(18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chimaera

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Ryue
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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#16 Post by Ryue »

It has been quite some time since I posted last. Quite a lot happened. Some good things and some bad. Game related though many bad things (although not as bad as could be).

So to make it short....my co worker got sick a few times and also managed to infect me a few times which lead to me either doing overhours or.....being out of commission due to being sick.

Luckily it went over again...till rinse and repeat happened^^' Currently I'm sick again but two good things are.....its getting better already and
I'm having no work coming week.

For the game though this means that my original time table died a long way (although some other factors also played into that as mentioned below), but on the other hand I'm working on it still and with next week free I'm hoping to make a good headway there.

Aside from the health issues another point factoring in the timetable dying was that a new set of betas I got mentioned quite a few problems they had with the script (as quite a few things felt unneeded / too long and others felt as if they had too few choices). In addition to the new version of renpy half fixing a few issues I had only managed to fix to the same state (but with some side effects) I decided to redo the progamming and also many parts of the script itself.

So what does this mean where I am:

-Currently I'm back at the prologue for the rewrite. I hope to finish this this week.
-Furthermore I managed to get some backgorund work done and got some help. This means I now got a title screen that I will publish very soon.
-Additionally I got some needed images for the game which will enhance the game play greatly. Also I ordered a few tracks of music where I'm currently still waiting to receive them.

-Timetablewise I hope to now finish the demo till february and get the beta testing stage finished in march and then publish the demo at long last.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#17 Post by 8oni »

This is awesome! I love story that have zombie on it *_*

But as much as I want to see this out asap, you should take care of your own health first. Drink a lot waters and get enough rest. Anyway, keep up the good job, I am rooting for you.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#18 Post by Ryue »

8oni wrote:This is awesome! I love story that have zombie on it *_*

But as much as I want to see this out asap, you should take care of your own health first. Drink a lot waters and get enough rest. Anyway, keep up the good job, I am rooting for you.
Tnx luckily though it is so that I only got a slight cold (so higher than normal temperature and a nose that is running like a waterfall but at least no high fever like the last few times). Downside is......currently on call readyness today (just before the holidays but beginning tomorrow no phone no readyness just pure relaxation and writing :D ).

If you have any questions let me know.
Currently rewriting things like I said and gettig the first part to the editor before putting it out for the beta testers.
Later on this week I'll put up a few details on the rewrite itself and a screenshot of the title screen.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#19 Post by Ryue »

Sooo a small status update. The prologue itself is finished now and I'm preparing it to be given to the editor and at the same time starting on the "character creation" part rewrite.

As a bit of backstory on those two parts. One of the critique points of the latest betas was that the prologue felt a bit too long at times and thus bored them. While the character creation felt rushed at some parts and a bit off at a few other parts. And for both many of them felt that there were too few options there. Also one said that they didn't get much out of the prologue still though. Additonally the pacing felt off at times for some betas (thus sometimes it seemed slower and sometimes faster).

So what is the plan here with that in mind and what did I do to compensate for this?

Prologue
I enlarged the prologue...a lot. From about 1k of words it got to 3696 words (pre editoring and not including the menus). So why in the hell did I enlarge a part where ppl told me its boring? Because one of them also said that they wanted to know more about Riversend...the city where the game plays. So I enlarged the prologue AND used a trick there :)

Instead of it being a text that "just" scrolled down, I put in menu choices where the player chooses what he wants to know about Riversend (and if he/she wants to know anything at all about it). That way its up to the player what he wants to read through. This way I managed to get all the additional info in that the one beta wanted to know and at the same time reduced the "boringness" by letting the player choose what he wants to read through and what not. Additionally naturally I rewrote the whole text that made up the prologue.

Character creation
This part let the player define who the character is. Thus if he comes from a rich family, a poor one or from one of the middle class. This also defines where the characters parents work (which will be important in other stages of the game). Furthermore the player could define some hobbies of the character and thus also what people he knew.

