Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

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Cirrocumulus-Cloud
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Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#1 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Hello everyone, it has been ages since I was online. (Like, a year.) A lot of things happened in my life, bad things and good things, which left me without any time to work on projects, as I dealt with myself and my immediate situation.
Through all of that my family and I moved and my laptop, which had all of my files and work on it, died, leaving me with nothing to work with.

I am back now, with a new project and a profound apology to everyone who tried to help me with my projects back then.
What I did in the meantime was improve my art style, which shows, I think.
I own a good PC now and can work without worry, so I tried to start out anew.
I hope you will follow me through the development of this game!

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Plot:

In the rundown town of Sunseton, illegal races are the biggest chance to make it in the world.
Poverty and crime reigns, with only the speed of bikes providing a chance to escape the downward spiral.
For Akira, Daisuke and the rest of their "Tag Dogs", this life is as normal as it could be.
Both look back at a long record of races with an equal amount of wins and losses.
But now that Akira got the attention of even outside media, they find themselves in a spotlight that they never could have imagined.

Amongst this chaos, Rika, a young woman who dreams of opening her own repair shop, finds her way to Sunseton.
Soon enough, she finds herself deeply woven into a web of intentions worse than simply winning the newest race cup.

Features:

- four obtainable characters (Two male, one female, one agender.)
- endings for both characters and the storyline (Endings are made up of Story Ending, Character Ending + an Ending Scene that is determined by both.)
-> two endings per character
-> three endings for story
- four poses for each character (front, left side, right side, backside)
- a multitude of different outfits (Summer Outfit in two colours, Winter outfit in two colours, Swimwear, a Jacket and Gloves, Racing Gear)
- multiple CG's
- a soft way of determining Rika's personality (Loud VS. Calm)
- bikes, lots of bikes (With names!)
- a cute pug named "Nothing"

Development Team:

Just me, Cirro, for now.

Characters:

Rika (Name can be changed) - 19 with Citrus
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A young woman with a knack for repairing machines. She dreams of opening her own repair shop, though money is scarce which leaves her optionless.
Seeing no other way to achieve her dream she moves to Sunseton, a rundown town with a known reputation for illegal racing competitions.

Akira "Ace" - 21 with Hollow Queen
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The star racer of the "Tag Dogs", with the pride to show for it. Akira is a bright and happy fellow, although as arrogant as they are kind.
They ran away from home at the age of 15 and have since always made their money through racing, which leaves them with a limited understanding of academical topics.

Daisuke "Bear" - 26 with Spiderwheel
A gruff man with a stern gaze and the heigt of a bear, giving him his well-known nickname. The boss of the group. Always wears a scarf which hides the lower part of his face. Direct, but always supportive.
Daisuke is experienced with the hard parts of life and thus tries to shield his group from the more dangerous sides of their reality, even if that means busting someone out of jail. Rumor has it he once killed a man.

Ezra "EZ" - 18
The mechanic of the group. A bit of a genius, as he graduated from school with top grades at the age of 14. Ezra is shy, prefers to tinker with machines instead of holding conversations and oftentimes seems rude due to it.
He is very observant in nature. Why Ezra decided to live a life like this is anyone's guess, as he never speaks about his past.

Lola - 20
The good soul of the group. Lola is an energetic young woman with a booming voice, who tends to lift the spirits of everyone she interacts with.
She owns a shoddy hotel with a bar, which functions as the gathering place and home for the "Tag Dogs".

Domino - 22 with Aurum
A former hero, though nowadays he stands in Ace's shadow. Domino is more of an observer than an active participant in races nowadays because of it and gets along great with Ezra.
He is easily provoked, but tends to calm down just as quickly. Friendly, but usually a little guarded. Michivious to the point of annoyance.

Nothing - 7
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Daisuke's pet dog. A friendly pug with a habit of barking if anyone ever calls her name, even in situations where people don't refer to her directly.
She is the reason why the "Tag Dogs" got named the "Tag Dogs", and acts as the mascot of the group.
Progress
Outline: 30%
Script: 0%
Character Design: 20%
Sprites: 10% (Rika 20% / Akira 0% / Daisuke 0% / Ezra 0% / Lola 0% / Domino 0% / Nothing 0% / Supporting Characters 0%)
CG's: 0%
Music: 0%
Backgrounds: 0%
Last edited by Cirrocumulus-Cloud on Sun Jul 02, 2017 2:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Didules
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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#2 Post by Didules »

Hello !
You probably don't remember me, but I used to stalk your previous games topics, and so I'll keep on this sort of tradition XD What can I say, I like your ideas.

Your idea is really interesting : the settings is original yet somehow familiar, so it'll be nice to see the characters evolve in it!
The plot seems a bit dark which is good and the characters are intriguing, can't wait to see/read more of her !!

