd7kRI/AAAAAAAAAgw/IS9Z_kidF4c/s1600/cor8.png" /></a></div><span><b>Corvus:</b></span> Actually, that's embarrassing. Some of the servants that knew my real appearance couldn't stand the fact that my legs are covered with feathers. The people of Ulla is almost hairless so seeing someone so feathery like me it's a total shock.<br />I use this rings on my legs to cover the feathers.<br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><b><span> Me:</span></b> That's surely too much of information!<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><span><span><br /></span></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> It is?<br /><div class="separator"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a></div><div><b><span>Me:</span></b> I bet Lady Os would like to know about that.</div><br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png" /></a><b><span>Corvus:</span></b><span><span><span>.........................................................................please don't do this to me...</span></span></span><br /><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span> <span><span><span><br /></span></span></span> <span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><br /></span></span><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><b><span>Me:</span></b> OK, so this interview got larger than I expected. Some quick questions and we are done with this<span><span>.</span></span><br /><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span> <span><b><span><br /></span></b></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> Oh, that's fine. I'm enjoying this.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span>Me:</span></b> Favorite color?<span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><span><span><b></b></span></span><br /><span><b><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span></b></span> <span><b><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span></b></span><b><span>Corvus:</span></b><span><span> <span>Magenta.</span></span></span><br /><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b> Favorite food?<span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><b><span></span></b><br /><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b> <b><span>Corvus:</span></b> Delicious giant frogs from the plains near the castle.<br /><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b></b></span></span><br /><span><b><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span></b></span> <span><b><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H8LBvWjY21k/URVygAJ_2oI/AAAAAAAAAfk/huUezuNCR7w/s1600/cor5.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H8LBvWjY21k/URVygAJ_2oI/AAAAAAAAAfk/huUezuNCR7w/s1600/cor5.png" /></a></b></span><br /><b><span>Me:</span></b> Your most precious possession?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span><br /></span></b> <b><span>Corvus:</span></b>..!! That's a secret!!<span><span><br /></span></span><span><span><br /></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b><span></span></b></span></span><br /><span><span><b><span><span><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span> <span><b><br /></b></span><br /><span><b>Me:</b></span>...Ehh? Oh well. The first thing that comes to your mind.<br /><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ykS2Nhq0Ado/URVygaXFgeI/AAAAAAAAAfo/7NQ2CYyb7kI/s1600/cor6.png" /></a><span><span><b></b></span></span><br /><b><span></span></b><br /><div><b><span><b><span><br /></span></b></span></b></div><b><span> Corvus:</span></b> POTATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDVLIfOortk/URVzdD3hPQI/AAAAAAAAAgM/_NqtGlspn6g/s1600/mm.png" /></a><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span><br /><br /><b><span>Me: </span></b>I ran out of questions! Thank you, Corvus for the lovely interview. Anything else you want to say?<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cJ815cIQv9E/URVyff7WLsI/AAAAAAAAAfc/y4P1ICCmYNo/s1600/cor1.png" /></a><b><span>Corvus:</span></b> This was fun! Thank you too. I can't wait to tell my lady about this!<br /><span><span><b><br /></b></span></span> <span><span><b><br /></b></span></span><b><br /></b> <b><br /></b> <b>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</b><br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span>So that's it, I would have written more about his family and such. But that's actually spoilers for the bonus part I was writing haha.</span></span><br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span>Hope you liked it!</span></span><br /><span><span><br /></span></span> <span><span>Ps: this wasn't proofread so it's very probable that this is flooding with errors..orz I apologize!</span></span><br /><br /></div>Cluanoreply@blogger.comhttp://dotchedot.blogspot.com/Flower Cocoonhttp://darksirengames.com/?p=6702018-05-29T00:02:44+00:00<p><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/final-jewel.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-671 aligncenter" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/final-jewel-235x300.png" alt="" width="235" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>A concept I’m working on for my BXB visual novel Heart of Ganima. There will be a <a href="http://patreon.com/darksirengames">Patreon</a> exclusive video of me drawing this thing next.</p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comBreaking Newshttps://sovietgames.su/breaking-news-2/2018-05-08T13:48:29+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-4042" src="http://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/АПРОПЕР-1024x641.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="438" /></p>
<p>Attention, attention! This program is brought to you by every broadcasting station of the interwebs!</p>
<p><span id="more-19410"></span></p>
<p>Last time, we promised you more “concrete” news, numbers, and perhaps even some dates. Well then, here we deliver: the release date of “Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll” is set for the 1st of March 2019. Please let us explain the reasons for this decision.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, “man proposes and fate disposes”… It so happened that several members of the project have encountered problems in their life paths and were unable to pay enough time to the development. The problems were especially severe in the case of our main scriptwriter, which is why the text is lagging behind other parts of the development by almost a year. Please don’t worry, everything is fine now, everyone is alive and well (which is most important), and we have gotten to work with new strength and vigor! In anticipation of our more scrupulous reader’s questions: no, we wouldn’t be able to solve the problem with outsourcing, this isn’t about money at all.</p>
<p>To clarify: the 1st of March is the very latest possible release date which we are setting as the furthest deadline. It is very much possible we will be able to finish the game earlier. Additionally, from now on, we’ll try to give you actual progress in numbers. Since the last time, the August of 2017, the text hasn’t progressed much due to the aforementioned reason and remains at more or less 40%. We will note, however, that 40 % still translates to about 150k words, and the final script will most likely exceed 300k. Not too bad for a single writer.</p>
<p>Additionally, now more than ever we need your support! You can help us <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-money-rock-n-roll-animation">here</a>.<br />
And we are officially looking to cooperate with investors. Please contact us through email: <a href="mailto:mail@sovietgames.su">mail@sovietgames.su</a></p>
<p>Thank you for waiting and believing in us!</p>Комментарии:4/29/18 Progress Reporthttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1734198516682018-04-29T16:41:56+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4ec1cfd594b10ce4f4b46c5afdbb1159/tumblr_inline_p7yh0xYy6Y1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p>Hi gang!</p><p>I’ve been coding the intro to Cavaliers & Carnivals for the last few weeks/months, hence the silence on here. There’s not much to update and coding ain’t flashy like visuals, but I’m still getting work done. <br /></p><p>Bye for now!<br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/A silly short storyhttp://winds.blue/?p=5172018-04-23T00:01:57+00:00<p>I present for your consideration a short story, a piece I did as an exercise at Writers Group today. Short and silly, took about 30 minutes to write. The prompt was “Explaining why you have something in your basement.” This is what came out.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<p> </p>
<p>“Why is… what is… huh?”</p>
<p>I looked around for what exactly had rendered Sasha speechless. Oh. That. The height foot plush polar bear towered over us, mounted on its stand. It was as dusty as everything else in the basement. I hadn’t been down here in maybe four years, except to clean the cat’s litter box. I’d almost forgotten the bear was still down here.</p>
