Phoenix [BxB] [Soulmates, Romance, Sci-Fi]

[audrenes]

Recently, society has taken a great interest on the concept of “soulmates”.
It has been researched for decades, but only has taken great tides in recent years regarding public interest. Before, it was just a concept played around with– an idea only found in romance novels or in daydreams. However, names have been appearing on people’s bodies once they turn eighteen. Because of this, there has been massive pursuits made by people in order for them to find their “soulmate”.
Miles is one of them.
But.
He doesn’t have a name on him.
After a long journey, he takes a break in a small, peaceful town. Despite the blandness of it, the residents still gather around restaurants and cafes, attempting to find their pair. Miles stops by one of these establishments one day, not expecting to find the very person he had been looking a long time for.

--

TyranoBuilder | Development Est 12/10/15 | Mainly BxB, also contains GxG and BxG
Progress Updates every Saturday/Sunday.
TEMPORARY HIATUS AS OF 2/21/16 - UPDATES MAY OCCUR, BUT IRREGULARLY

--


Warnings.
-Very mild sexual themes (probably only one scene, and it won't even be that much)

-Character death

--
The Growing Society of Soulmates.
While the VN focuses on the developing relationship of the two protagonists, the society revolving around soulmates will be told alongside it. Here, the concept of soulmates has only recently gained traction to the public eye (~early 2000s) since names have been appearing on people's bodies. In reality, research on the idea has been experimented with in the early 50s. In its earlier stages, it had been rejected by most scientists, as they found the idea ridiculous since existing research back then revolved around case studies. It mostly came to a halt since then, but has been picked up in the mid-90s, and has grown exponentially by 2005.

As mentioned in the summary, cafes and restaurants have gotten highly popular, since it's an ideal place to socialize and meet new people. Previous establishments who didn't call out people's names for their orders before have begun to do so. Even though the common age for a name to appear on someone's body is eighteen, there have been some reports of names appearing on people's bodies in their mid 20s and early 30s. Additionally, only 3% of those reports have been falsified.


Info.
I've always been a fan of the Soulmate AUs that can be found in fanfiction. I'm on tumblr a lot, so I happened to see some posts wanting more depth into a society where a soulmate system exists. I got really interested in the topic, and I wanted to create a game where its setting is just discovering the concept. It was mainly to avoid rewriting the entirety of human history, and limiting my range to 60-200 years instead of 2000+.

My overall goal in this project is to of course, complete it. However, I also want to successfully try out my world building and character development skills, two factors that I highly value in a story.

This is my first time committing to a visual novel project. I've looked over my plans for the story and I understand that development will take a while, especially since I plan to work on it mostly on my own. I plan to look for beta-readers/players later on, but once I've completed the script.

Progress & Development.

As of
02/07/16

Words
26060
{00: 161 | 01: 10623 | 02: 10807 | 03: 4469}
(individual word count subject to change)
Character Sprites | CGs | Backgrounds
Currently not in development.

From my initial post on this VN on my dev. blog (with some minor changes):

I started jotting down ideas and working on the timeline on 12/10/15. I've made amendments to some bits of the plot, and currently it takes around 25 pages in my notebook.

On 12/11/15, I completed the timeline, making the groundwork for the plot more or less complete. However, I’m still figuring out how to place certain events in the game. I also began writing the script that day, completing the intro. I also put the script for the intro in the game, just to get the feel of it.

I don't really know how to translate my progress in terms of percentage but so far I'm at 11708 words (as of 12/25/15), and still at the beginning. I hope to make this visual novel pretty lengthy, especially with how much of the characters' and the world's backstory I want to reveal by bits and pieces. Right now, I'm thinking there will be around six parts to the story, and I'm only on the second part.

EDIT (01/16/16): There are six major parts to the story, but I've decided that each bit will be split up by chapters.

Currently, there are 6 choices, but there will be more.Since Noah, the protagonists' love interest has no memory of him, there will be two factors that will determine the ending the player will get: Affection and Memory.

There are 4 endings planned: 2 Bad Endings, 1 Bad Ending, 1 Neutral Ending, 1 Good Ending, 1 True End.

