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UPDATES

December 9
Hello! Small update! First off, there have been some major content cuts. Everything is linear now. We're aiming for a total of 14 episodes, each roughly 2200 words in length. That's a total length of about 30 000 words, which is still a very length adventure, considering this is going to be completely free game.

So far, I have written about 13 000 words of the storyline. Before I go any further, I would like to have somebody proofread/edit/modify/critique what I have of the story so far. You don't need any prior experience as an editor, but it's always a plus if you do. However, you must

-be dedicated
-be a good writer
-be imaginative
-be an anime fan

Just so you know, Raidaa no Asahi is a science fiction action romantic comedy with interactive SHMUP segments. There's plenty of thrilling space action, interpersonal drama, ecchi comedy, and political intrigue! If this kind of thing interests you, please apply either in this topic or leave me a PM. Thanks! ^_^

Oh, and another thing... The entire thing's a script like in an anime. Since the entire VN is going to be structured like an anime with "episodes" for chapters, "advertisement breaks" halfway in between these episodes, and OPs and EDs before and after each episode, suffice to say, everything's done in dialouge as you would expect in an anime. I hope I was clear enough in my stage directions for you to understand what's going on, but if you're confused about anything, tell me. :3

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Hellooo... :3 I guess I should stop lurking around here and actually post a bit on what I'm working on... :3 I apologize in advance for any rules I might break with this post and for my lame art. ^_^;;;

Title: Raidaa no Asahi
Genre: Sci-Fi SHMUP-RPG-Date Sim cross over
Premise: Three girls travel the galaxy in the name of love, justice, and a little money on the side

The World
Raidaa no Asahi takes place in a complex galaxy that's taken approximately six years of my life to flesh out. There's a vast amount of literature (all of it completely disorganized and in note format and totally unfit for anyone but me to understand) on all of this, but I'll try to explain everything. ^_^ Ask me questions though if any of this stuff doesn't make sense...

The galaxy is split into three different catagories of nations.

THE SUPER POWERS: THE CATAGERY ONE NATIONS
-These nations have planets located at ideal places throughout the galaxy
-Excellent planetary conditions
-Highly industrialized nations with enormous military and economic power
-The two superpower nations are currently at war with each other

The United Tharine Alliance
This is an economic, military, and research alliance between Earth and her one hundred colonies. They have been the industrial and military powerhouse of the galaxy for centuries. The government is based around the Congress of One Hundred where a single representative from every colony and a presiding officer from Earth determins public policy for the entire Alliance. They are held together by the NAFTA Agreement: An attack on one is treated as an attack on all. However, the Alliance has become beset by corruption as of late. Earth always seeks to leave the alliance because it feels that it must take quick and decisive actions, unhindered by the voices of her colonies.

NET - The New Empire of Tropicolis
This is a new superpower. The entire nation was formed as a response to the declining power of the Tharine Alliance. They believe that true freedom can only be accomplished by eliminating all rights. Rights lead to the idea of entitlement - entitlement leads to greed - greed leads to inevitable conflict. They believe that the majority of the galaxy is being decieved by the Tharine Alliance and have embarked on a galaxy wide mission to force every individual to become free.

THE MEDIUM POWERS - CATAGERY TWO NATIONS
-Although they possess fairly comfortable planets, these nations have not yet developed the military and economic power of the category one nations

Halflander Resistance
They're a conquered nation of enlightened scholars who are fighting against their PACT invaders.

The Nation of Aquamaria
The banking capital of the galaxy. They have declared themselves neutral in the Tharine and NET war and are making a fortune out of selling arms to both sides. Because every nation in the galaxy depends on them to supply arms, they have no need to develop a military.

THE OUTLAW POWERS - CATAGERY THREE NATIONS
-These nations live on remote planets that are barely hospitable to life.
-Contains the vast majority of the population

PACT (People’s Alliance for Common Treatment)
They're a powerful force in thousands of planets outside the control of Tharine and NET forces. A band of assorted criminals, pirates, and desperate individuals who are willing to do anything to survive. Famine, disease, and continual warfare in the catagory three nations lead millions to join the PACT every year.

