A novel idea?

Okay, it's been a long time without posts, and there is a valid reason for that. And it's not vacation this time. What it is is a lack of progress. Because the way I was trying to make the Visual Novel system was a backwards and counterproductive method. I'm about to try a new method, and in the meantime have done new artwork for the new system. I made this change because the novel system as it stood forced you to reread everything every single time. Not being a fan of forcing that on people, I needed a skip button, and for those who click too fast, but actually are paying attention, a rewind button. I have a concept image up to show off the goal, though this is not rendered ingame, just assembled in gimp.

The button artwork is showing off what the buttons will look like in clicked, neutral, and highlighted states, respectively. Normally they'll all be in neutral, with the mouse highlighted, and you're all smarter than I'm behaving like, so lets talk about something else.

 The new system will be more bloated and inefficient from a technical perspective, and will therefore take more work, but it will be more player friendly. In fact, as player-friendly as I can do without ripping some Renpy code and sticking it in the game. Which I don't want to do. Eventually, as in, later installments, I intend my system to be as versatile as renpy, but I'm still learning as I go.

Anyway, I'll be working more on the new system, and as I get it fixed, you'll have more art.

Finally back to work again!

I'm back! Don't have much to show, I apologize most profusely. .||, Gomen Nasai!! I blame it on the release of Dark Souls for the PC. And a hard drive format. However. I did spend time working on the visual novel system today. It has some bugs in both resolutions, but it's finally going where I want it, and behaving properly. I temporarily switched to Super Deformed art, but I'll re-impliment correct proportions once I finish the system. I have ideas of where to put it too. Only one Screen right now, possibly more tonight. Next week will be a good work week.

Night Art...

My schedule was unintentionally switched to days. Against my will, I doth protest! However, unlike certain drawers of humanoid cats, I still want something to show rather than lampshading it indefinitely without actually adding anything... so I add these arts of Aki... the word just looked like what she was saying, wasn't drawn with that in mind, but others confirmed it's verbation, so I added it to the picture.
Anyway, hope to be on schedule soon.

Still here, been working on a new character, as well as working on my webcomic, Criticism. New character, Aki, here, not as friendly as Meat, but much more jovial. Confusing way of wording it. I know. She was inspired by Langley Soryu Asuka from Shin Seiki Evangelion, so before anyone starts criticising me as expying her, yeah, I did, but with the intention of deconstructing the same character in a different way. And her past isn't nearly as troubled. At this point in the story, most of the characters are fairly stable. This will be no NGE. But I hope it'll be good anyway.

Novel System nearing done!

Just a few functions left in the VN system, I have to get the sprites to change properly, and add a skip function. Maybe a rollback or auto function as well. I think I will before I call it good. Anyway, Windowed and Fullscreen versions (images respectively) of the intro sequence are finally behaving after monkying with script for awhile. Yeah, I coulda probably looked that up somewhere, but I wanted to figure it out on my own.

Comparison

 Previous shot, old style.

Current shot, new style.

Quick checkup, which would you rather I do, or would you rather I take the time to add the option for both?

At last, the Alpha is rudimentary playable. I'll call the alpha finished when I finish the suit's animations and the menu, then I'll start work on the beta. I'm hoping to send the beta to a few distribution sites for playtesting.
So current plan:




Alpha: Menu, Animations, Novel System, music system.

Beta: Mission and 2, Standalone Executable, Difficulties, and upgrades. Some music.
Final: All missions and remaining enemies, character select. Remaining music.

Incidentally, comments and critique are welcome.

Visually Novellizing

As per the original concept, I've been working on the visual novel aspect today, learning scripting in GM8 as I go. Currently, I have a rudimentary intro. Have a bit of work on sprite polishing to do, but here,

A scene from the intro conceptualized in GIMP 2.0:

The Same scene rendered ingame. As you can see, I have some touchups to do, but I know where to go:

 Anyway, I'll keep ya posted.

Been working on sprites, hit some hitchups in the bullet effects, probably get them sorted out fairly quickly. Alpha build is making good progress. The title screen has rudimentary implementation.

TITLEPIC

Started work on the alpha build, comprising of the most basic functionality. In the meantime I also made a titlescreen which is the current temporary background for the blog. I'll make it availible over on deviantART, so please don't steal it yet. (Or anything else for that matter...) I'll release all the resources free eventually, please treat them like my property until then. I don't exactly have a company to compensate my losses at this point.

http://the-drake-raider.deviantart.com/ There be my account.

Meat in school uniform. Kinda generic, I know, but I have yet to come up with anything about the school aside from the class colours.

For those that missed...

From the original devblog of this game:

"First! Cookie!

But seriously, this is mostly to remind me of the official online starting date of the Skyborn/ Strafe Suit Project. I will aim for a long series, possibly 16-18 main games. The main installments will be story-based shoot 'em ups. The prices of the games hopefully will remain cheap and stable throughout. If I get carried away, you can point to this post to whip me into shape. Thank you.

In the event someone stumbles across this blog before I start sharing the links and/or posting artwork, I am currently sketching sprites. The first installment will developed on Game Maker for a $2.00 price range, around five stages, three main characters, a boss for every stage, and numerous other features. Probably will not have multiplayer support at this point, though it is a goal for later installments. Any gaiden games, in particular, will be targeted competitively.

Let the addiction begin!"

It didn't get very far...

Renew

'Kay.

My scanner finally here, which means full work underway. I have scans of the first character, and have been working on his sprites. Look MUCH better this time.

Samples so far...