This part felt a bit off to a few betas with the choices sometimes too few and at some locations the results being a bit unrealistic (like if you choose to train martial arts that you are a natural at it, ...). Still though this part was the most liked by the betas as it gave you in total 3 different characters ( or character backgrounds) that would have effects on whom you already know in the later parts of the game, where you live and what you know and whom you already know of the possible love interests.
Also it lead to the character having specific personality traits.

So what am I planing on doing here?

The plan here is to build upon what I have already there. Although it will be a rewrite the idea behind the chapter will stay the same. Still though there will be some changes not only because the other chapters are going to be rewritten and this one, but also due to the switching of the RPG rules system.
The plan here is to enhance the chapter by giving the player more background infos on each heritage and each of the "pathes" while at the same time also giving the player a few more choices to help customize the character at start and mold him into someone that the player can think himself into. Also some parts of the original chapter were a bit rushed and I want to rectify this by going into more details at these parts.

As mentioned before though also a part of the reason behind the rewrites was the RPG rules switch to D6. Why?
It is easy....the rules change changed how much the gained stats from each choice have an affect on how good you are.

As example: One of the critiques I got was that the character when he got trained by a martial artist instructor was said to be a natural,... the best of the best he ever had trained in essence. This was due to the fact that the skill points you got out of the choice (each choice gave a set number of total skill points that were distributed among the skills that made sense to be affected by the choice) lead to you BEING extremely good at martial arts. Thus your skill was so high that you were above the professional level.

With the d6 system though this is a bit different. Here I can differentate a bit more. For the rulesystem itself I made a few templates for professions where I differentate between
different professionality levels: Untrained, Hobbyist, Trained, Professional, Expert, Master
With my (a bit houseruled) D6 version it is so that each skill has a range from 0D6 to 4D6 (fully mastered). Thus if you don't know a skill and thus have a rating of 0 dices in it, it is untrained. 0-1 dices is a hobby. 1-2 dices you are trained. 2-3 dices you are a professional, and 3-4 dices you are an expert and at full 4 dices you are a master of the skill.

With this in mind if we take the above example the martial artist instructor trains you and you get to trained level as martial artist because of this choice. This then gives you 1D6 (or trained level) in specific fighting skills and a bit less in other skills. Now if you also have a gang background you gain an additional bonus to some of your fighting skills. Still though you can't get to more than professional level (2d6) skill wise. In the old system you were then almost at max. level already with those two choices.

That is why the change in the rules system also has an effect on the story itself, and thus also increases the need for a rewrite of the character creation parts.


One additional point that I didn't mention so far is the characters personality. Despite the different lives the character lived through and the choices he made and suffered through (the consequences of each).....his personality in the original script stayed roughly the same. Thus it did not have too much effect, except for some scenes going slightly different there and a bit of additional dialogue or a choice more or less. Personally I found that a bit bland and want to enhance the effects here a bit. Thus I plan to also include more choices that define the characters personality traits. Thus is he protective, or is he a scardymouse, ... . In effect these traits should NOT take away too many of the players decisions (if he rushes to his sisters aid when she is in trouble or not should ALWAYS be decided by the player as example!). Instead they should add flavor. For example that other students tend to call you names or even bully you if you are known as a mouse, ... . Thus these traits that you define here will be saved in the rewrite and then can create whole new scenes in additions to a few minor dialogues happening. Naturally some CAN lead to you loosing a choice or two but at the same time they should give you as the player more NEW choices than what you loose.

Soooo so much for this update. As always if you have questions or want to comment. Feel free here or via pm.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#20 Post by Ryue »

So what happened so far in the last month?
I got more and more work at my job thanks to a few unepected happenings there. But it seems now that I'm in the process of getting it under control again :)

Still though I managed to start with what I call the character generation part of the game. A bit more about it further below. Aside from that I'm waiting for the last music pieces from a componist. In contrast to the original idea to stay almsot exclusively novellike and thus with only minimal graphics I decided to also include quite a few CGs. In essence they will be used like the picture pages in novels. At the end of chapters they appear and show in visuals what you read about there. Thus they are so to say the sugar coating of the cake (especially with how nice they look :) ).