The Characters

Kaito Jirou
Role: The player character
Gender: M
Age: 20
Hobbies: Collecting strange artifacts from across the galaxy, writing in his journal
Brief Description: Completely 100% average guy who's life gets turned upside down when he meets the SunRiders.
Birth Place: Earth, Japan
Family Background: His father's a salaryman who works for the recycled paper industry. His mother runs a little traditonal Japanese bakery.
Brief History: He's always wanted to fly into the stars ever since he was little, but his down-to-earth father forbade him to join the Tharine Fleet Military Academy. Now he's the captain onboard the civilian cargo ship, UTA Bluebird.

THE SUNRIDERS
The following three characters are the primary dateable characters! Hope you find atleast one that suits your tastes. :3 They're a team of space rogues who are travelling through the galaxy in the name of love, justice, and some money on the side. (Or atleast that's their slogan anyways) In fact, they all have much more personal reasons for flying through the stars...

Ikkari Ichinaya
Role: Tsundere leader of the SunRiders
Age: 19
Gender: F
Hobbies: Collecting ancient Japanese swords, Gothic Lolita fashion
Brief History: Her family was killed by PACT space pirates when she was 12; she joined the SunRiders so that she can avenge their deaths
Birth Place: Earth, Japan
Personality Quirks:
-She comes as being cold and distant at first, who's focused completely on avenging her family. But in the inside, she cares deeply about her teammates and is scared of losing them like she did her family.
-She's a rabid fan of Gothic Lolita fashion, but is too embarressed to admit it, leading to amusing sitations where she must hide her hobby from her teammates.
-Her favorite food is super spicy ramen noodles. She can't stand raisins though.
-Her most prized possession is a teddy bear her father gave to her when she was little - the only thing she has left of her family.

Asaga Okashi
Role: Jack of all trades rogue of the SunRiders
Age: 19
Gender: F
Hobbies: Gambling, partying, playing pranks on everyone else, playing crazy difficult bullet-curtain-hell SHMUP games
Brief History: Her father is a very influential Aquamarian arms dealer who supplies both the NET and Tharine military with new technologically advanced weapons. Her mother divorced her father, unwilling to live with an arms dealer. Asaga left her aristocratic life of privilege soon afterwards and joined the SunRiders. She believes she can undo the damage her father causes across the galaxy by helping others. Secretely wishes that she could return to the old days of her childhood before the war when her father was a honest computer hardware businessman.
Birth Place: Aquamaria
Likes: Gambling, adventure, excitement, shopping, spending money, pulling pranks on everyone else.
Dislikes: Boredom, cruelty
Fears: Growing old
Personality Quirks
-Loves to gamble, but isn't very good at it. Usually ends up losing most of the team's money.
-Also loves to party and go shopping, further spending most of the team's money. On the other hand, it's her that's usually always complaining about the team's "abysmal" financial situation most of the time...
-Has an absolute heart of gold however; she's always willing to go the extra mile to help others.
-Her favorite food is sushi. She is absolutely mortified by instant "add water and you're done" meals though...
-She's a total fan of hellishly difficult "bullet-curtain" SHMUP (Japanese shoot 'em up) games. She seems to have almost godly reflexes when it comes to video games...
-She's very superstitous... She thinks its bad luck for a woman to be on a ship and thinks the SunRider is doomed. Black birds are a century's worth of bad luck. She sprinkles a bit of salt on her Ryder before every mission. Ikkari thinks she's absolutely nuts.
-She's always playing pranks on Chigara

Chigara Akahadi
Role: The shy brains behind the SunRiders
Age: 18
Gender: F
Hobbies: Inventing new gadgets and gizmos, reading, writing, daydreaming
Brief History: She was separated from her family four years ago during a PACT attack on her home planet. She's been a refugee ever since. She joined the SunRiders to find her family. She misses her older brother in particular.
Birthplace: Half
Pets: A mechanical puppy she invented, named "Momo-kun"
Likes: Books, manga, mechanical manuals, peace, quiet
Dislikes: Noisy machines (she's always trying to invent better forms of noise suppression), mean people, boys (she's shy around them), bugs, heights, small spaces, the dark, mice, ghosts
Personality Quirks
-Tends to say the first syllable of her name, "Chiii..." whenever she gets flustered or nervous (which is quite often)
-Tends to be reserved and soft spoken
-Her most prized possession is her old brother's right glove. When she was seperated from her family four years ago on Half, her brother told her to hold onto his hand no matter what. Her entire family and a thousand other refugees were in the middle of boarding an emergency shuttle off the planet when the PACT fleet commenced bombing operations on the planet. Her family managed to board the shuttle, but there was no more room for her and she and countless other desperate refugees were shoved off the shuttle by government troops. She never let go of her brother's hand, but the glove he happened to be wearing at that time slipped off, leaving Chigara stranded on the planet with only his glove as the sole memory of her family.
-Ikkari is sympathetic towards Chigara and is always trying to protect her
-She can usually see Asaga's pranks coming, but she always pretends to fall for them to be a good sport
-Her favorite food is strawberry ice cream. She hates the taste of leeks.

