Lemma Soft Forums

You know, I found this thread interesting enough to plunk down $13 for a PDF of the rules. (More when I'm done reading them.)

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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming" - Theodore Roosevelt

My viral marketing campaign continues apace...

I am not affiliated with TAO games. I just love Bliss Stage.

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She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

I'm tempted to do the same thing. Depends on what my bank account looks like.

As for the VN, I'm definitely intrigued. Looking forward to seeing it.

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"The world weighs on my shoulders, but what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy, but I worry about you
I know it makes no difference to what you're going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg, and I worry about you."
-Rush, "Distant Early Warning"

Something that came up in the thread on how to program this sucker.



For the purposes of this VN:

• Alien mecha physically exist: thier power systems are hybrids of dream and IRL tech that turn dreamstuff into electrical energy.
• ANIMa do not physically exist. They are invisible and ethereal to real physical structures, but solid to the dream.
• For this reason, alien physical weapons are ineffective against ANIMa.
• Alien dream-based weapon arrays are empathic weapons. They manipulate the links between thier target and people they know, dredging up hidden stresses they've sublimated. They don't cause stress, but they aggravate it, often to intolerable levels.
• ANIMa weapons catastrophically overload the dreamstuff generators with explosive results.

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She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

Now that TS is in second beta, I'm refocusing on BS:VN, and will get around to coding and drawing for it. If someone could give me a tutorial on the Card Game Engine (which I'll use for a drag-and-drop combat interface) and on how to make Alice dolls, I would appreciate it a great deal; I'm not quite adept enough with Photoshop (yet) to easily switch clothing around.

As for the music, well, I just posted a thread in the art subforum of the development center forums on a contest I'm running. The winner gets comissioned to compose the music of Transformation Sequence. This involves them getting paid monies. Lots of monies.

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

Crossposted at the contest thread.

All of these songs can be found @ My Project Playlist account under the name of Bliss Authority. You may have better luck finding them in my Final Act playlist then in the BIG list, to be precise.

The opening theme song will be Rebellion (Lies) - The Arcade Fire. ...Unremixed. One look at the lyrics tells you why -


Image song for the main character, Josh Preston: Winterborn (This Sacrifice) - The Cruxshadows.
Lyrics that caught my eye: Cast out regret, that in this debt, a better world is made - that children of a new tomorrow may remember, and avoid our fate. ~Prepare for battle!~
Why: Joshua is commited to the war effort, and scarred less by his mother Blissing Out than by his surviving father and Commander, Jim Preston, being so cold and distant to him. He up to the beginning of the game bit his tongue about it, though - because no cost is too great if it means that no one else has to go through what he did. Also, it sounds BADASS.
Suggestions: A techno or metal remix for battle scenes, as well as a sadder, more hymnal version for Interludes.

Image song for the innocent moe love interest, Sara Smith: Simple And Clean - Kingdom Hearts OST.
Lyrics that caught my eye: Hold me! Whatever happens past this morning, is a little later on! Regardless, of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all! Nothing's like before!
Why: To the supremely innocent Sara, being a Pilot is the equivalent of being a magical girl / Sailor Moon type - frightening monsters, desperate battle, ultimate fear; but she is also literally pushing back the nightmare with the power of love. She may be frightened, but but she "knows" with all the conviction of a first lover that, if she falls far enough in love with someone who deserves and returns it, that the resistance WILL win.
Suggestions: Slow piano or violin.

Image song for your romantic and professional rival, Keenan Caine: Karma Chameleon - Culture Club.
Lyrics that caught my eye: I'm a man without conviction, I'm a man who doesn't know, how to sell a contradiction. You come and go, you come and go... Karma-karma-karma-karma chameleon! You come and go, you come and go... Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dream; red, gold and green - red, gold and green...
Why: First off, because the Keenan in original creator Ben Lehman's head is a tall, handsome black dude, and since I'm respecting his wishes in my character designs I may as well have Southern stylin's in his image song.
More to the point, this is a man who isn't sure if he's capable of feeling love - while he thinks that practically every female in the resistance is made of pure hot, and has tried to sleep with all of them (and is working on Sara), he cannot bring himself to trust any of them with his fears. Which is yet ANOTHER fear of his, of course.
Suggestions: Jazz, blues, or zydeco remix.