In terms of characters, I've worked on character sketches for most of the cast. Currently, I've gotten most of their designs down, but I may have one or two more batches of extra characters in the future.

Characters.
**Please click on each image for more information on the characters**
**These are not the final designs for their sprites. Everything will be in color and some of the poses will change.**

Production.
-Everything from writing the script; art for the sprites, CGs, and backgrounds; and scripting it into a VN will be done by me.
-Music from incompetech will be used as well as SFX from freesound.
-I will ask for beta-readers/testers in the future.
-Anything not done by me will be credited at the end of the game.
-If there is enough interest in the game to have an original soundtrack, I'll use kickstarter for the funds.
- -> I've been toying with this idea for weeks now... if there are enough funds, I will hire a musician to create an OST for the game. But, that's something to be really thought about later. I would like to focus on completing the script first, before anything else.
-As much as I would love to release the game for free, I am putting a lot of work into this, so I may price it as $10-$15. However, there will be a demo available.
-Completed game will be available at itch.io

Risks & Challenges.
-This is my first time working on a VN
-As stated, most of the production will be done by me
-I haven't written fiction in a while, so I may be rusty, but the words have been flowing pretty well lately!
-Development will take a long time. Even though I'd like to think that I've done pretty good progress these past two weeks, it's mainly because I'm currently on break. I have AP classes to pay attention to and a portfolio to pull together for both the AP exam and my college applications.
-I may get stuck on some aspects of writing, or won't have time to work on it on certain points because of my classes.
-Despite this, I feel pretty confident on this project! I'm really invested into completing it and excited for people to read my work.
-I hope to finish this by the end of Summer 2016 so I can include it in my college application(s) lol.

Notes.
-This is my first time writing a Muslim character. I would really appreciate it if you have any tips on how to write her properly!
-I plan to move this topic to the WIP forum once I feel I'm half-way through the script or have started drawing for the VN.
-I'm not the best when it comes to explaining things academically or scientifically, so I would like to apologize in advance if I do so. Additionally, I would also appreciate it if there's anything major to know when talking about genetics.
-Since I'm not the best at the point said above, I may try to avoid having to write that way by having Miles summarize a paper to the reader. Especially since I want to avoid information dumping on the reader.
-Also, is there anything about customer service that I should know about? Most of the characters either work in a cafe or in an inn. As mentioned in the character bios, Alex and Ian have worked odd jobs in the past. If you have any information on this that I should know, please tell me about them or your experiences! I plan for this to be immersive and somewhat relatable to any reader, so it would be really helpful to know.
-I will update this topic whenever I do something major like finish a part. Minor things like character sketches or CG ideas will be in my my development blog.
-I've also decided that this topic will be updated every week on either Saturday or Sunday. If I did post some character sketches or CG ideas, it will be mentioned in that week's log. If I complete something major during the week, I'll make a post on that day.

Questions.
-What do you think of the story?
-What do you think of the characters?
-Is there anything you would like to see in both the story?
-Is there anything you would like to see about this particular soulmate system?

Goals.
-50k+ words (maybe even 100k... *q*...)
-120-150k words
-An immersive story rich with plot
-Consistent backstory
-Side plots that won't overshadow the main one
-Choices that do affect the endgame
-Updates on my progress every week. (Mainly to motivate myself to work on it a little bit each week...)
-Hopefully I'll be able to complete it by the end of Summer 2016. If not, the end of Summer 2017.
-An original soundtrack and 4-5 songs maybe.
-A demo with what I have without kickstarter funds.
-A kickstarter when I've completed most of the development I can do myself.
* All demos will only go up to chapter 1 or halfway through chapter 2.

Closing Note.
I look forward in the development and eventual completion of this VN! Thank you for your support and for looking at this thread.