THE UBER SHORT AND CONDENSED STORY OF HOW THE SUNRIDERS WAS FORMED
Asaga decides to run away from her father once she realizes that he doesn't care about her or for her mother. Together with Ikkari and Chigara, they steal his latest weapon of war, the SunRider, a top secret Destroyer-class capital ship that was going to be delievered to the NET government, declare themselves the SunRiders, and head off into the stars.

THE SUNRIDER, PHOENIX, BLACK JACK, AND LIBERTY
The SunRider, as stated before, is a Destroyer-Class capital ship. There are seven different classifications of capital ships, corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battle cruiser, battleship, and dreadnought. (listed in order of increasing power) I have alot of literature on the exact specifications of each class, but I won't write all that here for the sake of space. :3 A Destroyer-Class means that it's a small-sized capital ship that has the equivalent firepower of a cruiser, but the speed and maneuvrability of a frigate. In other words, it's heavily armed and fast, but it doesn't have much in the way of armor. It also carries three Ryders - small starfighters - that can provide support as well.

With the assistance of an onboard ship AI, the SunRider can be effectively controlled by a single pilot. Piloted by Kaito.



A 3D model of the SunRider: Rear view

PHOENIX
-The first Ryder carried by the SunRider. Piloted by Ikkari.



Rear view of the Phoenix

BLACK JACK
-The second Ryder carried by the SunRider. Piloted by Asaga.



Front view of the Black Jack

LIBERTY
-The third Ryder carried by the SunRider. Piloted by Chigara.



Front view of the Liberty

***exact specifications of each Ryder to come... Will change greately based on in-game balance and enjoyability.

THE FIREHAWKE UNIT
The primary villians! They're three super hot boys chasing your girls throughout the galaxy... Except they want to vaporize them instead of doing anything perverted with them... They're the top aces of the Tharine Fleet and have been ordered to eliminate the SunRiders for the betterment of humanity. The Tharine Government has assigned the SunRider a threat to national security and have placed its destruction at top priority.

Kryst Nook
Age: 21
Gender: M
Role: Cold, scheming, merciless leader of the FireHawke Unit.
Brief History: He has become the leader of the FireHawke Unit primarily thanks to the influence of his father in the Tharine Fleet. Many question his true qualifications for this role.
Likes: Results, success, respect
Dislikes: Shame, humiliation
Life goals: To defeat those pesky SunRiders
Character Quirks
-Extremely paranoid of others who question his authority
-An extremely dangerous pilot

Helio Apollo
Age: 21
Gender: M
Role: Cold and calculating strategist of the FireHawke Unit
Brief History: Rumored to have an IQ of 400, widely viewed as the smartest man in the entire Tharine Alliance. Many believe it should be he who should lead the FireHawke Unit.
Character Quirks
-Almost emotionless - thinks only in statistics and numbers
-Holds no respect for Kryst - believes that it should be he who should lead the FireHawke Unit.
-Wears glasses

Rai Stargazer
Age: 19
Gender: M
Hobbies: Playing video games, soccer, dating cute girls
Role: Laid back and easy going, the joker of the FireHawke Unit.
Brief History: An excellent Ryder pilot, Rai was selected to be the final member of the Firehawke Unit. While overshadowed by the two other members of the team, he is the most level headed of the unit and provides the team with much needed sensitivity.
Life Goals: To date atleast one girl from every planet in the galaxy
Pets: A goldfish named Nemo-kun
Character Quirks
-Can't stand diet cheese... Anything but diet cheese...


Hah! That seems like a good place to stop for now...

Oh..... But before I finish.....

Behold my crappy, derivative art style!

