AAA:Book 2 [Otome, Romance, GxG] New Animated sprite!

[astrokeofmadness]

Book 1 is released- here:
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 11&t=31733

Story:
This is a story that takes place over the course of several years, starting as a preteen and ending in adulthood. book 2 deals with the final year of high school and you will see how Laura and her friends have changed from book 1. There will be an improved focus on character interaction and traditional character routes. In this book the player will choose a friend who will be the main focus of that particular play-through. In these routes Laura will have spent more time with this character throughout high school, and this will dictate her current position in life as the game begins.
Characters:
I'll be working on concepts for the teen sprites over the next few months, so look forward to that!
Very first concept designs(Sprites will look much better)

Clarissa:


Molly:


Rachel:


Game info:
This is a personal project that I am working solo on(outside of audio). This story is split into 3 books, one for each age group. The actual length is going to be very short, 15 minutes per game. In other words, this is like a visual short story over a novel. The writing will be dealing heavily with the idea of coming of age. The specific ideas I will be working from will be, self identity, and sexual awakening in relation to a hetero-normative society. There will be a focus on GxG romance, but perhaps not in the same way that Visual novels typically do it. It will be a bit more subtle, the characters need to clarify their own feelings and identities for something like that to really grow.


And now to explain the routes and endings:: See dev diary on page 4 for additional info and explanations.

Molly Route:
Molly was Laura’s best friend in book 1, and because of this bond it is easier to get a positive outcome in this route.
Bad End- 20%
Good End: 50%
Romance End- 30%

Clarissa Route:
Clarissa’s difficulty comes from her more standoffish nature, Molly was always your closest friend so she is easier to reconcile with then Clarissa.
Bad End-40%
Good End: 35%
Romance End- 25%

Rachel Route:
Rachel’s route is special, and especially hard to get a positive end for. In order to get a romance end you must first have a bad end standing in either Molly or Clarissa’s routes, and then get a perfect standing with Rachel’s segments.
Bad End- 45%
Good End: 45%
Romance End- 10%

Everything about book 2 is subject to change of course. I am planning to begin writing this week. I'm going to give myself a 1 month deadline to get it written- probably not edited though.





Progress:
Sprites: Book 2: 0%
Backgrounds: Book 2: 0%
writing: Book 2: 10%
Audio: Book 2: 0%

Questions:
Would you want your choices from book 1, to carry over into the next book? Or would you be accepting of the idea of only the dominate ending from book 1 continuing.
Does the shift to a more traditional routes system sound like a good idea? This will mean a shorter start> end duration, but more variation in story.
Would you rather the ability to pursue every girl, even if it is doomed to fail?

[polterghast]

Hello! This is quite an interesting concept, as a great fan of character development and seeing them grow/change realistically and believably this definitely appeals to me.
As for your questions~

- Well, I think that depends on whether or not I enjoyed the first book book, but that kind of audience involvement is always great. ^^

- Hmm, I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about making that a reality (unless you compile the books into one VN, which you may already be planning to do, if so negate this. xD; ) but yes, that would be very interesting.

- I haven't seen that sort of thing done before, but I would personally be very interested in this.

- Hmm, I can't say for certain, there is a charm to the simplicity of your style. I'd say, if you're unsure, try shading one sprite then compare both versions, see which you like best. (Or perhaps get some input here!)

Best of luck with this!

[Ghost #9]

Doesn't the title of your game essentially mean that adolescence is said twice?
Anticipation Apprehension Adolescence: Adolescence
It's a bit awkward.

Good luck with your project!

[astrokeofmadness]

Doesn't the title of your game essentially mean that adolescence is said twice?
Anticipation Apprehension Adolescence: Adolescence
It's a bit awkward.

Good luck with your project!

Yeah I see your point, changed it. The idea was that book 1 was Adolescence, but its a bit superfluousness.

Made a quick change to the logo, from black to color, realized the black simply wont do for this.