Aditionally I also got the full ingame title screen for the game.

So I'm going to make an update in the near future to show of a bit of these things on the main page.

-------------
Prologue
This is the first part that I rewrote and which is finished now. IT already has been sent back by the editor to me. In this chapter the setting is detailed and explained and the decisions you can make here mostly define what you want to know more about.

Character creation chapter:
Like I mentioned the character creation is the part which I'm currently rewriting. It is the first part where you can make meaningful decisions. Meaningful for the future and the whole game. You define into what type of family the protagonist and his twin sister are born (and also what their names are). What the hobbies of the protagonist are, what types of friends he has had so far and what his strength and weaknesses are.

As I mentioned everything is important. When compared with regular visual novels you could say that every decision you make is creating a subpath that is taken up time and again during the game. Thus lets take the family as example. You can decide if you hail from a rich, a poor or a middle class family. Each of these 3 origins leads to your parents having different jobs and you having different friends choices during the character creation (thus gaining a positive reputation with different people and a negative one with others). Also it defines already some of your skills.....as example someone from a rich family where the parents are CEOs working at GEN-Tech have lived through enough corporate parties to gain at least some knowledge in the etiquette skill. While those living in a poor family are good at getting things from others, ... .

What is more though is that these choices come back and effect either existing scenes or create completely new scenes during the game itself. Thus depending on if your parents work for GEN-Tech or have something against that corporation a specific incident happening there will cause different dialogue and also options to appear (already in the later parts of the demo). And that happens time and again during the whole game.

Thus all decisions you make will have an impact on your morality, your story, your stats or even "only" on something that is happening in the background to other chars.

As usual if you have questions or comments then please feel free to post.

Btw I'm currently looking for additional beta testers (due to the long break I had to take because of the rewrite and my work I lost a couple of them): viewtopic.php?f=59&t=41257

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#21 Post by Ryue »

Update 13.03.2017:

Hi
A good month since the last update. So what happened? Quite a lot. During the beta tests it came out that the style itself I had chosen, the mostly graphicless wouldn't do much good (as people automatically expect a visual novel style game and writing style). This didn't come up in the first betas, but only in the last ones instead.

So I choose to take the punch and stuff it and go with the flow. Thus replaned and redid everything (again) into a full VN (the rpg part stays though :) ). Now what is the difference? The writing style will now be that typeical for a visual novel and also the graphics volume will be normal for a VN (maybe quite high for an indie one though from what I know how many CGs others usually use there).

To reduce my troubles this time around I only work with CG/BG/Sprite aritsts I know who are reliable and who have proven it a few times already to me that they are (like mentioned in the on hold game thread for the original game...I had quite a streak of bad luck there in the past).

The only downside is...because of it being a decision without much foreplaning (as it was caused directly by the last beta tests) I didn't have time to put the money aside for CGs, GUI, .... so I'm currently doing only a few things that I need per month in order to not overextend myself.


