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Re: Clearwater Crossing[Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:32 pm
by Kingv
Happy Early Halloween to those that celebrate it!

Since I'll be out most of the day prepping for Trick or Treating I thought that I'd go ahead and post this update early.
Don't think I've shared a sneak peak of any festivals yet but this is a small work in progress picture for the Fall Festival which will be the first holiday you’ll encounter while playing the game. It’ll be very much like a Halloween carnival with food, games and fun for everyone. And of course you can’t have a Fall Festival without costumes so every bachelor will have a costume change along with Abby, who has has six different outfits to choose from. Each costume will let her meet up with a certain bachelor so there's plenty of fun times to be had. I'm still in the design phase so for now they're all just roughly colored sketches. The finished product will look much better.

Here's a tentative list of everyone's costumes:
Abby-Little Red, Superhero, Ringmaster, Mermaid, Pirate, ???
Remy-Warrior/Barbarian
Kristian-Ninja
Joriah- Sailor
Giovanni- Vampire Werewolf
Orion- Genie
Dorian- Prince
Willow- Macaw
Millie- Ragdoll

I'm missing one costume design for Abby. Little Red will be used as her default costume if you don't want to spend money buying one for the festival. What would you guys like to see her wear? Are there any other types of costumes you think would better fit the guys? I'm open to suggestion.

Re: Clearwater Crossing[Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 3:29 am
by shiho14
yay update again! :)

Does the costume that abby will be wearing depends on a guy's personality or just his taste of clothing?
and is this festival kind of a date for them? For me, i really love their costumes...I think it really suits them. Abby looks really adorable in her little red costume <3 I'm loving way too much remy's costume for obvious reasons xD

Re: Clearwater Crossing[Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 2:54 pm
by Kingv
shiho14 wrote:yay update again! :)

Does the costume that abby will be wearing depends on a guy's personality or just his taste of clothing?
and is this festival kind of a date for them? For me, i really love their costumes...I think it really suits them. Abby looks really adorable in her little red costume <3 I'm loving way too much remy's costume for obvious reasons xD
It's actually a little bit of both as well as if the costume is of a subject that interest him. I'm glad you like the costumes thus far. I think the only one I really want to improve upon is Giovanni by making it look more gothic. I was a bit worried that Remy's costume showed too much but I think it can still work.

Re: Clearwater Crossing[Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:08 pm
by Kingv
Gosh, it's been a while since my last update so I'll fill everyone in on what's been going on. I don't know if I stated this here but this game is basically inspired by what I'm going through now. A large portion of the city I live in, including my home, is scheduled to be torn down in a few months. It's pretty much guaranteed to happen and I'm on a really tight schedule on when I have to get out of dodge but it's hard to move and find housing when 200+ other families are in the same predicament. So for the next few months I'll probably only be making major updates every month or so while I go through this transitional period. Hope that's ok with everyone.

I really want to release a demo for the game in the upcoming months, perhaps by late Spring. It'll just contain the first quarter of the game, which is Autumn, so that players can get a feel for game play mechanics and be able to experience at least one festival. So the major thing that needs to be done is coding the Fall Festival. I decided to start off with Remy since he's one of the first guys you meet and theoretically the easiest to get the most points with thus far. Not sure if the demo will feature full functionality for each bachelor but you'll at least be able to see and talk with them in some limited fashion if things don't go as planned.

Here's a breakdown of what happens at the Fall Festival in regards to meeting Remy. I'm purposely being a little vague but can expand on my thoughts if anyone needs clarification.
On the day of the festival Abby's mom will wake her up and tell her the festival will be tonight. She then ask if you'd like her help picking out a costume since her old one is well, old. Of course you have the option to refuse her offer or accept her help. Either way you'll have to make a trip to the costume shop to buy an outfit before the festival. Once there Abby meets Willow, who will talk a little bit about what Abby's wearing depending on the costume picked. Eventually Abby runs into Remy and convinces him to shirk his duties at the festival and hang out with her. From there you're given a list of activities to choose form which are: Play festival games(Fishbowl Toss, Balloon n' Darts, Watergun Blitz), take a walk(Photo Booth, Caricature Artist, Magic Show), ride attractions(Carousel, Ferris Wheel, Tunnel of Love), get some food(Funnel Cake, Turkey Leg, Corn Dog) or go home. Each menu choice has at least three random sub choices associated with it so every time you play you should get a little something different. For the "take a walk" option after doing a random activity you'll run into NPCs and bachelors from the game who'll engage the pair in some conversation. After picking at least four different choices from the menu it'll be time for the Festival to end and the duo will say their goodbys. But of course who wants the festival to end so soon? Based on the amount of XP you've earned thus far in the game with the bachelors the one you have the most points with will show up as Abby is leaving. Depending on how they feel about her some will be happy, angry, sad, jealous or indifferent that they didn't go to the festival with her. You might even catch a guy with another girl if you like him more than he likes you. You'll also get an extra scene and special festival ending if the guy you went with also has the most XP with Abby.
Now, unto the questions!
Should there be more or less activities for you to choose from?
What other activities should she have access to?
Are there any interesting scenarios you'd like to appear in game?

