Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating 16+ for now][Demo Available Today 18-10-6!]

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Ana
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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#16 Post by Ana »

I read the opening post and a few of the twitter posts, and it's interesting that you're basing this in Canada (I think? It says Canada grown, lol). I'm studying in Canada so it'd be interesting to see your take on university here. To answer a few of the questions, James is probably the most interesting to me because premed -> med in Canada specifically is ridiculously hard (much harder than the typical US med school or most other places worldwide where you go from high school -> med). I think it'd be interesting to see how he is written with this context in mind, and how he keeps up a cheery personality.

For the demo, I'd want to just play a piece of the game to get a taste of the characters. Moreover from a dev's perspective, writing a separate game just to introduce the characters could be overkill, and it's much easier to just cut off the main game somewhere that'll keep the player intrigued. I would also prefer to meet all the characters (the love interests) such that I can make a sound judgment of whether or not I'd like the characters. Anyway, I'll be interested in seeing where this VN goes, good luck!!

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#17 Post by DewDrop »

Hi!! I'm so sorry for the delay; I've been super busy lately. Thank you for stopping by though - it always makes me super happy to see that people are interested in the game.

Love Hues is indeed loosely based in Canada, and I'm also a Canadian dev! :D Hence the Canada grown note. And that's a really insightful answer - I actually honestly didn't know that it was easier in other countries! I'll have to go back to the drawing board. I put a lot of thought into James' story regardless; I hope you'll enjoy it if you get to give it a shot! :mrgreen:

And okay! I appreciate the demo information too - I'll only have about 5 minutes to impress my players at an upcoming exhibition where I'll be showing off Love Hues, so I was super torn on the subject. I agree with you though; I also feel like players might feel deceived if they play a brand new game for the demo and then they end up seeing a totally different final game...

Thank you again for your time!! I hope you'll keep following the game.

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#18 Post by DewDrop »

nova-cg-old-intro.png
nova-cg-intro.png
Hello everyone! Lots of pre-exhibition progress has been made over the last few days. Check it out! I've changed Nova's intro CG (left is old, right is new...)


nova-sneak-peek.png
I've made mini posters to hand out of all the characters... (the chibis will be reused for the game's main menu!) Here's a sneak peek.


I've also made designs for and ordered buttons for distribution, but I don't want to clutter my post with too many images. I'm almost completely done with creating promo materials now (minus creating one giant poster) and from there I'll redo the rest of the old CGs, make a trailer, crop the game down to a demo size, and hopefully succeed in getting Love Hues out there! After the exhibition I intend to finish polishing the game - I'd really like to release it before the end of 2018 still.

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#19 Post by Ana »

I don't think that the players will be deceived by any means, more that it'd be a lot of work on your part to create a whole new game (even just a prologue) with a plot and whatnot for another game. I'm doing this right now for my own vn, and it's required a lot more attention than I personally thought it would.

As for the Canada med school comment, it's totally fine if you've written up the route for James already! I just wanted to give a little bit of info for future VN's and some food for thought in case you need some themes to consider. Though, this theme doesn't apply to some provinces like Quebec where it isn't as hard because there's a lot less French speakers than English speakers competing for spots.

Anyway, the progress looks great. I look forward to seeing more!

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][16+]

#20 Post by DewDrop »

Ooh I see!! Yeah, that's definitely a fair point... Especially if you're on a super tight deadline. I'll keep away from making a new game for sure - I'm thinking about making the demo start in media res instead so that players don't just see the prologue.


Okay! :) I'll definitely do better research for future games, haha... I would love to learn more about Canadian med school to be honest.

Thank you so much for all your feedback! :D

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#21 Post by DewDrop »

Hi everyone! I survived the convention, learned lots from my players... And made some progress!

I didn't get to do much more on the main game, but I'm going to take what I learned from the convention and move forward with creating a demo for itch.io... I'll be super busy with work for the next two weeks so I'm not sure when the demo will be released, but I'm aiming for mid to early September for now.

In the meantime, here are some remastered intro CGs that I haven't shared on here before!
james_intro.png
devlin_intro.png

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#22 Post by HimeNaya »

Based on the profiles above, who's your favorite character?

Ava, hands down. I wanna know who she is and why she is so mysterious. Also, I like that she is working in Fine Arts. I connect with her on a personal level, lol. So I know she would definitely be my first go-to character when I play the game.

The game will very likely end up being sold for some money to help fund my future endeavors in VN development/living costs. What could a fair price be?

This all depends on how long you plan to make gameplay. I would worry about price more when you get closer to selling a finished product because then you will have a good idea of how long the final product may take to play.

What's your preferred platform to purchase VNs from?

Steam is the best platform in my opinion. It’s credible and people without credit cards can do purchases with giftcards. You’ll hit a wider audience on Steam I think.

