More Artwork

Spent last night redoing the lineart for Penny.  Right now the process is:

(warning!  dry tech and software talk!)

1. create line wonky art in Sketchbook (ipad)
2. import line art and trace over art with vectors in idraw (ipad), including outfits and expressions
3. import vector art from ipad into idraw (mac)
4. increase vectors to 200%
5. export all the different "layers" into different svg files (i dunno why GIMP just can't import a layered svg file)
6. clean up the line art in GIMP
7. start coloring (a whole other process)
8. end result: a GIMP file with about 20 or so layers that separate different eyebrow positions from different mouth expressions, outfits, etc.
9. wonder where my day went

I am sure there are some steps I could be skipping but I don't know what those are as of today.  I mean, I only recently learned about the different between .jpeg and .png.  And also don't rotate your files too much if you want a traumatic loss in quality.  :-(

Anyways, Penny in-progress.  Yep, I'm trying out good old helmet-style shading on the hair.

Sample Screen

Redid the ID screen.  My poor vector otter got the boot for a more glamorous royalty free version.

I'm using 1280x720.  The text window is pretty narrow and low.

Graphics for Player Character

I just spent about 20 hours or more trying to fix my player character.  Every time I look at my sprites I keep seeing stuff that needs a' changing.  ARGH!!!

Anyways, new title screen.

I also spent a bunch of time this weekend composing a couple of tunes for the game using Garage Band.

Planescape Torment: Writing a 800,000+ Word Game

Planescape: Torment is a pretty old RPG, but one loved by many.

I posted this at the lemmasoft forums, but I also thought this would be helpful for those of us making visual novels with lots of decision trees and choices.

In this link, towards the bottom of the page, is a document that is a character sheet for Ravel, a prominent (though not essential) character in the game.  It has spoilers, so be warned!

It's incredible how much detail and thought they put into the player's interaction with Ravel, from beginning to end, and very neat to see how it's all organized.

Nekkid Men

Spent most of the night drawing men, naked and clothed.

I don't understand men's hips.  The body narrows down in a V, and then there are these paddle-thingys, and then additional mound-thingys before the torso hits the thigh.

Okay, I hope that doesn't sound too horribly insulting, but I have no idea what the hell is going on down there.  I know a lot of people say the opposite, but drawing men has always been incredibly harder for me than drawing women.  Not only are the landmarks for women more familiar, but they seem to be a lot more obvious.

I think I'm gonna make all the sprites 768 x 1024.  I hope that's good enough for the res I'll be using: 1280 x 720.

Redoing all the artwork, yeeargh.  I have to fix the main character.  After I rotated his head, all the pixels degraded significantly so I am retracing him.  As well as making him topless, which I should have done first, instead of now.  Oh well...lesson learned!

Random guy I drew...experimenting with styles and basic coloring techniques.

Note his hand was supposed to be out of his pocket...but I gave up and shoved it in his jeans.  POCKETS, HOW I LOVE YOU.

I Dunno How I Got Here

While the writing portion of my game is far from done, I think I have the story laid out.  What exists right now is some very detailed stuff in the first few acts, that gets progressively more vague and skeletal towards the end.

There is much I've got to go back and fix...not just in terms of the writing, but stuff like the labels I've been using and even some of the character names, as well as variable stuff.  For example, the player actually gets to choose the character's name...I have to back and allow this, as well as fix all the progressive instances of the character's name when it was just "Mark." 

So now I'm at the very beginning of my script again, and I'm also starting to revamp the graphics because it really, really bugs me to see half done graphics and I also need a break from coding and writing.  Like I predicted, I threw my schedule out the window, and all of the sudden I'm trying to learn how to do vector graphics in the middle of a scheduled writing week.

Oh well.

Anyways, this is a mock up of the first screen, where the player enters the main character's name and it appears on a University ID.

The otter was built with a combination of vectors and cursing.

And oh my, I need to go to bed.

The Big Push

It would be so organized if I could just say I'll work on the game 3 hours today, 3 hours tomorrow, etc. and presto, it eventually gets done.

What happens instead is that I work on it maybe an hour today, 10 minutes yesterday, and 12 hours tomorrow.

It's time for the big push!  Really want to get the essentially story completed this weekend.  I figured out how the story should go...but of course the devil is in the details.  

I wish I had some art to put up, but I'm really afraid to start working on art that I might scrap because I end up changing the story midway through.

So far I've really enjoyed working on this game more than any creative project I can remember in years.

Maybe I should have been working on little personal games all along, but I guess my life has been a funny series of zigzags, and this is just another zig in the zag.

Lets get ziggity.

Research

Stuck at a part of the story and trying to figure out ways around it.

One of the problems is that I don't understand one of the environments some of the plot takes place, so have been doing research.

Writing Progress & How Sexually Graphic Should This Game Be?

I think I'm about 40% complete on the script, minus all the coding extras I want to eventually put in there.

Stats:


The game contains 886 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 7,897 words,
for an average of 8.9 words per screen.
The game contains 32 menus.

I'm not sure how detailed I want to get with anything having to do with sex.  Light and innocent?  Or pretty graphic?  I was thinking it might be fun to do a completely G version, and R-rated version, and then an x-rated version.  I think this was the case for some Infocom game I played long ago...was it Leather Goddesses of Phobos?  The G version was utterly hilarious, worth playing just for the humor.

