Tag: oelvn

Blue Rose status and thanks!

Blue Rose status and thanks!

It’s obvious that I’m not the best at keeping people updated through this blog! But here is a post to assure everyone that Blue Rose is still on track.

I’ve received some really good feedback from those who got the beta so far, thank you very much! The current game is being updated with the bugs and typos you have found, as well as other hiccups here and there. Along with that the last few features are being added. The final release should happen in April.

For those in doubt, the final release will of course be available for free for those who bought the beta. There are also still two characters in the game that have not yet been introduced on this blog – they will make an appearance soon.

Blue Rose Characters – Simon

Blue Rose Characters – Simon

Next character introduction is for Simon:

Simon is a Templar of the Blue Rose, just like Lena. They have worked together for almost two years now, and Lena sees him as an important mentor to her.

Simon takes his position very seriously, and has a great sense of responsibility for those under his command. He is also very calm and collected, and usually has his temper under control. Usually.

Simon’s route was hard to write. So many things are going on under his calm exterior, and the other routes have him say and do things as a result of this, which could be hard to explain. That, and he usually has to draw the short end of the stick.

Don’t worry Simon, you’ll get your chance! Some day…

We’re not related! Honest!

We’re not related! Honest!

So today I was doing some work on the visual side of the map in Blue Rose, resulting in this test screen:

Click for larger image

That’s when I realised, while looking at all the character icons together on that map, that three of the four male characters have almost the same hair colour. Well actually Aran has several colours in his hair (the guy in the top left), but you can’t really see it on his icon, and most of it is silver anyway. Then there is Gavin who is white-haired, and Simon with a very light blue.

Only poor Tobias breaks the combo with BLACK hair. (And Erin, but being a girl and all already makes her a bit unique in this bunch.)

Huh. I seriously never thought about this before, even after working on this game for so long now.

Blue Rose update

Blue Rose update

Time to post an update on Blue Rose! The script is nearing its end, and I am nearing my limit… *_*

I have been writing on this story for a little over a year now, most intently the past couple of months, and it has now grown past 105.000 words which means the end result will be more than twice as long as Angelic Orbs. Of course this one also has 5 “capture-able” characters which increases the volume of story by quite a bit.

The first pieces of real, finished art have also started to trickle in! (Mostly because I’m not making it, hah.)

I got a real talented BG artist on the team, and he has made some pretty promising things so far. I’m looking forward to when the parts of script already inserted into renpy will evolve to more than just a black screen with text. I want to show it off… but I should probably wait… <_<;

Character lineart (which I am doing) has also begun taking shape now, you saw a short glimpse of Simon’s sprite in the last blog post. I have some ideas of how to use art in this game that I hope I can pull off.

Hmm making interesting blog posts about a game is hard when art is one of the last things to be produced – no shiny pictures to post…

So… all I really need to get sorted is music. (I’ll be looking for a colourist soon too, but that I’m not as worried about at the moment.)

There is no end to this! OTL

A little late, but…

A little late, but…

Everyone else is doing it! ™

So here is a few words on my 2009. Well, the one related to my creative endeavours at least.

2009 saw my first release of a visual novel, Angelic Orbs: Broken Memories. It had taken me two years to make, and it was finally time to get it out of the door. In the end I couldn’t do all I wanted with it, but this seems to be a general problem to vn creators, and I’m still pretty happy with the result. Hopefully I can pull myself together and release the version with fixed english some time in the near future.

I also had a second release out, the small short story My Eternal Rival, which was featured as a part of the Cute, Light and Fluffy project. MER was very short and non-serious, and most of it was written on small pieces of paper while at work. But I still got very attached to the project, and I don’t regret taking part in it at all.

And so came to tough decision of what to work on next. I had a few ideas on hand that I was very interested in doing, and even started one of them. But in the end something (I’m not even sure what) changed my mind, and production began on the script for a new game set in the same general universe. An otome game. Something I thought I’d never make. But I’m taking up the challenge, and will hopefully succeed in making something interesting for girls to play, without it sinking completely into useless fluff. But that is for this year. Back to 2009.

