Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

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Kingv
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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#181 Post by Kingv »

pyla8 wrote:For what it's worth, I much prefer the new sprite. He seems less girly imho (which no prob with that, but not for me) and that distinguished bit of grey. I'm looking forward to the release! x)
Thanks! All I did was tweak his pose and added more weight to his body but it made a big difference. He actually had the bit of grey in his old sprite but guess it wasn't as visible.
Sharane wrote:I bookmarked your topic some time ago and there is so many new things from my last visit, that´s amazing!
I´m really getting excited about your game :)

P.S. I like the e-mail system and the profiles of other people.
Thanks so much, there have been quite a few changes to the game! Seeing you excited for the release pumps me up as well. Glad you like the added game elements too.
Mikaren wrote:Dadum.... i am still waiting for this game!
soo excited >:D

Edit:
is that smexy life guard gonna be one of the romanceable charac?
Yay! And yes, Orion is a romancable guy in the game.

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Amberbaum
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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#182 Post by Amberbaum »

The character sprites are so pretty and diverse( YAY, for long haired dudes :D ).

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#183 Post by iuliamaria »

Hey hey! Long time no see! I finally had time to revisit this thread and let me tell you that I love how this looks. I really like the new sprite. He looks much better in my opinion. It's like now I can really see that he is more mature and older than Abby. Anyway your art has improved a lot from the last time I saw an update. Keep up the good work! ^.^

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#184 Post by Kingv »

Amberbaum wrote:The character sprites are so pretty and diverse( YAY, for long haired dudes :D ).
Thanks!I have a thing for long haired dudes but I'm trying to not have only my bias in the game.
iuliamaria wrote:Hey hey! Long time no see! I finally had time to revisit this thread and let me tell you that I love how this looks. I really like the new sprite. He looks much better in my opinion. It's like now I can really see that he is more mature and older than Abby. Anyway your art has improved a lot from the last time I saw an update. Keep up the good work! ^.^
Hey, it has been a while! Hope you've been well. Really glad you like the redesigned Giovanni. I think it's a big improvement over the old one. Guess practice makes perfect! I still have a ways to go but I enjoy seeing new improvements in my art whenever I look back at my old art.


Sorry for the delay in updates guys. Few months ago I put this game on hold to work on my NaNo15 entry The Merman's Captive. And not long after that was done I went through some medical issues, all culminating in me having to have surgery back in August. Most of my time since then has spent recovering and catching up on commissions. So all in all, I'm behind in production but I believe I have enough done to warrant an alpha build of the first month in game. I'd hate to release a buggy, non spell checked, incomplete art version to the public so this will be a private demo. If there's anyone who'd like to help with testing it I'd appreciate the assistance!

As far as what's been done I've added in a map tutorial for the start of the game. Basically Willow will give you a tour of the town since Abby has been away for so long. Just pick where you want to go from the map and short scenes will play depending on the area you choose. Though this might be an easy way to ease players into the gameplay mechanics.

Figured out how to code in the commissioned jobs for the game. The first one you receive is from Dorian offering the opportunity to work on flyers for the Fall Festival. You can accept or decline offers via email. From the Projects icon on the laptop you can choose what to work on. The projects screen list the project, it's start and end date, how many cycles it takes to complete as well as a progress bar so you can keep track of how much you've done. Working on projects boosts Creativity but also reduces Stamina. Once a project is done Abby is paid. Deciding to decline an offer doesn't hurt you, but accepting an offer and not completing it can potentially effect some player points.

screenshot0044.png
I think the choice button covers up too much of the screen, especially when you have a lot of choices available, so I'm thinking of adjusting it. You can see a screenshot below of where I was thinking of placing it. It's also pretty clunky so changed the design too.
screenshot0042.png
Added in quick links to texts and emails to the right of the textbox. Shows when you have new messages, links directly to their respective inboxes and icons disappear once each message has been read so that it's not an eye sore. This should make checking things go much faster. Oh and please ignore the typos in that last screenshot, it's been updated.