Progress Log.
(follow my development blog for more updates!)
(click the links on the dates for the full overview of the update in the forum)
12/10/15: Development started with notes of the world and the outline of the plot.
12/11/15: Major groundwork of the plot completed. Script writing has begun! Completed intro and started writing the first part.
12/20/15: Released first batch of characters.
12/22/15: Released second batch of characters.
12/23/15: First part has been completed! Writing the second part has begun.
12/24/15: Released third batch of characters.
12/28/15: Added ~1k+ to Part 2, Completed Concept Art #1
01/01/16: Currently at 5079 words for Part 2 and at 15600 words in total with 8 choices.
01/10/16: Currently at 6376 words for Part 2.
01/16/16: Completed Chapter 2! It finished with a total of 10807 words. There are currently 21591 words in total. Writing for Chapter 3 has begun.
01/24/16: Chapter 3 currently has 2337 words. The total world count is now 23928 words and 18 choices. Goals have been changed and updated. Percentage for writing is now available (16%). Endings have slightly changed. I'm thinking about creating a patreon.
02/07/16: Chapter 3 currently has 4469 words. The total word count is now 26060 words with 20 choices.

[lilliesandcoffee]

Oh my goodness, this is so fleshed out and great. I'm completely intrigued by the plot already and I love, love, love the art. And on your note on writing a Muslim character, my only suggestion is to make sure to treat her religion with respect. Avoid usual pitfalls of stereotyping Muslim characters and flesh her out as you would any other character. To me, a Muslim, the best service you can do to a Muslim character is to have them be as human as any other character.

But otherwise, if she's religious: then make note that she has to pray five times a day, will often make a reference to Allah (i.e. "If Allah permits...", "Astagfirullah", etc.) and other religious stuff.

[audrenes]

Oh my goodness, this is so fleshed out and great. I'm completely intrigued by the plot already and I love, love, love the art. And on your note on writing a Muslim character, my only suggestion is to make sure to treat her religion with respect. Avoid usual pitfalls of stereotyping Muslim characters and flesh her out as you would any other character. To me, a Muslim, the best service you can do to a Muslim character is to have them be as human as any other character.

But otherwise, if she's religious: then make note that she has to pray five times a day, will often make a reference to Allah (i.e. "If Allah permits...", "Astagfirullah", etc.) and other religious stuff.

That's what I wanted to go for, but I'm not familiar with how the Islamic faith works ^^" I want her to be religious, but in her own way. Kind of like how some Catholics believe in their own faith, but have a critical viewpoint of it since it clashes with their more modern beliefs. I'll look up more on Islamic practices when I can, but this is a good place to start off from. Her religion is only a little part of her, but it's still a part of her, y'know?

Thank you for your help and interest!

[runeraccoon]

[edited]

[audrenes]

I'm a Muslim girl who wears hijab IRL, and I'd like to think that I can offer personal experience and objective samples from people around me. (Quite close to your sprite too, maybe?)

Feel free to ask specific stuffs if you want to know more about it~

Thanks for your help and your interest!

[audrenes]

Update 12/28/15
- WIP ver.
- Still working on Part 2
-> Added ~1k words to it, currently rewriting some bits to make it work better.
- Like I mentioned in the WIP link, I had some trouble on Part 2, but I got through it and wanted to take a break anyway from writing.
- I've been having trouble deciding on how the cover should look like.
-> This was one of my options.
-> I liked the way it turned out, but I don't plan on using it as the actual cover.
- I plan to have Miles (and possibly Noah) with a ton of birds.
-> For that, I need to do more bird studies, or at least the specific type of birds I want to draw them with.
- I should note that while the phoenix is the main symbol that represents the theme of the VN, I like to model its design after other types of birds that represent Miles and Noah respectively.
-> While I'm at it, I wanna mention that I'm a huge sucker for slipping in a ton of symbolism in my art.
-> This one is no exception lol
-> Any symbolism I slip in are just hints on Miles and Noah's background story, so I won't explain them to avoid spoiling it.
-> But please feel free to interpret them as you like! Some of them may be obvious, some of them may not.
->Either way, I would love to see what your interpretation of them may be ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

[audrenes]

Happy New Year!
+ Some more updates while I’m at it!