<p>“It’s… a long story.”</p>
<p>“Share,” she commanded.</p>
<p>“Well, perhaps not so long. More embarrassing than longe.”</p>
<p>“Katie, if you want me to help clean out your old junk, I need to know this.” She stared up into the bear’s eyes, seeming humbled. It was hard not to feel some awe at the size of the thing. “Why do you have a giant polar bear?”</p>
<p>“It was a joke.”</p>
<p>Sasha tore her eyes away from the oversize plushy to give me a penetrating stare. She sneezed, partly ruining the force of the demand, but I knew I wasn’t going to get off so easily.</p>
<p>“It was a joke about liking big hairy guys.”</p>
<p>“If you make me drag this story out of you one word at a time, I swear I will beat your ass black and blue after we’re done down here.”</p>
<p>I smirked at that.”A joke at Nate’s expense,” I named by ex. We hadn’t actually broken up over the bear – neither of us were that petty – but I won’t pretend it wasn’t a contributing factor. Incompatible senses of humor.</p>
<p>“Ok, that’s it, come over here.” Sasha grabbed my wrist and twisted it around behind my back. I stuck out my tongue at her, which prompted her to shove me into the wall. Pressed up behind me, she whispered into my ear. “Now, are you going to spill the beans, or do I need to get my belt?”</p>
<p>“Bite me.” I turned my head as far as it would go so she could see my grin as I tried to get my arm free. Half heartedly – it wouldn’t be any fun if I ruined the mood by succeeding.</p>
<p>She obliged, pushing my head to one side and clamping down on my neck. Sasha was not a gentle biter. I squeaked and brought my free arm to push her head away, but I was slammed against the wall again fro my trouble and dropped my arm. I’m sure I was making some sort of noises as I struggled, but all I could think about in the moment was the unfinished concrete against my cheek, the teeth sinking into my flesh, and the giant plushy looming over us as though ready to admonish or maul.</p>
<p>I giggled. She bit harder. I waved at the bear with my free hand. “Hello, Mr. Fluffy M- ow!”</p>
<p>Sasha growled into my neck and bit down harder still. There’d definitely be marks. After a moment more my knees sagged and she released the teeth, letting me slide down to the floor. I giggled more and waved a hand at Mr. Fluffy McGayakins. She laughed and sat down beside me.</p>
<p>“So, do you want to go back upstairs and find a belt, or shall we actually get some cleaning done?”</p>
<p>“Cleaning now, naked time later.” I took a moment, catching my breath and waiting for the giggles to subside. “But I’ll never share Mr. Fluffy McGayakins secrets.”</p>
<p>She punched my shoulder playfully. “We’ll see about that.”</p>Lapis Azuraihttp://winds.blueLore here! I’m going full-steam ahead working on Shuye’s route,...http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/post/1731106945752018-04-20T00:20:02+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/30dc7b798e17cef18231d4bbc113a9f9/tumblr_p7gjlfWJ851tkpfwho1_500.jpg" /><br /><br /><p>Lore here! I’m going full-steam ahead working on Shuye’s route, which will be the next one released. </p>
<p>Thank you so much for your kind words and support of the kitsune routes. We’re working hard on the next one, so please look forward to it!</p>Lettuce Waltzhttp://blog.lettucewaltz.org/Response to “Why do fantasy novels have so much food?”http://kineticliterature.com/?p=1962018-04-17T22:06:48+00:00<p>Last week, Atlas Obscura published an article by Anne Ewbank titled <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fantasy-books-food">Why do Fantasy Novels Have So Much Food?</a> This article provides many interesting examples and discusses the role that food can sometimes play in fantasy, but I don’t feel like it really answers the question posed by its title: why <em>do</em> fantasy novels have so much food? I’ll offer my own answer: immersion.</p>
<p>As a fantasy author, I am constantly looking for ways to provide description that engages all five senses. In most fiction, the vast majority of description is focused on what characters see, but if you really want to place the reader in a setting, it needs to feel tactile. When a character walks into a boggy marsh, I don’t just want to describe the tepid pools of water; I want to describe the pungent stench of rotting wood, and the texture of the soggy ground underfoot. It’s one thing for a character to remark on how hot and humid it is; it’s another to describe the feeling of the wet, vaporous air as beads of water are condensing on your skin and coalescing with your sweat.</p>
<p>Food is great at engaging all five senses. Not only is it one of the few places where you get to talk about taste, but food gives off aromas. Eating food is a tactile experience: you can <i>feel</i> the stickiness of a sweet jelly as you lick it off your fingers. Food has a texture that you can feel on your tongue, and it feels different in your mouth depending on whether you allow it to slowly slide down your throat or stuff your cheeks with it. And kitchens are full of sounds that add richness to the setting: you can hear the crackling of a fire, the sizzle of a piece of meat dropped onto an iron cooking surface, the delightful <i>shing</i> of a carving knife being sharpened. You hear things at the dinner table, too: the delightful crunch of biting into a cracker, or the clattering of cutlery on plates. A baked pastry will make different sounds when you bite into it depending on whether it crust is hard or thin and flaky.</p>
<p>Fantasy is often viewed as one of the most immersive genres, largely because it spends so much time on providing detailed description that not only tells you what is happening in the world, but giving you a sense of what it <i>feels</i> like to live in that world. This often means that fantasy novels are longer and slower paced, but one of the reasons that many people enjoy large fantasy tomes is that they enjoy the feeling of being transported and immersed in another world.</p>Kinetic Literaturehttp://kineticliterature.comApril’s no foolhttps://sovietgames.su/aprils-no-fool/2018-04-05T15:09:27+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4013" src="http://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ggs4de8i8n7lamid3rn1.png" alt="" width="695" height="436" /></p>
<p>Good day, everyone! Welcome to yet another monthly update!</p>
<p><span id="more-19406"></span></p>
<p>At this point, we don’t think we’ll surprise you by saying we’ve got no significant news to share. The reasons for this have been explained plenty of times before, and they haven’t changed. The production is progressing, we are gradually finishing the assets and improving the code.</p>
<p>That said, even with the things as they are now, we hope to have something important to share with you in the relatively near future, probably in one or, at most, two months. Expect more concrete and detailed information on the state of the development and, who knows, perhaps even a release date!</p>
<p>Also, there is one thing we decided on after the release of the latest demo version: we’re going to have a much longer, in-depth QA period for the full version of the game to ensure that our players have the best experience possible. It won’t be easy considering the hardware availability on our side, but we’re taking steps to alleviate this problem.</p>
<p>In any case, a huge thank you for tuning in and your patience! We would have never gotten where we have without it. Until next time!</p>Комментарии:Roslyn Abella Zarlyis Concept Design (Heart of Ganima BXB)http://darksirengames.com/?p=6532018-03-23T00:04:02+00:00<div><a href="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1.Final-Reference-Roslyn-Abella-Zarlyis-2018.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-654 aligncenter" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1.Final-Reference-Roslyn-Abella-Zarlyis-2018-232x300.png" alt="" width="232" height="300" /></a></div>
<div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement">
<div></div>
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span><span><strong>Old Design:</strong></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpWk-lxB7m8"><strong> Click Here</strong></a></span></div>
</div>
<div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement">
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span>Roslyn is one of the main point of view characters for my current visual novel Heart of Ganima. I will work on his sister Levia soon after working on a couple of anatomy sketches. I really want to get comfortable with drawing the male form as boyXboy relationships are the main relationships in Heart of Ganima.</span></div>
<div></div>
</div>
<div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement">
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span>I am currently studying and practicing some really good digital/art tutorials from the artist Sakimichan. I love how easy to understand and informative her tutorial videos are.</span></div>
<div></div>
</div>
