Fox Trot 2.0

[clubanimon]

Its hard ;__________________;

[clubanimon]

Alright heres the deal.
Collage is evil >.< Its eaten up a good deal of time for me, but now its my winter break and i've gotten back into the swing for the game yay!
However, looking at the special (thought rather frequent) full Cg image scenes I have relized just how long its going to take.
Well not compleatly...
So far i've spent at LEAST 3-5 hours per full image...
Now there are quite a few of these because I think they add somthing to the scenes, as do the variation on the dialoge charter sets (ie, laying down, stance depending on what path youve gone done such as romantice/intamate, friend, or posessive) they also help flesh out how dirk feels other then just facial emtion and words, I think body laungue is important.
But that problem with that is that its ALOT of drawing. I love art, but all these peices will take forever. My script will be done and ready to test play but the images won't even be a fourth done I fear ^^;
AND...
I promised to try NaNoRen this year which I'd have to hault all fox trot work.

So looking at how long everythimg will take -includig music- I don't think this game will be release ready till summer, at least not till july.

So my question is this. Do you the audiance think it will be worth it? I really don't want to sacrafice alot of the graphics- lets face it, i'm not a programer and there the only real way I can set foxtrot apart ^^;
And the two path choice does make the game rather large, with i belive a full 16-18 endings, 8-9 depending on which character path you take. Which does rather make it a bit like two games, but i think its a fun choice sinc eyou can then face the rival...

And my renply programign has gotten very rusty again >.<

So what do you guys think?

[musical74]

*wonders if clubanimon is still stabbing water*

Myself, I don't mind waiting...it may take more time, but if you feel the CGs are needed, then I wouldn't mind waiting (of course, if you ARE still stabbing the water...) I'm no artist, however - which will make things VERY interesting come NaNoReNo! - but based on the pictures you've shown so far, I wouldn't mind waiting till July or so, if you think the graphics are worth the wait.

I said something...does that mean you won't bite me now?

[clubanimon]

yes, you get digital cookie *gives cookie* And thankfully the water part is over...for now. No now i'm laboring over making the main menu look nice...I suck at menus >.<
I really need to work on my visual design compulations >.<

[mikey]

The question is, is everything else already done? Because the problem with things that take time to finish such as special hand-drawn event pictures is that they will slow down the project.

I'd recommend focusing on finishing the game with placeholders instead of these special pictures (with black screen, whatever). Then, have a play through it and see if it's worth the effort (if you have doubts). Maybe you'll find that the whole thing fits nicely with a bit less special graphics, or that it's really working great with them, in which case you'll be the more motivated to finish them.

The thing is, making the basic version complete and running. Often this is much less work than it seems and a finished test version without special graphics will give you not only more overview of what can be done fo fine-tune and polish your game, but also you'll be motivated, because the critical, main part of your work will be done.

Who knows, maybe there can be a NaNoRenO version with less graphics - you can get some feedback and put out the deluxe version later in the summer - Allugic made this with Reconstruction 01, for instance. So there are a lot of options. Good luck!

[clubanimon]

actlly the problem is thats how I lost alot of motivation with the first fox trot and i had a bare about of graphics with it, I had finished the game but still had qute a few graphics to go and It really made the drawing seems alot more tediouse. I really wanted to give up on the art just to be done with the game.
This time around I've tried a bit more as I go approach, finishing the art for it as I finish a scene, and so far this has worked out much better since there been no 5 hour drawing backround-athon (god my neck still cramps over that) or 7 hour coding to finish the script where i compile a huge list of graphics that need to be done.

Idealy I'd at least like to have the core imaged done by the time I finish the first charater track.

Man, I really should try playing a commercial game, maybe then i'd get a better feel for how fleshed out by graphics they are >.<

[musical74]

One of the dangers with a playing a commercial game to see how fleshed out the graphics are is that it's possible there is a team of graphic artists working on it - picture the major games - or that it seems so far out of reach. Certainly, there are games that would be *commercial* but still fairly easy to draw - say, True Love or Season of the Sakura - but there are also games that are clearly done by more than one or two artists - Tropico, foe example.

I'm NOT suggesting you shouldn't check it out...just be careful what games you want to look at for inspiration.

(I hope this made sense. I'm REALLY tired tonight)

[PyTom]

One thing to realize is that the commercial games from Japan have people working on them who are professional. So if it looks like it must have taken an artist working full-time a year to make all the pictures in the game... that's probably what happened.

[GorillaKick]

A commercial game is a lot like a big-budget Hollywood flick. Take Star Wars: Episode III for example; it's something that one person could simply never do. It took teams of several hundred (thousand, even) people to make the props! The props! Commercial ren'ai games are made by teams of hundereds who have probably been working in that field for a decade. Programmers and artists alike.

Anyways, before I get too carried away and end up writing 2 pages worth of rant, this is a message for all future ren'ai programmers; and I hope this post will be linked to a thousand times. It would be one for every new ren'ai hopeful out there.

The key, even with a fairly big project like Fox Trot, is to not get your hopes up on the final product. It's never going to look as good as the big boys.

*sigh* At any rate, I (and everyone else) don't mean to cut down Fox Trot. I'm sure it will be good. Rape or no rape. Good looking or not. So, have fun!

Edit: Sorry, me dumb! I put the wrong name. Foxtaile was somebody else!

[clubanimon]

Yay input!

But i decided, really it hindged on who i'm making this game for and well...it was me >>;

sorry guys, but i just couldn't feel right producing this for such a wonderful community unless i saw it as 100% in my own mind...or at least 95%, i'll take 95.



But as for that fan made never being as good as the big boys, I don't buy that. Were not making a movie, theres alot more controlable variables here. I think a fan made game could be just as good as a commercialy produced one....just not mine......yet.


Sorry took so long to get back to you guys, was winter break and i just moved back into my dorm, I was painting houses for money and little net time. But i'm back now X3