On another note I redid Joriah's sprite. You can still see his old design on the front page. I was never happy with how he looked so revamping him was well overdue.

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:54 am
by SkyeBlue
This looks so good! I can't believe I didn't see this before! Can't wait for the demo :) For the fall festival I think its the perfect amount of activities!
I also love how the guys can have different reactions based on who you go with!

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 3:55 pm
by Kingv
SkyeBlue wrote:This looks so good! I can't believe I didn't see this before! Can't wait for the demo :) For the fall festival I think its the perfect amount of activities!
I also love how the guys can have different reactions based on who you go with!
Thank you so much for the support and feedback! There are so many great threads on this site I'm not surprised that mines is a little more obscure. I'm working hard to get the demo out and can't wait to share it with everyone.

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:45 pm
by Hazel-Bun
Sounds very rough and I pray you find new housing along with the rest of those folks in your town ):

That said, I absolutely can't wait for this to come out!! Your hard work not only inspires me to work on my own VNs, but is just generally appreciated. Can't wait for the demo to come out too!

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 10:00 pm
by Kingv
Hazel-Bun wrote:Sounds very rough and I pray you find new housing along with the rest of those folks in your town ):

That said, I absolutely can't wait for this to come out!! Your hard work not only inspires me to work on my own VNs, but is just generally appreciated. Can't wait for the demo to come out too!

Thanks for the well wishes. It's a difficult time for me right now but I'm confident that everyone displaced will find somewhere better in the next few months. I'm trying to look on the bright side and look at it as a blessing in disguise.

Awww, thanks you so much! I'm happy that I inspire you, especially since you have so much experience making games. I'm hard at work coding and making missing backgrounds. Here's a WIP picture of the diner and Gio's assistant Dani. Dani's sprite is a little too big for the background because i forgot to scale it down. In reality she's not that tall. ^^

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:49 am
by shiho14
Updates! :D It seems you have a lot of things going in RL right now…I hope you and the other families would be able find a place to live in soon :(

As for the updates, it looks like there will be a lot of things going to happen in a festival! Does choosing which activities you do happen to all the festivals or only in Fall Festival? And do these activities change depending on what festival it is? Also if you happen to catch the guy with another girl does this mean he’s on a date with that girl? Does this happen if your dating/pursuing that guy?

Should there be more or less activities for you to choose from?
As for me, I think it’s a great idea you can choose lots of activities to do rather just doing one activity over and over again.

What other activities should she have access to?
I really don’t have an idea on this because I think you have listed enough activities she can choose from. My most favorite would probably be take a walk and riding the tunnel of love xD

Are there any interesting scenarios you'd like to appear in game?
Not for me. I like the idea that you’ll get an extra scene and event get a festival ending with the guy you have most XP..that’s good enough for me though ^^

Joriah’s Sprite makes me want to tease him just by looking on how he blushes. I think He looks adorable and Dani looks really cool like having a big sister ^_^

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 5:06 pm
by Kingv
shiho14 wrote:Updates! :D It seems you have a lot of things going in RL right now…I hope you and the other families would be able find a place to live in soon :(

As for the updates, it looks like there will be a lot of things going to happen in a festival! Does choosing which activities you do happen to all the festivals or only in Fall Festival? And do these activities change depending on what festival it is? Also if you happen to catch the guy with another girl does this mean he’s on a date with that girl? Does this happen if your dating/pursuing that guy?

Should there be more or less activities for you to choose from?
As for me, I think it’s a great idea you can choose lots of activities to do rather just doing one activity over and over again.

What other activities should she have access to?
I really don’t have an idea on this because I think you have listed enough activities she can choose from. My most favorite would probably be take a walk and riding the tunnel of love xD

Are there any interesting scenarios you'd like to appear in game?
Not for me. I like the idea that you’ll get an extra scene and event get a festival ending with the guy you have most XP..that’s good enough for me though ^^

Joriah’s Sprite makes me want to tease him just by looking on how he blushes. I think He looks adorable and Dani looks really cool like having a big sister ^_^
Thanks for your kind words and understanding. It is a difficult time right now but I'm positive everything will work itself out and my new place will be even better than where I am now. It's just hard dealing with the unknown changes that are on the way.

