"Elven Relations" (now an IntRenAiMo 2007 game!)

[chronoluminaire]

EDIT EDIT: Elven Relations did eventually get finished, as an IntRenAiMo 2007 game! Read the thread here.

EDIT: Elven Relations is now on indefinite hold. See post 7020. Original message:


Hi all! I'd like to ask for your thoughts and comments on my upcoming game, current working title Elven Relations.

(This isn't the biig military-high-school 8-girl dating game which I might have mentioned before, Beautiful Days. That's still definitely planned, but is a massive task which I've put on hold for a time to get this rather smaller and more manageable first ren'ai game done, which will be plenty enough of a task A decision I made after reading Lemma's Tip #1 )

So, the basic ideas:
* It's a fantasy-world setting, swords and sorcery, the usual stuff.
* You're one of a party of five human characters who are sent out (by the King himself) to make diplomatic contact with the mysterious Elven race at the edge of the human kingdom.
* The game takes place over three days. The first day is mostly travelling; the second day is mostly in the Elven city.
* The emphasis of the game is on the story and romance. The three girls in the game are two of your party - the lieutenant and the sorceress - and a mischievous Elven noblewoman. You'll have a number of choices throughout the story which will affect how much they like you and which ending you get.
* The game isn't an RPG in the normal sense, but it does have some RPG elements. A load of players of Final Fantasy 7 or 8 used to really hope that being nice to one of the girls during the combats would have an effect on how that character felt towards you... but it never did. Well, it does in this game The way I imagine them at the moment, combats are quite RPG-style, with options like Attack <Monster>, Defend <Party Member>, Use <Healing Item> on <Party Member>. I think it'll be that you only control yourself during the combats - the other 2 or 3 fighting members do vaguely sensible things on their own, and your lieutenant will tell you to do things sometimes. Whether you do or not has an effect on how she feels about you
* The plot doesn't really branch, and most of the scenes will start the same each playthru. However, the things the characters say to you or to each other will vary according to your choices. And there will be some scenes (not just the endings) which are only available if you've made certain choices earlier in the game. (Edit: okay, the completed version does have quite some branches

So, that's the general idea. I've completely planned out the characters, plot, scenes and choices in considerably more detail, but I wouldn't want to put spoilers in here

What do people think? Are there any bits of that plan which seem like a really bad idea to you? Any suggestions or comments?

[CopJohnson]

Any screenshots? It's sort of hard to visualize (OK, not THAT hard, but still...). The thing looks elaborate, good luck. Lemma's Tip Numero Uno is the best. What I would not put into my game is RPG, cause I don't like mixing up traditional text/screen ADV with RPG (Yeah, I am kinda slow with Brave Soul these days). I was really shocked by Lemma's mushrooms. So I wouldn't say it's a bad idea. It's just my opinion.

[KOE]

Is this game even supposed to be in the text/screen ADV type? I'm thinking the style woul dbe similar to Princess Maker.. cause that's like dating sim/RPG. I think mixing text adventures with RPG is a great idea. So you don't have to be reading text all the time. Lemma's mushrooms were definatly a bit out of place, but it was still fun.

If you have any screenshot or teasers, plz post them up!

[chronoluminaire]

Thanks for asking Development is proceeding, although there was a month or two of not much activity. The script and programming are well underway. The character art is coming in, and looking wonderful I don't have a background artist yet, so can't give screenshots because the dummy background images I'm using are copyrighted.

Elven Relations will be a free game, probably released "in association with" Lemmasoft. (Thanks, Blue Lemma! ) Given how busy I am and the current rate of progress, though, it'll be several months before release... maybe sometime around Easter 2004, I'm not sure. I'll keep you guys posted as the time draws nearer, but don't hold your breath yet.

You can read a little more about it here:
http://www.pilgrim.demon.co.uk/alex/cre ... promo.html
I'll see if I can get some promo images to show you, too.

[KOE]

Yeah! Post some promo images! I like looking at screenshots of games.

[BlackSpider]

Joins the queue waiting for screenshots .

[mikey]

Don't let them push you for screenshots (though, I wouldn't mind seeing them too). It's done when it's done. BTW I've read about the other project, Beautiful Days, a good setting, military academy.

[chronoluminaire]

Thank you! Yeah, I've got *lots* of plans for Beautiful Days. The interaction of the military academy setting with the dates and the ongoing plot is very interesting. I've got lots sketched out and some scenes fully written for it, but it's such a big project, I really want to get something under my belt beforehand.

Elven Relations is well underway. There's a lot of graphics to do, but we're still on track for around Easter release.

No screenshots yet, although we may have some soon. I'll let you know. I want to show you some off too, because my artists for Elven Relations are soooo cool

[Zintar]

Zintar, Joins the queue.

[chronoluminaire]

Well, it's with a slightly heavy heart that I announce what many of you have suspected for a while, that Elven Relations is now on indefinite hold. It was meant to be a small project to get myself started in ren'ai game creation. It dragged on, not getting much attention, for nearly 2 years, at which point it was about 2/3 finished, but having artist difficulties. Then NaNoRenO happened, and I put Elven Relations on hold, and finished When I Rule The World. And WIRTW was far better a debut game than Elven Relations could be. And meanwhile other ideas have been flooding in...

Now if it were just up to me, I'd sit down and finish off Elven Relations before moving on to anything new. But I'd have to hassle character artist, colourist and background artist. And the game isn't that great. It's nice enough, and I'd like to see it finished, but it's not worth hassling several people to get finished.

I say "on indefinite hold" rather than "cancelled" because I'm still fond of the project, and would like to finish it off sometime. I may come back to it sometime in the future. But it was originally conceived as a small, entry-level game, so that I could get something small and manageable under my belt before I move on to something larger. It turns out NaNoRenO was far better at enforcing that smallness than just an initial idea that sounds small. Elven Relations grew bigger and dragged on longer than it was ever meant to.

Do not despair! Because I now have two ideas in advanced design, both of which have a compelling plot and some great characters, and both of which I'm passionate about. You will see another game from the creator of When I Rule The World, I assure you.

[mikey]

Wise decision. After some time the never-ending project is more of a burden than anything else. I also had one project before Black Pencil that could qualify in the same category as ER and I just cut out the parts I found interesting and reused them in later games.

I'd also question whether the project really could have been 2/3 finished - with all you described the game would need, I'd say the most difficult tasks were left for last.

It's also good to see how NaNoRenO really made a difference in many ways. So I don't consider ER's "frozen" status a letdown, but a chance to see a new game from you... maybe this year?

Good luck on your next project!

[chronoluminaire]

Thanks for the kind words

Well, okay, the script was 2/3 done. The backgrounds were 50% done. The character lineart was 50% done; colouring barely started, maybe 5%. Overall, it probably works out as about 50%, in fact. The problem is the character artist got progressively more and more busy, and he's in his second year at university now. The background artist was always fairly irregular (although his output is gorgeous) and the colouring was meant to be by the character artist, then got shuffled off elsewhere, but by this stage I wasn't pushing too hard since the other artists were slowing down...

As for "maybe this year"... hmm... you'll have to wait and see I'm not going to make any rash promises, and it'll depend how much time I put into it. I can't suspend human interaction like I did during NaNoRenO for very long But I hope it shouldn't take too long.