The Silent Column (Thread Closed, New Development Blog)

[SelLi]

Alright, I finished up the demo text today. As of this post, it's 9300 words exactly, and I edited it and stuff.
Of course, I'll still be looking over things every once in a while to see if I need to fix more things, but it's pretty good as far as I can see.

I'll pretty much be taking a break for December due to Christmas and my birthday and family things, but I'd like to do some animation during the month, too. I'd love The Silent Column to feature animations from time to time, so yeah, I'll try my hand at that.

See you next time~ ^^

[SelLi]

Rough storyboards for the demo's animation get.

[SelLi]

At the moment, I'm not doing animation anymore. Pencil 2D is too much of a pain for making more complicated animations, or even animations with simple pans/tilts or a steadily moving background. I might get a better animation program around my birthday or for Christmas, though, so animation in the VN is still a distinct possibility and something I'd very much like to have. Even just for character sprites.

Recently I've just been writing, testing basic code, editing the demo text more, and the like.

I think I'll write more and work on a "first chapter" sort of thing that's the first 20-40k of the VN, including the demo text which is around 9k.
Part of why I want to do that is because the demo text is just kinetic without any choices to be made, and I have choices planned shortly after it.
And longer chapter will also introduce the player more of the main characters and give them time to get to know them, whereas most of the main characters for the first part of the story have only just been glimpsed at or implied to exist in the demo text.
I'm not going to release a full demo, as I plan on releasing a full chapter now, which would just include the demo anyway.
However, the demo text will still be available to anyone who asks.

Why 20-40k? It just seems like a good solid chunk for the length of a "chapter"/"episode" or whathaveyou, encouraging me to write quite a lot without being too restrictive in either direction.

So yes~ after I feel that the demo text is sufficiently polished, I'll start working on the rest of the chapter text.

[SelLi]

I'm going to be making chapters now, so, how many chapters will there end up being?
I'm not sure, because I don't know how long The Silent Column will end up being.
However, the story can be separated into four portions to give you a general idea of the full story's length. Keep in mind that character perspectives can shift even when I don't specify here.

1: Beginning:

The beginning portion is generally everything that happens to Tashen before the fall, and after the fall until things change drastically, which can happen on Christmas day or at a later time. A lot of the beginning is adjusting to things after the fall, getting to know people and a little bit of their back stories, trying to piece together things related to why the world fell, and then, being surrounded by a bigger mystery that effects the present.

2: Vadleen:

The player progresses to this portion in one of two ways. Each way leads to a unique rout from a different character's point of view.
In both routs, the character you follow tries to understand why the changes at the end of the beginning portion happened, wanders the streets of a city that's new to them, meets people, and tries to find answers while picking up new questions and making and strengthening ties to new and old characters. Then, after a certain event, a war begins.

3: Recovery:

The recovery portion is about collecting memories and new yet old meetings, being stronger and more resolved than before, confronting characters about their pasts, and resolving deep conflicts within and between characters. Recovery ends with clarity for a certain character, and leads to the resolution.

4: Resolution:

The resolution portion will probably be the shortest portion.
I-it's not like I want to tell you how it ends! I was just doing a-a summery! That's all! B-baka!!!!!

Anyway, yeah.
The portions will likely vary in length, but Beginning, Vadleen, and Recovery will probably be of comparable length while Resolution will likely be marginally smaller.
And 1 chapter (20-40k) won't be enough to finish Beginning. It will probably take 2 or 3.

I hope that gives you guys an idea.

[SelLi]

Merry Christmas to all of you! ^_^

I just thought I'd let you all know, that I got a lovely microphone and a great looking animation program for Christmas. I'm looking forward to using both of them for the VN. That is all. ^^

[Reikun]

At the moment, I'm not doing animation anymore. Pencil 2D is too much of a pain for making more complicated animations, or even animations with simple pans/tilts or a steadily moving background. I might get a better animation program around my birthday or for Christmas, though, so animation in the VN is still a distinct possibility and something I'd very much like to have. Even just for character sprites.

What kinds of animations do you have in mind for your game? A lot of animations can be done with the code using ATL. Stuff blinking sprites/lip flap, pans, zooms, and moving bgs are all possible with ATL. There's probably more complicated stuff you can do too but I'm not experienced enough to say anything about it;;; xD

this is a good primer on the subject! http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 51&t=16604

[SelLi]

Happy New Year everyone!