So far every festival will have a variety of activities to chose from and each one will have it's own unique things to do. For example the Summer Festival will be held all day long and you'll be able to do different activities depending on what time of day it is. In the morning you can participate in the swimming relay race or watch the fireworks at night. That way you can leave the festival and come back at different times to do different things. If you see any of the guys you can date with another girl it's a possibility he could just be hanging with them as a friend. But over time there's the possibility that certain girls will start gravitating to the bachelors, especially if you're not in a relationship with them. Just like the MC the guys are free to date around as well. The possibility of other girls interfering with persuables remains the same whether you're dating them or not. There's always some girl out there that wants your man, even if he's spoken for.

And thanks for replying to my questions. I'm glad you like how everything is going thus far. I'll be sure to post additional questions as I think of them. And I agree, Joriah would be a fun character to tease. He does blush an awful lot in his scenes.

And I also received my first fan art for the game done by the lovely Hapuki! Check out the picture of Kristian and Abby here http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... =0#p301407

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 8:28 pm
by Kingv
Time for another status update! Quite a few changes have been going on. As I've been working on the script and adding in events I've come to realize that my stamina stat and time of day indicator aren't adding up correctly. Every day you start with 100 stamina points which gradually deplete during the day as you do activities or talk to others. As your stamina gets lower the cycle indicators change from day, to noon and then night until stamina reaches 0 and you're forced to sleep and go on to the next day. Dividing 100 by the 3 cycles in game is making everything uneven so I'm contemplating adding two more cycles to the game, dawn and dusk. This would make dividing the stamina evenly among each section much easier I think because you'd have 20 stamina to use during each cycle before it changes to the next one in line.

I also want to make an animated transition between each cycle. Here's a quickie animation to test fluidity that demonstrates the dawn, day and noon transition. Have to figure out how to add it in the game using ALT.
dawnDay.gif
Been looking at Remy's sprite for a while now and it's starting to look...off to me. I think his proportions are off. So I made a rough redraw of him. Is there one you guys like better than the other? Can the proportions of the old sprite be changed enough to salvage it?
remyRetouches.png
I also redid the beach. It was the first background I did and was never really happy with it. I like it better now. You can see a few variations of it here http://ephemeralbalance.tumblr.com/post/75102672740/. ^^
screenshot0001.png

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:56 am
by Ferdokki
Omg, this game looks awesome!!! I'm definitely gonna keep an eye on this! *_____*
I love your artwork, it's so gorgeous! And I like the originality of the gameplay and story! I like that it's not "just another dating sim". =)

Feedback:

1. I LOVE ALL THE MEN! *___________* Lol, ok, guess that wasn't too helpful. ;) Let's see, for starters, I really like Abby's character design. She's really cute and pretty, and I love the original style of it (like, it's not anime artwork you see in other games). I don't really like Remy; he seems like a d-bag. =P I think Kristian's the hottest, and I love his character design. Orion would be the type of guy I'd secretly crush on in real life but would pretend like I'm not interested in him so that I'm not jumping the bandwagon of other fangirls. ;) I find Giovanni's personality intriguing (especially because you said he's suave...I like suave guys ^__^). In regards to the minor characters, I like how motherly Millie looks. =) A lot of games just make the moms look old, but I like that your character has more to her than age. =) And OMG I LOVE WILLOW!!! I love her character design, and I also love her because her personality is just like mine! >____<

2. Hmm, events. Well, this is kinda cliche, but I'd like to see some sort of seasonal dance or something. You mentioned in the description that we have the opportunity to make the males jealous, and if you have a dance of sorts, it's a fun way to get jealousy going. *_____* (Lol, I sound so evil and heartless! I'm reality, I'm too shy to be close to guys like that, and I hate making people jealous. But it's fun in games. =D) I'd also like to see some sort of New Year festival, like Lunar New Year, except, don't call it that. Create some sort of modern New Years festival with technology and cool stuff like that. 8) Another event could be the opening of the mall or whatever (if the player chooses to let it be built).

