Because Sam asked me to post this, I couldn't come up with a creative title. So here. Happy? ;)29/9/2015 Q and A with questions you'd think to ask~
Q: What kind of things are you hiding from us?
A: "Well, I haven't really told anyone the biggest secret of the demo... But I keep things like plot, Character dialogue and other things a secret for a reason. I act like I reveal a lot, but I'm an incredible liar. Even the smallest things like the *cough* Inn *Cough* are secrets I'm keeping just for people to find!" Q: How much will we cry in this game? A: I write scenes until I cry, so you might feel a bit sad/bittersweet at times. Q: What's the goal of the game? A: "your goal changes each chapter. Chapter 1, you're starting to make a basis for you to live off of/to run on. Chapter 2, You're finishing off developing the main personality of the hero, and finish the structure of friendships Chapter 3, You're focused on romancing Chapter 4, You're focused on getting married Chapter 5, You're finishing up your family life and moving to achieve your goal of your dream job. Q: What's this about an"inn"? A: You'll just have to wait and see~ Q: Though the full release is going to be done in parts, what are you planning on doing after CD is finished? A: I've been spending years fantasizing about other games I wanted to make (i.e. Artists Canvas) But I'll probably work on a short Visual Novel and release some random patch DLC for Shift the Tide. After that, I'm probably going to do some less epic games, as I don't want to spend hundreds of years on each LOL. Q: Is it true you postponed the demo until November? A: I want to postpone it to November-December, but it's just because of the artwork and Voice actors. We want this demo to better represent the game, and we think the best way to do that is just to do it well. The demo release should mark a time where we'll be close to releasing the first segment of the game, so it's just a 'guess and go' situation. Q: How much time do you spend on the game a day? A: My game isn't my only commitment, but I spend a good part of my day working on it~ Usually planning and writing. Q: Who do you recommend romancing? A: It's hard to say. If you want simple friendship-based routes, try Kyler, Ty or Tristan. If you're looking for romantic or cute paths, Jet, Max and Damion are for you. If you're looking for a very different paced paths, Jay, Andy and Leo are the way to go. Personally, I'm working for Max to be my favourite path, but Aris's is probably my favourite. Max has lots of really cool effects audio wise planned, but his path is at the moment... blah. SO I need to re-write it. Q: Why has it taken you so long? A: Because I started when I was so young. I basically re-started everything I worked on so many times because I didn't understand how to do things properly up until recently. Now I've gotten really close to a point where I can start beta testing. Q: Who's your favourite character? A: It's between Aris, Max, Jay, Ty, Tai and Kyler. Lol. Q: Why do you have a character named after yourself? A: My name isn't Roxie. That's my online persona and my OC from when I was nine. My name is Cheyenne, my internet name is Roxie. Q: Will we ever see what you look like? A: If I'd ever put my face anywhere, it may as well be an easter egg in the game ahaha. I don't know though, I don't know why you guys would feel it's important to see me. You already will see parts of me in every character I created. Q: I know you're into social activism, So what should I expect? A: "The SJ in the game isn't implicit. It's clear that you can be whoever you feel you are, and I tried to capture that based on how people felt about other games like harvest moon and tried to represent as many people as I could. Basically, the way the game is designed is that your play through is based on what you want to see. A more obvious example: If you're not into scary content, you can miss that entirely. It is important for me to note that I intentionally put the characters in, representing people that are diverse beyond their appearance. Q: What is the difference between Love points and friendship points? A: Both are invisible values that you get in the game. Friendship points you get for everyone. For non-mains such as Lia or Suzie, the FP only is for achievements. For love interests, FP helps boost your love points when you talk to them. For the non-love interest mains, it changes their dialogue based on relationship level. Love points are for the love interests only. You ONLY get them through interactions and cutscenes, not through gifts. They are what determines your change in dialogue. Everyone's dialogue for the first two years depends on the month, not on friendship.The mains have significantly more dialogue. Who should YOU romance?
Freaking accurate quiz. I took it, not really trying to get any particular result- I got Ty, then Tried it again, then got Max then did all the answers I wouldn't choose and got Kyo. Cool.
Dialogue Banks
As mentioned above, in Chapters 1 and 2, everyone speaks based on season instead of friendship. Friendship and Romance is what determines Dialogue afterwards for mains.
So in Chapters 1 and 2, the dialogue will be taken from a "dialogue bank" created for each main character. For example: Every time you talk to Max in September, you get 10 pieces of dialogue. In October, you get an additional 10 pieces. in November another 10 pieces. All of them add on to each other. It's similar to that of Animal crossing. I made a thing
Not really.