What kinds of animations do you have in mind for your game? A lot of animations can be done with the code using ATL. Stuff blinking sprites/lip flap, pans, zooms, and moving bgs are all possible with ATL. There's probably more complicated stuff you can do too but I'm not experienced enough to say anything about it;;; xD

this is a good primer on the subject! http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 51&t=16604

I've been thinking of having rather simplistic character sprite animations and animations taking place in backgrounds and such as well as animated cutscenes
Thanks for telling me about ATL and showing me the topic. I can see that being quite helpful in the future. ^^

If you're curious, I'm thinking of using a combination of Pencil 2D and Spriter Pro for most of my animations, and Spriter Pro is what I got for Christmas.

Again though, thanks for letting me know about ATL.

[SelLi]

I have a few updates for you in this new year ^^
I did some animation work on the title page,
and I'm doing some more spritework.
I know I keep redoing Serra's sprites over and over, but every time I think I'm getting better.
Also, I want to sort of... streamline the art-style somehow, so that I can share the style with all the characters, and so I can animate things easier whenever I want to.
And I also wanted to change Serra's design a touch. She now has her old design's long sleeves with her last design's lace, green eyes, and buttons, as well as a hairstyle that looks more like her last style. And now she has no headband.
Enjoy

[SelLi]

Worked on the sprite. It's not done but it's coming along nicely.

[SelLi]

Just a small update.
Recently, I've been trying to get back into composing music.
There are some great, great free tracks out there, especially ones composed by a certain awesome bro, but I felt that... composing my own music for The Silent Column would be more personal and would have more potential to convey things in the VN more accurately than music that wasn't made for it.
I hit an obstacle.
On an older computer, I had a music composition program, but that computer was ultimately dead.
Thankfully, I was able to recover the hard drive and its contents via a hard drive USB thing, but the specific program I had only ran on Windows 7, and my new computer uses Vista.
I couldn't find a way to instal Windows 7, and it ended up just being a hassle. I just wanted to compose some music, so I started looking for a music composition program that was legally free which could work on Vista, and thanks to another awesome bro, I found a free program called LMMS, and I think it will serve me quite well.

It's quite humbling to know that I'm making The Silent Column on (with the exception of Spriter Pro) all free softwear that was made by people who give so freely while demanding nothing in return. I thank all who make free, good programs.

So yes, It looks like I will be able to compose music for the game after all. Yay!

Edit: Well, then again, I don't want to spread myself too thin to the point where I end up becoming a mess and the project never ends up getting done... I might do my best to compose a song or two or three, but I think it'd be wise to accept free music from the capable people who specialize specifically in music composition, and just focus on making the other aspects of the VN ^^;
(Even if I was a good composer, things like this almost always take more time than I think...)

[SelLi]

Huh, I'm noticing that a lot of my writing is very touchy feely and I don't need to say a lot of what I do. It's crazy. Wow, um... I'm glad I didn't formally release anything yet. I want this story to be of good quality for everyone.
Of course portraying emotion can be important but I just overdo it a lot.

Small update: I've been working a lot on the story structure of chapter 1, and I've been doing some editing for the same chapter.

[SelLi]

I very strongly felt that I alone should be the one to compose music for The Silent Column.

It feel like God's telling me to do it. I was quite opposed to composing music for the project because it felt like I would be taking on too much work by myself. But maybe He's telling me that I'm not working on it alone and He'll help me through it no matter how long it takes.

Quite personal, I know, but I really do feel that way about it. Moving on, though...

I composed a song! (After figuring out how to use my midi keyboard properly and staying up all night long making it), and it's turning out pretty darn good.
I've spent a lot of time polishing it and it's just about done, I think I may still tweak things a little bit more before it's complete, though.
I'm glad I'm learning how to compose- and as I said before, this will make the game much more personal, and will give it a more unique feel, which is great.

I made an account on soundcloud so I can share the music I've been/will be making with you guys.
You can listen to the nearly finished song here:
https://soundcloud.com/sellillianna/denial

It may not be as good as I personally think it is, since I tend to get hyped about things, I only composed it today, and I'm very tired, but I'm just excited that something I made actually ended up sounding pretty decent, ^^ Hope you enjoy.

[SelLi]

Finished Serra's serious sprite with really clean lines and thought I'd upload a sample screenshot showing off the new sprite, new text box, and how she looks at night.
She has eyelashes now. What do you think? They're just a small touch but I think I like them.
And it's nice to see her against a background that isn't the beach in this shot.

[SelLi]

I'm reworking the titlescreen: the old one looks a little fuzzy and its gimp file was kind of unorganized. I'm still planning on having it look similar in many respects, but I am going to be changing its look a little.

[SelLi]

Updated the first post quite a lot, changing character descriptions and other things.