What would you want a Love Hues demo to look like? (Feel free to describe your demo-creation experience here if you'd like!! It'd help lots!) Would you want a chance to meet all the characters or just a few? Would you want to try a part of the actual game or have a short standalone story for the demo?

You could do either. The whole point is to suck us in. Make me want to play the real game. Make me want to spend my money, lol. Preferably, I like demos that offer a glimpse into the real story I will be playing in the final game. I even enjoy “cliff hangers” where the demo stops at a moment in the story where it wants you to play more. Also, I wouldn’t introduce every character unless it’s crucial. I’d pick your most interesting 2 characters and focus on those routes for the demo.

What convinces you to follow a game's progress and eventual release?

Consistancy!

2 or more updates a month are preferred. If any less I tend to lose interest or think a project has been left in “Limbo”.
Keep your audience involved! Even if it’s a short post, “Hi guys! I made some art for the VN, see!” Everyone appreciates progress, even if it’s small :)

Do you have any other questions/concerns/feedback? Feel free to let me know!
This version of Love Hues is 100% made by me (with the exception of some specific code)
Impressive! I wish you luck! :D Keep at it! I will watch for a demo release!

Hime Naya

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#23 Post by DewDrop »

Hi!! Thanks for stopping by and providing feedback! :D

HimeNaya wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 3:42 pm Based on the profiles above, who's your favorite character?

Ava, hands down. I wanna know who she is and why she is so mysterious. Also, I like that she is working in Fine Arts. I connect with her on a personal level, lol. So I know she would definitely be my first go-to character when I play the game.


I love hearing which characters people like the most - especially when it's Ava! I've noticed that people sometimes avoid the mystery character because they're not really sure what their stories will be like. That being said; I feel obligated to add that Ava actually isn't available on early playthroughs... She will pop up here and there though! I hope the wait for her route will be worth it. :)
The game will very likely end up being sold for some money to help fund my future endeavors in VN development/living costs. What could a fair price be?

This all depends on how long you plan to make gameplay. I would worry about price more when you get closer to selling a finished product because then you will have a good idea of how long the final product may take to play.
Sounds good! The game is currently... ~111,920 words, and I've noticed that just day 1 of the game can take people up to 30 mins/1 hour to play through if they can explore all the options. I'm thinking of charging between $10 - $15 for it; it really depends on how satisfied I am with my art in the end, too. I want it to be worth the price I charge! That being said, I do like the idea of partially charging based on gameplay length too.

As for platform; I agree with you on Steam. I'm aiming for itch first since it seems to be easier to get on to, but it will quickly be followed by Steam!
What would you want a Love Hues demo to look like? (Feel free to describe your demo-creation experience here if you'd like!! It'd help lots!) Would you want a chance to meet all the characters or just a few? Would you want to try a part of the actual game or have a short standalone story for the demo?

You could do either. The whole point is to suck us in. Make me want to play the real game. Make me want to spend my money, lol. Preferably, I like demos that offer a glimpse into the real story I will be playing in the final game. I even enjoy “cliff hangers” where the demo stops at a moment in the story where it wants you to play more. Also, I wouldn’t introduce every character unless it’s crucial. I’d pick your most interesting 2 characters and focus on those routes for the demo.
Okay! I agree with the cliffhanger bit; it always convinces me to keep following the game. :D It's very effective. I also like the idea of picking two characters and giving them more screen time instead of grabbing everyone (minus Ava) and giving them less screen time, but I'm worried I might lock certain players out from trying to interact with their favs... I'll keep thinking about it! Thank you.
What convinces you to follow a game's progress and eventual release?

Consistancy!

2 or more updates a month are preferred. If any less I tend to lose interest or think a project has been left in “Limbo”.
Keep your audience involved! Even if it’s a short post, “Hi guys! I made some art for the VN, see!” Everyone appreciates progress, even if it’s small :)

2 updates per month sounds reasonable!! I'd like to start uploading weekly reports onto Lemmasoft, but I've been really bad about updating it as opposed to Twitter/the game's website because I always feel like I haven't made enough visible progress. I'll try to take your advice and stick to the 2-updates-per-month schedule before increasing my update quota.

Thank you so much for your thoughts (and for keeping an eye out for the demo!) - I'll definitely announce its release here and everywhere else as soon as it's done!

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Update - New CG art, demo progress, upcoming trailer (2018-09-02)

#24 Post by DewDrop »

Hiii everyone! Forum update time!