Image song for certified Tsundere and veteran pilot Anna Lin: Death - White Lies
Lyrics that caught my eye: ...So frightened of dying... Relax? Yes, I'm trying... But this fear's got a hold on me... Yes, this fear's got a hold on me...
Why: Anna is the (at 17) oldest, most traumatized pilot, who has one foot on the real world and one in the Bliss, and knows it. She already has a 2-year old toddler, Archer Lin, and refuses to discuss HOW she got pregnant: she finally broke up with Keenan for his indescretions, painfully... and she is desperately, desperately afraid - less that she'll die or Bliss, more that she will die or Bliss and no one will be there to take care of Archer or win the war.
Suggestions: Slower and on bamboo flute. Both for the mournful qualities of that instrument and for a touch of Asian influence in a song about someone who refers to the enemy as "ALIEN SONS OF CHOBAIOXI!" with all the force her lungs can muster.

More tomorrow. Crossposting to the contest page.

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

Sorry about the delay: the computer lab was locked yesterday, pending an investigation into Shenanigans perpetrated against me. It'll be resolved by the time it matters.

These shenanegans also involve someone deleting my Project Playlist account, which I've put up again. Couldn't find Meredith's image song, unfortunately.

Being brief with other themes, in the form of "Chara/Sitch: Song Name (Artist): Snippet of lyrics (reason why appropriate)- Remix suggestions?"

• Image for your (Josh Preston's) father, the Commander and general tweeker bastard Jim Preston: Time Is Running Out (Muse).
  
  "I think I'm drowning... Asphixiated... I want to break the spell that you've created... you're something beautiful; a contradiction... I want to play the game, I want the friction! You... will be... the death... of me! You... will be... the death... of me!"
  
  Forget the fact that be beats the Bliss with the methamphetamines he impounded as a TIJCC security guard. He has a rather... disturbing relationship with another Resistance member: that it's
  everyone's favorite Broken Bird, veteran pilot Anna Lin
  is left as an exercise for the reader. One who is A) a teenager and therefore B) at least 50 years younger than him. ...saying he's a bastard is almost redundant, but he isn't too fond of his only surviving kid either. Though he's not counting on him having slightly more spine than a certian Ikari-san...
  
  Screamo or at least x1.5 faster techno?
  
• Your Anchor and first love/first kiss Meredith Baker: How Naked Are We Going To Get? (The Blow)
  
  "When they ask you how you want it, will your clear heart bear down upon it? Will they notice the scars that run up your side? Will they care about the wars that you fought in the night?
  Will there be room in their bed for how terribly white you become, when you finally arrive?"
  
  She loves you. She is your Anchor to the world from your dream. SHE notices "the scars that run up your side." And it worries her. And it worries her that you seem to be drifting away - into the dream, and into the arms of others.
  ...And she's getting incredibly frustrated that, at this point in your relationship, that you have yet to rip off her clothes and love her 'till she screams. How naked are you going to get, indeed?
  
  Jazz? Blues?
  
• Derek Smith, Sara's brother and Anchor and the base mechanic: Falling Away With You (Muse).
  
  "I can't remember when it was good... moments of happiness elude. Maybe I just misunderstood? All of the love we left behind, watching the flashbacks intertwine. Memories I will never find..."
  
  Derek is bad at being an Anchor. No: Correction: Derek is VERY bad at being an Anchor, mostly due to being overprotective and Abort at the first sign of trouble. He is a very good mechanic. He was very good at protecting Sara from the roving gangs that infest San Francisco in 2016. He built the ANIMa, for Christ's sake. Why, why can he not protect Sara in the dream as well as he can in the world?
  
  Cello or Piano? Especially if Sara gets violin or viola.
  
• Yukiko Tendou, Keenan's Anchor: Lay All Your Love On Me (Abba).
  
  "I wasn't jealous before we met. ...Now every woman I see is a potential threat... And I'm possessive; it isn't nice; you've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice. But now it isn't true... Now everything is new... And all I've learned, has overturned; I beg of you... Don't go wasting your emotion! Lay all your love on me!"
  
  Her anchor is KEENAN, for God's sake. KEENAN CAINE. Who, at first blush, looks and acts like he wrote Mambo #5 (while he privately identifies more with Karma Chameleon)! It's enough to drive any Anchor - defined here as "Someone who is in love with you as part of thier job" - up the wall, even one as patient and Comforting as Yukiko tends to be.
  Worse, Yukiko is pregnant. Since she hasn't slept with anyone BUT Keenan, this means that K-kun is the father. And if he hasn't immediatley jumped to the same conclusion... then does that mean he suspects her of cheating herself?
  
  Revolutionary Girl Utena-style or Techno?
  
• Laura Porter, ex-gang member with Anna's Chinatown Flinthearts and Anna's good right hand: Hysteria (Muse).
  
