Astre@ - (Hiatus - Old demo)

[Deji]

EDIT: since my exam got posponed until who-knows-when and my writer hasn't even started day 2 because he's busy with his own projects, this game's production is on hiatus. Fear not, thou, since I *really* want to finish this thing and the only thing preventing that from happening so far is the lack of script, since most of the art assets are already finished


*cough* decided to finally make a thread with the progress ^^;
Will also be used as devblog of sorts.
Again, sorry for the possible english mistakes ^^; I'm translating the original stuff from Spanish, and my English is far from being perfect =X; I also type and never re-read, so it might be full of typos >_>;



School life can be a living hell.... Literaly.

When the main character is transferred to the exclusive private school "St.Croix" on the capital city, he barely suspects of the horrors that are hidden behind the smiles and the impeccable uniforms of his classmates.

In St.Croix, Astre@ defines who is who.

¿What price would you pay to be the best or the most popular?
¿What macabre incident is everybody trying so hard to forget in St.Croix?
¿What secret do the whispers of the misterious building #300 mutter?

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St.Croix School's especiality is excellence education. Its strict formation in companionship values and its discipline are legendary. Under the motto "Le nombre 'un' est le plus solitaire" ("One is the loneliest number"), St.Croix is the object of desire of every parent in the capital city. It's rare when a vacancy is open and the waiting lists to enter are eternal. Hence the surprise for the main character; the luck smiles at him unexpectedly when one spot is fred upon his arrival to the city from the north, sent by his parents. However, soon he will discover that not everything is sweet in the exclusive school. The battle to be somebody between the students is fierce; the students will do anything to get the glory in St.Croix, where only the strongest, the most beautiful and the most daring survive. The popularity or failure of every pupil is published each week in Astre@, a popular website where every student, hidden under the security of a nickname, judges ruthlessly and mercilessly the rest of their peers. A high score in Astre@ means Eden, while absolute failure is assured to the ones that lag behind. In St.Croix, Astre@ defines who is who.

In his first day, the timid main character already feels the hell that will be the semester, but finds a helping hand in Martina, a caring girl with talents for photography and the only one daring to speak to the newcomer. Martina dreams about her pictures being the most popular in Astre@ one day, but she lives the fierce rejection of her female classmates. She will guide the main character on the hidden depths of the school, that hides more secrets than it seems. An incident from the past obscured by the mistery, rumors of weird rituals performed by the students, teachers not willing to talk, vacancies not being filled, pages missing from the yearbooks and a weird hall where the numeration of the classooms hides an horrendous crime. ¿What did really happen in the now missing classroom #306?

The destiny of the students of St.Croix will be twisted when a misterious user with the username "threehundredandsix" publishes in the popular website the picure of a beautiful student that retired the previous year. ¿Who is she, what happened to her and why does her image causes so much impact between the stundents and the school personel? The main character will be determined to find out, even if that also mean to discover that friendship is something that you can't count on in a place where only the blood wil be able to move the scales of Astre@.

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Notes:
- Astre@ is named after the greek goddess Astrea, an incarnation of the judgment, justice and the one that carries the Scales. The slogan of the website is "Know your place".
- St. Croix is based on the Chilean (my home country) private school system. Here we wear uniforms and have classes from 8am to 1-5 pm from monday to friday. The first semester (fall semester) starts the last week of February/ beginning of March after our Summer vacations and ends in July with a 2 weeks winter break. Second semester (spring semester) goes from the second half of July until Late November - mid-December. Each class group has an assigned classroom for the year and a fixed course schedule. There are some extracurricular activities, especialy sports and drama after school, but there's only a minority joining them.
Students here are most of the time not divided in groups according to their beliefs or their likings and do not care much about popularity. Just lately, due the influence of the American movies and tv series, they're slowly starting to care about that stuff.

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My current diploma/final college project.
My writer is a film-maker who is also my best friend, but he's really sluggish when it comes to work (multitasking much, I think), so there's no estimated final release date.
Thgis game will have an intro video and original music. There is a small chance that it'll have voices in Spanish as well.


PROGRESS
CURRENTLY ON HOLD

Sprites:
- 7/8
Backgrounds:
- 7/8
Event CGs:
- 22/37

Demo English Translation:
100%!
Aura proofreaded it and edited it quickly for me ^^

Code: Select all

Statistics:

The game contains 273 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 3594 words.
For an average of 13.2 words per screen.
The game contains 14 menus.

DEMO (Day 1) (old, I need to fix some things)

For Windows (15.3 MB)
For Linux (15.MB)
For Mac (16.MB)
Original en Español (13.5 MB)

The game is music-less and sound-less.
The UI is not definitive... it might change on the final release.

