Lemma Soft Forums

You just need to keep working at it. The original art is nice but the design itself is kind of basic. I would definitely keep it as official artwork somewhere. The new artwork expands the design a bit but doesn't quite have the charm of the original.

I do like the new design itself, but I find the colour choices/lack of watercolours makes the sprite lose the same lonely, desolate feeling as the original one. I think you should try a few more colouring styles with the new design, and see what happens! I'm definitely in favour of the watercolours, though. :3

Really looking forward to this game, by the way! A bullet hell/otome game is an amazing idea. <3

mmmm ... I'm confused about the new design, the one in your avatar looks good but the other one with standing pose doesn't look so good

and i agree with everyone about watercolor style, ehehe ^^;

I like how it looks in the avatar. It's a nice drawing but I'm not sure it should be the character's signature look/pose.

Pandora wrote:Really looking forward to this game, by the way! A bullet hell/otome game is an amazing idea. <3

Thank you so much!

Pandora wrote:I do like the new design itself, but I find the colour choices/lack of watercolours makes the sprite lose the same lonely, desolate feeling as the original one. I think you should try a few more colouring styles with the new design, and see what happens! I'm definitely in favour of the watercolours, though. :3

HikkiPanda wrote:and i agree with everyone about watercolor style, ehehe ^^;

I didn't have time to experiment today but I'll try to see what I can do tomorrow ^^'

HikkiPanda wrote:mmmm ... I'm confused about the new design, the one in your avatar looks good but the other one with standing pose doesn't look so good

I have no idea why? ^^" Maybe it's just the expression? Sorry about that! I'm going to try to redo her sprites tomorrow and see if I can improve them somehow...

Dollywitch wrote:I like how it looks in the avatar. It's a nice drawing but I'm not sure it should be the character's signature look/pose.

I think I've already spoiled the game for you so you should know why she looks different from the first to second part ;p No... Not her "signature look"... Her signature look for the second part would probably involve yelling at and hitting a certain person '~'

_______________

On a slightly different note, I've been working on the GUI and the tutorial portion lately.

The tutorial will be fully voiced and is mandatory, even if you've played multiple times. There are ways to skip most of it but there's no way to fully get around it >,> Mostly because I like ".ini files" and having a tutorial seemed like a fun way to get the player's information. The tutorial will guide new players through what a visual novel and a danmaku is and give everyone the choice to disable/enable certain portions of the game. You will also be able to set the options (volume of voices/music, annotations, automatic gameplay) that you will begin with through the tutorial. These can be changed at any time through the main player menu. The character Alicia will guide players through the tutorial because she's obviously the most sensible and honest person in the game and I wouldn't be exaggerating this because she really doesn't like to see people suffer. Especially her sister. She would never want to see her sister in pain and confused for five years. Honestly. ;p
She is the kindest most trusting character ever so I thought it would be ironic sensible to use her as the tutorial guide.

The GUI is completely animated. The background moves and the mouse has a custom cursor that animates a ripple on the menus when clicked. The titles for each menu is animated with a streaking pattern and each letter in the subtitles shines when the mouse moves over them. There are three main files mostly because of the ability to play in full mode (VN + danmaku), danmaku mode, and visual novel mode. If you decide to play in full mode or visual novel mode, you will have 25 places to save your game. (This is because of memory space) and if you play only the shooting mode the levels will be divided into 13 unlockable chapters. Alicia's sprite is used for the tutorial and the text now has a "type-writer" effect so it doesn't seem so still.

^^' I'm trying to be as professional as I can with the GUI after my embarrassing demo "menu" >,> I wanted to work on the main title and loading screens today but that'll wait until tomorrow when I can figure out what to do with Mneme's design.
^ Oh! The little bar under the titles is animated a well! A little blue thingy shoots through it every fifteen seconds. ^^' I'll try to have a video up when I get the voices and the rest of the menu finished.

Do you have any thoughts on it? I really want to make it as best as I can so any advice and criticism is much appreciated! And any criticism on Alicia's tutorial sprites is appreciated as well! Thank you so much!

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CheeryMoya wrote:

Goddess Viridi wrote:The character Alicia will guide players through the tutorial because she's obviously the most sensible and honest person in the game and I wouldn't be exaggerating this because she really doesn't like to see people suffer. Especially her sister. She would never want to see her sister in pain and confused for five years. Honestly. ;p
...
She is the kindest most trusting character ever so I thought it would be ironic sensible to use her as the tutorial guide.