A promo picture! >^_^<

Yeah, it's not that great... >_>;;; I'm a story writer, what can I say! ^_^





It's soooooooooo unoriginal... It looks like Eika from Sky Girls in a ZAFT Red coat! Gah! *shoots self* >_<

Whew... That's one helluva long post. ._.;

Let me gather my thoughts a bit... And then I'll start talking about the gameplay mechanics...

Gack. I appearently messed up and uploaded 100x100 thumbnails of all my 3D models... Sorry, I've fixed it and replaced all the models now. ^_^

roGUe. Rouge is "red" in french :p (I keep seeing this typo everywhere, whyyyy?). And also catEgory

I like the ship designs and the premise and the overall detailed background you have ^^. But how will this play? Is it mainly a shmup or mainly a rpg or mainly a VN?

monele wrote:roGUe. Rouge is "red" in french :p (I keep seeing this typo everywhere, whyyyy?).

I suspect in a lot of cases it's just that - a typo. A lot of people don't care enough to correct even the ones they do notice, and most people won't even notice most of the typos they make. I have a pet theory that probably doesn't really hold any water that US Americans are more likely to make such mistakes 'cause after Webster brutalised their language they've got fewer French/Italian-style words to compare spellings with, and less etymological information available from spelling, but that's probably as much to do with my opinions on language reform as anything. (As it happens I don't think 'rogue' has a French derivation anyway, but a lot of words with 'ue' in do, like the similarly-sounding 'fugue'.)

monele wrote:But how will this play? Is it mainly a shmup or mainly a rpg or mainly a VN?

Working currently on a project which started off with a similar kind of plan, I'm also curious about this. Lately I've been wondering whether the RPG/VN bits are necessary at all, to be honest, or whether they'll just get in the way of the significantly-faster-paced action parts.

I'm also curious as to how you're planning to put it all together. I mean - are you using an off-the-shelf engine? Coding the whole thing from scratch? Modifying a shooter engine to have RPG elements, or an RPG engine to have shooter support?

Lately I've been wondering whether the RPG/VN bits are necessary at all, to be honest, or whether they'll just get in the way of the significantly-faster-paced action parts.

I don't know about RPG, though you could simply have that with an intermission shop where you could use money to make your ship faster, or sturdier or more deadly, or buying one-use items maybe (such as screen sized bombs and stuff?).
As for the VN aspect, it would be nice if there is a cool story to tell, but otherwise, it'd be nice to have chatter *during* missions, just like many space simulations have it. In a fast paced environment, having your teammates join during the level (their ship just comes on the screen and helps you shoot enemies), make some comments about the mission, the enemies (how they're tough maybe?) and then go away to accomplish their own objective for this mission... Then maybe when there is a boss fight, you get everyone helping?
And if stages are supposed to have multiple "paths", it could be linked to the story too. Chatter would explain that you have to destroy the fuel tanks on one side and keep one of the enemy ace pilots at bay on the other side. Depending on which part of the mission you want to accomplish, you'd take the top tunnel or the bottom tunnel (for example). Then, you'd get a wholly different "part B" of the stage, one were you have to destroy 80% of static enemies which are the fuel tanks and another where you have to fight off a boss. And for each path, you'd be accompagnied by a different friend pilot?

Ahem... sorry if that's not what you're going for at all but I just thought that up and since I'm never going to make a shoot'em up, I thought I'd better put these ideas here, just in case XD

monele wrote:I don't know about RPG, though you could simply have that with an intermission shop where you could use money to make your ship faster, or sturdier or more deadly, or buying one-use items maybe (such as screen sized bombs and stuff?).
As for the VN aspect, it would be nice if there is a cool story to tell, but otherwise, it'd be nice to have chatter *during* missions

Incidentally, this reminds me - Epic made a fun RPG/shooter hybrid a long while ago, called 'Solar Winds'. I seem to remember that that managed fairly well, but it's no good as a model for me, 'cause I'm going for a totally different kind of shooter.

I got responses! ^_^ Whoo. ^_^

I suspect in a lot of cases it's just that - a typo. A lot of people don't care enough to correct even the ones they do notice, and most people won't even notice most of the typos they make. I have a pet theory that probably doesn't really hold any water that US Americans are more likely to make such mistakes 'cause after Webster brutalised their language they've got fewer French/Italian-style words to compare spellings with, and less etymological information available from spelling, but that's probably as much to do with my opinions on language reform as anything. (As it happens I don't think 'rogue' has a French derivation anyway, but a lot of words with 'ue' in do, like the similarly-sounding 'fugue'.)