[Deji]

Main Character

(unnamed yet- probably up to player)
He has been sent by his parents from the north of the country to study at the capital city. He's a young male, between 15 and 16 years, extremely reserved, introverted and curious. He has very little friends, but he'll fight day after day to get used to his new school, and at the same time he'll try to calm his innate disbelief about the way things are done in St.Croix. He lives alone in a room paid by his parents, whom he rarely communicates with. His only contacts with the outside world are his laptop and the young Martina, his only true friend at school. He is, to the eyes of the rest of the students, a pariah an an easy prey to the most cruel members of the Astre@ community, considering his quiet ways, his weird trips to the school at night and specially after afirming that some strange stuff is going on at the school at late hours.

Martina

She's a girl of tender beauty and sweet personality. She's about the same age than the main character and greets him in his first day. She has a natural talent for taking pictures; always curious about the images and their inner beauty, she's always carying a digital camera (sometimes more than one if the subject demands so). In the beginning she has simple and common tastes, but she'll later reveal a complex and profound personality, repressed due the years in St.Croix and the lack of an approval niche. The main character gets interest in her, but sometimes he's unable to read her, making him suspect she also hides something. She'll be his guide through his search, alway providing valuable information, but never leaving that aura of mistery that surounds her past.

The golden Circle

Three beautiful girls, Petra, Colette and Allegra, they come form the highest part of the city and they share the common username "Golden_Circle", being the most popular users and the best evaluated in Astre@. Feared, loved and hated, the three girls are always seen together and are also surrounded by an air of mistery and, in the end, of solitude. They'll make the main character's life misserable and specially Martina's, for whom they have a special and shifty hate. The main character claims having seen them at the school at night.

The girl in the picture

Nothing is known about this 12 or 13 years old girl, with an angelical face and wandering eyes. Her image is published in Astre@ by the misterious user "threehundredandsix". The main character will soon discover that some strange things are going on around anything related to this girl.

Kleinrock

(real name yet unknown)
He's an arrogant classmate of the main character, with innate abilities for computers and one of the most brilliant students in St.Croix. He looks at the main character with contempt but he will be of use to him through his quest for the truth. He claims not to be interested in Astre@ and its trivialities, but he secretly visits the website every night and participates in the "voting" without remorse.

The teacher

His name is Stuardo and he's the homeroom teacher of the main character. He's a man of warm appearance, but he's actually very reserved and lonely. He'll try to keep his curiosity restrained, specially with anything related to the past and the girl in the picture. The main character trusts him, but he's also seen him at nights, making him suspect that his paternal outside is hiding the darkest secret of all.

The female principal

She's a character that is barely known, excepting the fact that her authority over the school is total. Her image of a harsh but melancholic woman is only seen through big portraits in the coridors and classrooms, because she rarely leaves her office during the day. She's always the first to arrive and the last to leave. The main character has even seen the lights of her office still turned on during long hours at night.

The classmates
The main character has other 3 classmates, to complete a total of 9 students in the class, being the only group like that, since in St.Croix every class is formed rigurously by 13 students, 6 males and 7 females. They will be harsh with the main character and won't deal with him much, being always obsessed with Astre@ and always avoiding too many questions. They're individuals without much personality or interests that stand out from the rest.

[akemicchi]

(( I hope I can post now. XD; ))

It sounds really scary; the whole idea is really very interesting. It's of a horror genre, right? I love horror. xD Astre@ seems to have a lot of really great themes and motifs.

And omg, good luck, Deji! You can do it! C:

[Deji]

(( I hope I can post now. XD; ))

It sounds really scary; the whole idea is really very interesting. It's of a horror genre, right? I love horror. xD Astre@ seems to have a lot of really great themes and motifs.

And omg, good luck, Deji! You can do it! C:

It's supposed to be horror-ish =3 Expect some blood here and there too, hehe ^^

Thanks a lot for the support! I'm a bit behind schedule as usual, so yeah XD;....
I'd better go take a shower and work on some BGs... I've spent 31/2 hours of my 4 morning work on the forums >_<;;;

[Vatina]

Yessssh horror xD *is excited*

Your character designs look great! I especially love the girls in the Golden Circle This I will be looking forward to!

[monele]

Reminds me of the good ambiance of a few (sorry) H games that took place in dark school settings . Unless it's too negative, this should be very cool ^_^.

Oh and...

