Forgot about this site until I realized I could benefit from a place with longer text space than Twitter! I'll be putting updates on the Etsy store in the next blog entry as well as a progress update for this project, but this particular entry is just going to be information about the VN I'm working on. About the projectI had originally planned to make this visual novel for an October based game jam. Aside from general irl stuff getting in the way and a loss of motivation, I had struggled with coming up with the story for it, especially in a way I could write in just one month while simultaneously doing the artwork. If you look at my itch.io page you'll see the only other visual novels I have publicly listed were done in a day and over the course of two weeks. Both very small scale short projects made mainly to test software and because I had an idea itching at me I needed to get out right then. But for a long time, I've been wanting to do something more complete. This goes back a little further than that though. At one time, I had wanted to make an RPG where you play as the villain of the story. Unsurprisingly making a life simulator type game ala Stardew Valley where you play are various criminals in the town was a little outside my skill set. But it is where the original start of the story comes from. This version of Fawn was named Eileen. An earlier draft of the outline also had her named Phoebe, as well as Shelby. Oddball was also the player character for this iteration, hence having the only sprite completed. They have since been switched to Odd, nickname for Oleander. For the Visual Novel version I knew that I would want Fawn to be the player character, as it would lean more into horror territory than the sort of dark comedy I was picturing for the RPG story. This meant adjusting characters from the original project, as I wanted to keep the setting, and adding another so that Fawn had someone in her life to talk to other than her stalker or random strangers. Lily was originally going to be Violet, but once I started designing her it felt too on the nose for a character who wears mostly purple. I'm hoping to flesh out Lily and Fawn's relationship a bit in the story. All of the characters in it are a little grey, in that you aren't meant to agree with everything the protagonists do or see the antagonists as inhuman embodiments of evil. So I'm gonna leave them at that for now since that's more character development than plot and I'd rather let the story speak to that. I've got a pretty full story outline done using one of NaNoWriMo's templates called the Jot, Bin, Pants method. Honestly I recommend looking over NaNoWriMo's prep exercises in general. I'm not good at laying down full plans for my stuff so it felt really productive getting all my scenes laid out, even if some are a little vague right now. And since I've kept interest in this project since October (meant to participate in NaNoWriMo for it, wound up beginning actual writing in December), I'm hoping to stick to the idea and get this whole first draft written over the next month. I'm doing what I can to make sure I don't get too far ahead of myself by jumping into art production. While I plan to have the first draft of the script written by the end of the month, the VN itself will definitely not be done then. I have some experience coding in Ren'Py that should help that part go a little quicker but odds are I'm going to be doing all of the art myself as well. So aside from assets I know I will definitely need (such as the most basic emotion sprites for each of the main cast) I'm holding off on ramping up any visual production or coding. But I want to know exactly what I'm getting into before planning the art, as well as what I'll be capable of including without burning out. The ScopeRight now, I know that my definite plans are for the major events of the story to happen over the course of three days. That means sprites with changeable outfits (as concepted above) and CGs for each of the Big moments of the story. I have experience with both of these, so I know they're something I can do. Backgrounds are uncertain right now. More generic settings could use premade assets as there are a lot of nice packs on Itch.io from other VN makers, paid and free. But I don't want to end up with very clashing art styles so what I need in the end will determine whether I need to make it all myself. Music will likely be premade options unless I find myself able to afford custom tracks. I currently plan for two endings, based on conversation options that change characters' opinions of Fawn more than any branching paths. So this will play closer to a kinetic novel with small differing scenes to keep things a little more tight knit. There are a couple of things I would like to add if things are going well by the time I'm adding the art assets, but it's dependent on both how the story turns out. On the simpler side of things, I would like to make some use of the simple animation features in Ren'py. For example, having certain scenes be in another perspective rather than only using sprites and then using the transitional features to move layers of the image. Low quality mock up of Odd and Fawn on a fair ride made in CSP just to make it clear what I'm talking about. The other "big" goal would be partial animation / animatic endings. These are left for last because they're obviously a huge leap from the amount of effort it takes to write out what's happening in a scene versus what it takes to animate it, even very choppily. It's an idea I really like that I feel would make the endings more impactful / stand apart from other VNs but it's not practical to guarantee, especially this early into development. But I'm putting it down here anyway because it is a best case scenario outcome so it's worth mentioning. It will only be considered in the final quarter of development, hoping that I make it that far. So what now?For now, I work on the first draft. Any big updates will be given on this blog, including the first update I'll be posting right after this one. Smaller peeks into any progress I make might turn up on my twitter as long as they're bite sized enough for there.
I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this, even if in the end I have to shrink the story or cut out parts to get it done. I just know I want to make it happen. So keep an eye out for any new news as I go! -Karma
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