So where do we stand here now?
I've gotten back ino the VN style of writing after a bit and am currently rewriting the prologue (hopefully for the last time :) ). A bit more about that below. Furthermore I've done a lot of background work to get additional sprites and CGs, and few other things. So the status here:
  • CGs: Main CGs (thus all necessary ones) are done, next up here are complementary CGs for a few subplots (they are not necessary, but are on the nice to have list).
  • Sprites: All major characters for the first two chapters are done. Currently getting some minor character sprites and also side images for minor and complementary characters.
  • Music: Is done
  • GUI-art: Will be set onto the finished part in 3 weeks, as I need to wait for the new month there (as mentioned my purse was unprepared for the decision).
  • Story: Because the writing styles are so different from what I had originally done for the other style and a full VN style.....needed to rewrite everything again. At least some parts can be taken over for a special submenu that will come into play...an ingame knowledge database. So at least not everything lost there. The transition itself to the VN style is going fine and I'm halfway through the prologue chapter (it consists of: Foreword, birth/family, hobbies and friends with the first two done and me working on the later two)
  • Renpy: Yes renpy itself. During the process of the migration to the new style I've updated my renpy version and had to redo about every piece of code I had :). At least that is finished now. And all that I wanted in the first demo is ready.
  • This thread: Because of the change in style I decided that the old thread wasn't going to fit any longer and thus rewrote the whole thread intro. See the first post in the thread to take a look there. Also a few of the CGs will be shown there already ;)
  • Gametype clarification: In the online tabletop rpg testgames which I used to test the rpg rules and the setting it came up that how I had describe the setting with a zombie apocalypse did make people expect that it was just about zombies and....decimating them / surviving them. Sadly that is a misconception as it is a true horror game with NOT only zombies being there. In fact the zombies make a relatively late appearance into the game....after quite a lot of text. So I fixed the premise in the rpg game and also here in the thread in order to make sure that it is more clear. This is a horror game and about you having to decide if you become a monster or not. What is more is that several supernatural species appear and you are caught up in their web of intrigue. The zombies....are the results of an intrigue going very very wrong. Thus don't expect them to come very soon into the game (it can be that none of them even shows its undead face in the first demo!), nor that they play THE dominating role in the game (as they would in a true zombie game). Wanted to make that also clear here.
As usual my worklife is taking its toll and things go slowly, but at least its progressing again :)

What is more though is: Please let me know what you think of the characters and if you would like some more infos on specific parts of the game/story/.... .

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#22 Post by Ryue »

It has been quite a long time since I last updated.

To say it first: I'm still working on the game. Only my job (thanks to the almost complete absence of my co worker ) took so much time that I couldn't do much more than testing a few things out,
rewriting rulesets for the rpg part and heading to bed to be ready to work again the next day. Still though on a positive note....most mandatory things are now under control at work so I can
reduce my overhours, ... and thus again do more work on the game.

As still quite a bit happened (especially backgroundwise) I will split things up to make it easier to read:

Game (overall)
The status of the parts I'm doing is detailed further below. Thus the main program, the rpg system and the script (excluding editing naturally).
Here I will talk about the dates (see at the end of this part of the post) and cgs, music, ... .

Music: Music is done and needs to be integrated into the game.

CGs: The ones I needed until the change of style (see last post) are all done. But due to the change I saw that I will need CGs for the advanced hobbies each.
These are WIP.

Sprites: Due to the change of style I had to do (see last post) I need more sprites than before. The additional sprites are currently WIP (although CGs are first on the priority list).

GUI: The GUI graphics are done. What is currently open is the integration into the game (here I will decide shortly if I will hire someone or do it myself).

Datewise:
  • 1st Demo: Beginning of September
  • Full game: Middle to end of 2018
RPG part
For the RPG part I have to admit I suffered a huge (almost catastrophic) disappointment. As mentioned already I had decided to use the D6 system as a base there. Initial tests had shown
that it could handle low and high power levels appropriately. The disappointment happened 2 weeks after my last update post during a test rpg session with the modified version of D6 I wanted
to use for this game (~50 pages of powers and special rules and char creation rules). There it happened that I watched a non human non magical race being able to have so high stats that in the following situation:
-Joe average (human) with professional level skills vs. the non human max. attribute (but no skill at all) guy.......was not able to hit him and would have lost any contested roll vs. the other guy (for example a trader trying to haggle for a price) with no chance at all.

That was NOT what I had planed ther. I had planed fo rit to be hard, maybe very hard but NOT impossible at all. So I decided to call it a day and used my remaining time these last weeks to
do something I had not wanted to do again. I created a new rpg system myself. In essence something in between a few systems where I took what worked from those and scrapped the rest.

More on that in a separate post the next days.