[Ghost #9]

Ah! Well, that actually makes sense. I think it might flow a bit better if the books were titled differently than the AAA bit, but I can definitely see what you were going for now.

Maybe something like...

AAA: Childhood
AAA: Teenage Years
AAA: Becoming an Adult

I mean, those aren't very creative or anything. I was just trying to illustrate my idea. xDD;;

[astrokeofmadness]

Clarissa teen sprite added, her and Laura undergo the least drastic changes upon moving to high school. I think I'll probably be coming back to this sprite at some point before I finish, as it's lacking in something.

The title truth be told was a hard decision for me, so I guess its still open to change If I can think of a better way to do it.

[astrokeofmadness]

Rachel Teen sprite- for some reason I really like how simple this one turned out, probably my favorite at the moment.

[astrokeofmadness]

Just finished the final Teen sprite, Laura's. Its now moved up to be my favorite of all mainly because its adorable ^_^ It's also very clear after tossing all my sprites into a group image that Clarissa's needs to be redrawn badly as its very clearly not fitting the style properly. Next sprite post will be tomorrow or the day after, with the most dramatic of the appearance changes.

[Caveat Lector]

Keeping an eye on this topic because I love the idea of doing a coming-of-age story, and I'd like to see what you do with it!

So to answer each of your questions:
1) Eh, I'm not really sure...I think I'd kind of rather just see the story naturally progress based around what you choose (see below) . I mean, it's good to get player input ahead of time, but at the same time, I'd kind of rather prefer it if the story marched to the beat of its own drum.

2) Oh yes, absolutely! I'd much prefer this, and see how your decisions ultimately impact the story, your relationship with others, etc.

3) Sure, why not? Who doesn't love a little bit of teen angst and heartbreak? Though seriously, it is one of those heart crushing things everyone's had to deal with at some point or another, and it would be nice to see this story's take on that.

4) Hmm, I'm not an artist, so I can't really say.

In any event, best of luck!

[astrokeofmadness]

Only 1 more sprite left! I'm going to hold off on finishing the final sprite set for a bit and instead work on getting the first book written. Not sure if I should even post the final sprite set, or leave it a surprise as to how they look.

[astrokeofmadness]

I made a minor coloring change to teen Clarissa to fix some issues she was having with her clothes not looking right. Specifically darkened and lowered the saturation of the red, and made her white shirt grey, and added a splash of blue to the lining. also fixed up her face structure to better fit the style of the rest. I think i still need to change her younger version a tad to better fit in though. You can see the changes if you look at the image above in comparison to the one in the first post. Also flipped it , since I drew it originally this way to contrast the arm position of the younger version.

[astrokeofmadness]

Laura teen sprite- A thing to note, due to my realization that I've probably aged these characters a tad too much visually, when I say teen, I think I'll upgrade them to their upper teens of 18-19.

[astrokeofmadness]

I've been working on a fun little picture, here is a preview of a portion of it.

[astrokeofmadness]

Added 2 new questions that are of decent importance:
What are your opinions on having the MC on screen, more like a storybook then a VN I guess.

What is your opinion on having the perspective shift to the other girls on occasion?(for moments the MC wouldn't be present) Would you like it interspersed throughout, a separate play-through, non at all?

[astrokeofmadness]

Started writing, slowly getting a sense of how much text I'll actually be able to fit into the 15 minute window I'm working for. Currently at 3 and a half minutes in reading length(I'm assuming its voiced, so the time is based on the game being spoken aloud, hence pretty accurate)

I've also decided against my original plans of not releasing it in 1080p, I was going to use the original 3:4 ratio resolution renpy defaults to, because I wanted to have a taller screen, but I then cropped my stuff into 1080p and it looked much better, so I'll release it at 1080p instead.

First attempt at animating the blinks, see profile picture
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Just a half closed, closed, half closed loop, but I think it works nicely.