November 8, 2011

Nanowrimo, Hour Novel ... the fun never ends!

This is a short game I made for Hour Novel, in an hour: http://www.mediafire.com/?jpl8l02ay07wlkg
It is incomplete, but I have an idea as to how I want to write it and end it, so maybe one day, I'll go back and finish writing it? :)

If you can make a visual novel, you should participate too!


Also I am participating in nanowrimo this year. If I'm successful, I'll have a 50k novel by the end of the month. If not, well, I will at least have a 10k novel by the end of this month, since that's how much I have written right now. I think of all the things about nanowrimo, I am most impressed that as a writer I have grown so much that I have the gall to tackle a hard challenge like this. Just last year I thought I was such a horrible writer I couldn't possibly write a novel, but now I have more confidence in my storytelling. NOT that I'm all that wildly proud of what I've written for nanowrimo so far. It's not exactly sharing quality. Heh.

Also I anticipate to draw almost nothing this month because nanowrimo and RO2's beta testing will probably take up all of my free time. oO Any commentaries will be on my youtube, specifically in this playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFCD90B650786E486

See you all December!

September 5, 2011

Writing more story. Pictureless demo(?) game

A little more progress on writing.
I'm trying to make it as little convoluted as possible. OTL

Here is a pictureless "visual novel" featuring the plot so far:

September 1, 2011

Writing and making

    I've gone back to writing on index cards.
Well actually on the backs of old business cards I won't be needing, but it's the same idea.

Using the cards I wrote these past few days I've made a text-only demo: http://www.mediafire.com/?iemniszw6rqlohr
The story reads as being kind of depressing to me, but I think it'll lighten up (be more comical) with drawings.

July 21, 2011

Slowly writing.

I am very slowly writing these days.
I'm also drawing a little bit, now and then.
The weather has been so hot that it is tough to do much of anything.

July 8, 2011

Nothing is going on!

    Here I am writing an update that nothing's really going on (game-wise)!

    These days I've been updating stuff onto Youtube and have been experimenting with a video camera I finally found after six months of unpacking since moving six months ago, in addition to uploading time lapses of drawings I had done in oekaki (basically the animation captures, sped up) or had streamed on livestream.

    This year, instead of holding weekly 1-3 hour long streams where I chat and drew on a Tuesday night I've been drawing an oekaki each week. Which was all in all successful until last week where I ended up missing a week because the server I was drawing on wet down when I tried to post the drawing on a Saturday night: I had waited until the last minute to draw that week's oekaki, and it wasn't exactly drawn the way i had intended, I think.

    But I think I may go back to streaming for a couple hours one day a week eventually because I liked the performance aspect of it. Also I'm hoping to take requests/commissions through the stream, kind of like a business' office hours.

    Anyway, the game...

    I still work on the game on paper almost daily, but it's a lot of writing and starting over and so on. Even though I know the beginning of a story is not the most important thing about making the entire game, and that the perfect opening story may not come to me until I write the rest of the game, I still feel that that is the first part that should be made before the rest of the game's gears are to be dealt with.

    In fact, actually I believe the beginning of any story is as important as the rest of the story, as the beginning of a story sets the mood or level the entire story is in. The beginning of the story is where they story's rules are laid out to the reader so that the reader can make a judgement as to what to expect from a story, and then it's the writer's job to exceed those expectations within the rules set in the beginning of the story. So, in fact, the beginning of a story is very important, because rules are important, because without rules in a story there's nothing for the story to challenge or work around.

    Speaking of stories, lately I've been thinking a lot about drawing a short story comic, like I used to do pre-2006. It used to be that I'd run with the slightest contrived idea and take it all the way to comic production, but these days I just consider an idea, laugh at how contrived and disorderly it is, and then go play games or organize my room (which is an ongoing project that surely will see a completion date) because I'm just not that gullible anymore. I want a good story, not some story I'll pursue for about 20 what pages and then give up on because whatever was motivating me to draw that story is over. Also I fully intend for this story to be a self-contained story with no need for expansion past the pages that are to be planned for it, but for now it's still in the "write down the events that happen in the story in a sequence with bullet points" stage so.. nothing to show here either.

   I've been watching a lot of Korean dramas these days hoping that they would help me write, and while it's helped me a great deal at writing more argumentative dialogues it hasn't helped that much because once I was hooked I had a tough time watching some of them. I finally persuaded myself to stop watching 짝패/The Duo this week because I wanted to watch with someone else, which meant finding subs for it as I had been watching it raw. I only need subs for Chinese dramas these days. Korean, Japanese, and English shows I can watch without any subs, which is convenient for me but also a very lonely because for Korean or Japanese shows without any subs there's very few or no people to talk about the show. Though that is also true for (obscure) English shows too.

