Various programs

    Hello Everyone!

    It may have seemed like I may had went off to play SC2 night and day again, but it's not true! I have done some things this past week + one day. 

Checked out a bunch of software:

All this checking out other software feels like reinventing the wheel, it was interesting to see the working environment of the games created in these environments.

Live Maker: http://www.livemaker.net/

It is the most popular choice these days 

in the Japanese scene for creating a visual novel.

It is pretty easy to use. Even a dunderhead such as myself

was able to make some stuff appear on the screen in a mere 15 minutes 

by following the (pretty explanatory but in Japanese) tutorials.

Yep, here be graphics and text.

I didn't resize anything, so things are kind of floating and cut off.

(but easily fixable in your favorite image editing software)

The left side is a graphic organizer for the game.
The blue box is one of the nodes from the visual organized being edited.
On the bottom left you can see the program can also update itself.

I like the idea of a visual organizer,
but unfortunately it's unable to display text in any way other than full width.
Ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｒｅａｓｏｎ，　Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ　ｌｏｏｋｓ　ｒｅａｌｌｙ　ｗｅｉｒｄ　ｉｎ　ＬｉｖｅＭａｋｅｒ．
It also cannot display any graphics other than it's own GaleGraphics format.
(PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMP can be converted into .GAL
using a second program included in the distribution of LiveMaker)

CatSystem2: http://cs2.suki.jp/

It looks promising, but I'm still in the process
of reading the (rather extensive) manual.

Lanovee: http://lanovee.e-frontier.co.jp/

Looks promising, right??

    Lanovee's special feature is that it offers a TTS (text to speech) engine called "moe voice system", which will read the lines said by a female character to the gamer so that the game maker doesn't need to recruit voice actors to voice act the script..

Yes, kind of like Hatsune Miku.

o_o hey, wait a second, I'm pretty sure I had the same idea several years ago of using TTS instead of voice actors. I was probably not the first one to think of it, but it's nice to see a vnovel maker that uses TTS.

I downloaded the demo and tried it out, but the demo was failing to work left and right (I think it was a locality issue, so hopefully it can be fixed), and it did not match what was shown in the tutorial video.

Oh yeah, and it's 9800 yen retail. (That's about $100USD)

Comic Maker: http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~mix/comicmaker.htm

 

The "Visual Novel Making for Dummies" program of Japan.

Indeed the interface is (probably too) simple, 

 

but it's also tough to figure out how to do some basic things, 

such as displaying text in the actual text box

instead of somewhere at the top left.

 (believe it or not, it took almost 2 hours to get this far. OTL)

LemoNovel: http://www.le-mo.jp/lemo/products/LemoNovel/

This is probably the easiest visual novel tool out there.

The scripting language is unbelievably simple,

and it accepts all sorts of graphics and sound formats, 

...except PNGs :( it doesn't support alpha channel graphics.

The downside (or upside?) is that the resulting published game is a flash game.

Novelty: http://visualnovelty.com/

Been checking this software out for years.

I don't think I really need to write anymore about this software, 

since it is in English and you can check it out yourself ;)

Adventure Game Studio: http://www.bigbluecup.com/

 Since all visual novels are adventure games,
I thought I would check out the adventure game scene.
While I love the games produced using AGS,
I'm not totally convinced this is what I'm looking for.
Pro: It was super easy to make a walking character and to make an image map. Also the community was the most friendliest, funnniest, and helpful bunch I have ever met on the internet.
Con: No non-alphabet character support. 漢字は禁物。

November production schedule and more plot brainstorming:

The plot is like a gigantic tangled ball of yarn, and storytelling is untangling that mess.

    I didn't want to say anything until I had something concrete (=playable game) to show, but there is a plan right now to get something out by mid November. That is, assuming I don't move any time soon. I've been anticipating to move since August, so it's a little tough to settle down and begin to work on something. Hopefully I'll move soon so that I can settle down and really focus. At this rate, I might have to unpack a few things that I've already packed up in anticipation of moving. Oh, how I miss my watercolors!