The ending systems seems a bit complicated however it looks like you really thought a lot about it, and what I get is that there'll be a huge replay value which is great !! Good job thinking about that part, since it's often Forgotten in visual novel.

I'll wish you all the best ! Good luck with this project and you new start !!! :)

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#3 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Hey, sadly, I don't remember you, but it's good to be back and it's really kind of you to follow my new project as well! =)

Thank you! I thought a setting like this one allows for both an intriguing story as well as silly, funny moments between the characters. It's not all doom and gloom, but not all happy, either!
I can comfortably add slice of life moments without it feeling out of character for the characters to actually act all happy and content.

Oh, it's not THAT complicated. Just a lot to write, but the overall amount of work will be worth it, I think. Since every character only has two endings and the story itself has three, I will have to write 6 ending scenes for every character route, so 24 in total. Each of these ending sequences will be around 1000 words long, so this adds 24k words to the overall script, which is OKAY. A lot, but manageable. Not sure if I will give those ending scenes CG's or not, that depends on how much time I want to invest, haha. =)

But yes, it adds replayability! I love to experience new scenes in Visual Novels, which is why I like the Tokimeki Memorial series so much. You can just do whatever. I DO want a coherent story though, so just going with a stat raising slice of life game wasn't my cup of tea. You will get at least three very different playthroughs out of the game, so it should be fun to pursue at least three of the four characters! The game is split in a manageable way: You get your common route, then the story route that you will pursue. Afterwards, you pick your character route. The story will now resume and character route events will be inserted into the story route that you picked, in such a way that every story route can interact with the character route in a healthy way. Some scenes will change mildy depending on your story arc, but overall character routes are separate from the story.

Thank you so much for your kind words!

Here, have a quick update: A WiP picture of Akira!

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#4 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Got a few further updates of work in progress sprites! Akira's upper body is pretty much done and I started with Daisuke.

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#5 Post by FluffyCakeFactory »

I like the racing genre and I like what I've read about the characters so far! I'm especially looking forward to seeing nothing. It sounds daunting to write the endings, but you sound confident. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck. I hope to play the finished novel soon, haha.

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#6 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Thank you very much, FluffyCakeFactory!

Since I've been sick on and off the last few days I've only been able to continue drawing today. Good news though, the first (of two) poses for Nothing is finished!
She can show quite the arrangement of emotions due to different mouth, 'eyebrow' and tail shapes! Here is a happy and a sad pug lady for demonstration (yes, she has an underbite). =)

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#7 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Small update once more! Currently working on the first scene of the game and writing down ideas for how I want the GUI to look.
I've also been working on colouring Akira and Daisuke some more - Akira is pretty much done, except for the jacket. Daisuke is still missing his legs, hah.
I'm trying to finish the first sprite of every major character next month. Every other sprite that doesn't face forward will take much less time to finish, since those won't be full body shots but only waist-high.
In the meantime, have a sketch of Ezra. =)

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#8 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Aaand Akira is finished! =) Ezra's also beginning to look good, while Daisuke gives me a bit of a headache regarding his outfit.
I should manage to finish the first pose with one outfit for every main character this week! =)
It makes me really excited, since it means I will be able to move this topic or create a new one in the WiP forums~

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#9 Post by noeinan »

Looks interesting! Posting to follow your progress. :3
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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#10 Post by Godline »

Sounds exciting!
Good luck with the development!

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#11 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

@daikiraikimi: Thank you very much! I hope you will enjoy the route this game takes!

@Godline: Thank you so much! I'm working hard on it~

Didn't manage to finish what I wanted, sadly, since work got in the way. I DID manage to draw Akira's Jacket though, so at least there's that.
Next up will be Daisuke, then Ezra, then Lola. I also wrote some more scenes for the Demo. =)

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Re: Tag Dogs (Racing, Mystery) [Girl x Boy/Girl/Agender]

#12 Post by Cirrocumulus-Cloud »

Soo, since I'm currently also working on Way up High work on this project has gone slow. I DID outline multiple plot points for the character routes, though. Pretty much everyone has a central plot that their route deals with written down now. My plan is to make every route self contained (but allude to them in other routes, since the characters are so close to each other) so it can work with every plot, which looks good so far. Also, man does it feel good to tackle difficult topics that make characters seem real.

The common route also has a complete outline now. And it's really funny, really cute and really dramatic, too, imo. I think you guys will like the group dynamic that these characters have. It's going to include some Slice of Life shenanigans too, with my favourites being a terrific shopping spree with Ezra and a celebration at Lola's bar. Since every character is an adult here, the game will dabble with quite heavy themes and includes drinking, some violence and more than just chaste kisses. I hope people like proactive protagonists, because Rika isn't a stammering virgin.

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