I totally and completely believe you!
Her left arm looks a bit off to me though, as in a bit too small. Otherwise, all good! The watercoloring is back~

Being unable to skip tutorials might be frustrating on second playthroughs, so I'd suggest implementing a way to fast forward through them at least. The menus look great too, and it sounds like you're putting a lot of effort into making everything custom :3 I approve :'D

Yay! Thank you! I'll try to fix it when I get home ^^

Essentially the tutorial asks you whether you have played before and if you have, you'll go straight to gameplay & preferences part. If you haven't played, it gives you a short introduction as to what the game is and you can choose to skip through the parts you already know by just answering the question in a certain way. For example:
^^' Sorry if that doesn't make such sense... >,> I actually don't have access to my GML file because I'm not on my computer... I just pasted the script that I gave the voice actress from an e-mail.

On a completely separate topic, the game now runs in full screen and the graphics actually look halfway decent despite being stretched ^^' I hope to finish the GUI by Monday so I can start experimenting with 3D.

after looking at Alicia's design I think I know why Mnemosyne's standing pose doesn't look as good as the one in avatar. Alicia's head is horizontally squished which makes her look cute while Mnemosyne's is vertically squished which makes her eyes looks to close to each other and make her not so cute (I think Sapphi also mentioned this).

oh, and more slender legs might helps

HikkiPanda wrote:after looking at Alicia's design I think I know why Mnemosyne's standing pose doesn't look as good as the one in avatar. Alicia's head is horizontally squished which makes her look cute while Mnemosyne's is vertically squished which makes her eyes looks to close to each other and make her not so cute (I think Sapphi also mentioned this).

oh, and more slender legs might helps

Maybe I should change their designs so they all look normal '~' I wanted the weird characters to look... weird. I don't mind redrawing anything though! Especially if more people agree with it! I'm already changing Mneme's design so I don't mind redoing Alicia's as well! The legs are easier to change... I'll work on that if I decide to keep this same sprite. I'm aiming to be as professional as possible so I really don't mind conforming to other people's tastes. ^^'
But if anyone else has a critique on anything, please let me know. I want this project as a whole to be very professional and if a majority wants something different, I'm more then willing to make that change. As much as I wanted to approach my game from an objectivist perspective and do things on my own will, "circumstances" have forced me to be utilitarian ^^' lol, sorry for bringing philosophy into this... It's not a bad circumstance by the way! ^^

eh, alicia is good already .. horizontally squished -> cute -> cute is good!!!! DON'T REDRAW HER!!!!
her legs is already good, nothing wrong with her legs

the only problem is mneme (and it's about that one mneme who is in standing position, the one in your avatar is good) since her head is vertically squished instead of horizontally squished .. and her legs needs to be more slender

sorry for all the misunderstanding .. my english begin to feel rusty i guess >.<

and sorry about that spoiler XD

HikkiPanda wrote:eh, alicia is good already .. horizontally squished -> cute -> cute is good!!!! DON'T REDRAW HER!!!!
her legs is already good, nothing wrong with her legs

the only problem is mneme (and it's about that one mneme who is in standing position, the one in your avatar is good) since her head is vertically squished instead of horizontally squished .. and her legs needs to be more slender

sorry for all the misunderstanding .. my english begin to feel rusty i guess >.<

and sorry about that spoiler XD

Haha ^^' It's fine! I have a hard time speaking so I'm sorry if I came off as rude! I'm really, really sorry! I didn't mean to sound that way at all!

Concerning Mneme, I'm going to try to fix the standing sprite as best as I can! I honestly was too lazy to do it today but hopefully I'll get around to it tomorrow. I actually have no need for a full-body sprite except for concept art ^^' I'll see if I can make improvements to the anatomy... it's something that I need to work on. Do you have any other complaints? I really need to make the game as professional as possible so any critique is much appreciated!
Unless there is a majority that doesn't want it this way, I'm going to keep Mneme's new design. It fits in better with the story and sets her apart from the water-colored style of the other characters. Sorry if you don't like it ^^' Again, if a majority says they don't want her looking like this, I am more then willing to change.

