Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

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Lodratio
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Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#1 Post by Lodratio »

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It's the century of the rat.
Magic is fading, having become so weak and that it is now only practised by scientists trying to understand the nature of the world, and those unfortunate individuals who think that snapping their fingers to turn on the light in the kitchen is cool enough that they should be dedicating years of their lives to learning how to do it. Necromancy has been a lost art for centuries. When Leoux comes across the secret to binding the spirits of the underworld to human bone (it's pretty much just like turning on a light switch, really) she has an idea.

'These floating, talking skulls sure do look a lot a lot more dangerous, and... well, useful than they actually are. I wonder if I could get the other villagers to take me a little more seriously if I told them that I'd been chosen to be a general of the Legion of Chaos. 'Legion of Chaos'... sounds pretty cool, right? Yeah, I think this should work out!'

Join Leoux, necromancer extraordinaire, currently pretending to be a general in the Legions of Chaos, in her quest to find her path in life, which may soon include conspiracies, a lot of bluffing and the nature of JUSTICE.

featuring:
Leoux: The protagonist. As such she is the most important person, which means she can do whatever she wants and get away with it... right?
Skelly, Leoux second in command: Tries to be the straight man, but it's difficult sometimes.
Leoux 'army': You won't find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy anywhere else in the galaxy. Or at least that's what you're supposed to believe.
Alice, her rival: Gets riled up easily and has a tendency to monologue about her ideals.
Shady, Alice’s companion: A fitting name. What could this guy be up to?
Real talk: This is my first time doing this kind of activity, and I don't have a lot of experience with renpy (or writing longer stories for that matter). I have a 'serious' vn project going that I've been stuck on for a bit, so I figured this might be just the thing for getting away from serious things and doing something lighthearted for a bit. At the moment my outline for this story has two or three meaningful choices, three endings and a lot of comedy fluff, but when you start writing things don't always develop as planned, so who knows what the end result will actually look like. I'm painting the backgrounds and coming up with character designs as I go, so expect some changes there as well. Don't have any experience with composing music, and this is going to be a lot of work as it is, so I'll use whatever I can find on the internet for that.

Notes:
-Do you have thoughts or comments on the premise and/or characters so far?
-Do you like the characterdesigns? If you have an suggestions for improvements be sure to tell me!
-You can also just say hi.
Alternatively, I'll gladly answer any questions you might have about the project, and if you want to help me out by doing proofreading or composing music I'd be super thankful for that as well. .
Last edited by Lodratio on Fri Mar 04, 2016 8:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Comedy|Nano2016]

#2 Post by Lodratio »

Am I doing okay? Here's some ideas for the sprites.
ImageImageImageImage

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#3 Post by Lodratio »

More sprites and some background compositions. The locations that I want to include so far are Leoux room, a village square, a generic road, two or three different landcapes, some kind of political building and super secret conspiracy catacombs.
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At this rate the biggest challenge in terms of workload will be turning the backgrounds into fullres pictures and cleaning up the sprites, but I'm just going to focus on the writing now that I have something to work with. I might have to kick the protagonists age down a few years if her motivations are supposed to be believable, but that's alright. I'm doing surprisingly well with Renpy so far, though I haven't been able to figure out is how changing the menu layouts works.

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#4 Post by Lesleigh63 »

I like your color schemes in your backgrounds.

Sounds like an interest story premise.

Good luck with Nano!
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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#5 Post by infel »

I like the premise of this story. The designs you have are also unique and I really like the style you're going for. I do wish you the best of luck with this game =). I'll be playing it when it comes out.
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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#6 Post by Kinmoku »

I really like the sound of this concept :D You're not alone, I'm quite new to Ren'py too and taking a break from my first big project with NaNoRenO :) I wish us both luck!

-Do you have thoughts or comments on the premise and/or characters so far?

The characters sound interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing them in action. The premise seems a little confusing but from what I understand it sounds good! I hope it's a little clearer in-game.

-Do you like the characterdesigns? If you have an suggestions for improvements be sure to tell me!

I really like them! The poses are very expressive :) The background concepts look cool too.

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#7 Post by Zelan »

-Do you have thoughts or comments on the premise and/or characters so far?
The premise reminds me a little bit of Choice of Zombies (a text-based choose your own adventure story), except it seems like this will have more comedy, which I always enjoy. Plus art is always great cx I'm excited to fake being a general!

-Do you like the character designs? If you have an suggestions for improvements be sure to tell me!
I do! Is that first one Alice or Leoux? Those skulls look awesome as well - are they Leoux's army?