Geez, I didn't get all the writing I wanted to do this weekend.  Tomorrow I have a pretty busy day since the two big errands I needed to do are now on my todo list.  I also have work.

A la Susan's technique I think I need to give myself some kind of deadline to actually finish this thing.  The game is starting to suffer from "feature creep" which I believe means I'm getting all kinds of ideas about what to add in, and making the game will take forever.

WARNING: EXTREMELY DULL AND GRATING DEVELOPER SELF-TALK AHEAD

So, I dunno, the rest of April for writing?  I seem to write at a very meandering pace of 500-1000 words a day.  I'm a fairly slow writer.  If my game "feels" about 40% through, I still have 19700 words, which is another 23 days.

So, May 8th for the "Rated R" version should be a reasonable deadline.

I think I want to take a full week or two too, of just learning GIMP and more art techniques.  There are times when stupid, basic WTF moments occur, like not being able to deselect a channel.  I feel like I should really know what the heck I'm doing before I start making more sprites.  So I should jump into the program for 2 weeks and just do a crap load of tutorials and art experiments, maybe draw characters for the lemmasoft board.  That would be until May 22nd?

Sprites will probably take me the rate of 1 sprite a day, probably 2-3 days for sprites and their different outfits.  I have no idea how to code expression yet but I've seen some examples I'll probably just use to copy and paste.  There are a total of 6 characters, 2 of which are minor.  The majors need the full range of expression and at least 2 or 3 sets of clothing each.  I guess I can give myself 2 weeks for sprites.  (Yep, putting in a lot of cushion because I'm learning as I go along...hopefully this will be enough time.)

So that will be June 6th for my sprite deadline?

Then all those pesky backgrounds.  I'm just going to filter royalty-free photos.  HA!  June 13th would be my deadline, giving me a week.

Music, additional coding and testing I'll give myself the rest of the month of June.

So my first, polished full game should be ready July 1st.  Geez, that's a ways away.

I feel like it's a long time to make one VN, but it incorporates my learning curve of learning RenPy, GIMP, doing computer graphics, and music all at once.

Well, in any case it's all about the process and whether I'm having fun, after all.

I guess I'll go post this schedule to the boards.

Screenwriting and Stuff I Like

I was watching a special about how the Southpark guys create each episode of Southpark.

Somewhere in there, Trey explained how when he finally gets down to the writing part, it is "sad and lonely" and he eats a Big Mac while he writes the episode.

I totally understand this.  You probably do too if you've ever had the tortuous notion in your head that you "should write" but don't really enjoy the process.

I have tried writing a screenplay or two and my god, have I hated it.  (Not just the screenplay, but the entire writing process.)  Never in my life did I sit for so long, staring at either a) a blank screen or b) a blank wall.

Well, I still have this stupid script that never went anywhere.  I still think of it as a marketable idea though, so hopefully either my husband or my friend can do something and bring some fresh eyes to it.

Amazon is doing an amazing thing right now, which is setting up their own film production company.  They're looking for screenplays, and if you've got a screenplay, you should definitely send it.

$10K if they option the film, and $200K if they choose to make it.

Which is so awesome.

I know EXACTLY what I'd do with $200K.

Take time off so I can make my visual novel and other games that possibly a dozen people will play.

Yes, I've finally become one of those irritating people who would continue working if they ever won the lotto!

Oh yeah, today's development notes:

The game contains 717 screens of dialogue.

These screens contain a total of 6,378 words.

Writing was getting kinda stale and awkward when I started today.  I kinda just followed my outline, and a few things seemed improbable/totally random (not good), but stuck to it anyways.  Somewhere along the line, I started letting the characters do their own thing, and now we're in a good place again.  :-)

Word Counts & Choices

I guess I'm doing word counts wrong.  I'm supposed to go by what the Lint report tells me, so I get a word count of the dialogue, and not all the coding stuff.

As of today:

The game contains 568 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 5,171 words,
for an average of 9.1 words per screen.
The game contains 24 menus.

What does it all mean?  Not sure.   What I do know is that I want to give my player lots of choices, big and small.  I think it means way more work, but the kind of VNs I like to play give you lots of menus.  I think my proclivities might also be due to the fact I grew up on Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Fighting Fantasy, and Infocom games.  These things seemingly allowed you to choose your fate at every turn.

So I've got 24 menus so far, but that's actually pared down and I'll be introducing more as I do a second revision.

I would like to do another 500-1000 words tonight, but we'll see how that goes.

Wow, my nerdiness is really re-emerging again after some hibernation.

I also discussed a new game idea with my husband today.  I'm not sure if Ren'Py would allow me to do this, but it would be a vending machine tycoon game.  After all these human figure drawings I've done, nice boring boxes sound like the most wonderful things to draw.

Of Bloody Foreheads

Finally, it's my weekend!!!  HELL YEAH!

Hopefully I'll finish the main story line for the game, before going back and adding the branches.

Thankfully, most of the housework is done.  Just two big chores but other than that, I'm hoping to lose myself in writing.

This is speaking as someone who was once an aspiring writer but dreaded nearly every day she wrote.

Case in point: for most of my adult life, this quote has really resonated with me:

Writing is easy:  All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.  ~Gene Fowler

Writing for my little game is so much easier.  I don't know why this should be.