[WIP GxB] Machina Jewel | first post updated 7/20/2011+poll!

[manga_otaku]

Alonzooooooooo (L) *stuffs in pocket when Camille isn't looking* ladeedaa... *swiftly walks out*

[Camille]

More art! My artist friend is out of school now so she can really get cracking. XD



You can view the larger size on DeviantArt here~ No Alonzo this time because she says she draws him too much.

[Camille]

The game contains 1,674 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 30,555 words,
for an average of 18.3 words per screen.
The game contains 51 menus.

A quick progress update... You might notice that there are 51 menus. I'm still finishing up chapter two out of eight and there are already 51 menus. (I know the first post says chapter two is done... I ended up like doubling the length of the chapter after I thought up more ideas) It's interesting because I've been reading all these posts about how too much customization is bad, blah blah blah. But I think that since Charlene* is more representative of the player than she is her own character, it's okay. Also, a good 1/3 of those menus are for the letter system, so the number is deceptively large. XD

Because Charlene*'s personality is so malleable, all of these menus are necessary so that she becomes the heroine you want her to be. They're mostly spaced out, so I don't think the player is really bombarded with choices. Also, not all of them are super important choices. (the ones that are important are pretty obvious, I think) Most of the choices, however, are related to what you want Charlene* to say in a conversation, ie:

Mother: "This isn't like you, Charlene*. You've never been out so late before. What on earth were you doing?"
> Lie about it. [available if deception > 1]
>> Deception + 1, Alonzo + 1, Tetsuyoshi - 2

> Apologize.
>> Eloquence + 1, Kindness + 1, Courage - 1, Tetsuyoshi + 5

> Protest your lack of freedom.
>> Courage + 1, Eloquence - 1, Lucien - 3, Azhar + 2, Tetsuyoshi - 1

> Say nothing.
>> Kindness - 1, Eloquence - 1, Deception - 1

The end result no matter what you say is that Charlene* gets grounded, it's just that the different choices give different point values so her personality changes a little. :O Because the guys have personalities in a girl that they prefer (all of them have experience with girls--there's no first love here except for Charlene*'s and even that is debatable), their points will go up and down slightly depending on these dialogues. However, you get the most points from actually interacting with them, of course.

Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on our system. c:

[Lumen_Astrum]

I like steampunk adventures
Good luck for this ^_^

I read some of the past posts, and the interviews are cute xD
Don't you know that Filipinos call Japanese people "Hapon" in Tagalog?

[fioricca]

screeeam a game that involves different countries *_* I think these sorts of games are awfully difficult to execute because of the massive amounts of research involved - I'm someone who's sort of semi-anal about historic accurancies/facts - so kudos to you. I see that they're meant to be parodies of the 1800s, but that is a kickass era to focus on. Can't wait to see how this will turn out! 8D

The interface is looking really gorgeous. Good job *A*

[Camille]

I like steampunk adventures
Good luck for this ^_^

I read some of the past posts, and the interviews are cute xD
Don't you know that Filipinos call Japanese people "Hapon" in Tagalog?

Oh, really? Haha I got it from the Spanish pronunciation of Japon, I think. But yeah, thanks! <3

screeeam a game that involves different countries *_* I think these sorts of games are awfully difficult to execute because of the massive amounts of research involved - I'm someone who's sort of semi-anal about historic accurancies/facts - so kudos to you. I see that they're meant to be parodies of the 1800s, but that is a kickass era to focus on. Can't wait to see how this will turn out! 8D

The interface is looking really gorgeous. Good job *A*

Haha sort of! All the action happens in (pretty much) one country, but we tried to have a diverse cast, at least. I did do quite a lot of research, but since this is supposed to be a fantasy world BASED on the Victorian era, I tried not to be too strict about it. XD

Thanks a lot! I appreciate it. :3

In other news, I changed my avatar to a Lucien chibi. <3

[Camille]

EDIT!! We're currently holding voice actor auditions here. Please spread the word or try out if you're at all interested.

Just so people know what we're doing~ Our sprites got pushed back a bit because the artist had a mishap with her tablet, but I've been busy at work on chapter three (again, out of eight chapters), which is where the plot starts to pick up a bit, I think. I've learned that it's very difficult to balance a dating sim atmosphere with a serious story, but I'm trying! A good lesson to learn from our first VN to apply to other projects... I've learned so much while working on MJ. Anyway, at the very least, there is a lot of character development in chapter three and hints about big mysteries and secrets. (: I think I might be too obvious with one of the "secrets" but hopefully it's somewhat of a surprise.

For those who have seen our project roadmap and are wondering about the character-specific chapters, those are basically the climaxes of character development stories for the love interests. Most of their mysteries and backstories are revealed and that's pretty much when the heroine and the love interest realize their feelings for one another.

You only get to see a certain character-specific chapter if you're on that guy's route, otherwise you just skip over that bit/get a condensed version depending on your affection points. (we like to encourage replaying the game, so you don't get to see everything in one playthrough)


In other news, our composer finished the theme song for the game~ It's a full orchestral piece that we think represents the story really well so hopefully you all like it. In general, I'm using other widely available royalty-free resources for the music (some free, some not) but this theme is unique to our game. I'm probably going to get the composer to do some other short pieces, too, so our game will be closer to having an original soundtrack, but I'm not made of money (by any means) so it'll probably be limited to a few unique tracks. XD

[Auro-Cyanide]

I like the theme song. I love orchestral pieces, especially strings~ I think it suits it quite well. Soft, delicate and graceful. There really are some talented composers going around.