<div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement">
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span>Heart of Ganima Game Design Document is currently on pause while I draw my characters out. Seeing these characters come to life, makes writing about them a hundred times easier.</span></div>
<div></div>
</div>
<div class="_2TO-components-SimpleRichTextEditor--paragraphElement">
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span>Writing my second ebook is helping me understand writing and editing more. Hopefully, my writing will be really, really good once I get down to fleshing out H.O.G.’s story.</span></div>
</div>
<div></div>
<div>This post was available a few weeks ago on <a href="http://patreon.com/darksirengames">Dark Siren Games’ Patreon</a>.</div>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comBlood in the garden of Edenhttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/?p=16732018-03-17T18:54:43+00:00<p>2018 is already well under way after all, so it’s the perfect opportunity to give you some news!</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/CQE3JbDuVPg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1679" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Goo-Steam-ad-1024x575.jpg" alt="Goo Steam ad" width="584" height="328" /></a></p>
<p>After <strong><a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/623840/Ambre__a_heartbreaking_kinetic_novel/">Ambre</a></strong> last summer, it’s <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/761070/Garden_of_Oblivion/"><strong>Garden of Oblivion</strong>’s turn to be available on Steam.</a> Still free, the game has been improved overall upon this new release.<br />
<span id="more-1673"></span></p>
<p><strong>It notably includes:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>*</strong> Additional text to flesh out some parts of the story,</li>
<li><strong>*</strong> A brand new GUI,</li>
<li><strong>*</strong> Lots of little adjustments (cleaner transitions, some camera effect and an illustration for the mirror scene)</li>
</ul>
<p>Starting from today, a German translation has been added too! Thanks to <a href="http://en.marcel-weyers.de/">Marcel Weyers</a> for his contribution~</p>
<p><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pythonw-2017-10-27-16-54-07-13.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1681" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pythonw-2017-10-27-16-54-07-13-1024x576.png" alt="pythonw 2017-10-27 16-54-07-13" width="584" height="329" /></a></p>
<p>The Steam Edition of <strong><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/garden-of-oblivion-steam-edition/">Garden of Oblivion</a></strong> was delayed for a long time (I wanted it to be out last Halloween) because of a lack of time and money but, in the end, the experience we had with <strong>Ambre</strong> paid off since the process was generally way quicker. No bonus booklet this time but <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/808230/Garden_of_Oblivion_Original_Soundtrack/">the soundtrack is still here</a> for those of you who are interested. There is only <strong>Wounded by Words</strong> remaining for the trilogy to be complete! Since the GUI is the same, a big chunk of the work is already done but I don’t think I’ll do the rest just yet. My priority is still <strong>Chronotopia</strong> after all!</p>
<p><a href="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pythonw-2018-03-17-19-32-29-41.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1677" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pythonw-2018-03-17-19-32-29-41-1024x576.jpg" alt="pythonw 2018-03-17 19-32-29-41" width="584" height="329" /></a></p>
<p>Speaking of <strong>Chronotopia</strong>, here’s a recap of our current progress. As you can see, writing represent a huge amount of work. All in all, I have written not less than 174 000 words and I still have to take care of the last endings. Let’s just say it’s going to be difficult not to exceed 200 000 words… Regarding the scripting and translation, Meles and I just finished the C1 route so we still got a lot of text in front of us. As for the artists, they should finish the assets for the D route soon so they will be able to move on to the endings. Suffice to say we’re getting closer to our goal but we’re not there yet!</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1686" src="http://traumendes-madchen.com/blogfr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Game-status31.jpg" alt="Game-status3(1)" width="530" height="290" /></p>
<p>More details to come in <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/traumendesmadchen/chronotopia-a-dark-fairytale-visual-novel/updates"> in the project’s next Kickstarter update</a>, as usual~ Oh, and I remind you that <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-monthly-17574490">my monthly poll is open until Monday</a>. For 1$ a month, you can vote and unlock <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/chronotopia-17013617">the Patreon post of your choice</a>!</p>Träumendes Mädchen Devbloghttp://traumendes-madchen.com/blogCreating a Game Design Document for Heart of Ganimahttp://darksirengames.com/?p=6452018-03-16T18:22:23+00:00<p>I’m currently working on my game design document for <em>Heart of Ganima. </em>One of my mistakes with creating <em>Captured </em>was that I was unorganized. I mentally kept a note of a majority of my progress and rarely wrote my progress in some kind of a journal. Keeping track of my artwork, the story structure of <em>Heart of Ganima</em>, and among other things. has been very helpful so far.</p>
<p>There’s no one way to design a game design document and I want to express that in my next YouTube video.</p>
<p>Aside from a game design document, I drew some concept sketches of one of the main characters for <em>Heart of Ganima.</em> I plan to color him very soon in Photoshop.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/DarkSirenGames"><img class="wp-image-623 size-thumbnail aligncenter" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/patreon-1-150x150.png" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br />
</a></p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comHey, folks! I’ve been on vacation so expect the next update the following week for C&amp;C.http://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1717425003382018-03-11T01:11:40+00:00<p>Hey, folks! I’ve been on vacation so expect the next update the following week for C&C.<br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/Pancakes on a shovel (local Russian meme)https://sovietgames.su/pancakes-on-a-shovel-local-russian-meme/2018-03-06T08:46:57+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-3979" src="http://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Bliny-1024x768.png" alt="" width="700" height="525" /></p>
<p>Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Soviet Games’ February status update!</p>
<p><span id="more-19403"></span></p>
<p>On the coding side of the project, this month was mostly (besides general improvements of the engine and features) spent catching and fixing the bugs that appeared in the NY demo — mostly those related to the character animation system. The problem here is that they seem to appear on very slow machines first and foremost or on very specific combinations of hardware and are thus very hard to catch with the resources we have available. Nevertheless, we’ve been in active contact with the Live2D customer support and seem to have pinpointed the problem.</p>
<p>The art is moving along smoothly; at this point, we are starting to shift focus to the secondary characters’ sprites and additional clothes for the main heroines while wrapping up the CGs. All in all, nothing remarkable on that front in either good or bad way.</p>
<p>Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Dreamtale, our head writer and project lead, look no further than <a href="https://vk.com/@letodigest-interview-dreamtale" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this interview</a> with ЛетоДайджест (“SummerDigest”). Currently only available in Russian.</p>
<p>Thank you for reading this report and have a great March, everyone!</p>
<p>You can still support us with a fistful of dollars or euro <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-money-rock-n-roll-animation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>!</p>
<p> </p>Комментарии:Lapis progress, other writing, and new artisthttp://winds.blue/?p=5132018-03-05T23:09:53+00:00<p>One of the reasons I’ve been slow working on Lapis Azurai 2 is that I took a break to write some… cyberbunk psychological horror? Huh? Yeah, it came as a surprise to me too. Finished one short story and also working on a sequel. Unfortunately I won’t be publishing them here just yet – fortunately, that’s because the first one’s currently on the shortlist for inclusion in an anthology.</p>