They're just typos... :3 On that topic, I think "colour" and "centre" are the only two words that are different spelling wise in the US... I tend to spell both the words the British way though, seeing how I learned English in Canada. Obviously, if I were making something a bit more formal, I would have run my post through a spell checker. :3

I'm also curious as to how you're planning to put it all together. I mean - are you using an off-the-shelf engine? Coding the whole thing from scratch? Modifying a shooter engine to have RPG elements, or an RPG engine to have shooter support?

Ah, nothing too fancy. I'm just going to code this using Game Maker. I've spent six years coding in GML, so I hope that a SHMUP and VN engine won't be too big of a problem.

As for the VN aspect, it would be nice if there is a cool story to tell, but otherwise, it'd be nice to have chatter *during* missions, just like many space simulations have it. In a fast paced environment, having your teammates join during the level (their ship just comes on the screen and helps you shoot enemies), make some comments about the mission, the enemies (how they're tough maybe?) and then go away to accomplish their own objective for this mission... Then maybe when there is a boss fight, you get everyone helping?

Hmm... That's the thing. I don't think I can really tell a great story if I just limit myself to a SHMUP game and I don't think I can have alot of space battles if I limit myself just to a visual novel. Even if the pace of each genre differs greatly, I think I need both of them to have both exciting space combat and a epic story. Initially though, I was going to use a turn based strategy game to handle all the space combat. It didn't work out though, since even thinking about programming a moderately intelligent enemy AI caused my brain to pop a fuse. ^_^; I think that I would prefer a SHMUP engine, since it doesn't take nearly as much programming skills to make it exciting. It's all about fast paced action and explosions instead of a super intelligent enemy AI. ^_^

For the branching, what I have in mind is to set the entire game up like an anime series. There are a total of 20 episodes. (Yes, yes, I realize that's an odd number of episodes for an anime series... I couldn't be helped for game play reasons. :3)

There'll be 4 introductory episodes at the beginning to introduce all the characters and such...
And then after that, the game begins branching off based on your performance in the SHMUP segments. In each SHMUP interlude, you'll have the ability to switch between controlling Ikkari, Asaga, or Chigara midlevel. There'll be various strategic, as well as storyline related reasons to do this.

Each ship is specialized to certain situations. Ikkari has the greatest firepower, but the spread of her weapons is limited, thus she's best suited to destroying small numbers of powerful enemies. Asaga has doesn't have much firepower, but her weapons have excellent spread, making her ideal for destroying large numbers of weak enemies. Chigara has special abilities that are effective against single powerful enemies, making her ideal for taking on bosses. You have to be constantly changing your ships during the SHMUP segments to best adapt to the situation.

BUT, there's also a catch to doing this. Each ship has a limited HP, and once it's depleted, it'll have to return to the SunRider for repairs. If this happens, you lose the ability to follow the storyline of that character in the next episode. If all three ships are eliminated in this manner, it's game over and you have to restart at the last save point or whatever. At the conclusion of each episode, you get the option to continue on with one of the surviving pilot's stories.

There are six episodes dedicated to each character. So let's say during episode three, both Ikkari and Asaga survive the SHMUP interlude, but Chigara has to return to the SunRider for repairs. That means at the end of episode three, you'll be presented with the option to continue with either Ikkari and Asaga's story arc, but not Chigara's. And let's further assume that you pick Ikkari's story arc. This means that episode four will focus primarily on Ikkari's path to vengeance.

You can pick a total of 11 episodes. If you fail the complete all six episodes of a single character during those 11 episodes, you get a bad ending and you have to restart the game or reload a saved game. (Make sure you save often and in different slots. >^_^<)

Once you reach episode six of a certain character, you get the good ending. Yay. :3

Now you're thinking, there are 11 character episodes and 4 introductory episodes, what about the remaining five!?

Well, these are going to be bonus/service episodes. In some SHMUP interlude sections, there'll be some bonus objectives that are more difficult to achieve. If you succeed, then you get the option of having a bonus episode. :3

Some ideas for the bonus episodes...
-The SunRiders go to the hot springs episode!
-The obligatory "The SunRider gets haunted by a ghost" episode
-The beach episode
-One episode where you can date the SunRider's ship AI
-The SunRiders go fishing!
-The SunRiders verses the tentacled space monster (Getting H now...)

