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Deccan Black: Crossbow is the first in what will (hopefully) become a series of virtual novels of various lengths all set in the same universe in roughly the same time period (mostly). The overarching series is called, obviously, "Deccan Black", with the first installment being "Crossbow". The main characters are Garalt Raggerston, a mid 40s "human" male, and his ship, Crossbow.

This particular story is fairly linear. It serves to introduce both myself and the audience to Deccan Black, and as thus filled with a lot of exposition. The setting is approximately 500 years into the future, though it isn't a future of our Earth, but an alternate Earth. While the art style isn't decided on, I'm picturing a mixture of Firefly and Deus Ex in a more artistic (as opposed to photographic) way. Searching for artwork in CC or DeviantArt is giving me ideas, but I'm fairly certain I will need to hire out for an artist specifically for this (and other) projects.

I completely suck at art, even general sketching. To learn how to put artwork into Ren'py, I took some images from Google and plugged them in for both backgrounds and sprites, just to get a feel of it. I also tried to use some backgrounds to show what I envision the style to be like, though I'm also pragmatic if I really click with an artist. The art in the screenshots below are just placeholders and are not going to be in the final game.

https://imgur.com/167VDei

https://imgur.com/Ccv7VJF

https://imgur.com/f5SJjCt


The story is basically done and coded, though I am fine-tweaking the dialogue and moving some lines around to make more sense. The scenes and sprites are pretty much all set. I am expecting this particular entry in the Deccan Black Saga (oooh, I like that...) to be non-commercial, funded out of my own pocket.

Current Version: 0.3
Expected Play Time: 45-75 minutes, depending on choices.
Current Build Size: ~67 MB
Next Step: Continue working on background and adding character art. Story is pretty well finished.

If you want to take a look at the unfinished current version, you can use this link to download and play the game:

Download Deccan Black: Crossbow 0.3 (PC)

Once the character art is done, I'll look at doing other versions (MAC, Linux, etc.).

Thanks for looking.

Current Update Status:

12 September 2020

Character art is being done by Eva K.

You can find her work over on itch.io at https://treladon.itch.io/ and on Behance at https://www.behance.net/treladon

Next steps: Getting the credits to work right with links and pauses. Adding character art as it is completed. Adjusting more background art. Minor tweaks to ambiance (music, effects, etc.)

If you want to contact me, I am on Discord at @Vhaerun#4382, and on F95 as Vhaerun. I'm currently working on Deccan Black: Crossbow and writing for a new NSFW game tentatively called "Apartment 96".

Seriously, any feedback is appreciated. Even if you just say "you suck!" and leave it at that.

Updated to version 0.3.

Updates:

* Put in some character art for a few characters (Temple, Hutch, and the strange man).
* Music and sound effects added.
* Some backgrounds changed to either custom pieces or creative commons artwork.
* Some credits included, but still a work in progress.

Hey mate!

I checked out the demo and really enjoyed it. Great job! Music is very fitting and immersive and the art looks great. Reminded me a lot of FTL.

I played about 20 minutes before deciding I should get back to work on my own projects, but I could have definitely kept going.

I feel like there were a few things I could have said to improve it slightly, but there wasn't anything major.

The only thing I'd say strongly is that I felt there was a little bit too much time between the beginning and the part where you get propositioned for a dangerous job etc. I would really try to cut just a bit of that because, at least for me, it felt like there was a tiny bit of a lull where I'm getting impatient for something exciting to happen.

In my project thread, I've written a bit about player retention if you wanna read more about my thoughts on how important it is, especially in VNs, to give people a reason to stick around: viewtopic.php?p=533952#p533952

If you wanna chat more about your game feel free to add me on Discord.
Best of luck with your project!!

Thank you for the feedback!

I agree that the beginning is kind of long and drawn out. When I first started writing the story, it was to be a long epic, but then realized as it started moving along that if I were to make it epic, the game simply might not end. Additionally, learning more about how to put together the game, and how difficult it actually is, made me realize that it would be better to make this game shorter, with a definite ending, and then start on something else parallel with more function and "gameplay-ability".

I'll be looking at doing some re-writing of the beginning and taking out a lot of the exposition. Thanks again!