<p>If selected it’ll be my first foray into traditional publishing. Strange to think of dead-tree versions of something I wrote! More details if it’s selected (and maybe an excerpt too). Would be fun to be paid via contract, rather than just via kickstarter / patreon (I do still have <a href="https://www.patreon.com/bluewinds">one of those</a>, though I don’t mention it often since I release so infrequently these days).</p>
<p>Anyway, recent progress on Lapis 2:</p>
<ul>
<li>Added the concept of ‘event chains’ to the code, so that certain stories split across locations flow more naturally.</li>
<li>Added the longest event yet. In Chapter 3, Kat’s route, Natalie meets with another sorcerer, and he makes her an offer…</li>
<li>Added three events to Asara’s route, including revelations about her mysterious past and why exactly she’s so messed up.</li>
<li>Made contact with a new artist at Emerald City Comic Con (good times). Hoping to commission replacement art for Kat and Asara – I’m not happy with their current portraits.</li>
</ul>
<p>Here’s a log of recent git commits to Lapis 2. I’m a nerd, so I find this sort of stuff interesting. Maybe other people do too?</p>
<pre>bluewinds@Aisa:~/Games/Mine/Lapis2$ git log --oneline --shortstat
5965d8f Add events to Asara and Kat's routes, add d3 to libs
16 files changed, 9775 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
4a76ec5 Remove unecessary 'very's from text
10 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)
e0d582d Edit Kat + Asara Ch3 entrypoints, clean up Ch3 event graph
7 files changed, 64 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)
9c423fe Lint warnings
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
9f86150 Ch3 Asara conflaguration events
4 files changed, 215 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)</pre>
<p> </p>Lapis Azuraihttp://winds.blueNanoreno 2018: Staying on track with story choiceshttp://www.sky-artdesigns.com/?p=8482018-03-01T20:03:37+00:00<p>How do I plan on writing a visual novel story without getting side track with adding different story/character choices?</p>
<p>I want the choices to be there simply to make it more interactive for the readers while also adding meaningful details to the story.</p>
<p>Visual novels are a unique medium because they combine the visual parts of a story to help cut back on narration (instead of describing the setting which I struggle with I can just use a background so they see the setting right away.)</p>
<p>So my main focus will more so be on the art to handle the description narration and then all I need to do is add the dialogue.</p>
<p>With the choices these can also be used to handle narrations that might feel a bit out of place if you try to incorporate them in the story. Choices sometimes have good endings and bad endings and these can be used to incorporate the perks of omniscient third person point of view while still sticking to the first person point of view. The readers get a sneak peek at the possible dangers ahead while the main character and story POV and story plot remains intact.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-849" src="http://www.sky-artdesigns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/chibi.jpg" alt="" width="359" height="371" /></p>
<p>I’m not sure if I described that well enough but that’s my goal when I try to make the choices interactive and meaningful for the readers. Now that we (the reader) know this choice leads to a dead end we can pick the other choice to lead the character to the right/safe path.</p>
<p>Now a way that us authors can have fun with that a little more is were we can show the readers the bad ending if they go that route and the readers lead the character to another path to avoid that but then us authors add in a rode block that adds tension forcing the characters to have to go to that bad ending path.</p>
<p>My goal in doing that is to get the readers to feel that heart pounding tension because they know what lies ahead and tried to avoid it but are now forced to watch and see the outcome which of course everything turns out fine and the story continues because it’s know fun to have both choices lead to the bad ending cause then the story isn’t fun but just frustrating cause it didn’t go anywhere and all that stress was pointless. It’s kind of like a roller coaster ride but with stories. (I’m one of the authors that enjoys tormenting my characters and readers….that sounds a lot worse then what I intended but it’s so much fun! I can’t give a logical reason why ^^;)</p>
<p>Today marks the first day of Nanoreno and my current goal is to get my story outline done and then get started one the script. I hope to be able to do weekly documentations of this 30 day challenge. I also hope that I can finish this challenge because I’m a stay at home mom but I also homeschool my 3 children and we have state assessments coming up. Most of my free time will be taken up but the free time that I’m able to find for myself I can use to work on this story.</p>
<p>Good luck to all of you doing the challenge! Let’s have fun and learn new things!</p>S.K.Y. Art & Designshttp://www.sky-artdesigns.comNo update this weekhttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1712215056432018-02-24T03:53:00+00:00<p>I’m out of town! Will keep you posted.<br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/Speed Paint Process for Lost Little Girlhttp://darksirengames.com/?p=6492018-02-23T19:59:49+00:00<p></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Full video is available on my Dark Siren Games’ Patreon. This is optional of course. I still post full videos on this channel. My Patreon is the first place I go to for blog length updates and exclusive videos.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/DarkSirenGames"><img class="wp-image-623 size-thumbnail aligncenter" src="http://darksirengames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/patreon-1-150x150.png" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a></p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.com2/16/18 Progress Report:http://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1709862721482018-02-17T19:37:21+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4ec1cfd594b10ce4f4b46c5afdbb1159/tumblr_inline_p4b7kz7jFz1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p>Hi folks!</p><p>I had a girls’ trip last weekend, so I’m back this week with some small updates.</p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/bc35217e2f02b5ab07bcd6af5542f4cf/tumblr_inline_p4b7s8WSjf1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p>I’m working on the first scene for C&C.</p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4433d9e844f853ec06d97881b6de482e/tumblr_inline_p4b7shO02g1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p>I
have a bunch of storyboard stuff mocked up and I’m coding the first
scene’s placeholders into the script. And opening dialogue?! I can’t
believe I’m finally moving along with this. <br /></p><p>That’s all for now!<br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/Corona Borealis: Junehttp://www.winterwolves.net/blog/?p=32102018-02-16T10:37:32+00:00<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3212" src="http://static.winterwolves.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/juneintro-1024x800.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="500" />Let’s start the characters introductions for Corona Borealis! For each one I’ll show two outfits and an “older” version (in the game there are epilogues happening several years later).</p>
<p>But first I realized that in my previous post, I didn’t even write what this game is about! Oops. So here we go, directly from the writer:</p>
<p><em>“June Pinegar is forced to spend the summer working at her father’s quaint country café, far away from her urban home in New York City. Will romance spark with the dutiful barista or friendship form with the bubbly cashier? Or perhaps she’ll mend the strained relationship between her and her quirky father. One thing is certain: with each passing day, June is finding herself more and more charmed by the intoxicating mystique of the Southern town and its residents.</em></p>
<p><em>Corona Borealis is a heartwarming story that shows the lasting effects our lives are capable of having on others, as well as their effects on us. Rather than just providing the player with romance options, it aims to explore the depths of non-romantic relationships, too.”</em></p>
<p>And now the introduction of June herself:</p>
<p><em>“June is Basil’s daughter and the reluctant new employee at his café. At first, she prefers to keep her distance from the others, but she matures and opens up as the game progresses. Player’s choices will determine how hardworking or friendly she’ll be, which will in turn affect how other characters perceive and interact with her. However, she remains a sassypants throughout the game regardless of player decisions.” </em></p>
<p>That’s all for now. Next time we’ll introduce a new character of the game!</p>
<p><strong>Cursed Lands and Love Bites update</strong></p>