Story part
Progress here suffered greatly due to my unexpected work stress and me having to completely redo the rpg part (and doing my own rpg system instead of taking and modifying an existing one).
Still though I managed to get a bit here done.
As mentioned in the last post I was halfway through the prologue. I managed to continue a bit here and am 2/3 finished now. Thus 2 of 3 parts that make up chapter 1 are done.
These parts are where you have the first decisions to make. Namely what income class you and your family hail from and what your hobbies are. They are interlinked with the last part of chapter 1.
The so called advanced hobbies. I always call those chapter 1.5 as they are grossly different from the rest of chapter 1.

Chapter 1 is a prologue to the game and the character, thus you. The first 2 parts are more or less a description of what the setting and your live has been like. The 3rd part however is
not something told to you, but already (still set in the past a bit though) true visual novel like. Thus you see sprites, BGs and even CGs.

What is important about chapter 1 is that each main choice you can take will define you. Thus it will define which attributes and skills you start with and it will also show you the importance
of these skills as you have a chance to fail at some decisions depending on your skills (aka the protagonists skills and attributes).

Advanced hobbies
As I guess nobody knows what I mean with that I will go into a few details here. In the choose hobbies part you have 4 hobbies which you can choose. You got 4 categories to choose from:
  • Sports
  • Knowledge
  • Fighting
  • Socialize
For each hobby you choose you can use 1 of your choices to instead of another basic hobby choose an advanced hobby (of the same category). Thus the advanced hobbies and the stories and CGs they contain are optional on each playthrough. Additionally you can only choose a maximum of 2 advanced hobbies.

As example here: Knowledge means that you love reading books and finding myths and truths out there. The advanced hobby builds on this and you join a computer club who in the end uses hacking to find the truth about GEN-Tech.

As usual for visual novel parts you will have options to choose from during each advanced hobby path. These choices can end the path immediately, or lead to a bad end within the path (not ending the game though, but will pose difficulties later on during the main game) or into a good end within the path (where you gain a few bonuses and/or someone likes you more than before).


To summarize the status of chapter 1:
  • Prelude Done + Edited
  • Choose origin Done + Edited
  • Choose hobbies Done + Edited
  • Choose advanced hobbies work in progress


As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to post here or send me a pm.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#23 Post by Zelan »

The advanced hobbies system sounds cool, I like the idea of playing around with it to see how I can change the story a tiny bit.

The art looks fantastic. c:

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#24 Post by Ryue »

Zelan wrote:The advanced hobbies system sounds cool, I like the idea of playing around with it to see how I can change the story a tiny bit.

The art looks fantastic. c:
Hi thanks!
Got quite lucky there artistwise (after I had bad luck there for a long time).

For the advanced hobbies: That was the plan :) To increase the replay value by players having options they have to choose from and have to stick with for the remainder of the game and also by players wanting to see what variations exist with the first choices they choose (although admittedly the hobbies part is only "small" variations there compared to later game stages).

As a bit of an example there for the knowledge advanced hobby:
You will get the option to join a so called computer club which is in reality a hacker club set on finding out the truth about GEN-Tech and Riversend and the recent happenings. Your very first decision if you are from a rich, poor or middle class family will have an effect there already.
Thus when you try to join that hackers club you will be welcomed in with open arms if you come from a poor family. A bit of questioning if you come from a middle class and one hell of a questioning if you come from a rich family. As the question naturally is: WHY would you want to try to find out the truth if your parents are part of the GEN-Tech upper management? Surely you have to be a spy! So quite a bit of persuasion needs to be done there for them to let you in (if you fail you are thrown into the same general path as if you had chosen not to join the club. Naturally the path here also is different depending on your families wealth).

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chim

#25 Post by Ryue »

3 months already....man I wished I knew where the time went. Or maybe better not.

General
So what has been going on......my free time went down the gutter due to my collegue at work being a complete dropout now and still getting enough projects for 2 people to fill.
(and the projects having their own complications each). Still though a bit of progress could be made, but far away from what I wanted to. But stubborn as I am still continuing.
The timeplans for the game I will update as soon as the writing part is solved (see further below).

