I'm extremely exhausted from long work days and long "work" nights, but I am so so excited to show off some more progress (at least art wise) for Sector Chimera! Since I'm making all the art for this myself, it's a lot easier to tell everyone that a demo will likely be released within the next month (unless anymore surgery, moving, or work hours come into play...), so keep an eye out for that! Now onto the pretty pretty previews~. First up is a look at one of the stores you can visit in the city! This is Second Image (name may be changed at a later date, but for now that's what we're sticking with). It'll serve as the "armor" clothing store for the most part, with the ability to buy companion gifts here later on. Aaaand here are the first world's enemy sprites! These were a lot of fun to draw, and I really can't wait to work on more later on. These guys are a little too specialized looking to feel right having them as basic monsters, but that's just how it'll be for now, so expect troops of these lil guys. If you're wondering what's going on with them, I'll explain a bit! Kere are the enemies in Limbo. They were once other dreamers who killed and hurt others too much and mutated into monsters. The more they consume other dreamers, the more disfigured they become, so if one looks more humanoid, that's why. Their eyes glow, their teeth are sharp and big and curved into smiles, and they turn into shades with gross tendrils. These ones have flowers simply because their domain is known for being beautiful, and so despite their dis-figuration, they're a little more pretty than the rest. The purple glow is also a result of the domain they became corrupt in, so the first world's creatures are all purple. And now it's time for me to sleep and wake up early tomorrow to go to my day job. I hope you guys are as happy with these graphics so far as I am, but if not let me know in the comments below. And let me know if you are! And most importantly, remember not to get lost in your dreams.
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First and foremost, many many apologies for not posting anything recently! I was writing a post yesterday when in an attempt to clear some tabs, I closed the blog update page and sat in my chair defeated for a moment. But here I am again, prepared to write a new post! This post will have updates from all three games, and I am very excited to share all these updates with you~! Up first, we have Sector Chimera. All new art, including a redone MC's bedroom. In these screen shots is the new room, a first peak at the "forum" system you can use to see how the others in the city interact (which you will be able to respond to on occasion if you decide to.), an updated HoloCall system (the holocall device will be "turned off" when you have no available calls, and will be on and animated when you do.), and all new character face sprites! So far, only Quinn has a new face sprite, but everyone will be following shortly. I've also drawn up the inside of the restaurant, but that will only be available for preview on the patreon page.
Up next is Betterflies with updates on the script and UI. I've begun writing and programming the very first solo branches for the romances. I've already finished Reza, Vincent, and Magdalena's, although I may make some tweaks to Vincent's route to add more dialog between him and the MC. I've also decided to add in a daily planner feature, because I think it would best fit the game to include it. Your character will be able to decide between doing art, exercise, group therapy, and staying in her room, with other slight variations as time goes on if the story demands it. And the last update is a stats menu! I'm still iffy on if I want to include it at all, and it's very much in a rough draft stage, but if I decide to keep it, it will be keeping track of the MC's personality, romantic and friendship stats with each character, and the basic ability check stats. What these stats are, what they're named, and how many there will be is still undecided, but the preview is as accurate as it can get for now. Last but not least, Ventio Mortis! I've made many strides through the opening chapter (which is longer than I realized when I had playtesters take a stab at it), and I am proud to say that the first chapter is finally completed! I will begin writing the second chapter when my editor goes over the script and updates it, but for now I don't want to overwhelm her with too much writing. I've also received the finished portrait for Robbie, which means only Drisdon and the Detective are left and we are that much closer to the release of the Ventio Mortis demo!! If you'd like to get a peak at Robbie and a little bit more information on the hot-head, it's available on patreon. In the mean time, here is a preview of Inan and Hollowelle talking. Sidenote: I do intend to change his sizing, but for now scripting the little things remains my first priority for the game since editing his portraits will only take about 10 minutes. Link To PatreonI've gone back to work on Betterflies some more. It's a fairly easy project to handle, so it's nice to be able to work on something more laid-back in production. I've finished reworking all the backgrounds. I want to keep the nice pastel/pick aesthetic throughout the entire game, so I just added a really pretty set of filters over the premade backgrounds in use, and another set of filters over the characters themselves that gives it a really nice look. I am also using a place-holder textbox while I make a new one, and it's actually very cute! It's a little too dark for my taste, but the design is cute and will definitely be inspiration for the new one to come.
I would also like to add some sort of daily planner/personality stats/love meter/mental health status bar to the game, but I still haven't decided how exactly I would like to implement that. I'm not sure if I want to keep it as a plain ol' visual novel, or step it up to actual dating sim. I am leaning toward the latter as it stands. In the mean time, progress is being made pretty smoothly so far, and I am excited to continue working on it! I would like to open this post by asking for money! yes! The most detested part of development. Here's the breakdown. I've just gotten out of the hospital (and have therefore missed a week of work), I'm moving into a new apartment (where my rent will be much higher than now and therefore my money dedicated to my projects will now be dedicated to, well, living.), and I'm looking into getting a new job. It's starting to get hard to afford to pay my artists, and so progression of each of these games will inevitably come to a halt at this rate. To donate, you can support my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jingleriotgaming Now that that's out of the way: I've begun reworking the Betterflies script. When I first made the original script, it was mostly just me messing around with an idea, but it's finally be refined. I want to make Betterflies more dating sim-esque than simply a visual novel, and that will take some time, but in the meantime here's a look at the character introduction scene! Here is where you first meet Reza, Anto, Vincent, and Magda. I am excited to work more on this game as soon as my artist finishes everyone's sprites! And in other news: I've begun working on Ventio Mortis again! After finally organizing the script well enough to figure out where I left off, I've started scripting the next sequence of events. I can't give away too much just yet, since the part I'm writing now is a bit spoilery, but I will be looking for some Beta testers soon, since my script is now taking on many, many story branches and I will need testers to thoroughly test those branches and make sure any random glitches or broken dialog trees exist. Please leave a comment with your e-mail, or simply go to the contact page and e-mail me directly with the subject "Ventio Beta Testing" if you are interested!