My reasoning is this: An entire route is based upon becoming more human. What's the point of her wanting a human-like body if she already resembles every character in the game in terms of style? I know her original design looked a bit different from the others but this design practically screams robot and that's what I was going for when I began writing the story three years ago.
Sorry again if I'm being harsh... I should go to bed now ^^'

Dollywitch wrote:I think you should go with the original design, but add the outfit and pigtails of the newer one. And the same colouring style.

I kind of liked the wide eyes on the older art. It just looked spacier and suited the voice somehow.

I agree with this completely. I know your intent is to make her look more robotic and set her apart from the other characters - but I have to say that to me, the original sprite looks way more alien, weird incomprehensible, frosty, cold, robotic, as well as different from the other characters. It's because of (1) the widely-spaced eyes, and (2) the ethereal, otherworldly coloring. The new design seems like it's more deliberately robotic, especially with the monochromatic blue-white color scheme, but to me it seems almost warmer and more like a "normal human" than the older sprite, just because the line art is smoother, thicker, and has a richer feeling to it than the flimsy, delicate shades of the older. I second Dolly's suggestion- use the old sprite (especially the facial proportions) but with the new robotic outfit and pigtails - but with one modification. Use the same ethereal watercolor style, but in the blue-white scheme you have in the new one. Maybe throw in some metallic violets and greys in there too. Just something to play around with, maybe? In the end, you know your story best, and I'm not an artist myself, so... yeah... and I mean, her current design looks great too and would definitely fit within your vision... it just looks so much more human to me, compared to the original, which I don't think is what you're going for... but then again, that might just be down to personal taste.

If you like the current design better, I'd suggest widening the space between her eyes so she looks even more inhuman, because I think that wide-eyed look in the first design was part of what made it look so alien and robotic to me.

Maybe I should change their designs so they all look normal '~' I wanted the weird characters to look... weird.

I don't think I've said it before, but I'm a huge huge fan of your art style and I really don't think you should change it to be more "normal", whatever that is. I'm just saying that because I personally had a rather... non-mainstream writing style when I was younger... but at some point, because of pressures from various sources, I threw away what made me different. And now I'm never truly going to get it back. I don't want to see that happen to somebody as talented as you. *huggles* But yeah... I look forward to seeing this game completed! And keep the weird characters weird!

^ Agree with Anarchy's suggestion totally. Though I would use a little of the original colour scheme.

Again it's your decision and I know you're a little sensitive about it.

Yay! Thank you so much for the input! Sorry if I'm sounding or have been sounding selfish and ostentatious... Would it be okay for me to defend my decision for a moment? If you think I'm being very rude and sensitive, please tell me! I've watched people leave teams because they're too caught up in their own interests so I wouldn't want that happening to my game... It means so much to me that I would hate to see it abandoned because of something silly like a design :p

It's because of (1) the widely-spaced eyes, and (2) the ethereal, otherworldly coloring.

because the line art is smoother, thicker, and has a richer feeling to it than the flimsy, delicate shades of the older.

^^' I suppose this is because of experience... When I first joined all my art looked sort of like that. I hate to admit it but I knew nothing about anatomy and I still don't. I think I've gotten slightly better and you acknowledging that the lines are richer actually makes me feel like I've improved. The older coloring style was mostly due to me being lazy and applying textures instead of actually shading... I didn't know how to shade ^^' I would love to think that I've gotten better which is why I redid all the sprites in the game. I'm even redoing several backgrounds because I think I improved.

Hopefully I have something to show for all my effort later this week. I was slow on finishing the GUI because I was unsure of her design but I want that done before I show off the guys ^^'

I second Dolly's suggestion - use the old sprite (especially the facial proportions) but with the new robotic outfit and pigtails - but with one modification. Use the same ethereal watercolor style, but in the blue-white scheme you have in the new one. Maybe throw in some metallic violets and greys in there too. Just something to play around with, maybe?

I'm not sure how I'd feel about that '~' I'm fairly comfortable with her new design and I'm not positive how her human-like skin would fit in with her new robotic body... I think that would look even weirder? I don't know? I tried mixing the watercolor style but it didn't work... I suppose I'll post up a sample of that but I didn't like how it came out at all... It made her look funnier if anything >,<

and I mean, her current design looks great too and would definitely fit within your vision... it just looks so much more human to me, compared to the original, which I don't think is what you're going for... but then again, that might just be down to personal taste.