    Sure, I want to pump out the game fastquick and benefit from it, but I also have some tough expectations to meet too. Since I like to draw drawings with as few mistakes as possible, the story has to match (=have as few flaws as possible) as does the game aspect of it and so on. I think my goal with the game world is hazy too, since it is a new thing to me. I've been drawing for almost 10 years and I've been playing violin since I was 5, so those things are familiar to me. But as for making games I've only been slightly intrigued by that for a few weeks when RPG maker 95 came out a million years ago and then again, just in the last few years through private (custom) MMORPG servers and visual novels, so it's still a fairly unfamiliar thing for me. I just know some games are awesome and some games are terrible, but I've yet to understand all of why some games are some way.

    In any event, these are a lot of weak sissy excuses, and I'd still like to make a game. I just have to make sense of the chaos that I call a "game idea".

April 9, 2011

Drawing of Wendy laying down

This year I've been trying to draw something every week.
Although it's been a rough beginning of the year 
with moving and an extremely cold winter temperature, 
I've been able to keep my word so far.

 Although sometimes
I have a tough time thinking up of what to draw.

April 8, 2011

Helena Plays Badminton


I saw a bunch of kids playing badminton and wondered
how the characters would handle light sports.

Helena is always calm and in control.

Recettear: FIN

早くもゲームを終えてしまった!
 :V gosh... so short lived.
I don't think I'll be playing the unlocked modes any time soon.
I spent a lot of (way too much) time playing this game... ugh.

April 3, 2011

Recettear

...so for the past 5 days I have been

It's.. It's market research, ok?!

Actually, this game really makes me want to play RO.
I made a very good merchant on that game (buying out cheap merchants then turning around to resell that item at slightly under the market price but still maintaining a profit margin)

I'm only on day 6 of the game, but so far I like what I've seen.
It's not a game I would plan on making, but it is still fun.

March 18, 2011

Long Time No Update

    I had once read in a very well written game-making blog that planning to make the game, brainstorming for the game, even drawing pictures for the game, is not making the damn game. I actually do spend a good bit of time planning to make the game, but when it boils down to the results I have to show for all the work I put in.. there's no work to be shown.

゜Д ゜Huh??!? But how could this be? 
How could I fill up 2 notebooks full of game-related text and pictures and still not get a game?

    Well, duh, because I don't actually make the game. I think about the game, and plan on making the game, but come each Friday, which is the day I've set aside 2-3 hours to work on the game... I don't work on the game. あれれ (・_・)

    It isn't that I don't want to make the game, or that I don't know what to do with the game. I've planned it and planned on planning it and planned on planning on planning it, so everything I need for the game is basically there -- the materials to make it, that is. I just don't have something... probably motivation, or resolve, to actually make the game.

    When it comes to drawing or even painting, the longest I usually have to work is about 2 weeks.. From the beginning I know exactly what I want at the end of my work, and I do everything I can to execute my idea and vision. But for game making, it's trickier, because I can't get that clear view of the entire project, because never at any point can you actually see all the work that is put into one game: It's just not possible. but if I focus too much on one point about the game, such as backgrounds, or characters, or writing, it's easy to lose focus as to what the final result is supposed to be like, and if the effort I'm putting into a certain aspect of the game is adequate or not.

... then again, all this ranting is again, not part of making the damn game but planning to make the damn game, so.... yes, I guess I have work to do tonight.

March 7, 2011

Pink Maid Becky

I'm trying to make a habit out of drawing request characters each Tuesday.

Each Tuesday, the drawing is streamed here:  http://www.livestream.com/skims
Below is a time-lapse of last week's stream.




February 22, 2011

Dark haired male & SD Sarah



A new freebie sprite for Novelty users.
This sprite can be downloaded here:
http://www.visualnovelty.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&p=4581#p4581

Also:

Soon to be wandering around a desktop near you.

February 15, 2011

Freebie Sprite - Pregnat Peggy

This character can be downloaded to be used in Novelty here:

Please excuse the lack of updates as of these past few weeks. I've been pretty busy moving & getting used to (fixing) the new place, but the hope is that by March I'll be ready to rock and roll once again :)

But for now I'm sticking to making an effort to work on something game-related for a few hours per week, such as producing characters -- any character: one character each week. I think I may eventually start taking requests for characters, as I am bound to run out of (good) ideas.

January 17, 2011

Game(s) will resume development in February

as the title states.
I'm busy moving this month and won't have time to make progress in any games.
Oh, but before I had begun to move, I came to realize that allowing one of the main characters to fall asleep almost right away is a pretty bad idea (=will make for a plot that's pretty hard to continue.)