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#185 Post by Lesleigh63 »

What a cute looking game and you've put so much work into it.
I hope it's all going well.
Looking forward to it coming out.
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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#186 Post by Kingv »

Lesleigh63 wrote:What a cute looking game and you've put so much work into it.
I hope it's all going well.
Looking forward to it coming out.
Thanks so much! I'm getting back in the groove of things after a few setbacks and I hope to see you around for future updates!

Here's a small update. Haven't been doing much, mostly cleaning up the code since I ran into a bunch of errors and making sure choices flow in a logical way. When I first started work on this I honestly didn't think of all the different ways players could make their way through the game and my coding reflected that. So now you won't have the option of talking to or randomly encountering a specific person until you've seen their intro scene. Which makes perfect since honestly. Luckily I didn't have to change much since some characters like Remy have a fixed intro so you will automatically meet them early on without having to do any exploring. But for the characters you optionally encounter like Orion or Kristian some extra flags had to be put in place. Speaking of Orion I had to add another pose for his sprite since the one with his arm up looked out of place when not used in a dynamic scene. I also ended up changing his work uniform, specifically making the coat be open and changing the shading. And I started rendering out his expressions as well as coding them in the game. Not much, but it's way better than looking at his one static sprite all the time.

Code: Select all

The game contains 3,959 dialogue blocks, containing 70,945 words and 368,242
characters, for an average of 17.9 words and 93 characters per block.

The game contains 89 menus, 125 images, and 71 screens.
Attachments
orion.png

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#187 Post by Ferdokki »

PLEASE tell me your development is still active. *n* I REALLY wanted this game to come out!

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#188 Post by Unicorn_Magic »

Well, that was a lot of reading I did there, went through all the 13 pages :oops: But it was totally worth it, your game updates were so frequent and I could see how nicely it developed from scratch!
Totally in love with this game, the characters, personality, setting, the uniqueness, everything is marvelous.
Are there any new updates on the game? Any news regarding the demo?
Lastly, I wanted to say, I really admire how much work you've put into this and want to wish you all the best for this project! I'll be looking forward to the whole completed game :mrgreen:

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#189 Post by iuliamaria »

Hey I'm back from the pits of hell that is my life :D ! Now that I'm here let me just say that I hope that you won't drop this amazing project after all the effort you already put in it. I'm saying this as I've seen that you are currently working on others projects and this topic hasn't been updated in a while?
Anyway hope everything is still going strong and you are well (I follow you on deviantart so I know things have been a little rough and I hope you are better now).

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#190 Post by completelyaddicted21 »

I hope you dont drop this project, it looks like it has amazing potential!
Best of luck to you and any other projects you may be doing though!

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#191 Post by Kingv »

Thanks so much everyone for your kind comments! I appreciate everyone stopping by the thread and checking up on things. The game is still in development, but is slow going. This past year has been full of changes. Had a baby via c-section a few months ago. So not only am I learning how to be a first time mom but also healing up from yet another surgery. So needless to say, I've had quite a bit on my plate lately! I've been dedicating most of my VN making time to trying to finish up my other two games which are much closer to being done that this one so progress hasn't been as steady as I'd like. But progress is being made!

The game contains 4,107 dialogue blocks, containing 73,300 words and 380,678
characters, for an average of 17.8 words and 93 characters per block.

The game contains 99 menus, 135 images, and 73 screens.


Made two new backgrounds for Remys' and Dorians' offices. It's been on my to do list for a while so I'm glad I got it figured out. Might go back and add some stuff but the base design is there.
remyOffice.jpg
dorianOffice.jpg

And Bayan has been added to the game! I posted about how his gameplay works via Tumblr but looks like I didn't post here lol. So I'[ll just place it here for those that want to read it.
I know that stat grinding is not everyone’s cup of tea but luckily there are alternatives to save yourself time and a headache. Rather than find ways to boost those stats manually Abby has the option to contract out repairs to the shop. Bayan is Willow’s older brother and a licensed contractor. After meeting him Abby will have the option to have him do repairs to the shop during the weekend. All that’s needed is to give him a call anytime during the weekday and after accepting he’ll show up bright and early Saturday morning at the shop. Nothing in this world if for free so naturally Bayan has to be paid for his help. But for anyone who wants to reap the maximum rewards without having to put in much work this is a great option. Having Bayan work on the shop increases the Handiness stat much faster than anything Abby can do in game as well as frees up time for players to do other activities. Unfortunately I have no idea what I did with the PSD the contains his sprite so i'll have to remake him. Luckily I still have his old sprite base to work from so in the end, he'll end up looking better than before. When Bayan come to the shop to work you'll be able to talk to him. He'll have different things to say depending on how much work have gone into shop improvements.
screenshot0017.png