And now about the difficulty levels...

Yes, there will be multiple difficulty levels.

There will be the "Visual Novel" difficulty where the SHMUP segments literally just plays itself. The enemies will be extremely weak and there will be virtually no challenge. This is for those who have never played a SHMUP game that want to focus entirely on the VN aspect of the game.

There will be the "Normal" difficulty where the SHMUP interludes are challenging, but beatable by the average SHMUP player.

And then there'll be the "Bullet-Hell-Curtain" difficulty, where a wall of bullets face you. >:3 Only SHMUP veterens need apply!

I'm also thinking about adding a "SHMUP-only" mode into the game, for those who want to focus only on the shooter aspects of the game without the VN aspect... But that's planning way too far ahead! Must complete everyone's storylines first! :3

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Asaga's financial quirk...that made me laugh outright, it was so funny <maybe because I used to relate to it?>

This sounds pretty interesting...it SEEMS pretty big-scale, but also looks like you have a good handle on where you are going with it and what steps to take. I do have one question...how does Kaito meet the Sunriders? It wasn't clear how he meets them...or does he meet them as the game progresses?

*Makes a note to get to know all three datable girls...they all seem pretty interesting* =)

I was going to use a turn based strategy game to handle all the space combat. It didn't work out though, since even thinking about programming a moderately intelligent enemy AI caused my brain to pop a fuse. ^_^; I think that I would prefer a SHMUP engine, since it doesn't take nearly as much programming skills to make it exciting. It's all about fast paced action and explosions instead of a super intelligent enemy AI. ^_^

Sounds wise. I tend to think of turn-based as easier to make but I do forget about AI ô_o...

You have to be constantly changing your ships during the SHMUP segments to best adapt to the situation.

Interesting! Hmm... Will ships have energy/HP or single-hit-dying? If it's the former, you could also end up buying repair drones so that the ships you're not using can slowly regenerate. Just an idea

*reads below*.... darn... XD

Once you reach episode six of a certain character, you get the good ending. Yay. :3

What happens if you get 6 episodes of the same character in a row? Does that mean the game ends at episode 10?

Yes, there will be multiple difficulty levels.

Very good idea ^^. I'm sure VN people will appreciate that

This sounds pretty interesting...it SEEMS pretty big-scale, but also looks like you have a good handle on where you are going with it and what steps to take.

Yeah... It really is big scale... I'm thinking about cutting some stuff too, just so that it's easier for me to create. For example, I might end up having only five episodes for each character instead of six... :3 Right now, each episode is averaging about 2100 words... With six episodes for each character path, that's 12 600 words... And three character paths means a total of 37 800 words. And then you have to add in another 19 000ish words from the four introductory and bonus episodes... Okay... So that's kind of like a NaNoWriMo ._.; Haha, maybe I *should* cut some stuff out... ^_^;;;;;;;;; We'll see how things turn out further down the development path. ^_^

I do have one question...how does Kaito meet the Sunriders? It wasn't clear how he meets them...or does he meet them as the game progresses?

He doesn't know them at the beginning of the story, so the first episode is dedicated entirely to how he meets the SunRiders. :3 Haha, let's just say Kaito's a completely average guy who gets drawn into the adventure completely by accident. It's really kind of unfortunate for him since Asaga keeps trying trying to seduce him and then blackmails him afterwards by threatening to tell everyone how he touched her unless he takes her out shopping and buys her whatever she wants, Ikkari keeps whacking him with sharp objects whenever she gets angry, and Chigara thinks he's a pervert. But never fear, they eventually warm up to him as the story goes on... Kind of. :3

What happens if you get 6 episodes of the same character in a row? Does that mean the game ends at episode 10?