Under the motto "L'une est la plus solitaire numéro" ("One is the loneliest number")

I'd translate it as "Le nombre 'un' est le plus solitaire", but I'm not perfectly sure of the english version's meaning (there might be multiple meanings hidden in there hm?) so this might require another pass ^_^

[Deji]

Reminds me of the good ambiance of a few (sorry) H games that took place in dark school settings . Unless it's too negative, this should be very cool ^_^.

Oh and...

Under the motto "L'une est la plus solitaire numéro" ("One is the loneliest number")

I'd translate it as "Le nombre 'un' est le plus solitaire", but I'm not perfectly sure of the english version's meaning (there might be multiple meanings hidden in there hm?) so this might require another pass ^_^

Too bad this one isn't a H game... I wouldn't mind, thou, but all the charactrs are underage and we do care about that over here XD;

I'll let my writer know of your translation =D Thanks for the input! ^^

I hope we can make Astre@ a game that will live up to all your expectations, guys ^___^

And I just got the morning and night version of another BG done. Coloring took me around 4 hours between the both versions >_<; Now to make the sunset version and then... I'll work on something else untill tomorrow >_o;

[papillon]

If the slogan is going to be in French it's probably better to find a French saying that has the right kind of meaning rather than try to translate the English phrase.

An obvious choice would be "un pour tous, tous pour un" but the Three Musketeers might be too cheerful an association for your purposes.

Try a list of French proverbs?

(I'm nitpicking because I think the idea is cool and I want it to be polished brightly!)

[sake-bento]

The idea looks great. I really enjoy horror stuffs. I really like the way you draw eyes. They're so expressive. ^o^ I'm definitely looking forward to this. ::nodnod::

[monele]

If the slogan is going to be in French it's probably better to find a French saying that has the right kind of meaning rather than try to translate the English phrase.

If I can have a clear explanation of what the saying deeply means, I could try to find the french equivalent (if there is any).

[Samu-kun]

Wow, looks like excellent stuff so far. ^_^ Will the game be in English or in Spanish?

[Deji]

If the slogan is going to be in French it's probably better to find a French saying that has the right kind of meaning rather than try to translate the English phrase.

An obvious choice would be "un pour tous, tous pour un" but the Three Musketeers might be too cheerful an association for your purposes.

Try a list of French proverbs?

(I'm nitpicking because I think the idea is cool and I want it to be polished brightly!)

*nod nod* I agree. Sadly my writter is still missing =_=; I'll let him know when I see him, and if he doesn't appear, I'll have to give him a call *hates to use the phone*
Thanks a lot for caring! =D

@sake-bento: thanks! =D I keep drawing eyes all day on the corner of my notebooks or sketchbooks XD; they're the part I like to draw the most =P

@moni: *shrugs* I on't know exactly myself. I'll ask my writter. Thanks for offering help! =D

Wow, looks like excellent stuff so far. ^_^ Will the game be in English or in Spanish?

It will be written in Spanish, but I plan to translate it into English to be able to release it here =3 I'd like a lot o people to play it and being in english there is a better possibility of reaching a broader audience.

Now I'm hoping that when we're done, he could pull the right strings among his friends and contacts (he's a recently graduated film-maker with a couple of contest winning short films) to get some nice musi and voice acting. When I told him about it he seemed really excited by the idea and said he would do his best... but he's been missing too much lately... *sigh* stupid summer vacations T_T;

Thanks a lot everybody for your support! I'll do my best to finish all the stuf in time and give you a pleasant playing experience =D

[Deji]

Ok, got to see my writer =D
He'll be getting me this wee around 15 or 20 descriptions for event CGs.
One more BG is gonna be required that I had alreday planned to make as one of the not necessary ones if I had the time.

We also talked about the french motto of the school, and we agreed on Moni's version "Le nombre 'un' est le plus solitaire", since the meaning is nothing more than "the number one is the most lonely of them all"... tada XD; Thanks a lot Moni, from me and my writter, for the correct translation =3

I hope I can get my belated commissions done soon, so I can start working on the remaining backgrounds tomorrow or so.
I'll be making a backrground from a photo, so I'll probably document the process and post it at the Art Workshop later if I learn something new =3

[Blue123]

Lurve-ly artwork. That's all I can say for now. But I'll read through the very detailed description you gave of the project later. Looks excellent, so far!

[Showsni]

If the slogan is going to be in French it's probably better to find a French saying that has the right kind of meaning rather than try to translate the English phrase.

If I can have a clear explanation of what the saying deeply means, I could try to find the french equivalent (if there is any).

It's from a song by Harry Nilsson. Here's the Three Dog Night version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKcd7yPLdU

I don't know if there was ever a French version...