And lastly, I would be willing to proofread if you need it! Good luck on your project owo I'll definitely play it once it comes out!

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#8 Post by chocojax »

(I swear, I didn't notice the connection until you pointed it out, hahaha!)

Do you have thoughts or comments on the premise and/or characters so far?
I just wanna say that I really like your take on how magic is viewed by people in your setting! Never thought of that or heard of something like that before.
I also really like comedies, so... yay! I can't say much about the characters, but I like skeletons, so I guess I like Skelly and her army!

Do you like the character designs? If you have an suggestions for improvements be sure to tell me!
Yeah, your character designs are nice so far! I'm assuming the first female sprite you posted is... Alice? And in the logo is Leoux? Her outfit's rather plain (unless it's just underclothing), but I do like her little skelewand. The background thumbnails also look really great!

Wishing you good luck, since it looks like a lot on your plate so far. :'D

And quite a few people have posted tutorials (on a lot of different places), so I'm sure one of them will show you how to change the menu layouts. :Db

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#9 Post by Lodratio »

Whoa! I was away for a a few days, and suddenly replies start coming in. Thank you all for your interest.

Lesleigh63: Thanks! I'm still struggling to make the overall color scheme cohesive, but it's encouraging to hear that the individual compositions are working already.

infel: Don't get too attached to them. The designs aren't anywhere near finished yet~.

Kinmoku: Good luck! I'm keeping the premise vague because I'm still changing story elements around, and I don't want to create a mental block to making changes. The way it is now, this won't be very useful for people who want to know whether they might be interested in the story... so you're right. I'll write a more useful summary at a later point. If I forget about that, be sure to remind me!

Zelan: Thanks for offering me your help! The first one was the initial Leoux design, and the floating skulls are her army.

chocojax: Glad you like the setting. It's probably been done before by someone, as is the case with most things, but I did come up with it myself! I'm basically going for a Terry Pratchett style approach to comedic writing: If you have an unusual setting, a weird storyline and slightly self-aware characters you have lot of things to work with in terms of writing and art (though I'm not doing anything original there, now that I think about it...).

Don't have much to show this update because I've been writing. Here's one background that I think might be finished. It's messy in places, but it should be clean enough to be displayed in 800 x 600. (Feel free to tell me if I'm being delusional though. :lol: )
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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#10 Post by Hi.In.Ni »

I first I was like "this is totally not my thing". But the more I look at it, the more I like it! It's super interesting too...
I really want to see more of it now. Good job!
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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#11 Post by Dreamgazer »

-Do you have thoughts or comments on the premise and/or characters so far?
It sounds like a really neat set-up. I'm curious to see how far Leoux can take her pretense.

-Do you like the character designs? If you have an suggestions for improvements be sure to tell me!
They're cute! I like them so far.

-You can also just say hi.
Hi, Lodratio! I'm wishing you well on this project. (P.S. I hope my answer on tumblr helped in some way!) It's going to turn out awesome, I can feel it.

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#12 Post by Lodratio »

Time for another update.
I'm doing great far as programming and drawing backgrounds and sprites is concerned, but I'm not nearly as routined when it comes to writing, so I'm quite a bit slower in that regard. There aren't nearly as many resources on it, and the average writer who takes the time to make those kinds of resources isn't nearly as knowledgable as their artist counterpart. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to advance the story all the way to the conclusion without horribly rushing things. It might be better to try and do a good job on the first act and release a demo that ends at the first major turning point.

Reworked Leoux sprites:
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Some more background compositions:
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Some examples of finished BGs:
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Hi.In.Ni: Glad my project caught your interest! I'm not as confident in my writing as I am in my art though...

Dreamgazer: Hi! Your post definitely helped to make me think about it in a different light. It's kind of scary that people actually have expectations for this project. I'll try my best not to horribly disappoint you!

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#13 Post by Candy☆Giants »

Your colour palettes are beautiful! I'm jelly ♪

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Re: Leoux! [Fantasy|Dramatic Comedy|Nano2016]

#14 Post by Dreamgazer »

Lodratio wrote:Dreamgazer: Hi! Your post definitely helped to make me think about it in a different light. It's kind of scary that people actually have expectations for this project. I'll try my best not to horribly disappoint you!
I know how that feels. But don't worry about it! The most important thing is that you don't disappoint yourself. There will be people who like and dislike your game. Just make sure you love it.

Speaking for myself, I always look for passion, and I will always give people an 'A' for effort. Just have fun. :) Your backgrounds are looking good and Leoux's expressions are great.

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