Like a phoenix, I rise from the ashes.......... of lazy depression and working a day job. Wooooo. Bad news first: While I promised to finish Ventio Mortis before the end of the year, I am ashamed to admit that it's been a struggle. I completely intend to finish it and get it out there one of these days, but for now, we can all just assume it's reached the "development hell" stage. From this point on, there will be no more empty promises or release dates/quarters. If there are updates, I will be sure to post them asap. Until then, I simply apologize, and hope to at least one day finish it and release it to the world. That being said! I'm happy to announce that I am back to work on Sector Chimera, and progress is going quite well. I've begun chiseling out the first world's side quests, finalizing the main quest content, and have implemented a new "battle system" akin to simon says. The "combat" might change in the future, but for now it's safe to assume this will be it's final form. I've also started to finish all the background art for the "N" zone, which I'm already tired of, but it'll be so sweet when it's done.......... Finally having the first chapter of the game ironed out is exciting. It's a moment I never thought would come. I was afraid I'd be constantly trying to rewrite things, redraw things, but now I've finally managed to reach a level of comfort in my work, and confidence in my abilities, to actually know when enough editing is enough.
I know I've been m.i.a. lately, and it's been hard for me, as well. I've been trying to decide if I should put this 'game dev' stuff behind me and focus on my sales career, and I've since decided that this is what I love. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Period. Even if it's never going to be a paying career, this is what drives me to wake up in the morning. I missed having the sense of accomplishment that one gets from creating content and art. I hope it shows through, and I hope, truly, to finish something that I will be proud to share with all of you. That being said, I of course still have to focus on my job, regardless, but I promise myself that I will continue working toward my singular goal -- the goal that has always driven me -- making a goddamn game. Thank you all for bearing with me. This has been an interesting journey in my 6~ years of development, and this last 2 years has been the hardest by far with reality crashing down around me at every turn. Conversely, this has been two of the most rewarding years, as well. Since I've posted my content online, I've been surprised to see that people are genuinely interested in my art, my characters, my visions. So, I won't give up. I can't give up, because I made the mistake of posting my work online, and now people expect results! And I thank each and every one of you who comments on my itch.io, tumblr, facebook, ect., because without your support, I would have given up for good.
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Hello! Apologies for the lack of updates, recently. Nothing visual is going on in the development stages, and so there isn't much to say other than that we are making progress! Currently, we are attempting to turn Sector Chimera into a low-poly 3D game, but it's a little out of reach and just a pipe dream. That being said, we will be refocusing on Sector Chimera in the coming week, and especially on the kickstarter promotion. To kick things off this month, we're releasing a promotional background for download! We may also release versions for each of the romances, but for now we're giving you Hollowelle herself. Happy Hallodays.
Just an update to let everyone know I am alive and that Ventio Mortis is nearly finished, if I could just muster up enough self-discipline to stay focused. I'm on the last large chunk of dialog and portrait script editing (if you don't know what scripting portraits means, it's just that I am placing the appropriate graphic/emotion along side the dialog), and it is gruelingly boring. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy coding the GUI and doing graphic design for the other games, but I've been doing well and staying focused on Ventio Mortis to get this demo released ASAP. Unfortunately, that means nothing graphical to show for all the progress, but I assure you this boring text only update will be worth it when the demo is released! I should be finishing the portrait scripting either late tonight, or tomorrow night, which means I can send out a big ol' buggy demo to my playtesters, and of course, eventually release the demo to the public. As well as releasing the demo, I will FINALLY be posting this project to LemmaSoft to attempt to gain interest, and hopefully start crowd funding to get better CGS, backgrounds, custom music, and afford my last bundle of sprites. I am excited to be in this final stage of the first step toward development, and I can't wait to finally put this lil' buddy out into the world. Thank you for your patience and have a good night!
The very long, tedious, and mostly boring process of adding all the portraits to the game is underway, and should be done within the week for Ventio Mortis. What does this mean for all of you? It means a playable demo of the first chapter is on its way now that I received the final character portrait needed to release the demo!! Once all the portraits and animations are in place, I'll be sending the game out to testers to fix bugs, and then be releasing the demo into the world in a week to two weeks time. In the meantime, if anyone would like to play test the demo before release to help find bugs, please fill out the form below and you will hear back from me with information on how to be a part of the playtest! If you're just excited to play the demo, hang on tight. It'll be released after the portraits are finished being put in place, and the bugs are finished being stomped out as best they can be. Here's a little preview of the boring work being done in the background. If Ventio Mortis isn't your cup of tea, then hold on tightly because Sector Chimera is moving along just as well! I'm trying to get all the sprite work done before working on the game itself, but I did manage to begin working on the arcade, finished some portraits, and made a new sprite for the character Kit. Unfortunately, a great deal of the content I finished cannot be seen yet, since it's very spoiler-y for the end game, so here's what I can show! Some finished character sprites, most you've already seen. The Arcade, nearly finished. And the first boss world, original art credited to edermunizz
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. 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. |