Writing Weekend

Ahhhh, work week's over!  :-D

Will try to get as much writing done as possible this weekend, especially since next week will be pretty busy and I'll be away for a few days.  I can't believe there is a month left before my deadline.  I also can't believe I've been working on my game for 2 1/2 months straight.  I think I've worked on it minimally 3 hours a day, and 8 hours a day on the weekends.

This obsessiveness comes pretty naturally though.  I've always been like this with a lot of stuff.  Either I can't start a project at all--and have lots of false starts, or I bury myself into something until completion.  I'm thinking most people are like this.  I think it takes a very special kind of person to be able to shape their day-to-day life in a more balanced way.  I have never been able to do that.

Test: Expressions

Ok, cleaned up the expressions artwork and put them in code for Mark, Ian, and Penny.

Still getting that dang error message when I export to .png, but it seems like I could just ignore the error message each time I do it.  At least it still exports.  *bites lip*

Anyways, one of our screentests:

AH!!! Gimp error!

I'm suddenly having a problem exporting Penny's updated expressions into .pngs.

It's all very mysterious.

Maybe I shouldn't have leapt into the Mac beta of gimp 2.8 headfirst without a life preserver?

Bah, I'm going to bed.  I can barely think straight.  I had ramen...again.

Third (and final?) Writing Pass

This is my third and (hopefully final) major writing pass for the game.  When I say "pass," I mean going through the story again from top to bottom and fleshing out inconsistencies, plot holes, decision trees, etc.

I imagine there will be plenty of "little passes" consisting of tweaks and edits, but this is the main one.

Writing entertaining scenes seems a bit easier now...maybe because most of the elements are in place: final sprites, story, and most of the dialogue.  I can really sit with the characters now and linger on their dialogue, instead of feeling rushed and worried that all of it is going into the wastebasket because of an unanticipated plot change further down the line.  It's like being able to enjoy the scenery once the road's been laid out.

Right now I'm tweaking some of the sprite expressions so I don't have to keep going back and re-editing a sprite in the middle of writing.

Expressions I've got so far are:

• normal
• talk
• amused
• smirk
• eyeroll
• shock
• pissed
• sad

Expressions are a weird thing.  If only this game were British; I could just have one expression for everything: "unperturbed." 

Next Phase: Backgrounds or Writing?

Yay, the sprites only need their expressions coded...other than that they are pretty much done!

Just a few things I've learned in the process:
- it's easier for me to just copy layers and make folders for different poses and outfits, as opposed to using masks (which utterly confounds my poor brain)
- grrr...anatomy.  Esp. male anatomy.  I need to practice, practice, practice.
- start off with clean line work!!!  Or I'll be sorry!
- I should be using more colors in my shading

There is so much more, but that's all I can think of for now.

I think I need to move on to backgrounds or writing.  I should probably finish coding expressions as well, so all the elements are in place when I go back and write (grits teeth.)

My poor sprites.  I love the way they look initially, but I always come back to them and think "geez, you're looking mighty wonky...need a chiropractor?"

Artwork Todo

I think I'm gonna go ahead and attempt poses 1 and 2 for Ian and Penny.  It kills me that they're static when they have long conversations.  You can't easily tell when their expressions change.

This is going to be tricky because I do line art in one program, and color in another.

I should just keep it simple by doing the extra poses JUST for their clothed sprites, and not attempt to work up from their underwear sprites.  Neither of them have underwear scenes, anyways.

Of course I say that now...hope I won't be kicking myself if they end up having underwear scenes.

Left to do:

• Line art for Ian: clothed, arms crossed
• Line art for Penny: clothed, arms crossed

Still have a bunch of expressions I have to tweak for both, but we'll worry about that later...later...later... (echoes)...

Colored Sprites

This is Graham and Dee Dee by the way.  Heh, I had fun coloring Dee Dee...who I might rename to Rachel.

I have to go back and fix the stupid aliasing that occurs because of the way I'm using bucket fill.  Grr.

 

Line Art for Two Final Sprites

I dunno if these two will have a second pose or not.  Might be the ol' "arm sticking in the air" or something like it.

Population of my game: 6 whole citizens!!!

I should realize by now that the messy line work above is going to bite me in the butt when I start coloring them.  Actually, I do realize it, but bleagh, I can only move around those vector thingies so much before I start to get antsy.

Alex Clothed

As much as I'd like to see him running around in his undies, Mr. Alex needed some threads.

Hmmm. why do I just wanna hand him a safari hat and some binoculars?

