Bliss Stage: Love Is Our Weapon [Sci-Fi, BxG, BxB]

[Tsundere Lightning]

Which is why we use that on Colonel Preston, and reconsider using it on everyone else. No one other than him is meant to be older than 17.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I like their noses (especially Mulan's). I think the eyes work for most of them, though I think thicker eyelashes for Sara will help soften her eyes and make her seem more feminine. I think the style is fine and is a nice change from the anime/manga style.

[Watercolorheart]

Er, yeah, I probably should be replying.

I see where she's coming from, but it's also from being conditioned by anime and manga. I think what she is saying is to go for a style like this:



but I've also not finalized the designs, if anyone had to ink it, it would be me and the expression reels were made for the very purpose of ironing out such problems, but I'm not sure that pure aesthetics is something I'm genuinely concerned with anymore...

If I was worried about that, everyone would look something like this:



Let's face it, Bliss Stage is not explicitly targeting an anime audience, though I predict it will have similar target audience penetration. It's actual audience is made up of people that probably played Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, D&D, White Wolf, and other /tg/ oriented games. They probably liked games Chrono Trigger and Azumanga and value story. God knows we didn't play Higurashi for the art, though I'll make sure that everything is polished to my own standards.

Detail can always be removed later. It cannot be added back in without quite a bit of work. Just erasing everything above the bridge of the nose probably isn't a good way to go about it, and I can't help but feel that artist is in here, not the viewer. I don't want to fall back on "it's my style" but...

I know how to draw what you're saying, and it's my style. That's how I want it to look. I'm not going to make it more anime just to please more people or undermine myself, I went through many character revamps to reach this point and it was the only one that felt "right" to me.

[lemuel]

Congratulations, Tsundere Lightning. I was so worried that wretched misunderstanding about bliss stage scuttled thy project, nay thy dream. But thy project conmtinues, and with it my spirits of joy.

[Tsundere Lightning]

I've written an outline of the Anna Lin romance path, which is meant to be the most difficult one in the game to achieve and maintain (not only does it screw over someone else unless you tread carefully, but anyone that's made it to 17 post-bliss doesn't have issues, they have the whole freaking newsstand.) Sara and Derek are next, followed by Meredith and Gabriel.

Speaking of characters with personal problems, Mulan has been inexplicably poplar popular, of late. While I blame some of this on BCS's excellent art, some of it has to do with the prereaders and their impression of her scenes. Mulan is the one with Chun-Li style oxtails: she was a gangster in Anna Lin's gang before joining the resistance, a brutal enforcer with a crush on Anna that she was never, EVER, going to act on, and a self-described "fun time had by all." She relentlessly teases and trolls our hero in Joshua and pretty much everyone else within range in an effort to weed out the people put off by appearances. Unfortunately for her, it worked.

I like Mulan myself. She's a fun character to write for and I know plenty of people who have her /b/tarded, for the lulz outlook on life. I'm tempted to add a romance path with her; the only thing stopping me is that romance is vastly out of character for her. She does not like romantic gestures or 'the mushy stuff' and she's less affectionate than Anna. Still, some kind of rad bromance seems to be in order.

On the larger scale of things, George is back from college: he's one of our programmers, and he recently overhauled the code and optimized it for the latest version of Ren'Py. Mostly the battle stuff, and taking fuller advantage of Python's object oriented nature in the data architecture. Read, "Making it easier for non-programmers to cope with when designing missions and Interludes." Hopefully he and the other programmers and artists will be able to talk about that themselves.

I've also been writing script, as well as plotting, as has BCS. The script from the first mission and downtime cycle is almost done. There's a lot of variation in the initial pathing at this point; we'll see how non-linear we can keep it, but I'm pretty confident. A while ago, I did brief outlines of every major endgame - mostly the requirements for the four different strategic goals of the Resistance. Each one is part of the Good Endings, combined with the romantic storyline.

It's going to be easier to achieve some of the grand operational strategies of the Resistance on some of the romantic paths, just because your partner is invested in one of them or not. Anna and Sara come to mind for the straight-up military victories; Meredith just wants to improve the quality of life for the resistance and any other survivors she can, and so on.

Hopefully we'll have a presentable demo by October. Fingers are crossed.

As a parting gift, I leave you with this abomination of nature, inspired by a talk with a fairly cracked friend on how Meredith Path was supposed to be least difficult one because she likes to hear about people's problems.



Merikkuri, ladies and gentlemen. It's whole-wheat with a chocolate filling, as opposed to the red bean jam counterparts from Touhou. For the record, the Mulan version (Myurankkuri?) would be a Chinese red pork bun, if I were to draw it, which I won't. I'm kind of disturbed that I even bothered to come up with that.

To all fans of the project: have a good night. If you have any questions about the project, ask me on my Formspring.

[lemuel]

Eternally perserverous is Tsundere Lightning! What fascinating paths for romance, truly!

Is it possible to go through a path in which meritorious deeds may be done to the exclusion of others?

[Watercolorheart]

Yup, you can roll safe and stable monogamy but trending carefully. After all, the game will attempt to ask you before you make any broad romantic gestures or hook up, I'm sure. UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension) and the MC's personal feelings, like crushes, or the romantic feelings of other characters will probably all be on the table, though.

Here's Josh's world-weary father, James Preston. This man has seen more than you ever will, and he's probably not about to let you forget about it either. And if that's not enough, he's older than you and seems to know what he's doing... when his eyes aren't looking a little dead inside and looking through you.

[lemuel]

Ah. I see! How depressingly realistic. The presence of realism within the fantastic allows fantasy to attempt to become great art.

[Tsundere Lightning]

Yup, you can roll safe and stable monogamy but trending carefully. After all, the game will attempt to ask you before you make any broad romantic gestures or hook up, I'm sure. UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension) and the MC's personal feelings, like crushes, or the romantic feelings of other characters will probably all be on the table, though.

It's a lot easier and safer to remain monogamous or serially monogamous in this game than to be a Casanova. It can be done, if you pick the right partners in crime, but it's harder to juggle two or three lovers than one. Just like in real life.

[lemuel]

Tsundere Lightning,

Will there be interactive combat in this game?
If so, will it be real time?
I hope not, but then, I am one of those who has cerebral palsy and cannot do well in RT games.

[Tsundere Lightning]

As stated upthread, this game has turn-based combat. Reflexes not required.

[lemuel]

Much joy fills my heart at this news, tsundere lightning!

[Tsundere Lightning]

UPDATES FOR THE UPDATE GODS

We're probably going to have an alpha build ready by the end of the week, not coincidentally the first day of Yaoicon. We're considering putting it up for playtesting.

This build would have all of the dialog up to the end of the second mission of the game, but have minimal art and sound assets.

Would you be interested in looking at that kind of work in progress? Those of you who've seen my earlier game, Transformation Sequence 0.3 would know what to expect.

We're working on the art assets too, although I don't want to put a firm date on when it's out: I'm going to say it will be SoonTM, probably before the end of the year.

[lemuel]

Congratulations, tsundere lightning.

May thy guess be true and thy team succeed well.

I shall praise any success should it succeed.

I swear by my suttas that I am not trolling, but wishing luck. If I were to use other pronouns, none would object. Many others make mistakes and are not accused of trolling.

[papillon]

We walked past someone holding up a hand-lettered Bliss Stage sign at YaoiCon today but were in a hurry at the time and didn't stop to ask them who they were; anyone here?


(If anyone relevant wishes to drop by and say hello we'll be in the fan market Sat and Sun.)