<p>Everything is going well with those two games: for Cursed Lands, I’m at good point with act 3 (the last one), so much that I think I could do the final update with all the content next month. It’s still a beta and still a complex RPG so probably the final game will be out 2-3 months after the beta is out. I think June/July could be a good potential release date.</p>
<p>For Love Bites, same, I should have all the writing finished by end of this month, so depending how long it takes to get scripted, the beta might be out next month as well <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.4/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" /></p>Winter Wolveshttp://www.winterwolves.net/blogThe Lost Little Girl Storyhttp://darksirengames.com/?p=6402018-02-16T08:43:09+00:00<p>This is a one shot story of something I wrote while I was at ECPI University a few years ago. <a href="http://patreon.com/darksirengames">Patreons</a> received this video a day earlier in advance.</p>
<p><center></center><br />
This story and some of the characters serve as the biases for my current BXB visual novel <em>Heart of Ganima. </em>I am currently doing the world building and researching for the visual novel’s setting and history. I am using a new coloring process now and not the artwork you saw in my previous visual novel <em><a href="http://www.darksirengames,com/games">Captured</a>. </em>You can see my coloring process in this <a href="https://youtu.be/SQHMeLkIcYM">YouTube video</a>. Please tell me what you think.</p>
<p></p>Dark Siren Gameshttp://darksirengames.comValentines Update - State of Lucid9http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/valentines-update-state-of-lucid92018-02-14T21:27:00+00:00<div class="paragraph"><span><span>Hello folks, Diamonit writing, it’s been a while!</span></span><br /><span><span>It has been a while since we last shared substantial news about the state of progress for Inciting Incident’s sequel, and an even longer time since I wrote a blogpost (the two are more or less related, to tell the truth). There’s a lot to say, so you can expect this post to be pretty long.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>1 - Thank you</span></span><br /><span><span>First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the amazing reception we got at the release of Inciting Incident. It couldn’t make us any happier to see people read and enjoy the story we’ve prepared for them. Still, to this day, we regularly receive messages from people telling us how they felt when reading Inciting Incident, and even though we are not always able to reply, we’re extremely grateful for your support! Of course, we do realize that Inciting Incident created (rather high) expectations for the sequel, and this is partly why things have been taking so long.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>2 - What we’ve been up to for the past two years</span></span><br /><span><span>Long story short; when we finished Inciting Incident, we more or less had a vague idea of the story’s direction. More precisely, I knew how the sequel would start and how it would conclude, but everything in between was still a work in progress. That’s when issues started to arise. We’ve had creative disagreements regarding how the rest of the story should be handled. Our Inciting Incident main writer, Luna, also left to pursue her own project (I really recommend you to </span><a href="http://www.studiotheophilus.com/zodiacaxis.html"><span>check it out here</span></a><span> if you haven’t heard of it already), which left me trying to find a new recruit to fill in her shoes for her route, something that would end up becoming quite the difficult task.<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>In the months following the release, we continued to discuss the continuation of the story. We continued to become more and more frustrated after discussions, especially since we were ambitious and wanted to create something that wouldn’t let the readers down, but proposed concepts were often debated over. We didn’t share the same ideologies in terms of story writing. Frankly, all of this was really getting to me, and I was getting really tired of it all (add the fact that I had worked nearly non stop for half a year in order to make sure Inciting Incident release would be a success), and I ended up losing motivation and becoming less and less active. It’s at around this time that I asked David to temporarily replace me since I needed a break from Lucid9. Truth be told, I sometimes considered to quit at that point. After all, the release of Inciting Incident was a success and left me really satisfied with what I had accomplished. But there was always the nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I couldn’t really let it all remain unfinished like this, and that a lot of people were actually waiting for the sequel. I couldn’t let them down.<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>Months passed, and a number of writers came and left. Elizabeth’s previous writer was replaced by Via. Nugget took over Suna’s role as Akira’s Route writer but was eventually replaced by Reddly. Clestae was also bogged down by real life commitments, and as a result, had to resign from her writer position to become an editor. DJ is currently filling in as Airi’s writer, who has done some very good work so far, and you can all expect him to do Airi’s route justice. Via joining the team is what motivated me to get involved in Lucid9 again, as he had a good head on his shoulders, shared (or at least understood) my thought process when creating or commenting on the content, and was always willing to work out all the details for his route and the world lore in general. Eventually, at the end of 2017, I was fully directing Lucid9 again, and here I am now writing this update. I’m also extremely grateful to David who held the fort while I was not motivated enough to work on Lucid9. Without him, the project would probably have died back then.</span></span><br />​<br /><span><span>3 - What concrete progress has been made so far?</span></span><br /><span><span>Here are how things stand currently for Lucid9’s sequel :</span></span><ul><li><span><span>Quite a lot of background art has been completed. Expect to see Yama visit new places that were only mentioned previously in Inciting Incident.</span></span></li><li><span><span>The writing is finally showing progress. Of course, the amount of progress varies from writer to writer, but most of them have gotten a good grip on their characters and how to naturally write them so that dialogue and narration remain close to the one in Inciting Incident. The lore has been greatly expanded, and every route is planned out. So really, from now on, it’s a matter of writing regularly (and I’ll be here to make sure that progress is indeed done regularly).</span></span></li><li><span><span>Music hasn’t seen much progress at the moment, but we’ve been trying to remedy that. Expect more music in the future.</span></span></li><li><span><span>Most of the male characters have their first sprite done while the female cast is still mostly in development. Dizzy, the female characters artist, decided to improve her drawing style, so the female sprites might look a bit different than what you got used to in Inciting Incident. Here is a sneak peak of the current Airi’s design for the sequel :</span></span></li></ul></div> <div><div class="wsite-image wsite-image-border-none "> <a> <img src="http://lucid9.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/3/1/20314597/airi-small_orig.png" alt="Picture" /> </a> <div>Airi Hiraga, drawn by Dizzyworld2</div> </div></div> <div class="paragraph"><span><span>4 - Content of the sequel (Slight spoilers)</span></span><br /><span><span>It would be pretty unfair to give you a progress update without talking a bit about the content of the sequel, especially considering the abrupt and shocking way Inciting Incident ended.<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>A word about the structure of this sequel first. As some of you might (or might not) know, Inciting Incident is supposed to be a “Common Route”. In Visual Novels, a Common Route is often an introductory segment of the story that presents the universe and the characters until it eventually splits onto various paths called “Routes”. Each Route focuses on a different heroine. Inciting Incident ends right at the conclusion of the Common Route, which means the sequel will split into 4 Routes (one for each heroine), and the choice of that route is determined by the previous choices you’ve made in Inciting Incident. So basically, you can expect the sequel to be 4 distinct parallel stories following Yama and each respective heroine.<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>As for the content in itself, I won't reveal too much as I’d rather avoid spoilers. The only thing that I’ll say is that the story will resume 3 years after we left Yama at the end of Inciting Incident. That also explains why the new designs for the male and female characters look more mature, they are actually all older than in Inciting Incident.