  "It's holding me, morphing me... And forcing me to stri~ive... To be endlessly, cold within, and dreaming I'm alive... Cause I want it NOW! I want it NOW! Give me your heart and your soul! And i'm breaking down! I'm breaking out! Last chance to lose control..."

Laura's only family was the Chinatown Flinthearts: she didn't much miss her adoptors when they Blissed. ...Yes, she's Chinese. ("Huh. Then why don't you go by your Chinese name if you're so proud of it?" "...cuz the fuckers that ordered me direct from China on the net didn't bother to consult a Mandarin-to-English dictionary when they named me!!") They were friends, family, occasional lovers, comrades in arms. Then the aliens landed, and what was left of the Flinthearts, her and Anna excepted, wouldn't fit in a thimble. Anna braved the swaying, creaking Golden Gate, with Laura watching her six: and the rest was history. Laura, at the moment, is just preoccupied with forgetting the second wave of the invasion (the Bliss was the first) in any way she can do it. Or in any person with whom she could do it, for that matter. ...No, she is not an unlockable love interest, though I may write in Josh having a brief fling with her.

Koto? Classic rock? Metal?

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

General Interlude theme: Tunnels / Neighborhood #1 (Arcade Fire).

"Then we tried to name our babies... But we forgot all the names that (the names that) we used to know. But sometimes, we remember our bedrooms - and our parent's bedrooms - and the bedrooms of our friends! Then we think of our parents... well, what ever happened to them?"

A hymn to a world without adults; and a love song to the surviving children.

Naturalistic? Progressive rock? Seaside white noise for Treasure Island?

Battle Music:

First Mission: Hemisphere (RahXephon OST).
Sore demo, ittai kono boku ni? Nani ga dekiru tte iun da? Kyuukutsu na... Hakoniwa no genjitsu o... Kaeru tame ni... nani ga dekiru no? Jinsei no - hanbun mo! Boku wa mada ikitenai... Sakaratte - dakiatte! Muishiki ni kizamarete yuku, keiken no tatuu!

(Trans: Even with this, what can you expect from me? How can we possibly break through to the real? Escaping this world, this pocket reality... and finding out what the truth really is... I haven't even lived my life! Alternating between love and rebellion - the things I've seen, the things I'll do, tattoed permanently, into my memories!)

An easy tutotial mission... and it may as well be Josh singing the song. ...well, or Anna Lin. Even with the ANIMa, what can you expect of Josh? I'll try to plan it so that it hits the desperate military anthem part at the MOMENT that Sara's mission goes wrong and you have to save her.

Techno? Prog rock? Electric guitar?

----

Working on the script right now, in scattered fragments. Wiki is your friend...

It occurs to me that I should clarify: this is not a hentai peice (more's the pity, but it's a legal issue: Anna is 17, and she's the oldest member of the Resistance). It will get very explicit and sexy, but in the way that Ori ~ Ochi ~ Onoe was at the very most. I will, as my gamer theory wonks put it, draw the veil and do tasteful pans.

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

Very interested in this. I first heard about Bliss Stage from your page on TV Tropes, and I've been wanting to see more...

So. What's the news. Is this game still happening?

Mental note: Never announce a game until it's done.

It's a huge project: I'm trying to pare it to something managable. I'll keep you posted. Sorry.

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

I would definitely like to play test this game. It sounds incredible! I would imagine it would take years to make by a single person.

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Indie Game Localization and Distribution

Yeah. At this point, I'm probably going to testbed the combat and Intimacy rules in an adaptation of Final Act, then expand to First Act once I get a team together.

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She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

Oh... oh wow.

Oh wow.

See the front page but...

Yeah. We have a devteam. And a contract with Ben Lehman.

Let's see if we can get something playable together to demo at Yaoicon on October 30th...

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.

I think that a play-through of around 8-12 hours is a good guesstimate, and, well, a lot of endings - in addition to the bad ends, there are mixes of Hope Resolutions and romantic paths, including the platonic path. Many of the good endings are named.

For example:

"Mommy, Daddy, Auntie, And Uncle ~ Resolved: We Can Raise A Second Generation ~ Meredith Good Ending"
"Gossamer and Obsidian ~ Resolved: We Can Understand The Aliens ~ Gabriel Good Ending"
"Moving Westwards and Onwards ~ Resolved: We Can Defeat The Enemy ~ Anna Lin Good Ending?"

_________________
She's sun and rain: She's fire and ice. A little crazy, but it's nice.
Bliss Stage: Love is your weapon! A sci-fi visual novel about child soldiers coming of age. Kickstarter prerelease here. WIP thread here. Fan thread here. Beta demo here.