Onto his expressions!!!

Developing A Game And A Severe Case of "WHERE DOES IT END"

Another boring developer's post.  Today was dedicated to:

- trying to fix GIMP 2.8 so it would save my brushes (fixed!)
- trying to figure out why the brushes had so much lag (fixed!)
- learning about brush dynamics
- cleaning up alex's line drawing, drawing a new pose
- trying to figure out how to export all his vector layers into bitmap layers in one shot (failed!  I still have to do this the slow way)
- getting really confused when all of Alex's layers started multiplying because I decided to do two poses.  I had the "what layer goes on top of what layer" problem with regards to arms and clothing.  If you've ever had this problem, it's like a moebius strip.
- figuring out a way to reduce Alex's three outfits to two.  Believe me, I don't enjoy making outfits.
- coloring Alex.  He is now, unintentionally, a sunburnt pink.

I also did dishes.  My hefty contribution to the household chores.

So left to do on Alex:
- finish his pants
- finish his first outfit (2nd pose)
- finish his second outfit (both poses)
- and all those expressions

Thank bejeezus the other two sprites I have left to do will be shlepping around in one outfit.

Another thing on the agenda: I have to think of a new name for my game.  There apparently was an earlier game announced on the Lemmasoft forums with a similar name, except it's GxG. I'm pretty sure they announced theirs first, so as a courtesy, I feel like I should change the name of my game to keep things less confusing.  My husband came up with the first name when I couldn't think of anything.   Hmm...apparently I've got some thinking to do.

I can't believe how long doing art takes me.  Didn't I already mention writing stories takes me forever?  There must be something I'm FAST at.  Oh yeah, writing blog posts.  :-D  Seriously though, today I had the idea of reusing all my male sprites for a GXB game, if I ever wanted to do one.  My rationale is that you don't stop watching a movie because, "hey, I've already seen this actor before in another flick!"    Yeah, I know...my real rationale is laziness, but that's beside the point.

What would be truly hilarious if it was the exact same game except the main character would be female instead of being a gay male who comes out in the beginning.  (I guess a lot of dating sims already work like this when they try to include everybody?)  I guess the complaint you'd get is the complaint people have with a couple of the big mainstream RPGs...that the gay relationships seem like an afterthought.  Except now the hetero relationship would seem tacked on.

Okay, I'm truly rambling now.  Time for bed.

Alex

Finally started revamping Alex.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I decided to give him two poses.

OMG.

Given that he has three outfits, I just exponentially increased my work.  Two poses x three outfits x coloring each one.

Or maybe...he could just run around in his boxer briefs...

Writing: Done, Kinda

The game contains 1,666 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 15,706 words,
for an average of 9.4 words per screen.
The game contains 49 menus.

I got to the "End."  Hurrah?   And now have various holes that need to be plugged in (pun not intended...this is a PG game O_O), and scenes that need to be fixed.  But I got the big, heavy frame built as well as the walls.  Now the drywall, paint, plaster, and all the other stuff so this house is not merely a hovel.  Today's house=fiction analogy brought to you by Obscura.

So far, the end needs a lot more oomph, but we'll work on that on the second pass.  I did a lot of procrastinating by drawing on the forums today, but whew, what a fun way to kill time!

For me, procrastinating gets really bad when a scene doesn't work or is super boring.  When I procrastinate a lot, it usually means some scene is about to change in a major way (if I ever get back to it, of course).  I was procrastinating my heart out because one of the conflict scenes didn't include the principal players...and it was only until I set it elsewhere and included the bad guy that I was finally able to write it.

At this point, I dunno if I want to go back and finish writing or resume working on the art.  I'm estimating there is still about 2-3K that needs to be written for the game to feel "complete."  And a bunch of it needs to be edited.  I would say the writing is about 80% complete.

I thought the game would be longer, but I think I just don't write very long stories.  I don't like dragging out stories, in any case.  If I could make every scene full of dramatic tension and excitement, that would be one thing, but I'm always itching to get to the next scene, next plot point, etc.

I notice that even in games I like, I'll skip through a great deal of stuff because my attention starts to wane.  A sign of age?  Or is it just me?  Both?

This game is also one single relationship thread.  I have at least 3 others I'd love to do.

A game including all of them would be about 60-80K, maybe?  I'm just amazed at these writers who can crank out 100K VN's like it's nothing!  It would take me a huge supply of mind-altering substances and caffeine to be able to write like that! And even then I don't think what I wrote would make any sense.