RPG Part
This is where I personally could be involved the most due to a few tabletop games (online on roll20) I'm running to test the rpg system. So I had the most progress here. And also the most changes.
The playtests were extensive and lead to the discovery that if someone minmaxed chars in specific ways with the D6 system .... he could be unbeatable in what he does, even vs. others who SHOULD have
at least SOME chance against him. I tried and tried to come to a solution there, but it always ended in the same problem. Thus I decided to look again for another system and wait also with the posts here
until I had something where the playtests showed that it works (and not only a good chance that it would). I tried a system on my own again for that, and a success based one (like world of darkness and scion) and also pathfinder. In the end.....as much as it hurt me pathfinder turned out the most promising (thus a level and class based D20 or 2d10 approach). So I went with that one and the tests
have been quite successfull there.

Why did it hurt me that I would go down the pathfinder or a pathfinder like way? That is easy.....I HATE classes. They always feel restrictive as you are usually good at more than 1 single thing in reality.
Similar it is for me for levels. Most background stories resolve around your char doing specific things like he is a thief. BUT you always start at level 1 and.....a level 1 thief has almost no chance to
avoid being captured by a lvl 5-10 cop (which is what most senior officers are in the settings). Luckily I'm goot at improvising and getting ideas. Thus I found a way to squash part of my problems.

In essence instead of leveling up 20 levels where you can choose which class you have each level, you get to learn more than 1 class per level. Thus you level up per class....separately.
Thus the highest leveled class is defining your character level. This means that even with 20 total levels as character you could be a level 5 student a level 10 cop, a level 3 athlete and a level 5 martial artist. That took away the most severe problem I had with class based approaches....the restrictiveness of classes and also squashed another problem I had with the class based approach:
Absolutely every class has to have combat abilities, as else you are ending way weaker than every other class and thus stand no chances in combat.

This then lead to the introduction of the sportsman and the students classes, which have no combat abilities nor combat traits. And with this approach they don't need to have either as you can still take
class levels in fighting classes.

-------------------------

What does this mean now for the game? The only noticeable thing for the player is that you gain classes and can increase the skills that are part of these classes. In the demo you will start out
as a level 2 student (as you are in high school and quite good at studying). This means you are a character level of 2. In the hobbies part your choices are class choices in essence. Thus the Sports choice will be a level in Sportsman, ... . The advanced hobby choices are nothing else but a second level in the appropriate class each.

Another thing is the skill point distribution. In the game itself you will have free reign there, but during character creation it will be done mostly automatically, but your choices will influence where a few points will go into. As example here: IF you choose to train more, then one of these influenced points will go into your appropriate profession, but if you instead meet up with friends it will go into your diplomacy skill or sense motive skill instead, ... .


Graphics
Sadly this had some delays that were my fault. Due to me misunderstanding if the BG artist had time or not, I tried to find a new BG artist.....and my usual luck hit me fill force.
People getting me to wait for weeks for.....nothing showable only the next "Tomorrow" or "next week" after 3 weeks waiting time for the first sketch. Then though the BG artist I originally had
clearified the misunderstanding and I ordered the BGs from her. And my sprite artist stands at the ready for the CGs and is doing the sprites. So a small list what is going to come there:

BGs:
  • A mall where people will try to recruit you for a gang
  • A dojo where you can train in the martial arts
CGs:
  • A party happening at a rich playboys house. Here you will meet him and other partygoers and get dragged into a few intrigues....what is more though is that you will meet a predator who is hungry and feeding almost in front of you.
  • A gang war breaking out between your gang and one that is better armed and has superior numbers. It all happens in a side alley where only your own prowess will determine if you survive the conflict.
    And also if you will get to know what pure wrath can be unleashed when things are not how they should be and appear to be.
  • You joining a "computers" club at school to find out the truths that GENTech wants to hide (or going alone at it). Here you will meet quite a seductress who is also trying to find something out about GEN-Tech. And who is goading you into digging deeper and deeper.
  • A running competition is to be held at a track in a park in the center of the city. Here you will train and run in the competition. For the money and a kiss from the most beautiful girl at school.
Sprites:
  • New sprites for Envy
  • New sprites for Wrath
  • The trainer at a dojo
  • Riversend cop (the GENTECH run police force of the city)
  • Ann a small girl you will meet
Heads only (for side images):
  • Generic male
  • Generic female
  • Generic male kid
  • Generic female kid
  • Generic Nurse
  • Generic Cop
  • Generic Gang member
  • Generic Soldier
  • Generic Scientist / Gentech employee
  • Generic Doctor
  • Generic Paramedic
Writing
This is sadly the part where the least progress has been made, as I need the most concentration here (the rpg part is not as difficult there as there are no connections to keep in mind).
Due to my time problems I've talked with quite a few writers there to take over. What I learned is.....that my usual artists luck also holds true for writers (in addition to most I talked to
wanting to do only very short works, which this game is surely everything else than that). I'm currently in talks with one final writer, and should know more this week or next. If this also fails
I will try to concentrate on this part then solely in order to try myself to get as much done as possible.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chimaera

#26 Post by Ryue »

As I'm currently still waiting on the images and also a status update from the writer I'm not having much to tell in terms of progress on the game itself.

Where I have an update is the background work for the game. Thus the rpg part and the playtests for it.

As mentioned earlier I will use Pathfinder as a base there. Thus I'm creating classes that are fit for the modern times AND at the same time fit the theme.

The game will feature 6 mundane classes and 3 extranormal classes, where you and/or the NPCs with you can level up in each. For the mundane classes one point is very important though: Some classes have absolutely no fighting abilities that they get. That is one thing that is contrary to what is the case in pathfinder (as every class there normally has to have fighting abilities) as you have only 20 levels in total to level up with. I made this decision as you can level up in more than 1 class to level 20 with ease, thus it isn't needed for every clas to have strong fighting capabilities.

Mundane Classes:
  • Criminal
  • Knowledge Seeker
  • Protector
  • Spokesman
  • Sportsman
  • Warrior
Extranormal classes (here I will only feature 1 class name, which will be available to you):
  • Chimaera

Criminal
This class represents members of clans, thieves, burglars, ... .

Its main focus will be on perceiving threats, getting somewhere you want without having a clearance to do that, ...

Knowledge Seeker
This class represents students, engineers, tinkerers, computer freaks, ... .

Its main focus is on Knowledge and it gives you a lot of bonuses in that.


In the game you will automatically start at level 2 in it as it will be your base class representing your education at the Rivers End high.


Protector
This class represents cops, security officers, ...

Thus it focuses on perceiving threats and protecting others.


Spokesman
This class represents politicians, but also speakers of a class, and social chameleons, ...

Its main focus is on getting people to do what you want or to just let them believe that you are doing something for some reason when your reason is something else entirely.

Sportsman
Athletes, Swimmers, Freerunners are all found in this class.

It gives quite a few bonuses to resisting tiredness, doing crazy stunts and also resisting sicknesses.

Warrior
Mercenaries, Soldiers, Martial artists can all be found within this very class.

It focuses on combat. For some "subclasses" this will be all forms of combat and for others just melee or just ranged combat. This will be the only full combat class for mundanes in the game.



Chimaera
This will be a extranormal class available to you. It will give many strong abilities and powers, but at a great cost. As with all extranormal classes it suffers from some sort of curse.

The curse is sort of a limiter on your special abilities and powers granted from extranormal classes. In pathfidner normally you have hard limits like X spells / day of spell level Y, ... . Or you can use this and that ability only X times per day. In order to make things more flexible I did away with that and created the extranormal classes.

The essence is: You can use your powers as much as you like, at least for some time (a specific number of uses). Then the curse comes into effect. The more you use your powers while the curse is in effect the more severe its effects become until the final effect of the curse comes into play. It can turn you into a mindless raging beast, or make you fall asleep in the middle of combat or outright kill you. The exact effect depends on the extranormal class in question.