<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>Finally, at this point it’s very likely there will be a third part to Lucid9, which would correspond to a “True Route”; the final route of the VN which should happen in parallel to the heroine routes once again. The true route should tie everything up from Inciting Incident and the Heroine routes, and answer all the questions that have remained unanswered.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>5 - Date of release for Part 2</span></span><br /><span><span>We haven’t decided on a date yet. I won’t try to give any estimation as it’s very likely that it’ll end up being not respected, so I can only ask you for your patience and for you to wait until we have progressed enough for me to confidently set a release date. But we’ll take as much time as necessary to ensure that the sequel will live up to everyone’s expectations.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>6 - Voice Acting for Inciting Incident</span></span><br /><span><span>I know that voice acting was supposed to be implemented in 2017, and I’m very sorry for the people who are eagerly waiting for this update, but unfortunately, it will have to be postponed indefinitely. There are several reasons for this decision. On the VA side, we have had multiple cast changes and departures due to various reasons, and each time, we've had to scramble to fill in replacements. Furthermore, the work is unpaid, which makes it very difficult for the voice actors to set Lucid9 as a priority.<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>(At this point, some of you might wonder about crowdfunding, but we stand by our decision against a crowdfunding campaign for various reasons.)<br /></span></span><br /><span><span>On our side, we’ve been unable to provide the necessary support to the voice acting recording sessions, as we have our hands full with the development of the sequel. As a result, things have been really slow (there’s not even 3 in-game days worth of voice recording done at the moment), and it won’t be done anytime soon. I can only apologize again for this, as it was a feature we had promised, but we’re completely unable to deliver it at the moment. I hope it will not prevent the people planning to wait for the voice acting to play Inciting Incident.</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>7 - Other Lucid9 related mini-projects</span></span><br /><span><span>In order to make up for the lack of Lucid9 related content for you all to enjoy while we work on the sequel, I’ve organized with Elphaze a new official “Lucid9 4-Koma” section on the blog where we’ll regularly post funny 4-komas for everyone to read an enjoy. For those who don’t know what 4-komas are, it’s a very short comical story told in the form of a manga page with 4 panels. You can also submit your own 4-koma ideas, and we’ll pick the most interesting / funniest ones to draw from time to time! Here is the first 4-koma made by Elphaze:</span></span><br /></div> <div><div class="wsite-image wsite-image-border-none "> <a> <img src="http://lucid9.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/3/1/20314597/4koma-the-origin-of-govermecher_orig.jpg" alt="Picture" /> </a> <div>We'll also try to include more Gover Mecher in the sequel!</div> </div></div> <div class="paragraph"><span><span>Anyway, that’s it for this long update. Sorry again for being so slow with the development of the sequel, and thank you all for bearing with us. 2018 will be an important year for the Lucid9 project as I fully intend to make as much progress as possible toward a release. And thanks again for your support, it really means a lot to us all and is one of our biggest motivations when working on Lucid9!</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>What? Are you saying it’s Valentines and usually we share an illustration on that day? Oh wait, talking about Valentines, it seems Yahiko’s overwhelming popularity earned him quite a lot of chocolate…</span></span><br /><br /><span><span>See you next time!</span></span><br /><span><span>Diamonit</span></span><br /><br /></div> <div><div class="wsite-image wsite-image-border-none "> <a> <img src="http://lucid9.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/3/1/20314597/yahi-valentine_orig.jpg" alt="Picture" /> </a> <div>This is actually the post Inciting Incident design for Yahiko ;)</div> </div></div>Lucid9 - Bloghttp://lucid9.weebly.com/blogMikio’s route has been released and is available for play....http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/post/1706982792052018-02-09T23:06:13+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/f34d004c662398e9598ac9ab1518345b/tumblr_p3wo6dftlN1tkpfwho1_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/bb703abcbd4af47c6375a3f06bc3fd72/tumblr_p3wo6dftlN1tkpfwho6_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/487a35edc00e768a05f3916af045d988/tumblr_p3wo6dftlN1tkpfwho2_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/2f2e47afccddaa028796a8c4c1c3d58f/tumblr_p3wo6dftlN1tkpfwho4_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/9b5974bb832f5ccb64bcd2a3f89da865/tumblr_p3wo6dftlN1tkpfwho3_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/b649196aee81d3193a7cb6b08babcb1b/tumblr_p3wo6dftlN1tkpfwho5_500.png" /><br /> <br /><p><a href="https://lettucewaltz.itch.io/spirit-parade">Mikio’s route has been released and is available for play</a>. Mikio’s route has 5 endings and there are 7 new CGs (plus a couple variations) to find! Spirit Parade costs $20 USD. Buying the full game will allow you to play every route as they are released. <a href="http://lettucewaltz.itch.io/sp-mikio">You may also purchase Mikio’s route separately</a> for $5 USD.</p><p>Unfortunately, there is no patch from the previous version to this one. However, we have now implemented patching through itch.io, so from here on out if you use the itch.io app, you will be able to download patched updates instead of having to redownload the whole file every time something changes. We hope this makes it easier to play the game in the future as more of the routes are released!</p><p><b>Q: I preordered! How do I find my download?</b></p><p><b>A:</b> You should be able to access your download/preorder by finding the confirmation email sent to you when you preordered or by logging into itch.io. If you can’t find the email or have some other problems locating the download page link, please follow the instructions <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fitch.io%2Fdocs%2Fbuying%2Falready-bought&t=MjFiODYyMTQ3MTAzNzQ1Yzc1NDg2MTUzOTIyMTczZTEwOGMyM2IxNSwyc04xYWdRUw%3D%3D&b=t%3AfmzeNY5BKVU63dqqUueOMw&p=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.lettucewaltz.org%2Fpost%2F166100582195%2Flettucewaltz-thank-you-for-your-patience&m=1">on this page</a>.</p><p><b>Q: Will you be releasing walkthroughs for the game?</b></p><p><b>A: </b>We do not plan on releasing walkthroughs. Dedicated players often do this anyway, but there are so many different ways to achieve the endings and variations in the story, depending, that we think it’s best to let players reach the endings organically. As a rule, each character has 2 bad endings (an early and a late), 2 good endings (stay or go), and 1 normal ending. The status screen should definitely be used to check on how much the characters like Nara! We encourage asking the community for help, but we devs are, of course, available to give hints or provide assistance when necessary.</p><hr /><p>Please let us know if you run into any problems or have any questions/comments. Thank you so much for your support and we hope you enjoy Mikio’s route! Please keep an eye on our <a href="http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/">production diary</a> for more updates as we continue into the Underworld routes.<br /></p>Lettuce Waltzhttp://blog.lettucewaltz.org/2/2/18 Progress Report:http://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1704713557182018-02-03T23:03:03+00:00<center><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4ec1cfd594b10ce4f4b46c5afdbb1159/tumblr_inline_p3ljurQtyo1s8c9vf_540.jpg" alt="image" /></center><p>Hello, everyone!</p><ul><li>This week I did my best in trying to relearn Ren’py and start coding the Cavaliers & Carnivals introduction and putting in the background thumbnails as placeholders.</li></ul><ul><li> I have a lot a questions since upgrading to Ren’py 6.99.14 (the previous version was from about three years ago!), so I’ll probably hang out on the forums for a bit.</li></ul><p>That’s all for now!</p><hr /><p>
You can find the <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Flemmasoft.renai.us%2Fforums%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D43%26t%3D28971&t=NjlhYmM2MmUyYTBkMTY1OGY4NDliNjIwMzk3N2NjYjMyMDBkNGY3MyxZbXNlbndYTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AY2uhReWoTpiDyGlHXqjBHQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fgreen-glasses.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F169903348338%2F11918-cc-progress-report&m=1">forum thread for C&C </a>on the LemmaSoft.
