Lemma Soft Forums

-----Yep. Pirates. In the desert.

Website here, check it out

I've had this idea floating in my head for about a year and a half now. At first, I was going to make this a branching VN where you could explore each of the crew of the ship, but then I realised that I was nowhere near good enough a writer to pull that off. And then I wanted to make it a comic, cause comics are cool. But then I scrapped the idea because I realised my plot went nowhere. And then I reworked the plot a bit (and accepted that a plot that doesn't necessarily have an antagonist is okay a lot). But recently, I've discovered that I have major consistency issues and drawing a comic would be nigh impossible, so I've once again poured my efforts into making a VN. Except it's more of a kinetic novel now... Branches are hard... I think I'm going to be making this a 16+ chapter/arc KN. I wanted to throw in porn, but it seems the community for non porn games is more active, so I'll make it a non-porn game (and maybe make a nsfw version in the future). And I wanted to throw in a turn based battle system later in the series. Oh dear...

Sorry for long intro that doesn't really matter.

Updates
10.27.10--Arc 1 is more or less done. Just waiting on music. So in the meantime, I shall start arc 2.
06.30.10--There is a production schedule set in place and our aimed release for Arc 1 is September 1st. Let's hope I make it.
06.13.10-- Finally have some semblance of spare time on my hand and so I'd like to direct it to this little child of mine again. It has been neglected for so long now. I've reupped a new demo with some new arts but no musics as I have enslaved my boyfriend to do it, but he's been preoccupied. I'll be editing this post with some new images. There is also a what should be relatively up to date website here

A little about the plot:

The main character, Skyler, stows away on a pirate ship because she's a bored, uninspired writer. Throughout the whole series, you learn more about each of the twelve(? I don't remember anymore...) crew members and the awesomeness of being a pirate. The series spans a couple of years, and so a lot happens. The first chapter/arc thing is kinda short and is just an introduction to almost all of the crew. I may expand on it though. Did I mention this all takes place in the desert. Harnessing the power of magical crystals (actually, it's glass), desert-folk have managed to build ships that fly across the deserts. And when you have ships, you have pirates.

Should I list the characters? I guess I should. Here are the main ones (aka the crew):

Left to right (with the most important in the middle, lol):
Sauriel: A very old satyr. He's Kala's guardian and the ship's main magic user man.
Kala: The other foreigner. She's the only anthro character in the whole series. I didn't want to make her anthro, but it seems to weird story wise for her not to be. She's basically a caracal that walks on two feet, wears clothes, and uses magic. I don't know why, but I always imagine her blue...
Jocelyn: Gavon's wife. She takes care of most of the cleaning on the ship. Not a fun job, but someone has to do it. She has an oryx on the ship.
Gavon: The cook. Likes to gamble a lot. (may be renamed)
Vaeryl Saju: The main fighter of the group. Very angry very often. Does not like Skyler. Also the only one with a last name (so far).
Captain Alabaster: Captain. Very arrogant (but I don't think I quite portrayed that enough in the story....) (And yes, I know alabaster means white and he's not white...)
Skyler: Uninspired writer. She's very plain...
Asgar: Gay navigator. I hate making gay a main aspect, but dammit. He seems nice enough.
Tyrmak: The lustful mechanic. Very inquisitive and always willing to trade sex for new information (or vice versa). But since this is not a porn game anymore... hrmmm..... oh well. I'll just have implied sex.
Fleur: The foreign doctor. She's very sadistic and doesn't know the word ethics when it comes to science. Ethics or permission.
Euzo: The other fighter. He's the brute force of the group. Rather large, but he packs a punch. (And an axe).

And not pictured (sorry, kid):
Joyae: Gavon and Jocelyn's daughter. Will grow up to be a mechanic. In her spare time, she plays with Mak (if he's awake, but then again, he doesn't sleep much), or she plays the lute. Vaeryl's grandpa taught her how to play.

There's a few more characters, but they join the crew later.

Check http://emihaumut.com/rynspyr/chars.php for more info about the characters (and a coloured picture for most of them).

A little about the world:
In Ebarcul Desert, the people have split into two factions, one that comes up at night, and one that comes up during the day. That explains why some of the people are pale and some of them are dark. The nocturnal folk have grown to be more of the warrior types, and the diurnal more of the farmer and producers. In doing so, a lot of racism has grown over the years between the two races, but that doesn't matter to (our) pirates too much.

There is also a magic system with crystals (glass) called ryn. Ryn were originally produced naturally, whenever lightning happened to strike the desert. Sometimes, if the sand was strong, it would form a magical glass. Over the long spans of time, satyrs have developed a way to manipulate the ryn, but most humans could not. The satyrs say it's because the humans aren't "close enough to nature", but no one knows for sure. Humans with even a bit of satyr blood in them can manipulate ryn, though the less blood you have, the less you can manipulate. Though, these mixed bloods tend to be rare because the satyrs are tend to be very xenophobic. Of course, there will be exceptions. These ryn manipulators are called rynsfiri and they are always in great demand. It is with ryn that most all ships are powered.

Uhmmmm yeah. Oh and the ship's name is Rynspyr, hence name of the game. Thank you for reading long post (and if you didn't well thanks for pretending you did). I'd love some comments and feedback as I try to work on this beast.