So Story-time. What happened: I was thinking about harvest moon/bokujou/Story of Seasons (THIS HAS GOTTEN WAY COMPLICATED) and Brother's Conflict and other visual novels I've played, and it clicked with me that I wanted a system that allowed you to check your friendships with the characters (Typically through hearts, flowers or a menu option called 'likability'). Here's the thing: There is no such script for RMXP. Here's the other thing: I don't know RGSS (The programming language for RMXP) to a state where I can write in it properly. I'm a Java programmer, and because I don't understand Ruby's setup very much, it's hard to make full scripts. Of course, my background in Java can help some. I made some intense programs, including a door game on Java and a full system. So I decided to try my hand at writing in Ruby. And failed on an epic level. So I gave up and decided to see if I could find a flexible script that I could just modify. There was no such thing. Then I found something called the "Journal Script" by ForeverZer0 and everything started to fall together. The editing: I ended up using my scarce Ruby skills with my Java knowledge and edited the script to do what I wanted. It still kept the original script intact, but it ended up giving me the ability to change things up based on the year, the relationship etc etc. In addition: Clock. (Will explain.) Relationship Level Viewer + Journal
Apart from the graphics and Bios, this is pretty much done.
So there are several relationship levels. You can see these below (and I definitely drew on FOMT for this one.) I omitted the images, simply because I realized that my images come up as no licence required on the image search. Please note that the images on the website are NOT for usage outside the game.
Sapphire heart - Platonic heart. Shown on all children in the child and pre-teen chapter.
Amber heart- Represents all significantly older/younger people of the town. Smoke/Silver heart- Appears in the teen chapter on all main characters (If your relationship is low). It represents distance/lack of closeness in both Love interests and Friendly interests. Shimmer Blue- Represents the budding of a romance (love interests) or a new friend (Friendly interests) Emerald Heart- Represents infatuation (Love interests) or a Friend (Friendly interests.) Passionate Rose Heart- Represents love (Love interests) or a close friend Ruby Heart - Represents True love/Soul mate (Love interests) or a best friend (Friendly interest) Amethyst-Aqua heart- Only for your spouse :) In art that you cannot see, the center is blue glowing. Time
I adapted the playtime menu that appears by default in the game, and now it displays game-time instead. This means you don't have to constantly check your cellphone in order to know the current time ^-^;;
I feel like a programming genius but all I did was change one line of code ;-; Youtube deleted my video
Soooooooooo youtube deleted my video saying that it was 'inappropriate content'.
It was literally. Kyler. Talking. About. you. and.having. a. crush. on. you. So it turns out it may have been tags that were an issue. Which is dumb. But alas. I respect it. Here it is.
Things to note in this video:
- Sprites fade smoothly in and out when you talk to them - The original dialogue is randomized by four different statements that change depending on the time of day. - Things such as sparkles and action lines are displayed at certain times - The emotions that a character has is character specific. This means there is no default 'happy' or 'blush'. There are some very unique emotions per character. - When their default image is displayed, they blink at random.
Kyler is going to be the fan fave. I know it. I know it. Frig.
Who Looks the best with Cat Ears [Filler Segment]
Aris: I’m sending this out to all of the lovely ladies and gentlemen. You’re all amazing. Thank you to all my fans! I was a little bit embarrassed at first, but for all of you, these cat ears are worth it!
Kyler: Please shut up, Aris. You have stupid fans who believe stupid things. Get over yourself. This... thing is just another outdated stunt that Roxie’s trying to pull on us.
Aris: Aww... Looks like little Ky-Ky is all jealous. Maybe he needs a little-
Ky: Shut up you inconsiderate little pop-star!!
Jet: Am I cute yet?
Ty: 猫の耳が。みて、いもうとちゃん/おとうとちゃん。俺はかっこいいですね。Jet is wearing it completely wrong, maybe he should take a lesson from old Ty here~!
Tai: Oh you North Americans, so self-concerned. There are genuine issues in the world, and you all choose to play dress up?? (Why am I here? HOW am I here? WHY ME?! Anastasia must have been the culprit behind this...)
Jet: Am I cute yet?