<br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/Announcing Corona Borealishttp://www.winterwolves.net/blog/?p=31922018-02-02T10:33:04+00:00<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3195" src="http://static.winterwolves.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/corona_borealis.jpg" alt="" width="725" height="295" /></p>
<p>First of all, a short PSA: Cursed Lands new beta is live. It contains the full act2, a lot of content ! For more info see my forums: <a href="http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=4083">http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=4083</a></p>
<p>And now let’s talk about today’s announcement. Or better, re-announcement, since it’s a game originally ideated by Jill Harris, who gave voice to Myrth in Loren and helped me write Never Forget Me. A while ago she approached me asking my help to finish the game, so I accepted.</p>
<p>I accepted also because beside the cute story, Deji was doing the art for the game and she said she would gladly finish what she started time ago. It’s a “smaller game” compared to my crazy standards and to be honest will be a good distraction while I finish some huge games like Cursed Lands (which now broke the 275,000 words barrier already!).</p>
<p>Of course since the story was already largely written, I didn’t want to change anything. This means you won’t see any of the things I promised I’d do in future games (optional adult content, male/female protagonist, etc). I only wanted to clarify before someone complains <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.4/72x72/1f609.png" alt="😉" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
<p>The game reminds me closely the Fairbrook series, romance and friendship above everything. You play as June, and there are two otome routes, one yuri, and… not sure how to call it, maybe “father friendship route”? A path in which you make peace with your father, with which you have a shaky relationship.</p>
<p>In the next blog posts I’ll introduce (as usual) the various characters of the game. There isn’t a fixed release date yet, however the writing is basically all done (maybe some more events for the scheduler but nothing big) and the art is at good point too. This is one of the various “surprise projects” I mentioned in a previous blog post, stuff that was going on behind the scenes since long time (I was involved in this project starting from Summer 2016 but the game was in development since longer).</p>
<p>I’m sure some people will rejoice seeing a more cute/friendship-focused game, but for the others who like more sexy stuff, don’t worry, all the other games in production have that option!</p>Winter Wolveshttp://www.winterwolves.net/blogComing soon to a computer near you…!Mikio’s route will be...http://blog.lettucewaltz.org/post/1704093262852018-02-02T06:29:36+00:00<img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/5740f6f07748165128b8c915b0dc23a2/tumblr_p3ifdcpbXp1tkpfwho1_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/487a35edc00e768a05f3916af045d988/tumblr_p3ifdcpbXp1tkpfwho2_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/9b5974bb832f5ccb64bcd2a3f89da865/tumblr_p3ifdcpbXp1tkpfwho3_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/84fdd5ae322563812efb47bb7279990e/tumblr_p3ifdcpbXp1tkpfwho4_500.png" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/2f2e47afccddaa028796a8c4c1c3d58f/tumblr_p3ifdcpbXp1tkpfwho5_500.png" /><br /> <br /><p><b>Coming soon to a computer near you…!</b></p><p>Mikio’s route will be released one week from today, next Friday the 9th! All of the art has been completed; there just needs to be a teensy bit more testing and final polish before we push this drunkard out the door.</p><p>The standalone version of the route will be available on release day for $5, same as Hayato’s. If you’ve already purchased the full game, you will get this new content free of charge, of course. Please purchase <a href="https://lettucewaltz.itch.io/spirit-parade">the full version of Spirit Parade</a> if you’re interested in having all the routes!</p><p>Thank you so much for your patience, everyone. We look forward to sharing this route with you!</p>Lettuce Waltzhttp://blog.lettucewaltz.org/Cold Winter Moodhttps://sovietgames.su/cold-winter-mood-2/2018-02-01T22:43:51+00:00<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-3836" src="http://sovietgames.su/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/nqzkjmQZnMs-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="394" /></p>
<p>Hello dear friends! January was very intense month for us, which didn’t bring a lot of positive things or great accomplishments. Unfortunately, new demo version brought up a decent amount of new bags, reported by some users. It’s obvious that we don’t have hundreds of test PCs, so this bugs simply did not occurred to us during testing. And furthermore the main bag caused not by our programmers or Unity3D itself, but by some 3dparty plugin. We are dealing with it now.</p>
<p><span id="more-19400"></span></p>
<p>Also, we almost finished coloring all the characters on the CGs, and we are ready to start drawing secondary characters’ sprites. There will be a lot of them – thanks to you!</p>
<p>All in all, nowadays is not the best period in life of some of our creators, so we are trying to stay positive and are hoping that things will get better. Answering the most <em>important</em> question: you shouldn’t expect the game this winter or even spring. No one wants to release an incomplete piece of bugs.</p>
<p>For some of you who liked Saya-chan in the new demo, here you go!</p>Комментарии:1/26/18: C&C Progress Reporthttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1701755925282018-01-27T04:51:54+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4ec1cfd594b10ce4f4b46c5afdbb1159/tumblr_inline_p376giYSxF1s8c9vf_540.jpg" alt="image" /><p><br /></p><p>Hi, folks!</p><p>Finishing up with background thumbnails! I drafted a mock-up from my previous report in Google Sketchup, so this is pretty much bare-bones work:</p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/2ab701636d6f9a534a7ce802313c16dd/tumblr_inline_p376rk5ddN1s8c9vf_540.jpg" alt="image" /><p>Nothing too special this time around. Next week: Finally doing proper lineart and coloring the backgrounds!</p><hr /><p>
You can find the <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Flemmasoft.renai.us%2Fforums%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D43%26t%3D28971&t=NjlhYmM2MmUyYTBkMTY1OGY4NDliNjIwMzk3N2NjYjMyMDBkNGY3MyxZbXNlbndYTw%3D%3D&b=t%3AY2uhReWoTpiDyGlHXqjBHQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fgreen-glasses.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F169903348338%2F11918-cc-progress-report&m=1">forum thread for C&C </a>on the LemmaSoft.
<br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/Hive 1.0.0 – The Endhttp://winds.blue/?p=5052018-01-25T21:00:22+00:00<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-506" src="http://winds.blue/wp-content/uploads/DarkLady-300x247.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="247" />This will be the last Hive release. Bugs and typos may be fixed, but it’s unlikely I’ll ever add more content. It’s save-compatible, as usual, and you can <a href="http://hive.winds.blue">play</a> or <a href="http://hive.winds.blue/Hive.zip">download</a> it at the usual locations. It is save compatible, despite the major version bump. Changes in this release are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Add a wrap-up event when all major plot has occurred.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>What more is there to say? Hive has always been my ‘relaxed’ game – it’s served as an outlet for all my dirty fantasies, the place I go to when I didn’t want to worry about characterization, consistency or consent. It’s been fun! It’s been a wild ride!</p>
<p>The Dark Lady salutes you. Perhaps someday you’ll get to see her again. Now, down on your knees, slut, and get that bra out of her sight.</p>Lapis Azuraihttp://winds.blue1/19/18: C&C Progress Reporthttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1699033483382018-01-20T00:50:50+00:00<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4ec1cfd594b10ce4f4b46c5afdbb1159/tumblr_inline_p2twgnRBlr1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p><br /></p><p>Hi, everyone! This week, I’m aiming to finish thumbnailing all the backgrounds for the demo. Here are some I’ve been working on:</p><p><b>BEDROOM</b></p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/9b2d7b79981dfc260e2bd10725a034a6/tumblr_inline_p2twvmJ7Ci1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p><b>CITY STREET</b></p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/880d2c00dfca8136bc90df7b62209af4/tumblr_inline_p2twqjHMLs1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p><b>COSTUME SHOP<br /></b></p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/4c26a27421da1a0f12b23f94aff76f6f/tumblr_inline_p2twm9oyUM1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p>I kind of go back and forth between hand-drawn sketches on notebook paper/pencil and working digitally on my tablet. Small steps, but I’m happy I’m finally resuming work!<br /></p><p><b>Spare time:</b> I’ve been playing Persona 5!<br /></p><p>That’s all for now!</p><p>You can find the <a href="https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=28971">forum thread for C&C </a>on the LemmaSoft. <br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/The ‘vocal minority’, feature creep and keeping yourself sanehttp://www.winterwolves.net/blog/?p=32002018-01-19T07:48:49+00:00<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3202" src="http://static.winterwolves.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/battle-of-grimoire-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360" /><em>One of the many custom screens I added to Cursed Lands. Feature creep? yup</em></p>
<p>I always wanted to write a blog post about the topics in the title, so here I am. First let’s start with a premise: what makes a successful game? of course gameplay, art, music, etc. But if we want to analyze a game’s success there’s a simple formula: a popular/successful game is a game that matches tastes of as much people as possible.</p>
