Lemma Soft Forums

Hello Lemmasoft! I've been an ardent fan of the otome genre for a while, and now I'm making my first game ever! I'm super excited!!
I'm making this WIP thread because I'm bursting at the seams to be able to share updates on my game, and also this is a good place to get constructive criticism and help. I really hope that I can make something people will enjoy. So let's get to it!

Dammerung is my homage to the Dracula mythos and classic horror, albeit a bastardized romance version. A lot of my favorite stories feature vampires, and I really wanted to bring together the things about them that I like best. This is a romance story, and the "monster and woman fall in love" trope is pretty strong in it, but I also am working on making my leading lady as realistic as possible. I definitely want to work with the ideas of the tragic monster (think frankenstein and phantom of the opera) and the thematic differences between men and the monsters they become.
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Synopsis
You are Dahlia Singh, an intrepid explorer and professional photographer, well known among photography lovers for your eerie photos of abandoned places. You are on a tour of Europe photographing supposedly haunted castles when our story begins. You come to a small and secluded village in Germany on your way to Berlin, and there you hear stories of a haunted Estate. Naturally, this piques your interest, and so you venture off - but what will you do when the rumors prove true?


Dahlia Singh
"This is absolutely, completely, unequivocally and absurdly impossible."
Dahlia is a violently independent woman. Brusque and a little abrasive, her traveling lifestyle suits her somewhat prickly personality. Despite this and her tendency for swearing, Dahlia is loyal and of strong moral fiber.


the monster called Alucard
"I am a monster, and you are a fool."
The Monster has been called many names, most forgotten by all but him. What is he? Why was he imprisoned? The Monster has the answers to your questions, but his compliance comes at a price.
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So what do y'all think? The art is all by me, I've just learned how to digitally color so my shading is totally wonky.. These are probably the final character designs, the only differences in the future would be better coloring. (the sizing got messed up when I resized orz)
Also, I have no idea how to code but hell, I've never written anything before either so I'll learn! (or I will get friends to help o-|-< )
Any advice or criticism is totally awesome!! Thanks so much!! <3

STATUS:

Writing: 20%
Programming: 0% (I want to start this when I get the script 50% written, is that acceptable? or should I start earlier?)
Sprites: 25%
Backgrounds: I might use free backgrounds, and I might take a stab at making my own. I'll jump that hurdle soon!

STATUS 2/20/14:
Writing: 40%
Programming: 0% - I just downloaded Ren'Py and I'm using this tutorial to learn coding basics!
Sprites: 90% - I only have a few more sprites for Alucard and then I'm done uwu
Backgrounds: this hurdle has not been jumped o-|-<
CGs: I'm gonna have CGs now! woo!


STATUS 2/24/2014:
Writing: 60% (i went through what I've written, and realized that I'm a lot closer than I thought!)
Programming: 10% (i started! yeah!)
Sprites: 50% (I changed Alucard's sprites, so I have to redo them)
Backgrounds: I'm debating between asking a friend to help or doing them myself
CGs: 10%

STATUS 6/17/2014:
Writing: 80% (this feels wrong because I have so much left, but comparatively it isn't much at all)
Programming: 10%
Sprites: 100%
Backgrounds: 10% (I'm making them myself!)
CGs: ????

STATUS 9/11/2014
????????????


1/11: My goal is to be done by June, which will give me six months to make this.
2/20: I'm still on track for June! I now plan to have a demo out by April first.
3/8: Just finished my new design for Alucard, I like it a lot better! Luckily I had extra time, so I'm still on track.
3/15: Sprites are COMPLETELY done!! ahh!!
4/6: wehhhhhhhh. I've been really busy and I'm slogging through the writing. Progress is being made, just much more slowly.
4/19: currently working on the writing, but I just got a job so progress will be much slower.
5/17: I'm still alive!! still working!! Writing is taking waaay longer than I anticipated... orz
6/17: Still chugging along, why does writing take so long?! June is here, and I don't have a demo yet. BUT this is cause I have a job & I'm moving in July, so I'm not terribly upset. I will finish this project!!
7/23: ok, I'm still doing like, a LOT of writing. I have like, ten thousand words right now. The current goal is to get the first chapter finished (I've been jumping around) and then work on bringing the other elements of the game together so I can bring out a demo sometime soon.
9/11: at this point I don't even know how much writing is left. I may be writing for the rest of my life. But on the bright side, when you do everything yourself you can procrastinate by working on different parts of the project! I'm finished with 1/10 of my backgrounds. I'm at the weird space of "everything is so much closer than it was eight months ago, but still hilariously incomplete".
10/6: I don't want this project to take more than a year, but I also need to find a job! UGH being a starving artist is difficult when art can't be your source of income. :'(