I picked the first characters I saw XD So it is great that I had Jet, Ky, Aris, Ty and Tai. I wish Max and Cindy were on here D:
I will not be continuing the page for 'ask the characters' at the moment as I'm trying to prep for demo and release. I'll so some on here though. Soon I'll discontinue posts like this temporarily to give myself more time to work. Aris Updated Line-work
We just edited Aris's line work to make him cleaner and his eyes dissimilar to Max's. The hair lines were initially really messy, and it looked really awful, so I just changed it up.
I spent about four hours trying to figure out why I disliked his new artwork, then I realized it was because he didn't have a pupil LOOL. I do like the newer one because it's how I always pictured Aris to look. The soft, younger features and the dark but sweet eyes are what I've hoped to accomplish and BAM Aris. Unlike Kyler, Ari is true bishonen because dang, those beautiful features. I mean, he is a popstar.
We'll be doing Andy and Damion on a later date. Max I realized that his artwork is soooo outdated. So I'm just editing Max and fixing Ty's artwork because I don't like how it turned out ugh. UGHIWRNOIEHRIOWHR I HATE DOING THIS.
We're also editing up Minti to better match the artstyle, and we're in the midst of finishing Ty's updated work. We're doing this simply to match everything and because Ty's artwork doesn't work very well for me ;-;
I'm doing this now, but I'm so scared that I'm going to do this again when we actually get to the teen chapter XD But I doubt it because I'm super happy with some of the sprites, but I was never happy with Aris or Ty. I am happy with Max, Leo and Jay though, so those edits won't be overly intense, but I'll still do some at a later date. At the moment though, we're sticking to making the Child Chapter sprites. Taka/TyA quick note about face sprite emotions
If anyone remembers a while ago, the face sprites followed a very similar format to Harvest moon, where it was like 'BLUSHY FACE" "SAD FACE" "ANGRY FACE"
So that ended up being rather bland so with the new sprites, we've changed it up. It only takes about one minute per emotion, so when I do is I write out the dialogue and everytime I need a different emotion, I make it. It looks a lot more fluid that way and there's a lot more to see from them <3 I hope you will like the array of emotions~ Another fantastically Fantastic Video??? WHAT [WARNING laggy :/ ]Note about Ty/Taka/Tyrone
SO many people are confused by this. So I may as well explain it.
Tyrone was born in Japan and given the name "Taka". Through many complications, Taka, Lia and Skye Kimura became Tyrone, Lia and Skye Kirimura. It was a lot to do with paperwork and a bunch of confusion etc. Tyrone uses Tyrone in the first two chapters of the game. Everyone begins calling him "Ty" in the third chapter, and it's a battle between him, Tiaga (Tai) and Tytannia for who the 'real' Ty is. He almost never is referred to by Taka, but it's what his father called him. Still haven't signed up for the demo?
Time's running out~
Next time + Responses
I'm not going to prioritize making a blog post until closer to the demo release. I'm focusing on Child dialogue, quests, fundraisers, mini-games and school lessons as well as VAs. I'll just be doing small blogposts here on out~
Rachel Haha We really are the same on that XD I'm so glad <3 I hope I can make it live up to the hype >.< Rachel and Renee and Rebecca <3 awww That's so funny! We have long term memory but my short term memory can SUCK LOOL. I hope that it works out >.< I'm trying to make this work but I'm so tried of making this game, I just want to finish it LOOOOL At least a chapter by chapter release means can fix and add as I go along <3 I was crying tears of happiness <3 I'm trying to get over my desire to get more people to play hahaha I just need to release something so people can play and I don't lose anyone </3 It does <3 Thank you! And being supportive is one of the best things you can do, so thank you sooo much <3 It means a lot to me to see your comments btw Rachel, Do you know who you're romancing on your first playthrough? XD It's a question everyone is all excited about hehehe Have a great day Rachel~! Sam kyky is bae Thanking the Academy [HUGE SEGMENT nothing game related after this.]
With the new features of the game winding down, and the exciting stuff (other than art) is almost over, the amount of frequent, long blog-posts are going to minimize significantly. I've been doing these posts almost every month for years and it hurts to think I have to slow down on them, even for the time being. So I'll likely do as I've always said and just do short posts with important info and stuff.
With that said, the game's progress towards the completion of the demo and child chapter will be coming closer with each day. While things are as they are, I need to thank a few really... really important people. The story of what changed:When I began this game I didn't realize that everything would change. I didn't realize how many people I would touch, how many people I would befriend and how differently I would look at myself. I had next to nothing to my name.
|
CheyenneI'm a total dork who writes too much all the time because I like typing and I used to write novel-length stories and I'm just a weird person who does some things and breathes and stuff. Archives
December 2016
|