<p>I think the above statement is inconfutable: the more people like game X, the more copies will sell and more successful will be. Then of course if the company doing it spent too much time, or money, it could still be a financial failure for them, but it still would be a popular game.</p>
<p>OK now that this is clear, what is the so called ‘vocal minority’ and how can impact the development of a game? Nowadays is very common to have an open development, with alpha/beta demos, early access, etc. Almost everyone is doing it now, but the same principle works even if you’re doing a closed beta with only 20-30 testers.</p>
<p>Now let’s say that the 10% of your fans/betatesters want desperately <em>feature A</em>. They’ll start posting in forums, sending you emails, and so on. It’s like if they’re fans of a soccer team. “Really, you should implement <em>feature A</em> because the game will be SOOO much better!”. In some cases, they even know it will be easy, even if maybe they have no programming skills whatsoever “I could program it myself in an afternoon”. And so on, even with veiled threats “If you don’t implement <em>feature A</em> I’ll ask for a refund!” or “your game won’t sell a copy!” etc <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.4/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
<p>If you’re a developer, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with all this, and if you’re a player or an user, trust me, this really happens (but probably you saw such posts too).</p>
<p>Note that I’m using a fun tone while writing this, but for the person on the other side, the developer, the situation is often dramatic: maybe they invested a lot of money, mortgaged their home, or simply spent already so many hours on their game. But for the player of course this doesn’t matter (it shouldn’t, since they’re judging the game and not how much the developer worked on it or how much money they spent).</p>
<p>Anyway, what happens now? The developer can either follow the suggestion, think about it, or refuse to implement the new feature. As you can imagine the last option will result in an uproar in forums and some insults to the developer. But even if developer agrees to do it, is in all cases a good choice? No, it depends.</p>
<p>Back to the starting point: if the feature A that the 10% of people want is something that once implemented even the remaining 90% will like (the so called “silent majority”) then, all good! But what if the new change is disliked or even worse, <em>hated</em> by the other 90% or part of it?</p>
<p>That’s the big issue that developers have to face on a daily basis. In some cases the suggested changes are obviously a good idea. In others, devs have no clue themselves: is making the RPG more complex a good thing or not? Is using randomized items a nice feature? better turn based or real-time? etc etc.</p>
<p>There is no clear answer in some cases. It’s a bit random, really. Unless your game is selling so well that you can afford to do changes on a new beta, gather new feedback and just in case revert to previous version, then it’s a minefield. You could implement the feature and risk <strong>losing</strong> players, or you could <strong>gain</strong> more fans. But in most cases developers aren’t sure themselves about what is going to happen, while one thing is sure: adding the new feature will <strong>cost time and money</strong>.</p>
<p>The devs are the only ones to know well how much time and money they’ve already spent, how much money and physical/mental energies have left. And they must not fall into the famous “feature creep” for which they keep adding feature after feature, <strong>thinking</strong> to make the game better, when maybe that’s not always the case. Or simply, it’s not worth all the extra time/money spent to add the features.</p>
<p>In summary, I’m not writing this blog to say that players’ suggestions are bad. I have added a lot of nice features in my RPGs exactly thanks to players’ feedback. What I’m saying is that as developer you need to learn when to say ‘no’. When you have no more money to spend. When you have no more time or energies (because adding a feature when you’re burned out it’s not a good idea, trust me). When to say “OK, I know I could probably keep working on this game for years, but I must release it now.”</p>
<p>And as player, you need to understand that (in most cases at least) when a developer tells you “sorry but can’t do this”, it’s not because he’s a bastard, he’s lazy, or he necessarily disagrees with your idea: it’s very likely for the reasons stated above.</p>
<p>I’ll end with an analogy because many players find odd that someone would want to stop working on a game, adding new features they suggest because it will <em>likely</em> make the game better. To make a comparison with a game developer, imagine if one day the boss at your daily job calls you and tells you that you should stay in office doing overtime every day for the next month. At the end of that month, and only at the end, you might get paid for the overtime, or not. You don’t know before, but the boss still asks you to do it, insisting saying that “yes, <em>maybe </em>I’ll pay you more”. What would you do?</p>
<p>Now maybe you understand why, sometimes, us developer don’t add all the new features you request, especially if they require a lot of time/money to implement them <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.4/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" /></p>Winter Wolveshttp://www.winterwolves.net/blogOKAY I AM BACKIn order to be more consistent, I’m going to be doing Friday status updates for...http://green-glasses.tumblr.com/post/1697162943932018-01-15T02:04:12+00:00<p>OKAY I AM BACK</p><p>In order to be more consistent, I’m going to be doing <b>Friday status updates </b>for Cavaliers & Carnivals. If I don’t post on a Friday (say I go out for a party or something) I’ll be sure to post over the weekend.</p><p>Again, apologies - rough time in my life, etcetera. <br /></p><img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/2dacac43f6aaf6dd567778f66080e079/tumblr_inline_p2kr2nLRCq1s8c9vf_540.jpg" /><p>Now that I’m resuming work, I’m finally going back to tackling my background thumbnails. Good progress so far! <br /></p>Green Glasseshttp://green-glasses.tumblr.com/My 2018 Goalshttp://www.winterwolves.net/blog/?p=31652018-01-05T08:13:55+00:00<p><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3188" src="http://static.winterwolves.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/political-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360" /><em>Political intrigue! Hot milfs! Cursed Lands has it all!</em></p>
<p>First of all, Happy New Year! Let’s see what I hope to achieve this year.</p>
<p>Considering how went in the past years, this time I’ll try to be more realistic. Of course two games already in progress (Love Bites and Cursed Lands) should really be finished this year, plus some more possibilities:</p>
<p><em>Cursed Lands</em> – I don’t know exactly when it will be out, because with RPGs is really hard to set a good estimate release. Let’s say I get all the writing by June (just a worse-case scenario). The game should be finished by Fall of this year, even considering long time to do balancing, etc. Of course as soon as I finish the second act/full moon, I’ll update the current beta version.</p>
<p><em>Love Bites</em> – Even in this case I can’t say exactly when it will be out, but since it’s not a RPG, once I have all the writing should be a matter of weeks. I want to be a bit more optimistic and say Spring in this case.</p>
<p><em>Volleyball Heaven</em> – like above, in this case while the writing is basically done, there’s still a lot of art to draw, and do the scripting of the whole story. So it depends on those two things mainly, plus some extra coding required. I think that Summer could be a good estimate.</p>
<p>Anyway just looking at the last title above, I hope you understand why I’m done announcing games: even if VBH writing was 99% finished when I announced it, it was last Summer! And the estimate release is this Summer. One year. For an almost finished game. And it’s honestly nobody’s fault, everyone involved worked hard on it, just a series of bad luck happened.</p>
<p>That’s why I won’t talk about the current games in progress and it was a mistake doing it in the past.</p>
<p>I can also say that I have a few ideas for some SHORT GAMES ™ that I could write myself with an editor’s help. Of course for my standards “short game” will probably mean at least 70-80k words lol</p>
<p>And then there’s Planet Stronghold 2, I didn’t include it in this year of possible releases only because I honestly don’t think I’ll manage to finish it. After all I am <em>already</em> doing another RPG this year, and after I finish it I’ll probably need a few months to recover. So an early next year release it’s a more likely outcome for PS2. But you never know what’s going to happen <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.4/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
<p>That’s all, and Happy New Year again!</p>Winter Wolveshttp://www.winterwolves.net/blogHive 0.11.1http://winds.blue/?p=5012018-01-02T15:33:15+00:00<p>Thanks to a <a href="https://github.com/BlueWinds/Hive/pull/16">pull request</a> by a kind user on github, have a typo-fixing release of Hive. No new content here, just about 30 spelling / grammer corrections and improvements. <a href="http://hive.winds.blue">Play</a> or <a href="http://hive.winds.blue/Hive.zip">download</a> at the usual locations.</p>
<p>With that said, I do have a question for you all – what would you like to see in Hive for the game to feel “finished”? I’ve considered it more or less done for some time, but if people are really itching for a “there’s no more content, rule to your heart’s content” sort of event to wrap things up, I could provide that easily enough.</p>Lapis Azuraihttp://winds.blue