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!

A thread with info about it is here: http://www.visualnovelty.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1091

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Freebie Sprite - Pregnat Peggy

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

http://www.visualnovelty.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=696&p=4432#p4432

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.

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.)

Three Day Block

Ahhhhhh what is an indie gamer to do??

I have finally started to draw the next two sprites I need for the side-game.

It was supposed to only take 5 hours but it ended up taking 3 days, because I bought a new hard drive and reinstalled a new OS and blah blah blah.

(Also, every time I went to go draw it, I would end up chatting on IRC or playing a computer game instead. Whoops.)

But finally, I am getting started:

You gotta do what you gotta do.

And they are done!

OH YES, and in the game!

Looking all right.
I was worried about black-hoodie's hands,
but it doesn't look so weird since it's covered up by the text box.

Slacking off

Whew.. It must be the weather or something, but I'm all out of it these days.

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!

Game's Development Timeline

Tonight I think I'll talk about key things that have happened since the game's creation, year by year.

Late 2007: 

• Decided that a game is something I want to try making.
• Taking core classes for my university major. 
• MMOs (I was still into playing/modifying/translating MMOs back then.)

 2008: 

• Lots of throwing around ideas and characters and settings to find a good combination.
• Lots of playing around with how high quality or low quality the visuals can be. (characters and backgrounds)
• Lots of playing all different types of games and reading lots of different types of stories.
• Playing around with all kinds of game making programs.
• Taking more core courses for my university major and interning. 
• Translating & MMOs

2009:

• Moving & Finding a job (most of my summer, fall, and winter was spent on this)
• Working & dealing with work. (No one ever tells you how tired a new job will make you, even if it's not physically demanding.)
• Working 2 jobs (I remember doing nothing but working and sleeping for most of the week back then).
• JLPT1 cert (for a job that didn't pan out in the end :|)

2010: 

• Lots of traveling around & working 2 jobs. (I quit one in the spring)
• Now I'm finally used to my job. Time to find some way to spend my free time!

...and here we are today. :)

This was supposed to be a short project, but due to a lot of things it's been extended and has also become quite elaborate. Not that I mind, however.

While I'm making a casual post, I think I will also pimp a game I like:
 

It's a very cute game about a bear.