3. I'm a little confused on the last question, but I think my answer would be yes...? When I write game scripts, I try to give the protagonist a wide option of personality choice, so the player can develop/play the personality the way they choose. For example, one of the dialogue options may make the character say something sweet, and in that case, the character with whom their talking will reply politely as well. Or the option may make the protagonist say something because they're angry, and in that case, the character involved will have their feelings hurt or whatever. A really good example would be from one of my favorite games, "Emerald City Confidentials". In that game, the player can make the protagonist talk to the other characters politely, sarcastically, or rudely. Each option triggers different emotions/responses from the character with whom you're speaking. I really like games that do this.
If that example was too vague, then maybe you've played "a2"? The protagonist can respond to characters politely, indifferently, or rudely, and I liked how it made the protagonist's personality shine through. =)

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:58 am
by Ferdokki
P.S. I think the redraw of Remy captures proportions better.
I also like Joriah's new design, he looks cuter. =)

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:59 pm
by Kingv
Ferdokki wrote:Omg, this game looks awesome!!! I'm definitely gonna keep an eye on this! *_____*
I love your artwork, it's so gorgeous! And I like the originality of the gameplay and story! I like that it's not "just another dating sim". =)

Feedback:

1. I LOVE ALL THE MEN! *___________* Lol, ok, guess that wasn't too helpful. ;) Let's see, for starters, I really like Abby's character design. She's really cute and pretty, and I love the original style of it (like, it's not anime artwork you see in other games). I don't really like Remy; he seems like a d-bag. =P I think Kristian's the hottest, and I love his character design. Orion would be the type of guy I'd secretly crush on in real life but would pretend like I'm not interested in him so that I'm not jumping the bandwagon of other fangirls. ;) I find Giovanni's personality intriguing (especially because you said he's suave...I like suave guys ^__^). In regards to the minor characters, I like how motherly Millie looks. =) A lot of games just make the moms look old, but I like that your character has more to her than age. =) And OMG I LOVE WILLOW!!! I love her character design, and I also love her because her personality is just like mine! >____<

2. Hmm, events. Well, this is kinda cliche, but I'd like to see some sort of seasonal dance or something. You mentioned in the description that we have the opportunity to make the males jealous, and if you have a dance of sorts, it's a fun way to get jealousy going. *_____* (Lol, I sound so evil and heartless! I'm reality, I'm too shy to be close to guys like that, and I hate making people jealous. But it's fun in games. =D) I'd also like to see some sort of New Year festival, like Lunar New Year, except, don't call it that. Create some sort of modern New Years festival with technology and cool stuff like that. 8) Another event could be the opening of the mall or whatever (if the player chooses to let it be built).

3. I'm a little confused on the last question, but I think my answer would be yes...? When I write game scripts, I try to give the protagonist a wide option of personality choice, so the player can develop/play the personality the way they choose. For example, one of the dialogue options may make the character say something sweet, and in that case, the character with whom their talking will reply politely as well. Or the option may make the protagonist say something because they're angry, and in that case, the character involved will have their feelings hurt or whatever. A really good example would be from one of my favorite games, "Emerald City Confidentials". In that game, the player can make the protagonist talk to the other characters politely, sarcastically, or rudely. Each option triggers different emotions/responses from the character with whom you're speaking. I really like games that do this.
If that example was too vague, then maybe you've played "a2"? The protagonist can respond to characters politely, indifferently, or rudely, and I liked how it made the protagonist's personality shine through. =)

I'm really happy to hear the you're looking forward to the game when it comes out. I can't wait to get everyone's feedback so I can really make it a great game experience.

1. It's good to know you like so many of the characters! It's even helpful to know which ones you don't particularly care for as well. I don't expect everyone to like the entire cast but having at least some type of feeling, whether good or bad, towards them is a plus in my book. As for the guys they all have a little bit of the personality types I like and dislike in men but none are completely something I'd personally pursue IRL. Millie plays a large role in the story so I really wanted her to be more than just an old looking lady that is just there because the protagonist needs a mom. She definitely has her own things going on in the game and shows up in many scenes. I love Willow too! She's the person I wish I could be at a job I hate. Just showing up to be paid but other than that, generally not caring and doing my own thing. And thanks for your comment about the art! I try to put my own little spin on the anime look. Guess I like it a bit realistic but still stylized.

2. There will actually be a dance for the Winter Festival. It's a black tie event where everyone dresses up and the entire thing will be a mix of Christmas gift giving and New Years partying. The end of that festival will culminate into watching lanterns being lighted and released with your significant other. So yeah, lots of opportunities for jealousy to ensue. The possible mall opening will be the last big event you can do. Depending if you want to help the town or not you can stop their plan or sit back and watch the construction order get approved. There's then a six month time skip where you'll see the consequences of your choice.

3. As for the questions there's usually at least three choices to choose from, all of which effect how others see you and if you'll get any experience points with them.

For Remy I ended up redrawing parts of his old sprite and it looks 100 times better now. His torso and arm proportions were the main issue but I think I got it worked out now. And I agree about Joriah. I'm so glad I changed his look.

Re: Clearwater Crossing [Otome] (Open Dev)

Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2014 7:45 pm
by LucaMadison
The GUI design is awesome! ^^ Good luck! ♥