Yes, I'm thinking that the game just ends whenever you reach the sixth episode of any character. That is, if the player didn't get any bonus episodes. But I think the chances for that are small, since it's highly probably that each character's gonna be shot down atleast once, just by bad luck... Unless you're playing on the lowest difficulty or if you're a SHMUP master. :3

Interesting! Hmm... Will ships have energy/HP or single-hit-dying? If it's the former, you could also end up buying repair drones so that the ships you're not using can slowly regenerate. Just an idea

In all the difficulty levels but the hardest one, your ship will have HP. :3 Probably about 10 hits before dying for the lowest difficulty and three for the normal one. On the topic of being able to buy things for your ship, HOPEFULLY I can make something like that possible, but I can't make much promises for it... If I have to start cutting content (which I frequently do), then the shop for buying extra weapons/items will probably be one of the first things I'll remove, since it's not directly related to the storyline and the SHMUP segments could still survive without it... You ideas are always very good though. >^_^^_^<

Initially, the plan for the interactive segment of the game was alot more grandiose... I was going to have a galactic map and have you control the SunRider around it like you would a character in an overmap in an RPG. And then every so often there would be a random battle where you have to scramble all fighters and fight off a horde of enemies in a small, randomly generated SHMUP level. And then you could also land on various planets throughout the galaxy and recieve storyline interludes in visual novel format. But as I kept writing the story, I figured that wouldn't really be the best way to present the story since I wanted a much more tighter storyline experience. It turned out I needed something far more linear to tell the kind of story I was looking for. :3

And random battles are annoying too. >:3

I do understand that many fun features won't be in just to make this a feasible project. It's good that you know when to cut things (I still have trouble with that myself XD).

You ideas are always very good though. >^_^^_^<

Thank you ^_^..... (doppelganger smiley?)

I was going to have a galactic map and have you control the SunRider around it like you would a character in an overmap in an RPG.

That would have been neat . And bringing random encounters into a SHMUP... that's bold ^_^

Oh... One last thing before I head off to bed... :3

Here's one of my previous projects... It's unfinished, but in a playable state... ^_^;; And it has some considerable length to it as well... Takes about 35ish minutes to beat. And it takes place in the same universe as the story I'm writing now. It's another one of my genre cross-over games... The best way I can describe it is a tactical turn based real time strategy game... You'll see what I mean once you play it. :3

Notice: Some of the game mechanics are kind clunky. Use the hotkeys instead of the actual command buttons. :3 And be sure to play the tutorials first before heading off into the campaign!! ^_^

http://host-a.net/NOT_Games/sunridertactics.zip

[Note: Only compatible with Windows XP machines! Sorry. >_<;; Vista wasn't released when I made this game. ._.;]

I'll dig up some of my other games later tommarow if you really want to see them. ^_^

That was fun. (Though hard in the later levels -_-)

I hope you are able to be productive on your project, we need more gameplay-based original english anime games.

Hellloooo hellloooo everyone! :3 Just a little update to prove that I am indeed still working on this project! ^_^ So, here's the general break down of how things are going.

Art
The majority of the the time in the art department has been spent drawing concept scetches of the main dateable characters... So here they are!

Warning: The last two characters are undressed! Warning: The last two characters are not dressed! There's absolutely nothing H about them though... The artist just got bored of drawing clothing. XD

This is Ikkari. She's the tsundere leader of the SunRiders. This is Asaga, the gambling, financially problematic, but ever fun loving jack of all trades of the SunRiders. And this is Chigara, the shy brains behind the team. Story
This is where most of the work's been going on! So far, the storyline is 9200 words long... The problem is that I've just finished with the three introductory episodes and just started on Ikkari's path... Gah... I'm thinking that there will indeed be alot of content cuts... Maybe reducing each character path to four episodes each. That way, maybe the entire story will be around 30 000 words long. Which is still a crazy long amount. Maybe once I write one character's path and get more art and programming done I can convince somebody to help writing... ^_^;;;

So far, the ultimate goal of the storyline is to merge the humor and charm of animes like Love Hina and Negima with the drama of Kanon and Clannad with the action of Gundam. So far, I'm glad to say that all seems to be going smoothly. In terms of content, I've debated whether to include H content and ultimately decided against it to reach a more broader audience. But that's not saying that there won't be ecchi stuff in it. ^_^ You will get to have sex with the girl of your choice at the very end, but it won't really exceed what we saw between Kira and Flay in Gundam Seed. And there'll be more empasis on the romantic success and truimph of kindness over evil during the scene than in the average H game.

Programming
Nothing done yet... >_<;; *hides under blankets*

So, in summery, everything's still very sketchy and I'm still in the very beginning stages of production, but progress appears to be going smoothly. Whoo. ^_^

That's a really interesting project *^^* I love your characters~ They're so adorable and I like the hairstyles a lot :D
If I can help in any way, make sure to let me know~ :3