Lemma Soft Forums

Well, the title is still subject to change, but it'll do for now.

Read mikey and Lemma's game making tips - after I started working on this 3 characters might seem a bit much, but hopefully since their paths all diverge very early, and each leads to just one good ending, it won't be as big an issue. Likewise I'm planning on keeping the gameplay very simple - just a matter of menu choices, nothing fancy. Hopefully the main draw will be the story, which I hope to make engrossing.

As the guides have advised, I won't be asking for help (save for programming Qs) until I've progressed further, but I thought I'd write this up anyway to spur some interest.

Here's a brief synopsis:

In the distant future, a devastating war between two empires - the Danaan Union and the Veniol Ascendancy - has ended in a fragile armistice. You are the youngest son of the clan Vorsmith, heroes of the Danaan Union - but you'd much rather cruise along your final year at the Academy at Thermopylae Station than play catch up to the achievements of your siblings. After all, there's little chance of martial glory in this new dawn of peace.

But when four women dock at Thermopylae on the heels of a crack unit of the Ascendancy's most elite troops - well, lets just say it looks like glory has come looking for you...

Here's a rundown of planned features:

* Futuristic setting (More space opera than high science though)
* 3 romancable characters with divergent but complementary tales
* 1 unique good ending per character (Most bad endings will probably be simple 'death' endings, to make this more manageable)
* Black and white graphics - characters custom made, background probably borrowed

Here's a current progress report: (Around 5 days worth of work)
* Introduction - script is done
* 2 of 3 branches 75% roughly outlined. 3rd is halfway done.
* 2 images created (the third girl didn't come out as I would have liked so I'm redoing that)
* character profiles (bio, role in the story etc.) of major characters - all but one is done.

Release Date? Nothing set yet. I have a big test in September so that month and AUgust will see little work done. But hopefully before and after that I can make regular progress. I write quick anyway - though I program like a turtle. With two broken legs

* * *

Here's draft art for the first of the girls: Cordelia Redin

[I'm not much of an artist, but it'll do for now]

Name: Cordelia Redin; "Del" to her friends (which does not include you)
Age: 18
Specialty: Firearms
Bio: Cordelia is the eldest daughter of the Redin family, a military clan whose fame rivaled that of your own, until her father was dishonorably discharged and imprisoned seven years ago, on charges of espionage. Your own history with her is a tad more... personal, albeit unintentional on your part. Suffice it to say, you did *not* make a good impression. Cordelia loathes your very existence, and will make damn sure that you - and everyone within a five mile radius - knows it.

Pretty artwork.

Del looks to be in quite the summer outfit. Or am I seeing things ^_^.

BCS = Thanks man Im out of practice actually...

Mikey = *laughs* Sorry mikey - that's a skintight suit with designs. It *does* spur the imagination when its not colored though doesn't it?

Too late, I already imagined it.

Looking forward to the beta test.

Nice art ^^ Sadness that this will stay B&W :/...
And yay, another space based story ^.^

RedSlash: Yeah, so am I This intro script keeps getting longer and longer and longe... @_@

Monele: Thanks As for colors - heck I could never even color inside the lines in my elementary school coloring book That and CGing just seems... daunting to this poor writer @_@. Oh I just downloaded your demo - so far, it's really good! Will get back to you when I do all the paths ^_^

* * *
Semi-weekly Progress Report:
* * *

~ Introduction - well I pushed it along further into the story, so I'd say its twice the size as last week, but onlu 75% done. Been putting it some choices which wont have long term effects but at least allow participation and subtle changes in the dialogue. (Took me quite a bit of trial and error to learn how to do menus right )

~ Backgrounds: I have my placeholders for a demo, but I recently downloaded the WorldCraft/Hammer editor released by Valve to make maps for Half Life - saw some screens and I was thinking I could maybe take screen captures from some maps I make to serve as backgrounds. Would that count as original bg art, to allow Broken Dawn to be hosted at Ren'Ai? (I hope WC isn't hard to learn...)

~ Character Art: Decided to make some templates from professional game character sets and work off those, so scoured the net for some with suitable poses. Just need some reference for the art - Im really out of practice with this.