So! The game has a trailer that's effectively done (just waiting on music for it!), I've created a draft itch.io page that'll be launched as soon as I've got said trailer and I've made a demo (which will be done very soon!), and I've implemented a bunch of aesthetic changes for the demo. Check it out!
  • 1. Skyler and Skyler officially have updated character models! I'm very happy with these.
    When I displayed Love Hues at an exhibition, a lot of people said that they looked too similar to
    each other, so I gave them one final overhaul.
skyandsky.png
sky1.png
sky2.png
  • 2. The GUI received a complete overhaul prior to the exhibition, though the main menu
    will be changed again to either show off the entire cast or to show off the Skylers. Here's its
    new gallery!
gallery.png
  • 3. Ugly+old CGs are receiving an overhaul with a focus on the ones that will likely be shown off in the demo. Here are some previews of the brand new CGs!
newscarf.png
archeojay.png
sky2.png
I'm excited to finish up the old CGs so the demo will have art that's as good as I can make it, and I'm equally excited to crunch out the demo soon. Thank for your patience with waiting for this update, everyone!

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating TBD/16+ for now]

#25 Post by DewDrop »

Hi everyone!

Biggest new update (other than continued demo prep); Love Hues has a trailer now!



Give it a chance when you have the time to learn a little more about the game! :mrgreen:

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating 16+ for now][Demo Available 18-10-16!]

#26 Post by DewDrop »

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been quiet! I promise it's been worth it though! Love Hues' demo is now available on itch!
coverart.png
You can download it right https://oneirocritica-games.itch.io/love-hues! Please give it a shot and let me know what you think! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating 16+ for now][Demo Available Today 18-10-6!]

#27 Post by DewDrop »

It has been so long since I've posted an update!! Hi, everyone! :D

So the game is still being worked on... It's been a long 3 years haha. I did write a devlog on Itch to explain why it's still being worked on even though I set Dec. 2018 as my deadline originally: https://oneirocritica-games.itch.io/lov ... ear-report

Anyway, so much has happened that I have a hard time recalling it all here. Here are some basic fun stats:

-I finished editing everyone's route minus Ava's, which I'm working on right now.
-The characters' individual route length ranges from ~24000 words to 28000 words.
-Here's the game's current word count: The game contains 12,938 dialogue blocks, containing 144,209 words and 781,528
characters, for an average of 11.1 words and 60 characters per block.

The final steps now will be finishing Ava's route, (re)creating the CGs, and getting the game playtested. After this I'll be looking at doing a full launch on Itch and/or Steam... I'm also leaving lore clues in different locations across the game's social media (Twitter, here) about some of the in game secrets you'll find if you want to start hunting for those. One of them can be found in the newest devlog!

Thank you for following this journey so far; I hope we'll be at the publishing point sooner than later. Happy holidays! :)
novaprev-3.png
novaprev-4.png
novaprev-5.png

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating 16+ for now][Demo Available][Streamer Build Ready]

#28 Post by DewDrop »

Hi Lemmasoft! Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on here.
newitchcover.png

DEMO

New to Love Hues? Here's a 2018 Itch.io demo! I'll do my best to update this to the 2020 version in the next few weeks.
https://oneirocritica-games.itch.io/love-hues

03-11-2020 UPDATE - STREAMER BUILD READY
As I'm writing this, Ren'Py has just finished creating the streamer-ready build for Love Hues! . All the assets are in, the game has been tested hundreds of times by me and twice over by my awesome QA contractors, and it's officially ready for its full release come April.

It's kind of overwhelming to have this project that's been with me for years be effectively complete. I'm terrified to share it with everyone, but also excited.

A couple of streamers (DM me if you're interested, with your channel!) will get access to it first so they can show it off on their channels. After that, I'll release it to the general public a few weeks later.

PROJECT SUMMARY

Love Hues! is a college visual novel packed with both character and world secrets. You'll be playing as Skyler (changeable name) and navigate your first few months at Falls West University, where you'll meet 5 romanceable characters who hide certain truths about themselves and the campus.
lemmasoft.PNG
Certain choices in routes will add new scenes to other routes you've already experienced or will unlock secret content. Learn as much as you can about Falls' true origins by exploring the game from every angle, and see if you can understand what everyone means when they whisper the Curiosity's name...

The full version of Love Hues! has:

225,000+ words,
41 different endings,
Five full routes, including one secret route!

And, of course, plenty of CGs! There are 32 CGs in the gallery and at least 2 extra in the game.

STAFF

Some QA/sensitivity reader staff requested to have their name in specific places only, and they all requested a credit in-game. Please check out the Love Hues' 2020 demo for their info once it's up! Here are a few of my QA testers/sensitivity readers, and my composer:

Kat K
Monika Hall (volunteer playtester)
Rishi Barnwal
'Moode Myoozik (composer for most of Love Hues! tracks)

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating 16+ for now][Demo Available Today 18-10-6!]

#29 Post by Zelan »

It's really awesome to see how far you've come with this! Looking forward to the release! ^_^

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Re: Love Hues [LGBT+ friendly][College-Life][Mystery][Rating 16+ for now][Demo Available Today 18-10-6!]

#30 Post by DewDrop »

Zelan wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 12:00 am It's really awesome to see how far you've come with this! Looking forward to the release! ^_^
Thank you!! :D I can't believe it's almost time.

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