Senior Year Development Thread

[mikey]

Nice art, nothing to add. (well, me and my art comments...)

[monele]

Simple, to the point, cute, pretty ^.^. Yup, good art

[EwanG]

Weekly Status Report - 11/3/06 - 11/10/06

Well, as hoped, I did manage to get the story coded to the point that I have introduced all the characters except Annette. Unfortunately, I now think that's probably closer to 10% of the coding rather than 20%. On the plus side, I have enough of the harder things figured out, that coding should go somewhat faster.

For the next week, however, I'm going to have to concentrate on the character art. I managed to get my Linda mad, sad, happy, and surprised done. But I still need to get Linda blushing to cover most of my Linda situations. I then need to get the other characters done in all of those poses. Since art is "harder" for me, I figure putting the emphasis on the art will make it easier if I have that finished to just code, code, code. I'd really like to have the alpha version of the project done by the Monday after Thanksgiving to give me time to get voice acting arranged, and then look at having a beta ready for testing over the Christmas holiday - when I figure it will be easier to find folks with some spare cycles.

One other thing I'm starting to look at, although not too seriously yet, is how to promote the game once it's finished. I'll probably distribute by setting up a bittorrent for the file (since with the music and all it should be at least 50 megs when completed), but then it's a matter of finding places to announce. Also want to see if some of the game sites that were willing to rate games such as Ever 17 would be willing to at least look at Senior Year.

So, that's where things are at right now,
Ewan

[EwanG]

Grumble... and I guess I will also be porting to 5.6.3 in the next week.

[DaFool]

One other thing I'm starting to look at, although not too seriously yet, is how to promote the game once it's finished. I'll probably distribute by setting up a bittorrent for the file (since with the music and all it should be at least 50 megs when completed), but then it's a matter of finding places to announce. Also want to see if some of the game sites that were willing to rate games such as Ever 17 would be willing to at least look at Senior Year.

Imho, just use a generic ACG tracker like datorrents or deadfrog and announce at tokyotosho. You will get at least 100 hits and even some JP IPs, if that's your kind of thing. So far the only two games I've know that have done that were Ori Ochi Onoe and Broken Hearted, but they were both pretty extensive (i.e. long and super customized). So its just a matter of how much confidence you have in your work. It's also a good idea to host a webpage dedicated to your work, though you won't need forums (just use Lemmasoft), and you might want a direct download mirror once the torrent wears out -- renai.us, download.com or your own.

But that's getting waaaaaay ahead

And don't worry about art being harder and being last...that happens to be mostly the case. You can even have the game fully coded.

[EwanG]

And don't worry about art being harder and being last...that happens to be mostly the case. You can even have the game fully coded.

The reason I'm doing art this week (three down, two to go - although those are the two with versions that have and don't have uniforms so it's more like four to go...) is that it's the big bugaboo for me. IOW, if anything would kill this game it would be not having the character art. And I know myself well enough to know that if I got all the coding done and just needed the artwork done, there would be a good chance I'd never finish the game because of not wanting to face the artwork. It's my weak area (though I'm much better at it now because I've had to do it for the game), and therefore something I needed to get out of the way fairly early on.

Also, by having worked with the characters, I'm picking up fine points about them due to having to think about their appearances. When you have to pick a hairstyle, and think about how their clothes coordinate (or don't), etc. you end up filling in even more of the backstory.

Besides, when I start going after voice actors, I think it will help them as well to see what the characters look like. Gives them a feel beyond just what's in the script.

My .02 worth,
Ewan

[EwanG]

Weekly Status Update 11-11 to 11-17

Posting a day early because my wife goes in for surgery tomorrow (nothing major), and I probably won't have time to post then. Knowing this was coming up was part of the reason I had hoped to be further along by this point, because I'm unlikely to get much done this weekend. She's supposed to be up and around by Sunday, but then we get into the week of Thanksgiving (and my birthday), and that will probably slow things down as well.

Am now starting to think Valentines' Day is a more realistic release date

Did get most of the way through Becky's "casual" version, but I still have her uniform version to do, and then both of Carla's versions. So I know I still have a bit of a slog on my hands. I'll probably post a "cast photo" when they're all done to see if I've made any major errors in coloring or shading that y'all notice.

A plus in all this is that once I finish the artwork I'm going to be very motivated to get back to the programming. I'm already itching to take the story to the next step, and to finally get to Annette's intro.

