Wacom!

Hey. I got a new wacom!

new wacom!

I also got a selfie-stick, but that'll have to be a whole different blog post :P

My drawing tablet came with 3 months of adobe CC which is amazing. I'm loving having full photoshop as opposed to just elements. I'll certainly consider a monthly subscription when my trial expires if the price is alright.

I'll do a post soon about adding extra audio channels in ren'py. For now I'll just link to the new post on lemmasoft forums for my NaNoRenO game! - http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=31060

NaNoRenO 2015 - Early Development

So, my main project is on pause for this month, just because I really wanted to take part in NaNoRenO!

My game is called New Pisces and it's definitely interactive fiction - I wouldn't call it a visual novel, but it's a short story with audio and visual aspects!

It's now day 3 of nano (it is a month long game jam more here: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30252 ) and so far I've been working on a bit of everything.

The concept is just about done (I still have a bit of thinking to do about one of the routes), I've made a few BGs, I haven't planned to make any character sprites (I shouldn't need any for my story) - so that's a big weight off my shoulders! and I've finished the programming and most of the music! Well that will change when I get to testing I'm sure.

I'm taking on pretty much all of the work solo, I'm hoping to convince a few friends to create some assets and do playtesting though. The whole game will be in the 10-30 min range I believe, so the scope isn't too large.

First attempt at writing the code in ren'py

I've had a few small hurdles to overcome so far. Parsing the script failed! And my audio production software has just crashed on me!

But I've got a currently working, albeit sparse, version of the game.

Minimal design - set to change!

Of course there will be more snags to come ( some of which probably due to my unconventional screen resolution for the game - 720x720 :S )

More errors!

One thing I've certainly learned so far, don't try to put a % inside a string of dialogue unless you escape it out (I just opted for the word percent - which also works!)

OK. Back to the audio assets.

Commissioning assets, game inspirations and NaNoRenO!

I'm dropping the whole Day XX from the posts, because math should only be done when absolutely necessary!

I've been sent some great audio assets (sound FX) from my good friend Urban Fox ( http://urbanfoxuk.com ) - I'm certainly going to use them in the game! I've never formally commissioned any assets for a project, and I still haven't (I have just pestered friends for freebies!), but I am thinking about commissioning art, music, and maybe even other things on future projects. I've started a deviantart account and am keeping an eye out for artists who do commissions, at least I'll have a small pool to approach in the future if I do want to go down this route!

Progress has been pretty slow lately (still doing drawings and plotting mostly), I've had a lot of paid work on, so that's been keeping me busy. It's always good to get paid from time to time!

I thought it would be fun to mention a few of the inspirations for my pizza game.

1. Sean Lock joke about a world with no herbs (from Sean Lock Live I believe) - I think about this from time to time, what would a world without herbs be like. You can substitute herbs for anything really and it's still interesting to think about.

2. Silver Spoon episode 4 ( http://www.crunchyroll.com/silver-spoon/episode-4-hachiken-bakes-pizza-641945 ) - A great anime episode about pizza and friendship that really struck me when I watched it

3. Anamanaguchi - Endless Fantasy music video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fdr-Fiv92c ) - This, although very different to the episode of Silver Spoon, made me think of the same themes of pizza and friendship!

And of course real life, that's a big inspiration too!

Finally, NaNoRenO, the month-long game jam for visual novels ( http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30252 ) starts at the start of March. Last March I hadn't ever used Ren'Py. Around that time last year I was playing D&D and for one of my campaigns I made a small RPG element which could be played online - it was just a bit of javascript. Then it was around June that I had a go with Ren'Py and made an unfinished game (which I might talk about in a future post). I'm planning on giving nanoreno a go this year, which if I get something finished (or finished enough!) by the end of March that will be my first finished game!
Well I made a game about 12 years ago when I was at school, but that was only 'released' on the school LAN!

I've still got a few weeks to come up with a concept for this other game, I'm planning on doing it 100% myself, so it'll have to be VERY short.

Day 53 - Progress report - Trying not to get too sidetracked

The progress over the last 10 days has been very similar to previously, in that I've been mostly doing art with a little story development also.

I've been thinking quite a bit about how slow my progress has been compared to my expectations. I thought that because the game has a fairly short and linear story that would mean I could complete the whole project within a couple of months doing everything myself. It's been pretty much 2 months now and I've got a bit of a story, a collection of art and music assets (a lot of which might not fit into the game) and about 4 seconds of game coded in.

I don't feel disappointed, if anything the realisation has given me added passion to stop meandering and get some of the bulk of the actual game down. Once I've done that I'll have plenty of tasks in terms of sprite-creating, split-testing audio, etc. to get on with, which will be more worthwhile than mindlessly editing files that could very well not even make it into the game.

I've just been enjoying doing the art so much, I think especially as it's new to me, I'm learning lots about drawing and digital editing. I think it's a good idea to learn as much as possible when you are in that sort of highly receptive state - where you are thirsty for more knowledge. So it's a balance between derailing my new found passion for art or derailing my game project. Only neither need to get derailed if I can use my time as effectively as possible.

This has been a strange blog post. Right, back to the code!
:)

Day 43 - Backgrounds and some handy photoshop shortcuts

Little progress report:
I've finished the first part of my script. Which is just the first draft and will need some editing in time.
But mostly I've been working on art still! I've got about 5 characters designed and have had a go at initial sprites too. Also getting through the backgrounds a bit, maybe done 25% of backgrounds at this point.

Story: 25%
Sprites: 5%
Backgrounds: 25%
Music: 10%
Coding: 2%

Put like that I guess I still have a long way to go!

Background made from a photo I took last summer

When I'm a better artist I'd love to draw some backgrounds. But for this project I'll be using edited photos.

Handy photoshop shortcuts I've learned in the last few days:

CTRL+U : brings up the hue/saturation settings (yay!)
CTRL+L : brings up the levels settings
I : changes tool to eyedropper
B: changes tool to brush
E: changes tool to eraser

These aren't exactly hidden away, but for some reason I hadn't used them until a few days ago after watching some helpful youtube videos. I would usually link to the helpful videos, but I can't remember which videos they were! So instead I'll link to this channel which has some cool process videos about working digitally: https://www.youtube.com/user/EzDRAWZ/videos

Day 33 - Character designs for game. Colour palette tip.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been mostly focusing on improving my drawing abilities and coming up with character designs. I feel spending time on these areas is worth delaying any actual game coding or story writing, but I'll have to switch back from art mode to game mode at some point or I'll be drawing forever.

Glitchmode Esme

A little tip I picked up (I think from Mark Crilley - www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley) to come up with a colour palette is to take a photo with some interesting colours in and use photoshop to simplify this into a few dozen colours.

Photoshop colour palette from photo

I did play a little with the saturation first (under Enhance > Adjust Colour > Adjust Hue/Saturation) and then applied the Crystallize filter (under Filter > Pixelate > Crystallize).

Day 23 - Progress report

A quick update before christmas - and yes I'll be doing a weekly blog rather than daily now I think.

I've been working on asset creation over the last week, I've got a textbox and some effects done, as well as a character design and even a sprite!

Character sprite

I'm a little undecided whether I'll use a pixelated version or a cleaner one, I think I'll decide when I'm testing later down the line.

I will do a blog on my process from sketch to sprite once I have a process!