Apart from the two mentioned VN’s I didn’t manage to much else of my own out there. My comic is still lying dormant although I constantly wish to return to it, but life has been too busy for me to work both on my game projects, the several new commissions that I received this year, and the comic at the same time. Hopefully I will be able to get something done on that soon.

That’s right, there is something else that I had released. The very first TCG cards with my illustrations on them.

All in all I think I came a long way this year when looking back at these achievements, along with my amazing 2-month long stay in Wales. But enough talking about me!

As Hime mentioned, there has also been a lot going on when it comes to translations of Japanese visual novels. Most of it something that the majority of VN fans thought would never happen, like Higurashi getting an official release in english, Jast partnering up with Nitro+ and visual novels released on the iPhone/iTouch.

But you probably already knew that.

So here’s to a great 2010! (Hopefully)

Chaarge!

Chaarge!

I finally got myself a light table! I’ve been wanting one for years and years, and finally it was possible thanks to my awesome boss.

This is great. I’ll be able to do a lot of snazzy stuff now that I’ve wanted to do… and it inspires me to try it out and get some real work done on the art side of Blue Rose.

Apart from that I have reached the point in the script where Lena and co. are going on their Great Mission in the mountains. I spent some of my time at work today making small map sketches with arrows, planning how the battle is going to be handled.

Mmmm maps with arrows…

Hopefully I’ll be able to write the action scenes properly.

Numbers

Numbers

Work on Blue Rose is slowly progressing. As with Angelic Orbs I’m mainly focusing on the script at this stage – only a few design sketches here and there are made on the art front, and I try to ignore the future programming problems that will inevitably come up.

And I have come quite a way with the script already. Because of the (annoying) event system that I am going to use in this project, it is mostly written in a program that lets me branch out the story as I write. Other portions of the story are scattered word documents, mails(!) and paper notes. But exporting what I have in my wiki program lets me count up to 16673 words written so far. Of course some of these are notes and jump directions, so the real number is a bit lower than that.

But yes, these events are proving quite a pain to organize. I don’t have any trouble keeping track of where the story is going so far, but organizing my scripts and making them connect the way they’re supposed to is a pain. The more linear branching of Angelic Orbs was a lot easier to control…

I’m also lying about the coding – I actually did code part of the system already. I think I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but the map is working! Hurrah! Unfortunately there is a lot left to be coded in order to make the game’s system work. Those are the parts that I am ignoring so far. First things first…

As for the sketch above, yes that is another picture-in-progress of Lena, protagonist of Blue Rose. You’d think that seeing the faces of the main guys in an otome game would be better, but I don’t have any sketches of them that I want to show off yet. And getting Lena to appear the way I want her is hard enough.

My Eternal Rival – oh so Cute and Fluffy

My Eternal Rival – oh so Cute and Fluffy

rival

The “Cute, Light and Fluffy Project” has finally been released!! You can find it:

Here (LemmaSoft Forums)
or:
Here (RenAi Archives)

4 short stories are collected in this OELVN anthology. One of them is my own “My Eternal Rival”. I really hope you’ll check out these stories and enjoy the results!

“My Eternal Rival” is about the black witch Luna and her desperate attempt to get even with her rival, the red witch Lera. A story of rivalry, servitude and frog cakes.

On another note, I’m finally updating my blogroll. It was about time, too many were missing there (and a few links had even died).

What next….

What next….

My first visual novel was finally released a few days back. A lot of things could have been done better, but in general I’m happy about the result.

Shortly the “Cute, light and Fluffy” VN project will hopefully be released as well, where I have contributed with a short story.

But apart from these things, what is up next?

For one thing I would like to return to updating my webcomic, but I have just been commissioned to do art for yet another game, and also have a lot of other loose ends to take care of. So unfortunately it seems like AO will have to wait a little bit longer.

But I’m already preparing for my next game project after Broken Memories as well. A couple of ideas have been circling in my head, but recent discussions on a certain forum have made me decide on a final story that I will start working on.

Yes, my next visual novel is going to be an otome game. In spite of me once saying that I would probably never make one that wasn’t BxG!
I have a story that I’m happy about, and have begun writing a few drafts. Other than that, there isn’t much I can say about this project yet. It’s still in its planning stages, and it will take a long time before it gets finished (Broken Memories took me 2 years after all).

Alright, time to get back to work!

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