For now, here's a preview of a scene featuring Inan, one of the love interests available to Hollowelle. Inan, Hollowelle, Dharma, and Napoleon's sprites are all done, with Robbie on the way, and Drisdon and the detective still waiting to be finished. We're almost done with the graphical aspect of Ventio Mortis and on to story/scripting being the only thing left. How exciting! A playable demo for Ventio Mortis will be released as soon as I have all the character sprites. Things should be going back to normal fairly soon, since I will no longer be explicitly bed ridden tomorrow evening. I really can't wait to jump back into working on some games in full force these coming days. I've been ironing out details about Sector Chimera. My goal is to really flesh out the plot in a way I hadn't done 5 years ago when the project first became a gaming glimmer in my eye. I've been working on this process with the amazing creative team that's been with me every step of the way since the beginning, and I really think that the world of Chimera and Limbo is finally going to be birthed in the way we always imagined it originally, but with the quality of waiting a few years to really perfect it. As with Ventio Mortis, the main step I am on with that game design is currently scripting. I am waiting still on character portraits from the incredibly skilled drawkill, who has finally been able to take a step back from their busy schedule to work on some portraits again. I am beyond excited to see which character she will be bringing to un-life next. In the mean time, I've been continuing to write up the branches that will lead to each romantic route. It is still every bit as important to me to create something gripping and personalized to the way you choose to interact with the world, as well as lead each player through a set story. While Ventio Mortis is indeed a fraction of the size and scope that Chimera is planned to be, I still want it to be more than just a "here is the route to date so-and-so" type story. With that, however, means it'll take a little longer than anticipated to write the script, since I will have many variables to work with. I hope that the extended times for the game will make its release worth it. However, I do intend to release a demo for Ventio Mortis as soon as all the character portraits are released to me! So keep an eye out in the next month or so for your first playable glimpse at the grim dating sim. As a peace offering for more wordy posts lately, I'll be sharing some very old prototypes for each of the games to show how far we've come since original development of Sector Chimera, more specifically. Enjoy!
Unfortunately any tangible evidence that I am making progress on games will be halted; i.e., no visuals to show anyone for the next couple of days. I've just been released from the hospital after having surgery, and so I am forced to stay in bed while I recover. However! This does mean I'll be able to work much more on scripts and plots for each of the games. So while I might not be able to share much with everyone progression wise, rest assured that I am indeed moving forward with each game. I will be able to actually sit down and focus on my games for the next week since I am being forced to take a couple days off from my day job.
I will, however, try to upload a demo of Ventio Mortis. It'll be VERY beta, and not have the final sprites, but I want to be able to share with everyone the progress I've been making. I will also do the same with Betterflies, which again, is highly beta and does not have the final art, yet. I might also share some dialog from the games along the way, just so everyone can still have updates and previews, but I don't want to give away too much because I feel bad that I can't show visual progression. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see! It probably can't hurt too much to show early in-game dialog, but I'll have to decide for myself what I am willing to share and keep private for now. As soon as I am well enough to walk up and down stairs again, I will be back to the creative process, but it's nice to be bedridden since I tend to slack when it comes to writing dialog. So, secretly, this is a good thing for everyone. Stay frosty, cool cats. P.S., I apologize if there is repetition and rambling in this post, I am not all there at the moment. I've been slowly but surely finishing pixels and their animated idles. It's a lot harder to make interesting idle animations in under 3 frames with limited expressive options than I expected! For instance, Gen, the red head, is supposed to be twirling her hair and I'm not sure if it even translates. Either way, I'm fairly satisfied with her pixel. Some changes I will be working on include fixing Aus's cigarette smoke animation, and fixing Ivan's foot tap animation.
Finally started reworking Sector Chimera. It's being re-built from the ground up. Currently in the works is a character portrait artist, and I am handling most backgrounds myself. Whatever backgrounds I don't make will be supplied from itch.co, namely ansimuz, who made the cityscape background. Currently a lot of place holders are in the actual game content until all of the graphics are updated, so please pay no mind to the garbage GUI. As it stands, Sector Chimera will be a little point and click-esque, with Limbo being your standard 2D RPG experience. I also scripted the characters so that they will be in the city when you can talk to them or as ambiance, and when they want to talk to you they'll have the little speech bubble over them when you hover over them. You'll be able to click on the store, restaurant, and bar as places you can visits, and of course, you can go to your apartment. I am still up in the air about designing all the character's own rooms. As it stands, that won't be happening, but if a scene calls for it, then so be it. My creative team and I have also added a few new romanceable characters, along side the original main cast. There should be about 6 romances, with two ladies, two dudes, and two agender folk, with two of them being a part of the main cast of characters, and, of course, one is slightly forbidden to add that extra oomph that horrible people like myself enjoy in a video game romance.
I'm also hoping to have a very synthwave/cyberpunk feel to this game and its soundtrack especially. Neon lights fit the story and theme so well, it would be a shame not to capitalize on that aesthetic. I'm also hoping to give it a more authentic cyberpunk feeling by having the grimy scavengers as the pinnacle of the game's events. A classic ragtag team vs corporation story.
Since this game is very developmental at this state, I would love to hear what people would want or hope to see in this game! If you have input, or you're excited, or anything else, feel free to leave comments below. In order to take our projects and in development games more seriously, we have relocated to an all-in-one website, where you will be able to easily preview games, download demos, interact with the creators on input toward the creation of the games, and read updates on development.
A quick overview of the progression of each game: |