Writing: Stumbling Towards the Finish Line

Statistics:

The game contains 1,379 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 13,028 words,
for an average of 9.4 words per screen.
The game contains 46 menus.

Act 3 is going to require a bit more than the normal clean up, but at this point I just want to get to the pivotal end scenes.

May is almost over...I definitely need June to work on all my sprites and artwork, especially considering I'll be out of town for a few days.

There are some cool things Nuxill is working on that I'm anxious to implement!!!

Word Count

Well, at least I'm in Act 3 now.

Progress continues to be about 500 words a day.  I guess I shouldn't be too discouraged with my pace.  I'm deleting about 500 words a day so I guess I'm writing more than 500, really.  The goal is supposed to have something well written, not something sloppily written.  Here's hoping I achieve at least that.

Anyways:


The game contains 1,268 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 11,760 words,
for an average of 9.3 words per screen.
The game contains 46 menus.

Still have to back and fix some stuff up in Act 2, plus streamline and encode proper expressions into the dialogue.  Right now the characters are emoting all kinds of expressions I haven't even drawn yet.

Also had to stop myself earlier as I wrote a "love" scene.  It started getting raunchy very quickly.

Word Counting

Yeesh.  Nothing like going backwards on my word count because I had to edit out a bunch of poorly written garbage.


The game contains 1,184 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 10,754 words,
for an average of 9.1 words per screen.
The game contains 50 menus.

Note: no more ramen during writing.  I am INCREDIBLY sleepy and its mid-afternoon.  Zzzzz....

Menus Lead to...More Menus

OMG, menus everywhere.  I'm going to have to start whittling down my choices because this is getting to be a #*$&# to write.

Word Count

The game contains 1,232 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 11,063 words,
for an average of 9.0 words per screen.
The game contains 43 menus.

And now folks, I must go do dishes.

Move Along Folks, Nothing to See Here

A whole lot of babbling because I'm sleepy:

 Statistics: The game contains 1,153 screens of dialogue. These screens contain a total of 10,365 words, for an average of 9.0 words per screen. The game contains 41 menus

 I think I'm a little over my halfway point. About 15 or so scenes left. I think each scene is approximately 500 words on average, so that's about 7500 words left to go?

 Hopefully I'll be done with writing at the end of this month, something I had planned to do like...weeks ago. Sooner would be better. June is reserved for the rest of my graphics, implementing the UI, and testing. 

Maybe I'll be able to squeeze all the writing in this weekend, but I am a glacially slow writer. Who are these amazing people who can pound out 1000 words an hour? I think I write about 250 words an hour, sometimes less. I guess that's all part of learning how to make a VN. It includes learning about how quickly or slowly you can do things.

 Yikes, I feel like I'm going to need so much more time for my graphics. I'm getting faster at it, and have found some techniques that will help, but it's still like moving a beach worth of sand with a teaspoon. Okay, maybe a tablespoon, now that I have GIMP 2.8. I can group layers now. WHEEEEE!!!

 Ideally I'd be done with writing in two weeks (June 27th). Then artwork. Gosh, I really want to make two sprite poses for each character, but I doubt that's going to happen. It would be nice if you could tell when their expressions change by their pose changing as well, but I think I just won't have the time. But I'm starting to think it's a necessity. I don't want static sprites!!! CRIES. But I also don't want to draw multiple outfits for 2 poses and multiple expressions on top of that!!!! CRIES AGAIN

I did have this idea today that maybe I could just change the angles of the heads and the body a bit to look like the sprites are moving. I don't know if this is the best or the worst idea in the world and if I am going to end up with creepy marionette sprites if I do this. Also, as I learned from previous experience, rotating an image (like a head) can really degrade the artwork. So ARGH. Something must be done though. Having a single pose for each sprite is less than ideal because it's really hard to notice changes in expression. Anyways, thankfully my work schedule is back to normal. At least for now.

Writing Stuff

Keeping track of writing, for my records:

The game contains 1,052 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 9,463 words,
for an average of 9.0 words per screen.
The game contains 40 menus

It was a pretty good day, considering how slow I am at writing.  More sleep helped.

More Writing

Didn't write as much as I wanted to today, just revamped two or three scenes.


The game contains 1,003 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 8,948 words,
for an average of 8.9 words per screen.
The game contains 38 menus.

Writing

Started Alex's artwork but got so frustrated with his shirtless sprite that I moved on back to writing.  Finished re-editing Act I, now somewhere 1/7th of the way through Act II.