- Part 2 is currently at 5079 words, and I’m still not half way through with it lol
- The total word count so far 15600 exactly
- There are currently 8 choices
- I want to do some more planning to straighten out my ideas, but I’m gonna continue writing until I run out of ideas. Hopefully by the time I catch up to my notes, I would have thought of something by then.
- I'll be going back to school from break on Monday (1/4/16) so I may have slower updates, especially since I need to start studying for my exams in May, but I hope to continue writing the script!

Anyway, thank you for your support, and I hope to make this year a very productive one!

[audrenes]

Update 1/10/16

- Unfortunately, I was only able to lock in around 1k during this week. School has really slowed me down on my writing…
- But! I was able to get out of the rut I was in. Writing has gone back to normal, flow wise. I just need to make time to write on top of my studying.
- Even so, I have to put school first. Progress will be slow, but I hope to give an update every week just to keep myself on my toes.
- Also, I’ve been thinking about changing Ian’s design a little. Changes are subtle, but I may stick to this design.
- I’m still thinking about how I should go about the sprites, backgrounds, and CGs. I have two different art styles and this one is faster to do, but I like the look of the other one better.
-> I thought about using this one for sprites and the other one for CGs, but I’m worried that the styles will differ just enough to conflict with each other.

[audrenes]

Update 1/16/16

- I finished Part 2!
- -> There’s a total of 10807 words.
- -> There are 12 choices in this part.
- The total of 21591 words so far!
- -> Total of 15 choices
- I’ve decided that the parts will act more as chapters now. I thought that I would be able to sandwich certain parts of the plot into huge chunks, but this method feels less intimidating to do lol.
- Each chapter should be at least 10k.
- -> Looking at my progress so far, I am really happy to say that I’m confident I’ll make my 50k goal.
- -> I may even make 100k…. *q*
- Even though I’ve completed Chapter 2, I’m contemplating whether I should leave a certain line in there or not.
- -> I want to be able to give the reader the ability to figure out Miles’ backstory, but I’m not sure if it’s too much or not…
- -> While there could be multiple reasons for it, I’m still worried since I don’t want to just slip it in last minute, but I don’t want to ruin it right away, either…
-> I've also thought about adding a fifth end! I'm still toying with the idea, though. But by next week, I should be able to figure out if I want to add it in or not.

[audrenes]

Update 1/24/16

- I did some sketches over the week!
- -> Mostly Noah and Miles, plus a few new characters
- -> I drew some sketches of Pax, two new characters, and sprite ideas for Ian and Cassie.
- -> Noah, Deliah, and a character from the first link.
- -> More info on each sketch in the links!
- I’ve noticed that I keep on drawing stuff that’s not gonna happen until way later in the story oops
- Also that I keep on drawing Noah in pretty angsty situations.
- I’ve thought about making some of the images be animated (like this one)
- -> Actually, this image may be a CG event!
- -> Waaaay later into the story, though haha
- I’ve written 2337 words for chapter 3 so far
- I wanted to write up to 5k before making this update, but I wanted to sort my ideas out
- -> It took me about two hours to lay out the major stuff I wanted to put in.
- -> Organizing my ideas for the chapters felt pretty quick compared to how much time I spent on figuring out the endings.
- But, after sorting my thoughts out, I ended up with 12 chapters, with the 12th chapter having 4 variations, depending on the ending the player gets.
- -> The four variations are: Bad End, Neutral End, Good End, True End.
- -> Requirements for each endings have been made, the results of the choices, and the results of the endings.