* * *

Now here's a rough sketch of another of the girls: Sephie. I'll probably do some tweaking still, but here it is for what its worth:

Name: Sepherina Xu; Sephie
Age: 19
Specialty: Starcraft Pilot
Bio: Sepherina - Sephie to everyone but her friend Iria - is an optimistic, energetic young lady who is something of a romantic (who else wakes people up by kissing them, in this day and age?) Junior Team Leader of the unit that arrived on Thermopylae, it is her fervent desire that one day her dysfunctional little unit will all "get along". Sephie is a mischievous and open girl, but when asked about her past she tends to change the subject very quickly. Surely it couldn;t have been that bad, if she's as happy as she is now?

Eheh, Sephie's got a nice expression XD

As for colors - heck I could never even color inside the lines in my elementary school coloring book

I'm pretty sure there will be artists here to color your art if you need it ^^.

Oh I just downloaded your demo - so far, it's really good! Will get back to you when I do all the paths ^_^

*bows* Thanks ^^ *waits quietly*

Very nice art! Now to add in some colours to it!

Nafai wrote:BCS = Thanks man Im out of practice actually...

*blush* I'm a girl. But if you knew me by some of my other art, you wouldn't think so ...

BTW, your art is sweet. >D

Redslash: *laughs* I wish I could, but any beatury of the art will be destroyed by my impossibly bad coloring skills


BCS: Whoops - my bad milady ^_^;

Thanks for the compliment though! That's a lot coming from as good an artist (and budding flash animator?) as you ^_^

Hope double posting isn't that big a sin @_@;

Not much progress this week as I've been feeling a bit under the weather, and I really need to study for my tests. So no progress on the writing front, though I do plan on doing some work on it today - peaked at the "strong character" stuff and downloaded the new Ren'Py version so we'll see how that goes...

Art-wise I made some progress though. Finished re-designing the third romancable character - Iria. As I mentioned before, Im cheating a bit, almost tracing the rough pose from an old game CG, but it does help speed things up quite a bit.

Name: Iria Watson Valens
Age: 16
Specialty: Technical Engineer
Bio: If people were seasons, Iria would be winter. At night. In the arctic. It's not that she means to be rude - she simply sees emotion and social niceties as a needless distraction. If something needs to be done, she does it, and if something needs to be said, she says it - and whether that makes other people uncomfortable, well... it's not her job to make people comfortable.
Understandably you know little of her past. Not why she joined the Spartans when she seems to abhor fighting, not what she did before she joined up - not even why she wears that flower pin that seems so contrary to her personality. She's just not the sharing type.
But now... trapped on a space station and cut off from the outside world, you're going to have to crack that shell - because you know so little as it is, and not knowing the truth about Iria Valens could prove... fatal.

Yet she looks so vulnerable on this picture

Monele: Yeah, I think I put too much sparkly in her eye

~Progress Report~

* Rough script for the demo is finally finished. Much, much longer than I'd planned it to be, possibly because I put in more menu choices in conversations, and because I did a lot of story set-up. WIll go back and tweak it this weak to make it flow better. Itll probably still be very bare-bones, programming wise. Don't think I'll be able to use strong character yet, at least for the demo...

* Artwise I screen captured more scenes to act as backgrounds. Could be a temporary or permanent fix, depending on when/if I get the handle of Gamesmaker for backgrounds.

~ Now for the weekly character bio and pic: Rori is a non-romancable character, who will more or less be your commanding officer for the game.

Name: Captain Rori Starr
Age: 24
Specialty: Strategy, small unit-tactics, piloting, marksmanship... you name it.
Bio: Something of a legend in the Spartan forces, Captain Starr is an acknowledged military genius whose rise through the ranks has been nothing short of meteoric. She is reclusive enough that no one is quite sure what she looks or sounds like, but even she can not avoid the fame of her accomplishments. But a warrior's fame has a flip-side - many indeed are those who would see this reclusive genius dead...

The graphics look great! One question: any chance Cordelia will quit hating the main character with a passion OR is she meant to be a thorn in the player's side?