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Chocopyro
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#1 Post by Chocopyro »

This thread is obsolete. Thank you. ~Chocopyro, 7-02-16
Last edited by Chocopyro on Tue Jul 05, 2016 8:16 pm, edited 75 times in total.
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Chocopyro
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Re: Keepsake of autumn (BxG/Comedy/Romance/Supernatural/Scho

#2 Post by Chocopyro »

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Generic Questions:
(See the post below for weekly polls and idea pitches. Till then, here are the generic ones.)

A: General Thoughts on the characters so far?

B: General thought on the plot premise so far?

C: General thought on the artwork so far?

Week 1 Polls and questions:

1: Which character would you like to see featured in an expanded profile first?
▄│0: Kai
│1: Sayuri
▄│0: Hanako
▄│0: Kirie
▄│0: Hoshiko
▄│0: Sylvia

2: (Idea) In-character interviews?
So rather than JUST an expanded profile, I thought it would also be fun to do an fan interview sort of thing where the character in spotlight has to answer fan submitted questions. Feel free to start sending questions in for each of the listed characters. I will accumulate them and store them until a character is featured for the week. Eventually, once I get an idea for voice talents, I might use these interviews as a feature in the Extras menu. What does everyone think of this?

3: What else would you like to see featured in a weekly article?
▄│0: The setting (Specific locales)
▄│0: The spirit lore (Specific spirits, urban legends, or phenomenon in the area?)
▄│0: Other: (Suggestion box)
Last edited by Chocopyro on Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:49 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: Keepsake (BxG/Comedy/Romance/Supernatural/School)

#3 Post by sasquatchii »

Oh my gosh, this looks wonderful! Is this going to be a commercial game?

1. Definitely Sayuri ~ she's so cute! And I can relate to being a scaredy-cat sometimes. (Although her world seems legitimately scary!)

2. It seems like there is a wide range of personalities, which should make for a fun & interesting story!

3. It reminds me of Natsume's Book of Friends, an anime where a young boy in highschool has the power to see spirits, some of whom he helps, and others who he fights. It is an awesome anime & I would highly recommend it if you are looking for inspiration or just want to watch a good anime!

I'm also really excited to see how the spirits will look, as all the rest of the art is lovely.

4: The artwork is gorgeous! I'm looking forward to seeing the rest.

I'm curious as to how far along you guys are with progress? A lot of people will state their progress in these threads as percentages for things like coding, script, art, etc.
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Re: Keepsake (BxG/Comedy/Romance/Supernatural/School)

#4 Post by gekiganwing »

Chocopyro wrote:The aim of Keepsake is to reach out to many in the english Otaku crowd who may have always wanted to play visual novels, but couldn't find out where to get them in english, and give them a game at par with the level of quality expected in a modern japanese title. Hopefully in terms of the quality and art style of the game as well as the story which is more focused on an eastern method of story telling rather than a western narrative. (Okay, so I've actually just gone and explained what a lot of games on the Lemmasoft forums were aiming to create, and I acknowledge this. I'm not claiming to be the only one in the spotlight. We need each other to grow more interest and awareness of visual novels in the west, and not just one game could do this. :lol: )
Create the story you want to create. It should not matter when or where it occurs. Also, I'd advice against imitating a general category or aesthetic. It *might* lead to your finished work being called an imitation. It's never easy to say what fiction is considered too similar to other published works, and what stories are considered unusual and inventive. Trends change all the time. What's hip today is square tomorrow.

A challenge: see if you can create your own signature style. Consider writing down things you like, and opinions/interests that you could fit into a story. This is probably going to be difficult. However, you might benefit by doing this, and your work might stand out more.
Chocopyro wrote: 4: General thought on the artwork so far?
I kind of like it, but it seems more shiny than necessary. (That's a vague term. Sorry.) Will the story benefit from having photorealistic art, or images that are more suited to horror or hard science fiction? Probably not. However, I think that a slightly darker color palette might be a good choice. Also, I noticed the characters' detailed outfits. They are impressive. However, consider what you could do to make their faces slightly more detailed and realistic.

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Re: Keepsake (BxG/Comedy/Romance/Supernatural/School)

#5 Post by Holland »

gekiganwing wrote: However, consider what you could do to make their faces slightly more detailed and realistic.
I second this. All the female characters have the same exact faces, just with different eye colors. It would be nice to see them with more distinct designs.