Trying to take Susan's critique to heart (thank you Susan!) and making sure every menu option actually affects the game in some way.  Sometimes it just adds a line of dialogue or two reactions from other players, sometimes it effects the good ol' relationship counter for the characters.  And sometimes--gasp--it actually changes the story line.

Anyways, trying to keep track of this stuff better.  Camille on the lemmasoft forums put up an amazingly helpful writing link some time ago.

I've struggled with writing for several years now...wish I had seen this amazing article FIRST!!!

When it comes down to it, it's obvious that the main problem I had with writing is that my stories just weren't interesting enough to make me keep writing and working on them.  Yes, obvious now.  Back then I just thought I was simply lazy or too easily distracted.

Anyways, current statistics for my own records:

The game contains 959 screens of dialogue.

These screens contain a total of 8,493 words,

for an average of 8.9 words per screen.

The game contains 34 menus.

And one of these little percentage thingys:

Sprites: 45% complete

Backgrounds: 15% complete

Writing: 25% complete

Story and Outline: 100% complete

Dare to Make...A Todo List

I notice I make a variety of sounds while doing different game-related tasks.

graphics: "hmms" and "mm-hmms"
writing: taptaptap (either my foot, my fingers, or a pen), yawning as I stare at the wall, groans as I stretch
programming: curses, screams, more curses, yelling

Basically you can tell what I'm doing outside of my room if you hear one of the above noises.

I don't know if I should even TRY to attempt to knock out this todo list this weekend, giving how things keep changing midstream, but I would love to get the following done before Monday:

1. Coding Mark's expressions
2. Completing all the layers for Ian and coding them
3. Redoing the line art for Alex - started!
4. Completing all the layers for Alex and coding them
5. Recoding all of Act I to include new expressions and dialogue

Realistically I'm probably going to get 1-3 done, at the rate I'm going.  I hope so, at least.

I doubt I will get to 4 and 5 until after Monday.  I really need to get to Acts 2 and 3, where all the blood and guts of my story are.  Unfortunately I am prone to that thing known as "feature creep" where I start writing and testing, and then thinking, "wouldn't it be awesome if....."

Coding

Yesterday I vowed to clean up all of Penny's layers and get them ready to export.

Today I finally figured out to code separate expressions in a way that will work for my game.

OMG...I think I went in around in circles for a fortnight and a morning.

I keep thinking every day, "all right!  Smooth sailing from now on and I should be able to write!"

*snorts*

Waiting for the New Gimp

I guess the next version of GIMP is out...and includes a lot of features that would be OH-SO-HELPFUL for VN development, like grouping layers and smoother lines.

I was going to draw some new sprites for my other characters, but I'll try to keep that on hold until the Mac version is released, especially since I'd really like to reduce the jitteryness of my lines even further.

In the meantime I've been working on coding stuff.  I think one of my major problems as a newb is that the RenPy documentation is probably great if you're already somewhat of a programmer, but sort of a head scratcher if you're not.  It will give all kinds of examples and present all the syntax you need to put something in your code, but it's like the intermediate "step for dummies" version is missing.  It's like looking up a word in a dictionary and the definition refers to another unknown word.  And when you look up the second unknown word, it refers back to the first word you looked up.

That's the feeling I get sometimes, when I'm struggling to code.  :-/  I was thinking of doing live composites for the expressions, but I made the decision not to pursue this after I started wondering what you need to do if you put the sprite on the right or left of the screen instead of the center.  Do all the expression layers automatically readjust or do you have to code for each position? BAH HUMBUG.

Back to writing, I swear...

I MUST STOP FIDDLING WITH THE ARTWORK.  (Slaps self.)

Anyways, I'm happy that I was able to polish up three of my sprites and give them different expressions.  So much time invested for incremental changes!!!

Anyways, I can't believe it's already May 6th.  Where the heck did April go?!?!?

More Sprite Work, Resizing, Background Experiments

Title pretty much sums up the past few hours.

I'm working an extra shift tomorrow...hopefully I'll get out early and get back to writing.

Shading Coloring Stuff

Worked on Ian's line art and recolored him.  I've done this three times in a row now--coloring their underwear models, and then when I put the clothes on them, for some reason the clothes don't fit properly on top of them.  ARGH.

Anyways, downloaded this thing last night called Greyc's Magic Image Converter that adds a lot of different filters to GIMP.  Way cool!  Highly recommended if you are a GIMP user.  Will really add some nice filters to background art if you are using photos.

I'm starting to get sick of doing graphics again...which means it's time to switch to writing soon...