- Because of there being 12 chapters and four variations of the final one, I estimate there to be 120,000-150,000 words.
- -> Since I’m at 23928 words and 18 choices, I think I’m around 16-20% of the story line.
- -> Looking at my plans, I feel like I’m more 16% into it rather than 20%, so I may be looking at around 150,000 words in the end.
- Either way, I’m really glad I’m at a point where I can determine percentages, at least with the story lines!
- Almost forgot to say that I am seriously considering to commission some musicians/composers to create an OST and/or songs for each ending as well as the main theme.
- -> If you are musician and are interested, please PM me your prices. If not, please recommend me any musicians you know of!
- -> I don’t quite know how to describe what I want in a way that would make sense just yet.
- -> All that I know right now is that the tracks will probably titled with archaic or rare words lol
- Also! I’m looking for some beta readers! I’m thinking about 2-3 should be good.
- -> Again, please either let me know if you’re interested or if you have anyone you recommend.
- I want to pay anyone involved in this project properly, however I do not have the money for that yet.
- ->I’ll create a kickstarter later on when I’ve finished both the story and the art so that I can at least pull together a demo for you all.
- ->The demo will most likely be up to the end of Chapter 1, will use royalty free music, and be un-beta read.
- ->After I receive funding, I plan for there be an updated version. Maybe for there to be some of the commission music and a beta read version of the writing.
- I’m also thinking about creating a patreon. I’m only a high school student, so most of the money I’ll get from there will either go to development for this project or for personal purchases. However, I may not actually go for it as quickly as I hoped…
- pffft and I took two picturesof me writing when it was late earlier this week haha

As always, thank you for your support, and I look forward to giving you more updates!

[audrenes]

Update (?) 1/31/16

Hello! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get much done this week -___-

- In short, it was really hectic…
- ->I had a lot of stuff due.
- ->Also, I joined a team as their manager, so that’s a thing.
-On Monday, I tried my hand at putting the script into the engine.
- ->It did not end well…
- ->I had problems with formatting the UI.
- ->Also on how the text was supposed to be presented.
- ->In short, I got a headache from it…
-I was trying to do it to pull together a possible demo, but while going though what I had, I found that the way I’ve been writing so far doesn’t translate as well in VN format.
- ->Like, if I write it as a novel would be, it’s fine, but somehow line by line, it didn’t read as well as I thought it would. A lot of it sounded repetitive and I got upset at myself.
- ->Unfortunately, so upset that I wasn’t able to touch the file all week because I got afraid that I wouldn’t write as well as I thought.
- ->I know what I need to write but I got really discouraged…
-I opened up the file yesterday to finally write something. Usually, I get a lot done over the weekend.
- ->Like I said, I know what I need to write, but nothing came along.
- I have a lot of stuff to do this week, too, but I have Friday off.
- Maybe I’ll find time to write this week…
- I’m still continuing the project though! I had a really rough week, school wise and feeling (?) wise. But I just need some time to pull myself back together.

Anyway, thank you for your support, and I hope to make up for it next week!

[Ghost of Crux]

This is seriously interesting, the way you're fleshing out the world, and I can't wait to see it finished! o v o
The sketches look gorgeous, and the story looks like a pretty interesting twist to the usual soulmate stories. The fact that it's just coming into light recently is definitely something that I want to see delved into, and WHY it only came to light recently is something I hope to see talked about/explained in the game. Definitely keeping my eyes on this one!

As for the Muslim character-- it really depends on what kind of person she is, which is kinda duh, but yeah xD
For one, the fact that she wears hijab in a presumably non Muslim-majority country indicate that she's at least rather religious (A lot of my friends seem to take off their hijab when they move to the west or when they grew up, because they wore it because their parents insisted), though what kind of "religious" can vary. Depending on how she grew up, she might be used to saying Arabic phrases like "Astaghfirullah" and the likes, but there are people who don't really use it either. She probably will pray five times a day, and she will most likely excuse herself during then. Basically, the Islamic prayer involves "washing" certain parts of your body (it's more like... wiping it, to be honest) and then finding a clean place to pray in the direction of Mecca. The first prayer happens at dawn, and she'll probably wake up crazy early every day. There are, however, non-compulsory prayers that happen throughout the day, so if she's that religious...

But of course there are other parts into faith, and if you have more ideas of what kind of religious she is, I might be able to help.

It WOULD be kind of funny if she meets "her name" and constantly would just refuse being touched while looking stern, though--

I hope you're feeling better now, by the way. I'm glad to know you're continuing the project, but do take care of yourself. Translating a novel into a VN script is seriously a lot more work than anyone might imagine, and if it helps, I'm facing the same problem. But your writing is most likely not as bad as you feel it is, and if you feel like it's repetitive, it might just be time to either cut that line out or you should describe other things. Just because your FIRST DRAFT that is in an ENTIRE DIFFERENT FORMAT feels bad doesn't mean your writing is, it just means that the two formats are different.