Free Sprites and other goodie goodies.

A list of free sprites since 2007.
To use as you please (edit, modify, recolor, re-clothe, etc)

Teacher at a podium. Four emotions.

http://www.mediafire.com/?q57tbq6yy3vn1sc

Ayame (four emotions)

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?98mkz3z8ofvezs4

Ayame's Sister. Two emotions.

http://www.mediafire.com/?grsctgs135czwr5

Wendy. Eight distinct Emotions.

 http://www.mediafire.com/?cgcgm4r9bvslmwv

Peter. Five emotions.

http://www.mediafire.com/?95s3hr4ypjn1xuf

Fiona, 7 (or 8?) emotions.
She needs a little cleaning up around the head
to be used in dark settings.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bra3xs6ne8qaoaz

Margaret. 12 emotions, 2 poses.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bqhtf3nnww61wtw

Judy, Jewel version. Two poses.

This is my favorite version of Judy to date.

http://www.mediafire.com/?aupuvt31lf2lzhy

Felicia, 2 poses.

http://www.mediafire.com/?308l39mscogu8wb

There's no emotions for these guys, but they are cute.

http://www.mediafire.com/?734n2qmmtweay7a

The sky in the morning, mid-noon, sunset, and night time.
http://www.mediafire.com/?ocf5mi5a8ia1brl

Ye old game demo (less than 5 minutes of gameplay):

Windows: http://www.mediafire.com/?30ahike66mp53fi
Mac: http://www.mediafire.com/?uns34ibwvlloi3w
Linux: http://www.mediafire.com/?8h2xjllrglfjyu4

And last but not least, a game to recommend:

http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/1000-W0RDS-126831037
A facinating visual presentation.


Future freebies to be categorized under the Label "freebies"
http://trueheartprojects.blogspot.com/search/label/freebies

Playing with Novelty using Felicia's Route

Tap tap tap novelty.
Sometimes I listen to two playlists at once. Each one plays to one ear...
You'd think it would drive a person crazy, but I find it to be pretty exhilarating.

Tonight I'm testing out the conversion stage my game making plan, which goes something like this:

1. Outline (plan) entire plot.

2. Convert plot outline to in-game.

3. Write story (script) based on plot.

3. Create graphics as needed in script.

4. Seduce composer to compose/give music.

I used to vaguely try to follow this order or production:

1. Generate drawings & illustrating for key points of plot

2. write script so that the series of events are not awkward/well explained

3. Profit?

but well, you can see the obvious fallacy there in that it's too vague and not really considerate of the story, which should be central to an Adventure Game.


But even with the new, more sane order of production, since I haven't tried following that process of production before, I don't know what things I should be doing or avoiding in order to avoid trouble in the next step. Since I'm drawing a blank with writing and drawing tonight, I thought I would try converting a branch that is already done to see how well or poorly it converts.

The page names are boggling my mind (since they're all names entirely comprised of numbers, such as 01321, 0132212.. etc) but I don't think it's anything I can't get used to, although I've gotta admit searching for the freemind bubble that corresponds with 0132213212 can be pretty confusing.

I think the solution to this is to have sub-chapters within normal chapters so that freemind bubbles with pages that are named 0132121, 0132122, 0132211, 0132212 can all be categorized under one folder called 0132, and then those pages could be renamed to something shorter like 121, 122, 211, 212, but if there's another node named 121, 122, 211, or 212, that could cause a lot of problems when it comes to branching and linking stories later on.
 
In any event, I can get used to using all these numbers. Maybe in a week or two 0132 will automatically make me think "Oh yeah, that's Fifi's path".



This reminds me of a thought I had years ago: I wish PowerPoint was a viable VN medium, because it pretty much has everything I want out of a VN creation program. The only thing it obviously lacks is actual game-like functionality, such as the ability to save and load progress. Bummer!