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Re: Keepsake (BxG/Comedy/Romance/Supernatural/School)

#6 Post by Chocopyro »

sasquatchii wrote:-snip-
It will be Commercial, but you can expect some free side stories, spin-offs, and alternate universes to seep out into the world before we get close to release. Part of the reason is because there are a lot of stories that I want to tell with these characters, but clearly not all of which fit with the central theme for the main game. (For example, I have this idea I idea for a genre mashup, where the female heroines are all magical girls fighting demons, and the male characters are all sentai heroes fighting aliens, and eventually they begin to find themselves fighting overlapping threats from the other "Genre" if you will, whom they aren't equipped to deal with.) The second reason is the sprites I'm using for Sayuri (The only character to have a sprite set so far) aren't cleared for commercial release by the artist, and it would be a shame to just label them as "Makeshift."

I have actually not watched Natsume's book of Friends. But I will certainly check into it for inspiration. There is another anime called Mokke which follows a similar theme. Two sisters, the older of which is sensitive to spirits, and the younger is easily possessed by them. I'm not sure how much inspiration from that made it into the general feel I decided on the story for this, but the general "Slice of life with a touch of paranormal" did inspire the original idea for Keepsake's story.

Progress: I actually didn't include the percentages because truth be told, I'm not at the state where I know exactly every asset I'm going to be using quite yet. I need to finish a rather thorough outline first. And currently, the game's outline is going through a third revision. A complete overhaul if you will. I plan on getting that done before the end of this month however, since I have an idea of where I want to head with each character/story branch.

As far as artwork goes, It's mostly conceptual right now. I mean if you look closely, there is a distinct style difference between Sylvia and the rest of the girls. (A tighter, sharper, slightly more of an aggressive style with out as much gleam, which is actually the direction I want to head) The best part is, that may be our official artist, as he's expressed quite a bit of interest in the project.

The designer of our male characters will also be recycled into another project once she finishes with the male designs.

As far as sound, coding, music, and BG art is concerned, we don't really have anything to show for it yet. Infact, the only thing I've touched the editor for is testing GUI and Sprite sizes so far. I do have a coder in mind though, so once I get to scripting, I'll likely rope him into the project, or have an idea of what I need for music.
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Re: Keepsake (BxG/Comedy/Romance/Supernatural/School)

#7 Post by Chocopyro »

gekiganwing wrote:Create the story you want to create. It should not matter when or where it occurs. Also, I'd advice against imitating a general category or aesthetic. It *might* lead to your finished work being called an imitation. It's never easy to say what fiction is considered too similar to other published works, and what stories are considered unusual and inventive. Trends change all the time. What's hip today is square tomorrow.

A challenge: see if you can create your own signature style. Consider writing down things you like, and opinions/interests that you could fit into a story. This is probably going to be difficult. However, you might benefit by doing this, and your work might stand out more.
This certainly is sound advice, and I agree quite strongly. I've had a similar mantra, but strangely it probably took me in the exact opposite direction. Even though the context of that paragraph does kinda make it sound like I'm trying to hop onto a bandwagon and sell myself out for money, I actually found myself here at a rather strange epiphany. In the end, trying NOT to fit into any sort of meme, genre, or cliche what was getting in the way of the story I wanted to tell, if that makes sense. (It probably doesn't. :lol: )

I actually chose this direction because it compliments my signature creative style quite well. Imitation isn't really what I'm going for. Rather, I would call it "embracing something that I found out works for me". Thus I guess you could say narrowed my target audience a bit. Part of knowing how to tell a story is knowing who you want to tell it too.

This may kinda sound like I'm making excuses or trying to defend myself, but what else could I say? Self discovery takes all kinds of weird directions.
gekiganwing wrote:I kind of like it, but it seems more shiny than necessary. (That's a vague term. Sorry.) Will the story benefit from having photorealistic art, or images that are more suited to horror or hard science fiction? Probably not. However, I think that a slightly darker color palette might be a good choice. Also, I noticed the characters' detailed outfits. They are impressive. However, consider what you could do to make their faces slightly more detailed and realistic.
Noted. :wink:
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Re: Keepsake (BxG / A Supernatural Romantic Comedy)

#8 Post by Chocopyro »

Alright, time for a progress report. We are still in action. Our title screen has been uploaded (First post), I'm done with the main story structure and the individual themes of each route, and my time has freed up. The project may be renamed here pretty soon. And lastly, I will be working on a one-shot chapter as a bit of a teaser pretty soon. Think of it like an OVA which isn't quite going to be canon, but works as an introduction more or less. I should be active once more, and I will get to the content mentioned in the "Polls and Extras" post when I get more feedback.

Title Screen Credits:
Artist - KahoOkashii
GUI/Logo - Shouji Amasawa
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