That said, best of luck to you <33

[audrenes]

This is seriously interesting, the way you're fleshing out the world, and I can't wait to see it finished! o v o
The sketches look gorgeous, and the story looks like a pretty interesting twist to the usual soulmate stories. The fact that it's just coming into light recently is definitely something that I want to see delved into, and WHY it only came to light recently is something I hope to see talked about/explained in the game. Definitely keeping my eyes on this one!

As for the Muslim character-- it really depends on what kind of person she is, which is kinda duh, but yeah xD
For one, the fact that she wears hijab in a presumably non Muslim-majority country indicate that she's at least rather religious (A lot of my friends seem to take off their hijab when they move to the west or when they grew up, because they wore it because their parents insisted), though what kind of "religious" can vary. Depending on how she grew up, she might be used to saying Arabic phrases like "Astaghfirullah" and the likes, but there are people who don't really use it either. She probably will pray five times a day, and she will most likely excuse herself during then. Basically, the Islamic prayer involves "washing" certain parts of your body (it's more like... wiping it, to be honest) and then finding a clean place to pray in the direction of Mecca. The first prayer happens at dawn, and she'll probably wake up crazy early every day. There are, however, non-compulsory prayers that happen throughout the day, so if she's that religious...

But of course there are other parts into faith, and if you have more ideas of what kind of religious she is, I might be able to help.

It WOULD be kind of funny if she meets "her name" and constantly would just refuse being touched while looking stern, though--

I hope you're feeling better now, by the way. I'm glad to know you're continuing the project, but do take care of yourself. Translating a novel into a VN script is seriously a lot more work than anyone might imagine, and if it helps, I'm facing the same problem. But your writing is most likely not as bad as you feel it is, and if you feel like it's repetitive, it might just be time to either cut that line out or you should describe other things. Just because your FIRST DRAFT that is in an ENTIRE DIFFERENT FORMAT feels bad doesn't mean your writing is, it just means that the two formats are different.

That said, best of luck to you <33

I'm feeling a little better now, but school has kept me busy. I still want to write in a good amount of words for this week, so I'll do my best.

Thank you for your support and also for your help!

[audrenes]

Update 2/7/16

- I was able to write more this time! I locked in 2132 words for chapter 3, totaling up to 4469 for the chapter and 26060 for the entire story so far.
- -> I feel like I’m halfway through the chapter at this point!
-I did some doodles today!
- -> They included Ian, Alex, Hayley, and Marcus.
- I also drew Rohan today.
- -> He will be appearing by the end of chapter 3.
- Finally, I wanted to ask some questions! Might be late for some of them, but hey, better late than never, am I right:
- -> What do you think of the story?
- -> What do you think of the characters?
- -> Is there anything you would like to see in both the story?
- -> Is there anything you would like to see about this particular soulmate system?

As always, thank you for your support!

[audrenes]

Update 2/15/16

Eugh… I’m very sorry to say that I’m pretty sure I have writer’s block right now. I know what I want to write, so it’s been pretty frustrating to not be able to write it. Plus, school is starting to get more rough with how much we’re nearing to exam day. I want to try writing often so I don’t lose momentum, but it’s hard when ideas get clogged and the words don’t flow out as well.

More than anything, I'm just kinda frustrated at how much stuff I haven't gotten done. Like all my plans are right there to be written but nothing seems to fit well or I just don't have it in me to write. I thought about stepping back from it for a week. Maybe work on other things to take my mind off and let it sit. Let the words take time to come out. I don't wanna force it out, but at the same time I don't want to lose focus of it, because that's happened to me many times before. It really scares me, because I really want to complete this. But I guess if I really do, then I should just keep that in mind and actually do it.

I still don't feel right going without an update for a week, so this is just here as a notice. It's a day late, but I really tried to get some words in yesterday. It ended up with me falling asleep, though, so here I am a day later.

Really hoping for the best next week!