pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatural])

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eime-leen
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pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatural])

#1 Post by eime-leen »

Image

What's up with the title capitalization?
Well, doesn't it look cool?

Here is my "smaller" project after putting my other one, 'The Blessed', on hiatus.
This was at first... a small project, but I started adding things and, well...
It's still a manageable size and I've made much more progress with this project than my other one.
I actually want to create and finish a Ren'py VN!


Minor Updates (Apr 30 2015)
  • Started the first of the 'final re-draw' sprites.
  • The text size has been decreased now.
Image

Short Summary
A girl and her pen:
"What if she could change her life with it?"

"...Things will go wrong."

Summary (Lots more words...)
Maya had always wanted to write fictional stories. However, she always fails to finish them, leaving her endings unsatisfied. While she was desperate to finish her newest story, she found the most beautiful pen on the ground. But this pen is magical! She finds out that any story she writes with it will happen in real life! With the pen's amazing grip and smooth writing, maybe she can finally finish her stories too! Imaginations sure can run wild...

Poor Maya, she's got some troubles in her life.
Maya's childhood friend is dating another girl, and not her.
Maya hates this girl who brags about being better than her at everything.
Maya's best friend is always being bullied due to her weight.
Maya had a brother who passed away a month ago.

...but with this pen, maybe she can change it all.
Genres
Main: Drama, Mystery, School Setting, Supernatural, Tragedy
Has a little Romance and Horror themes.
May contain "dark" subject matter/content (especially in one path).

Themes that may be used
Be careful what you wish for
Can you escape fate/escape reality?
Appearance isn't everything/Looks can be deceiving
Taking advantage of others
Bullying
Hatred
Accept what you have in life

The Pen (It's just a pen, really.)
Maya finds this pen before the story starts, and it will change her life.
This pen can do almost anything... destroy a person, change a personality...
...even change history?
All Maya has to do is to write a good story with this pen!
The pen has several rules. How Maya finds out about these rules is unknown right now.
Some rules may be:
"You must write a story in third person. You make up the 'characters'."
"A story affects real life persons (character names don't matter)."
"You can only write something that can happen in this world."

Characters
Image
MAYA, the Main character, who loves writing stories with fantasy, romance, and horror (but never finishing them!). She is curious about life and asks people many questions.
-PATRICK, the Popular, good-looking guy, president of the school, good at everything (dates Jasmine).
-JASMINE, the Jealous rival girl, vice-president of the school, also good at everything (dates Patrick) and shows off.
-TOMMY, the Transfer student, rather... lacking in popularity and talent.
-CONAN, Maya's kind Childhood friend who has crush on another girl, Britney (and started dating her).
-BART, the young Brat who loves to talk about other people, childish.
-KIRSTY, the Quiet/Quirky girl who reads in the library.
-GREG, "Genuine guy": Good, nice, likes Maya, is kinda lame, but has a good heart.
-BRENDAN, Maya's deceased Brother.
And characters who are not based on words... maybe.
-LACHLYN, shy, short haired, chubby girl. She gets bullied and is usually sad.
-HAYDEN, was Brendan's best friend, was just your average athletic guy. Now he is..?
-BRITNEY, Girl that is dating Conan, tomboyish, cold to most people (enemies with Jasmine and Maya).

Format (Whoa! This is complicated)
-5 different paths: Jasmine's, Conan's, Lyn's, Brendan's, and ???
-Prologue I & II: (I), where characters are introduced. (II), where Maya chooses where to go for lunch and sometimes after school ("Choices and Conversations"). Choices in Prologue II affect the path options.
-Path Options: after the Prologues, the game is split into five paths and you choose one of them. Options are shown depending on who Maya talked to and is thus, most concerned about. One (common) to five (super rare) options will be shown. Two of the paths are unlocked when the game is first completed.
-You have to choose different people to talk to for path options. Example: Keep talking to and seeing Jasmine and Patrick, and Jasmine's path will be one of the path options. Avoid Jasmine, and there is a better chance that her path will not appear.
-Optional friendships with some characters in each path, especially in paths where that character is featured in (you will see them more often). These friendships may give bonus convos in their featured path, could influence your choices, or give bonuses in the true ending. When talking to these characters, dialogue could differ slightly in each path.
-During each path, Maya will use the pen to write her stories to change herself or someone's life. I have an idea of the format and I'm currently working on it (See below!).
-Endings: each path will branch to at least two endings. Usually it will be the default (bad) ending and the path's ending. There is also the true ending. Thus, there will be at least 7 endings total.
More Stuff
-Replay value: There isn't much room for replay value beyond choosing different options, and playing again to see all paths and endings (is that enough replay value?). I can't say that anyone who plays this VN would find the side characters interesting enough to befriend in the first place.
Image
The first coloured sprite I had! The BG is a placeholder and so is that textbox.
|
|
V
Image
Re-drawn Kirsty.

Image
Oh, you must be hiding something!
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|
V
Image
Re-drawn Hayden.

Image
It took a while to make this amazing input screen! (What's Conan doing there?)

Image
Re-drawn Jasmine. This sprite outline will be the start of the last re-draws.

So, what does this have to do with the pen? Maya gets to write stories, and the format is "fill in the blank!"
You can't choose what idea she wants, but you can change the words!
This is how the format will be like:

Image

Image

The words in the buttons can be changed to create slightly different stories. This will stay simple as I will limit the number of combinations and words to choose. Since these stories come true, these are the "choices" that can change dialogue and relationships with other characters, and ultimately decide the ending in each path.