One thing I haven't figured out yet, and hopefully one of y'all can give me some insight into, is a way to record when each ending has been completed, to allow someone to unlock the bonus levels after they've all been completed at least once. For Senior Year, the bonus levels will be a look, ten years after, at each of the relationships. Kind of the idea that things change over time, and not always the way you think they will. Those levels will be mainly narrative (you just get to choose which relationship you want to look at), but I think will make a nice coda for the game.

So, that's where I'm at this week. Hope I haven't bored anyone to tears

[EwanG]

As promised, here are two group pics with your Senior Year idols...

Speak now, or assume that this is what you'll be staring at (though there are several different expressions and a few different poses) for several hours when the game is complete...

[Matt_D]

Becky wins ^^

[EwanG]

Becky wins ^^

Really? Sounds like maybe I should plan on setting up a poll

[DaFool]

Wow, those are some nice designs. Good coloring, good composition, overall very professional appearance.

One thing I noticed, a several gamemakers are married men, and this begs the question, why make a ren'ai game if you're already married?

And then I answer, well, why not indeed?

I'm now having ideas in my head about making not a dating sim, but a marriage sim. Coming from a bachelor who's getting old, extreme unrealism will be something to be expected

One thing I haven't figured out yet, and hopefully one of y'all can give me some insight into, is a way to record when each ending has been completed, to allow someone to unlock the bonus levels after they've all been completed at least once.

Code: Select all

#example the very last lines of becky's path:
    $ persistent.becky_clear = True
    $ persistent.game_clear = True

#unlocking at least one path opens up the bonus levels
init:
    $ library.main_menu.insert(2, ("Bonus Levels", "bonuslevels", 'persistent.game_clear'))

#however you're only limited to the character you cleared
label bonuslevels:
#you can use persistent.becky_clear to enable the particular bonus level in a menu statement, or else just don't skip it during the entire bonus sequence

[EwanG]

Appreciate the code sample!

[EwanG]

One thing I noticed, a several gamemakers are married men, and this begs the question, why make a ren'ai game if you're already married?

A) Having managed to convince at least one woman to spend serious time with you makes you believe you might know something about the subject, and then makes you want to share that knowledge with others

B) Unmarried men are too busy either playing ren'ai games, or living the real life equivalent to spend time programming them

C) Have the time available to tell a story, and do the artwork, and do the programming

D) Some combination of all of the above

[mikey]

The screens look really good, looking forward!

I'm now having ideas in my head about making not a dating sim, but a marriage sim.

I like this! It could be fun, having to negotiate arguments or a night out with the guys or managing housework. Then, you'd have to take care of the dreaded mother-in-law visit and the collegeboy wife eater. Of course, remembering crucial anniversaries and keeping in shape, while having a good job (resisting the secretary) would be instrumental, as well as frequent reassurances of your love.

Anyway ^_^...

One thing I noticed, a several gamemakers are married men, and this begs the question, why make a ren'ai game if you're already married?

For us, nothing significant has changed, since we've been together for almost 10 years before our marriage. So I'd rephrase this to "Why make a ren'ai game when you already have a girlfriend?" And then, since the point of that is being in love, it changes to "Why make a ren'ai game when you're already in love?" The point to be questioned here would be - One should not create a ren'ai game when they are in love. And if we were to create a negative statement, it would mean that creating ren'ai games should be done by those people who are NOT in love. But then, without being in love, you can't really bring the feelings - and so... the result is that Ren'ai games should be created by people who were in love, but are not in love at the moment. Problem solved.

Seriously, I'd be glad to see more games that are somehow more considered in their approaches to relationships - having the buildup in the form of conquering the hearts is nice, but there are disappointinly few stories which go beyond that. IMO you could make a good ren'ai game with just one girl, who may well be your wife, and you could kind of fall in love with her all over again by working on your relationship. The possibilities are really endless, if anything, maintaining a relationship is far more complicated than starting it - such a game would probably not earn you Newgrounds/DLsite popularity, as it obviously doesn't go very well with the multigirl scheme of things, but then, if you can reach 10-20 people, it's probably worth more than 10.000-20.000 downloads. Only recently, I've received another nice letter for one of our games, and to be honest, all of the sudden, all your doubts are gone. It makes me happy, and it also makes my wife happy when she sees our efforts got through to someone.

[monele]

Mmm... they all win!... But Annette got a bit more of attention from me XD. But really, yay. I don't know about personalities, but visually, I would like to try the game for each of them.