Naturally the effects of the curse can be lessened and also the "threshold" until it comes into effect regenerated. Depending on the class in question this can be as simple as getting some rest or as hard as drinking some blood from the living.



--------------------------------------------------------

A bit trivia there about the character creation. As mentioned you start at level 2 in the Knowledge Seeker (or student) class. During character creation you have choices which will result in 4 levels being dispersed among a few classes (with 1 additional level possibly distributed depending on the choices you made). Each of these classes will gain level 1 or max. level 2 depending on your choices.

They are:
  • Criminal
  • Knowledge Seeker
  • Spokesman
  • Sportsman
  • Warrior
In essence the Knowledge Seeker class can be leveled up to level 3 while all other classes to level 1 or 2 each.



--------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or want to know more about something let me know. Tnx

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Mammon
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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chimaera

#27 Post by Mammon »

Oh my, this project really progressed since I last checked it. Really digging the art with it's red&brown theme and character likeness consistency (a character looking the same in multiple images at this degree of game development is not as obvious as one might think). The route splits are looking rather complex and expansive too so props for already having chapters with such diversity already finished. Looking promising, will try out the demo once it comes out.
ImageImageImage

Want some CC sprites?

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chimaera

#28 Post by Ryue »

Mammon wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2017 11:22 am Oh my, this project really progressed since I last checked it. Really digging the art with it's red&brown theme and character likeness consistency (a character looking the same in multiple images at this degree of game development is not as obvious as one might think). The route splits are looking rather complex and expansive too so props for already having chapters with such diversity already finished. Looking promising, will try out the demo once it comes out.
Hi tnx
Flora is there really excellent when it comes to drawing sprites (and also putting them into CGs) :)

For the epansive: Tnx. Sometimes I have to admit it hurts to have to also think of this decisionresult from before and that, but I think in the end it will be worth it :)
(and hopefully it will also result in a high replayability).

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chimaera

#29 Post by Ryue »

As I'm currently still waiting on the images and also a status update from the writer I'm not having much to tell in terms of progress on the game itself.
A short update here: Images are beginning to trickle in, but it will still take a few weeks until the last image is here. For the writing, I didn't receive anything from the writer at all, so after weeks (almost a month oO) of waiting I'm back to writing things myself now again.

So what this means is I'm back to writing myself again which means I need to look what I can do with the meager time I currently have available before I make any assumption how long it will take me to finish the demo.

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Re: (18+) Red Eyes In The Darkness- The tainted blood - Chimaera

#30 Post by Ryue »

Already September. Came way faster than I had thought possible.

Where do we stand currently?

Art
Sprites: All finished for the demo
Side images: A few images for the less important NPCs will be done in October
CGs: Are getting done when I get the final BGs
BGs: Final BGs are currently in the making

Writing and developement
I'm still working on the routes for the advanced hobbies. Knowledge path to be exact. It is about 10% done.


General
So where does it leave the game? Currently at a good state though despite me not getting very far. I had struggled A LOT with writing and also writing the rules for the rpg part, ... that is until I began to find a good middle ground last week, and I hope the ideas I had there on how to balance the two parts will be as good as it currently seems. As that would mean that I could at long last get some progress done again and that on a way faster base again.


Maybe one thing to make clear there as it didn't come out clear in the past updates. The advanced hobbies are....LARGE. As it currently stands they will be the equivalent of a whole path in what are shorter VNs (thus not 1-5k but more like 15-20k words). Also they have quite a lot of subpaths within them which have sometimes only a small effect and sometimes are game changers for the path itself. Thus aside from my balancing problem where I only managed 1k words / week the size is also why I'm still at that section and "only" at the knowledge section. Because of that I needed to increase my possible weekly output by quite a lot if I want to finish the demo any time soon.

It is still a bit too early to give a prognose, but I HOPE in 2-3 weeks I will be able to but currently I dare say that I will need at least till January to finish the demo.

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