2/16/2015: surprise! I'm not dead!!!! I'm STILL writing. I should have more time for it now, though. Sorry for the long silence, I just don't really have a lot to say about my progress!!
5/31/2015: This is just taking so much longer than I ever imagined. I've got 20k words and I'm not even halfway! I didn't think I was starting with a large project, but apparently I did.
10/1/2015: god... So since the end of may, I got a full time job, my computer died, I got a chromebook, and through all of it I am STILL working on this. I should probably feel like I'm doing poorly but I'm actually just really, really pleased that this beast is still lurching along. All of the art needs to be updated though....maybe when I finish the demo. A demo is ACTUALLY in progress.

This may sound a bit picky, but I'm simply curious: Why 'Dammerung' and not 'Dämmerung'? I understand that there are not umlauts on english keyboards, but it would be fairly easy to simply copy the letter 'ä'.

Also, I think you mixed up the pairing in the title and mean GxB, unless I'm mistaking.

I like the art - Dahlia looks really great!

What is your current progress? When will it be done? How many endings do you plan? How long will it be? (:
If you haven't made significant progress yet, this thread probably belongs into the Ideas section.

aaah yeah I just didn't want to go find an a with an umlaut orz
and yeah, I meant GxB. I didn't really think about that, thanks!
I'll edit the OP with endings / time schedule / length now!

ä is short for ae, so you can also type Daemmerung and it is correct.

I can't wait to see this. I love vampire-stories ♥
I wonder how these two characters will meet and what will happend. Dahlia seems to be a woman who's going her own way. I bet she's a strong personallity. I'm also excited about Alucard (love that name). I wonder what his past story will be. It sounds pretty interessting ^^

Besides: I totally love that you've choosen a german word for your title^^

I was sick of looking at the design for alucard so here's a WIP for his new design~
I'm not going to change it again, really! I just was never really happy with the original.
But now I have to redo a bunch of sprites >0<

Sounds like an interesting take on the vampire romance sub-genre. I like Dahlia! She's definitely not the swooning, gullible type, so that's awesome.

This reminds me a little of the beginning of classic novel Dracula, if the main character had been Dahlia instead... I'm interested to see how this story plays out.

thanks so much!! I'm really glad that Dahlia's personality came through. I really want to make a character that isn't the typical Solmare type "I've never touched a man before!! *blush*" but also not being aggressively rude to that niche either. I don't want to be like "my character isn't your ORDINARY otome heroine!! WEH!" but I do want to make something different.

Also there will definitely be a lot of ties to Bram Stoker's Dracula

Thanks for the post!

SPRITES ARE 100% FINISHED!! here's some of them ~

Oooooh, likey~ The title was actually the main reason I came to this thread. Hahaha. I like the art for the girl btw. ^^

How is this coming along? I hope it's doing fine! Haha. Good luck~

well that's what a title's for, right? Although I just realized that there is in fact, another thing about vampire romance named "twilight" and now I'm sad.
The game is going very well, thanks!
I'm currently trying to focus on finishing the first chapter insteading of jumping around, so I can actually get a demo out sometime soon!!
I definitely like the Dahlia design more than Alucard's, but I know that if I keep stressing out about it I'll never finish the game.

update! I just finished my first background - which is arguably the most complicated one and definitely the least used.
here's a peek:

It looks pretty cool
I love the gate design ^^