Demo:
I haven't had a chance to upload to sendspace yet (slow internets at home, ack!), so here they are on my website. Hopefully, it won't crash. Hopefully.

Version 0.25--No music, and maybe about 40% through the script.
Linux | Mac | Windows

Screenshots

Short demo added.

I downloaded your demo, emihaumut. I'm impressed. Here are my thoughts so far:

1. It's clear from your blurb and your demo that a lot of world-building went into your game. But I was distracted by the 2. If I hadn't read your description, I wouldn't have known that Skyler is a girl. The character looks oddly similar to Sokka from Avatar The Last Airbender.

3. A bunch of characters get introduced rapidly. I don't know if it's possible now, but you might wish to let the reader get to know one at a time.

Thanks for your comments! (Sorry for the late reply, I haven't had internets since I recently moved in >.>)

1. I was actually thinking about that, but I'm still trying to figure out the language and stuff. I don't know why, but I'm suddenly making a lot of comparisons to Battlestar Galactica now in my head. Like how they used "Frack". I might think more about it during one of my random world building moods.

2. Well damn. She does look like sokka. I think I'll try to make her face more feminine then.

3. I actually kind of wanted it that way. I know for sure that it's way too fast for people to remember who's who, but I kind of like that. I kind of like stories where they start right off the bat with a whole bunch of characters and then go on to develop each character individually (like BSG, lol). That is what I eventually plan to do. Most of the arcs I have planned out is just a lot of character development of the crew members. I don't actually expect the player to remember who's who until maybe near the middle of the whole series.

emihaumut wrote: I don't actually expect the player to remember who's who until maybe near the middle of the whole series.

Not until the middle!? Not fun!
Why the heck are we playing your game if we don't care about anyone in it?

Anyway, I agree with gekiganwing on about everything. Skyler ... well, I was surprised when you said he was a girl. Goes the game for Vaeryl. I do think it's the face, mostly. You're good at masculine faces. xD Though I think covering up her body with her arms also masks any other feminine curves she might have. Not that I'm saying you should make her look like a Hollywood celebrity -- plain girls are fine in my book. But the truth is, girls don't want to play girls that look like men. =\

I love your world. I like worldbuilding myself, so I respect a good world when I see one. The desert pirate theme is very intriguing, not to mention romantic! One of my favorite books series took place in this kind of environments, so I am very excited for this game's release. I agree with giving the language its own flavor. Having the characters say things too similar to our own world will drag us out of the immersion. Not to mention your characters all have elaborate, foreign names -- it just feels weird to be speaking like us.

Back to the "so many characters, so little time" dilemma. Personally, I think it would be much, much better for you to consider slowing down the introductions. All of your characters have strange names, which after a point becomes too much for our little brains to handle. Shoving them all down our throat forces us to remember that "this is a videogame! These are characters that I have written!" and it's kind of patronizing.

But I also hate people who think they can nitpick your game just because they can make one, too. So feel free to ignore me.

Well maybe it'll be sooner than middle. I don't know. The only characters that you should know from the beginning are Skyler and Captain Alabaster. The others trickle in. Hrmmmm, the way I have it set up, the first game (which just introduces everyone) does the character intros really fast... It kind of slows down and I re introduce everyone in the part right after the demo actually, but I think it is still a bit fast. I'll try to slow down I guess. But I still want to throw all the characters out there. So yes, "These are the characters I have written. It's like being thrown into a new crowd of people where you know no one, but you learn their names eventually."

Rawr. Yeah. I think the faces definitely play a factor in their manliness. I think it's because I'm always drawing men. I really need to draw more women. >.> I should probably go practice that. A lot.

I should also do some world building. I think for now, I'll leave things as is as placeholders, and once I world build some, I'll fill in the blanks so to say.

At this rate, it seems the next demo's going to take a lot longer, lol. But that's fine.

I reworked Skyler's face a bit. Does she look less androgynous now?


(Hrmmmm... I'm looking at it now and it doesn't quite seem I've reached there.)

Yes, she does look more feminine. Might I suggest (you can ignore me if you wish) a hint of her hair below her ears? I realize her hair would be hard to see from the front angle, but it would definitely be seen at least a little bit (considering the 3/4 view). It would also do wonders for her femininity.

What really detracts from femininity is her ears. They look too big, if you ask me. I know that, proportionally, ears typically go from the corner of the eye to the tip of the nose, but I think that it would be best to make them a bit smaller.

Also, there's no shading where the 'lipstick' would be. Women, regardless of whether they're wearing lip color or not, are typically drawn with darker lips to emphasize their femininity. It doesn't have to be blood red or anything, just like you would normally shade.

Other than that, your new version looks a lot better than the previous one. (:

Not everything has to be うんこもえ ... it's allowed to have the eyes smaller, ears large, or a long nose on any characters. I understand the aesthetics behind it but it's also okay not to ...

Thanks for the replies.


How's it look now?

I like it. She looks like an interesting character, and just feminine enough to be female.

Perfect. Not too moe, not too unattractive.

Yay, good job for not dropping! *A* More games to play heee