That's odd... Most people that I've shown her to said that her new design makes her look more robotic then her old design. I recently showed my game around school and asked for their opinions and most people didn't even know she was a robot just based off of her old design. In truth, her old design was done on a whim so I could release the demo as soon as possible. I have about a month left to release an unvoiced visual novel without any extra gameplay functions and the script is already written. The only thing I have to do is proofread and produce the art... I was hoping to at least have the GUI finished by now but because of conflicts in her new design that probably won't happen until later this week. I have three animations planned for the loading screen - Mneme running which will be for the self route or for the introduction, yelling at Homen which is for Homen's route, and holding hands with Pan which is for his route - but all three kind of require her and I don't have a design for her yet... I actually have each of them sketched out in her new design so I'd prefer to keep that...

If you like the current design better, I'd suggest widening the space between her eyes so she looks even more inhuman, because I think that wide-eyed look in the first design was part of what made it look so alien and robotic to me.

I'll try? lol, I feel like I'd be reverting back to my old way of doing things where everyone looked like a fish or a bug >,< Perhaps if I kept her eyes one color instead of blending two or three? I think that would make her look more empty...

I don't think I've said it before, but I'm a huge huge fan of your art style and I really don't think you should change it to be more "normal", whatever that is.

Thank you so much ^^ I was trying to refer to just plain hair or a more narrow face (for Alicia). Alicia herself is very, very unique and I hope that players recognize this as soon as they notice her manner of speech and behavior towards certain characters. I love stories where a line between good and evil is almost nonexistent I thought by distinguishing her, even if it is just her hair or face shape, she might stand out among the others who aren't as... radical as she is

But again, if people don't like it, I'm more then willing to change and make her design more subtle.

I'm just saying that because I personally had a rather... non-mainstream writing style when I was younger... but at some point, because of pressures from various sources, I threw away what made me different. And now I'm never truly going to get it back. I don't want to see that happen to somebody as talented as you. *huggles*

Aww... That sad to hear Y.Y Especially if you want to go back to it. That makes me feel bad that I'm open to other people changing my art, if that makes any sense... I want to be different and do things the way I want them to be done and I feel really bad when someone says I should do it their way. That's why if I'm being very defensive or rude towards you, please let me know because I never intended it to be that way! I feel like I have the obligation to give into everyone's pressure and let go of my preferences. The story I will never change. I feel like I have the duty to preserve what I wrote three years ago. Everything else I am willing to shape to meet others' demands ^^' even if I do lose myself. In my mind Mneme will forever look the way she does now and no one can take that away from me!

I look forward to seeing this game completed! And keep the weird characters weird!

Yay! Thank you so much! I hope you're impressed with it, however it turns out to be! I'm trying for a second demo release that's about 5 hours long in late June but it may have to wait to early July if I can't get the design thing straightened out by this week... I'm already a few days behind on my schedule of everything I need done. ^^'

I'll try! I'm not changing the story at this point so at least their personalities will be odd!

Thank you so much for your feedback!

Dollywitch wrote:^ Agree with Anarchy's suggestion totally. Though I would use a little of the original colour scheme.

@Dollywitch Sorry for double posting '.' I wanted to reply to you separately because you mostly agreed with Anarchy.

Like I said above, I'm not sure how that would work? I'd really love some more input on your thoughts on that. What exactly do you mean? I'm sorry ^^' What are you talking about exactly...

Again it's your decision and I know you're a little sensitive about it.

Now this I find a bit offensive. No offense toward you but... well actually -
I've been trying my best to be open to everything because I don't want to see my project destroyed. I've seen projects crumble over obsession and I've sworn to never be that obsessed with anything that I would be unwilling to change. Calling me "sensitive" towards a character design makes me feel like every precaution I've taking was for nothing. Every time I asked for more ideas was wasted. I replied to you every single time giving my defense and claiming that I'll change it if more people agree that a change is needed. You of all people (because I've told you the complete plot of the game) should understand why this change was necessary.

Being rude and making smart comments will not change how I feel towards the new design. I love it but I'm willing to tear it to pieces and forget about it in the public eye if that's what's needed. Unfortunately, I've grown attached to her new look and it will not be taken from within me. But then again, I create to make people happy. If people are happier with another design, so be it.

But please don't make personal attacks. If you don't like the way I'm managing this, please state why you believe she needs to go back to her old design and encourage others to agree with you. Tell me what I can do to make it fairer for others to contribute ideas. Don't make a personal attack against me.

That's all!

Thanks for the feedback! I hope to hear more from you soon!