What's really slowing me down is coding. Since some things like outfits are shown using Condition Switch and Dynamic Displayable it throws off the in-game time when things aren't in their proper place. For example, I haven't rendered out all the different time of day variations for Orions' sprite and have him only show up with his daytime sprite. So if you talk to him at noon or night everything from the background to the time of day indicator jumps back to daytime. Which messes up the code and can cause some scenes to get skipped over. And I'll probably have to figure out another way to show different seasonal outfits. What I have now would require me to copy the talk option for each bachelor and revise all the different option four different ways to accommodate each season which is way too much work. I know there's a better way code wise to do it but I'm not skilled enough at the moment to figure it out. At least it won't effect the demo so i'll just continue what I have for now.

Phew! I think that's about it for now. There's other thing I know I've added to the game but I believe this is all the major stuff. If anyone has any other question feel free to send them my way!

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#192 Post by Amberbaum »

*throws confetti* Hope you and your baby have everything you need. I'm glad that you still continue working on your project even tho you have to take care of your little one and yourself. Just remember that if it gets to stressful then I doubt anyone would mind if you would take a break from your project (because being a mama isn't just sunshine and roses | also c-section *ouch*).

That being said, I am glad that you are back :D

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#193 Post by Kingv »

Amberbaum wrote: Mon Jul 24, 2017 7:41 am *throws confetti* Hope you and your baby have everything you need. I'm glad that you still continue working on your project even tho you have to take care of your little one and yourself. Just remember that if it gets to stressful then I doubt anyone would mind if you would take a break from your project (because being a mama isn't just sunshine and roses | also c-section *ouch*).

That being said, I am glad that you are back :D
Thanks so much! It's a major change but I'm doing my best to be a parent and still keep up with game making.




The game contains 4,120 dialogue blocks, containing 73,336 words and 380,886
characters, for an average of 17.8 words and 92 characters per block.

The game contains 99 menus, 131 images, and 73 screens.


As you can see, not much has been done on the writing front, other than revising some old dialog, but I did manage to have a major breakthrough in regards to coding. Had to do a bit of research but I think I've found a way to code the sprites that will go much smoothly from how I was doing it before. Outfit are easy to change and I don't have to make multiple variations of the same conversations between characters to accommodate seasonal clothes. Only thing that's missing is the ability to have different time of day sprite tints to match the backgrounds but I'm sure I can figure that out.

So now I'm in the process of switching out my old character code for the new one. Which is taking a while to do. I have to go back and export each characters' eyes, eyebrows, mouth, clothing and pose changes from Photoshop then set up the new changes in Ren'py. So far I've got Abby, Willow, Orion, Remy and Kristian switched over to the new coding style and imported into the game. To sped along the coding process I'm also making these handy expression cheat sheets so I don't have to constantly look at the broken down sprite files to figure out what each variation looks like.
ccCheatsheetOrion.jpg

One thing I'm thinking of adding is having the sprite eyes blink and having emotions next to the character appear when they have a particularly strong reaction to what you say. Maybe not for all the cast in the game, but at least the major ones since they're seen most often. Here's an example of two emotions, disgust and excitement.
screenshot0040.png
screenshot0041.png

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#194 Post by Ferdokki »

HUUUUUUUGE congratulations on the baby!!! =D I'm super happy to see you're still working on this, and taking breaks in-between is totally understandable, especially post-surgery and with a newborn!

(P.S. Sorry I didn't finish the scripts for the other game, I'll come back to it someday, maybe soon after I finish college)

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Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

#195 Post by caibanh »

Will this game have Steam version?
by the way, I love the 1st version of the tittle that the current one, but the new one still work fine with me

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