[WIP] American Jurassic (demo available, artists needed)

[duanemoody]

American Jurassic
Artists, composer needed for Old West/Romance VN
Cowboys. Dinosaurs. Romance.

1884. In the mountain country of northern Arizona, ranchers have learned the hard way that this is no country for mammals. A dying dino rancher must accept the help of his estranged younger brother, a twentysomething English professor living in the East, to take the reins and learn the ropes of raising livestock once believed extinct.

Can bookworm Schuyler Bennett return to the fold, raise terrible lizards, and find love along the way?

While the setting and cast is obviously Western (in all senses of the word), VN players will recognize familiar archetypes in the cast and plot.

American Jurassic features a cast of seven main characters and a few supporting characters:

Bennett Ranch:

• Schuyler Bennett: a conflicted young man who left the West before the cataclysm. Bright and acerbic, his mouth often works faster than his tact.
• Marcus Bennett: a no-nonsense tobacco-spitting rancher in his thirties, struggling with watching everything he's worked for slip away
• Emily Kitchener: Schuyler's adopted little sister who called in a childhood promise to bring him back to the high mountain desert, and couldn't be happier he's back.

Fable, Arizona:

• Sheriff Lorena Buckhurst: after the original Sheriff Buckhurst was gunned down in a firefight, his widow Lorena singlehandedly brought the men responsible to justice and assumed his mantle. 33 years old, Lorena is tall, imposing, and stacked, with long iron-grey hair pulled into a ponytail. Having seen her husband cut down and others eager to replace her with "a real man," Lorena has eyes in the back of her head.
• Dancehall girl Shirleen Warrick: Bubbly, vivacious Shirleen struck out to make her fortune in theater, but gin cost her her one chance at stardom in Chicago. 26 going on 40, Shirleen will be dead inside five years if she can't stop drinking.
• Housekeeper/laundress Kit Howell: abandoned by the father of her toddler, Kit has struggled to make a name for herself and someday hopes to run a hotel or general store. A keen organizational mind wrapped in years of self-doubt fostered by parents who thought she'd never amount to anything. Short and plump, Kit is twenty-four years old.
• Town fixit whiz Matty Crosbie: Lanky and gawky, redheaded Matty makes up for nervous inarticulateness with natural mechanical genius. The townsfolk think he's eccentric, but there may be a little more to it than that.

I'll be writing and directing this myself, so what I currently need are sprite and background artists, and a composer.

Universal demo here. Sprites are a work in progress.

Screens:

Also, in case it wasn't obvious, feedback is always helpful.

[Shake0615]

I like the idea. I'm pretty busy with my other projects now but if you don't end up finding a composer I may be able to help you out with a few songs. What kind of music are you looking for?

[duanemoody]

Well, music evocative of the period, covering the usual emotional range you'd expect from a story with drama, romance, broken hearts, humor, action, etc. I apologize in advance for the vagueness of this answer.

[duanemoody]

Current status:

The game contains 159 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 2508 words,
for an average of 15.8 words per screen.

FWIW the link in the first post will always point to the current version.

[duanemoody]

It's been about a week since I posted the original demo (and have quietly replaced its link with updates since then).

Given the number of downloads the demo's had, I'm surprised at the lack of response here. As a game developer, it would help me more if I had some feedback from the LSF community.

Have you played the demo? How do you find it compared to other VNs (OELVN and otherwise)?

If you're an artist, would you find the challenge of period character design/background art useful to your portfolio?

I could put out a call on dA, but I had been told that LSF was a good resource to check first.

(On another topic, since there are eroge elements in the game (i.e. consenting adults in a game with romance elements are likely to engage in sex), I don't know if this topic needs to be moved or not.)

[duanemoody]

current status:
The game contains 199 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 3044 words, for an average of 15.3 words per screen.
We're about to meet one of the main characters soon.

[uluuu]

I really liked it, actually, but I was expecting more of a response, too.

The pacing seems a little erratic at times. For example, extremely little time is spent on the very first bit, while Schuyler is back at the university, but as soon as he gets to the ranch, everything slows way down. It seems to give a pretty good idea of the situation and Schuyler's thoughts on all of it, though, so maybe it's fine? (No, I am not very articulate at all).
I also liked that you included definitions for things like "the land of steady habits". Most things I can pick up on through context, but that's not one of them.
I like the characters so far, and the concept is pretty much fantastic~

I wanted to offer to draw for you right away but I was hoping someone better suited would show up.
Some samples are here, but they are all kind of old. I can scan some more recent stuff for you later, if you would like. And I am willing to try other styles of drawing, if the whole cutesy anime thing isn't what you want.

Anyway, good luck, and I hope this succeeds! (:

[duanemoody]

While I'm working on more scenes, enjoy some new art in OP to replace Sylvie and Chad.

[mysterialize]

I have no idea why this hasn't gotten more attention. It's actually quite good. The concept's particularly fun. There's little not to like about dinosaur ranching in the American West.

They're not without their minor flaws, but for the most part the writing and sprite art are great. Though, by the sound of it, you need a new artist? Does that mean that the sprites in the demo were just placeholders?

That aside, the only issue I saw with the writing is that it often seemed to switch between very well done, articulate 1800's style and something more modern and simple. In some characters cases this is fine (Such as with Marcus), since you can tell that it's just how they speak, but when it happened with, say, the main character, it struck me as a little odd. Especially since he's supposed to be a teacher.

The first choice in the game also seemed to be broken. Whether I decided to apologize or not, the same dialogue happened. The second choice worked, but it didn't change much. I'm assuming that one's just supposed to lead to more possible points toward a character liking you?

The only other thing that bothered me was the picture of the dinosaur in the background. It looked very obviously pasted in. Though I think the main reason for this is because the dinosaur picture was entirely in black and white, when the rest was in color. A colored one would probably look a lot more natural.

With those three things aside, this is probably one of the more entertaining projects I've seen, and I wish you luck in getting more attention. It deserves it.

[Midnighticequeen]

Looks interesting. I'll get back to you on feedback whenever my very, very slow internet connection finishes downing your game. I like the overall story idea so far, it's unique and I can't wait to play it

[duanemoody]

That aside, the only issue I saw with the writing is that it often seemed to switch between very well done, articulate 1800's style and something more modern and simple. In some characters cases this is fine (Such as with Marcus), since you can tell that it's just how they speak, but when it happened with, say, the main character, it struck me as a little odd. Especially since he's supposed to be a teacher.

Schuyler's inconsistent dialect is supposed to reflect an internal conflict between which world he considers home.

As you observed from my cut-and-paste background work, I am in need of BG artists. A few of the background pictures are of my own taking; the rest are FPOs from the internet which I am using to block scenes until either I find a background artist (preferable) or end up hunting historic spots here in Arizona (doable but much less desirable). The latter approach has several drawbacks, first and foremost the absence of good public domain photography of live dinosaurs.

There will be no more "scratch head/do not scratch head" choices in future scenes. Promise.