(Who is 'Dale'?)
THE TEAM:
eime-leen - Story, Writing, Design, Art, and hopefully BGs/CGs too.
Thinking of getting someone to do the music.
ren'py - engine used to make the VN!
freeware, namely GIMP - used to create the visuals for this project!
computer - the most important member of the team!

Resources currently used:
-A font free to use
-Windows Aero cursor (recoloured)

(...It's just me.) :(

(Got rid of the progress percentages. Found it demotivating.)

I'm open to comments and criticism. Thank you for viewing my WIP. :wink:
Last edited by eime-leen on Thu Apr 30, 2015 1:01 am, edited 7 times in total.

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#2 Post by Kokoro Hane »

I'm gonna stalk this. I love the concept~ I definitely will be playing when this game is out, or when the demo is out...whichever! And you have nice art!
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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#3 Post by azureXtwilight »

Interesting concept! Can't wait to see what you can come up with.

I wonder what the signs beside the character names means...
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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#4 Post by Googaboga »

This reminds me of an episode of some show I saw a long time ago where this kid's stories started happening in real life. Good times ;v;. I look forward to seeing what you do with the concept.

Oh and I don't know if this is what you are going for but the font size seems really big. I think it'd look better if the text box was longer so more words could fit or you decreased the letter size. That's just my opinion though.
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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#5 Post by eime-leen »

@ Kokoro Hane: Thank you! I will continue to practice drawing. :)

@ azureXtwilight: Thank you!! (Your post means a lot since I was inspired by your Doppleganger VN :D) Are you referring to those red X's/orange circles? That was just so that I can keep track of which sprite linearts I need to work on. xD Some of them are still sketches.

@ Googaboga: I suppose no idea is original anymore. But it's the execution of the idea that matters, right? And I'll think about the font size. Thanks for pointing that out!

Updates

Image
Added days, save names, format... etc. (I'm still learning here!)
Unsure if I should include the real date in the save name.
Ugly BGs for now. :wink:

Image
I drew the line art for Maya's side image! :D

Image
Music room. Not all of the songs listed are finished. Also have 3 left to create.

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#6 Post by MaiMai »

Good job on concept and art, but as for the latter are you just using placeholder sprites right now and making sure there's transparency later?
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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#7 Post by eime-leen »

@ MaiMai: Thank you! Well I hope my linearts don't look like placeholders! :( I will definitely make sure the sprites are transparent. I do that after finishing lineart and base colouring. Kirsty's sprite has that transparency in my first post's screenshot.

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#8 Post by Nayara NightRoo »

Hey, I love this project!!! And your art is really nice! Good luck with it, I'm looking forward to play it. ;)
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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#9 Post by eime-leen »

@ Nayara NightRoo: Thank you! It won't be finished anytime soon, but I'll do my best!

Updates [Sept 3/13]

Image

Image
Improved the story part! I'm using viewports (ability to drag/scroll) instead of imagemaps now. It looks way better already, in my opinion. :) The pen cursor is just a recolor of Windows Aero cursor. Might not use it.

Image
Drawing and colouring Jasmine. I can easily fix the transparency and overlapping colours. This is still an older screenshot because...

Image
Finished lineart and the base colouring of Hayden. :D

-There's the quick menu that can be hidden.
-The date is somewhat transparent (I can fix the alignment easily too).
-Font size is slightly smaller, but I realised that I don't have a lot of dialogue per screen (average of 7.4 words! Sometimes one word). I doubt that I will make it any smaller.
-Learned about styles! I didn't know how much I could customize! :o

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#10 Post by eime-leen »

There has not been much progress with pERM iNK, because currently I am very busy with school (no time to even doodle!). :( Any progress that I can manage to do will be for the story/script, so I also have nothing that I can show. But I will not give up on my project! :D

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#11 Post by SixOfSpades »

Ah, I like the concept of this - you can go some really interesting places with regards to developing the way the magic/mythology of the pen works. The mechanics of customising the story for different outcomes is neat to. I look forward to seeing how you mix in the small callback consequences with the large path-altering ones.

On a side note, your gung-ho approach to asset creation is really cool. It gives me a little more confidence in getting the more difficult assets in my project done. =)

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#12 Post by eime-leen »

Oh, the memories:
Image

They feel so alive now! :D
Image
-Patrick looks less evil.
-Kirsty still stands out. Green hair is awesome.
-What! Brendan lost his facial hair?!
-Still working on Greg's characterization; his design isn't final.

This might be a good way to show progress on the story:
Image
This is just a summary of all the conversations Maya has with characters in each path.
No real plans for the final path yet...
Sorry about all the spoiler-free marks.

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#13 Post by eime-leen »

New Logo:
Image

Another Main Menu:
Image

Will do finishing touches later. Also, these are about the only cool images in the VN so far...

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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#14 Post by Rinima »

Ohhh, I'm a official stalker now! I love the concept :)
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Re: pERMANENT iNK (["What If?"][School][Mystery][Supernatura

#15 Post by eime-leen »

Ah, I like the concept of this - you can go some really interesting places with regards to developing the way the magic/mythology of the pen works. The mechanics of customising the story for different outcomes is neat to. I look forward to seeing how you mix in the small callback consequences with the large path-altering ones.

On a side note, your gung-ho approach to asset creation is really cool. It gives me a little more confidence in getting the more difficult assets in my project done. =)
@ SixOfSpades: Sorry! I missed your comment. You see, my December update was very exciting to post. xD You've made me think harder about my story. I've been thinking about some sort of evil spirit associated with the pen (hope that's not too crazy); as shown in my new main menu image. Will try to make it a good one; I don't want to disappoint. 8) *Looks up gung-ho* Cool, thanks for your input!

@Rinima: Thanks for stalking! :P [Motivation += 1]

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