The road map thingy is interesting as well. Looks like a good way to organise and priorities things.

Have you thought about posting in the Deviantart project forum for the voice actors? I actually think there are some floating around there.

[Camille]

I like the theme song. I love orchestral pieces, especially strings~ I think it suits it quite well. Soft, delicate and graceful. There really are some talented composers going around.

The road map thingy is interesting as well. Looks like a good way to organise and priorities things.

Have you thought about posting in the Deviantart project forum for the voice actors? I actually think there are some floating around there.

Yes! I was really lucky to find this composer and he's been great to work with. (and he's just a few years older than I am, so it makes me feel really inadequate somehow, haha) He basically sent me the song 30 seconds at a time and I nitpicked it to death and he put up with me cheerfully. XD Our soundtrack is pretty much all piano/orchestral stuff since that fits the time period, so.

It is! I'm so glad I managed to score an invite to InterstateApp. The site is pretty much indispensable as a project/team manager. You can upload files, send messages to other team members, and keep up with every part of the project in a very intuitive way. I highly recommend it to anyone who's got at least 2+ people working on a VN. :3

I had no idea you could even do that, but I just went and plugged the auditions there so I hope at least a few more people see it or something. Every little bit helps! I was really afraid that nobody would try out (especially the guys since this is obviously a game more geared towards females, yet like 80% of the cast is male), but I already have two male VAs expressing their interest in the project, so I'm really very thrilled and thankful right now. ;___;

[Auro-Cyanide]

I had no idea you could even do that, but I just went and plugged the auditions there so I hope at least a few more people see it or something. Every little bit helps! I was really afraid that nobody would try out (especially the guys since this is obviously a game more geared towards females, yet like 80% of the cast is male), but I already have two male VAs expressing their interest in the project, so I'm really very thrilled and thankful right now. ;___;

Oh, that is excellent! I'm sure I had seen some there before. There are also two major VA groups on DA that you could maybe check out. I don't know how active they are but I presume the members are interested in that type of thing. And I think some have demo reels.
http://voiceacting.deviantart.com/
http://davoiceactors.deviantart.com/

[Camille]

Oh, that is excellent! I'm sure I had seen some there before. There are also two major VA groups on DA that you could maybe check out. I don't know how active they are but I presume the members are interested in that type of thing. And I think some have demo reels.
http://voiceacting.deviantart.com/
http://davoiceactors.deviantart.com/

Both of those groups seem a little inactive and I've gotten a really good response for auditions so far, so perhaps I'll give those a try towards the end of the audition process if we don't have enough people going for it. But right now I think that I'm pretty happy. It's been a day and we've already gotten one really good audition and a lot of people saying they'll send in auditions, so I think it'll all turn out okay. The forums I posted the auditions at have tons of people. I spent a lot of time going through demo reels and it's amazing how great non-pro voice actors sound!

Thanks for the links, at any rate! I'll be adding those to my bookmarks. :3

In other news, I spent a lot of time writing today and the script is now up to 35,000 words. Officially the most words I've ever written for any one project. (I tend to gravitate towards short fiction pieces that are 2,000-10,000 words) I imagine it will be well over 100,000 by the time it's all done. So people who dislike elaborate plots, super developed characters, and lots of text should probably avoid our game. XD

[Fawn]

I've been stalking this thread a little while, and I finally got the courage to say this: The main character's neck is very off. It almost looks like her head is sliding off of her neck; and her overall body position is very awkward. Also, in some screenshots she seems taller than the guys... Her neck seems as thick as theirs' too.
Also I would suggest using more pastel-like colors for your shading if you're going for the bishounen style. However, that is your choice.

[Camille]

I've been stalking this thread a little while, and I finally got the courage to say this: The main character's neck is very off. It almost looks like her head is sliding off of her neck; and her overall body position is very awkward. Also, in some screenshots she seems taller than the guys... Her neck seems as thick as theirs' too.
Also I would suggest using more pastel-like colors for your shading if you're going for the bishounen style. However, that is your choice.

Yeah, people have mentioned that already, haha. Those screencaps are pretty old. Those sprites in the screencaps are just concept images, so they weren't really made to be proportional to each other. I just got the artist to make them transparent so I could use them as placeholders and put the sprite coding in place. I shrunk down Charlene's image a bit to get her to match a little better, but it's still not quite right. This art was very quickly/messily done and just meant to figure out and plan the heroine's hairstyle/etc.

Here's a more recent, more proportional sprite mock-up:


(we're still working on spacing and whatnot, so this is still temp art) I'm not sure what bishounen style is, but this is kind of what the shading will look like? More or less, anyway.

[Fawn]

Oh good good Sorry to bring that up again then haha. As for the "bishounen" style, I meant something like this: http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/b80492c0 ... 8b1ab8.jpg Yours looks more realistic, however.

[Camille]

No worries, always glad to get some crit. o/ We're kind of going for more of a painterly style, so it's not quite like the anime-style cel shading that you normally see in these kinds of games. :3 That's a really pretty image, though. *_*