Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

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TNTiger
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Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#1 Post by TNTiger »

Hey there! I started working on an otome a few months ago, and now that I’m getting close to finishing some assets & things, I thought I could start a thread to share my progress!
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I swear Trace is winking at Malca.... but Tom probably thinks it's directed at him

Premise
The owner of a private animal shelter dies, and in her will, she leaves it to a “Mr. Frances Winchester.”
When Tom visits Frances’ house, he’s shocked to find that Frances is, in fact… a toucan.
Now it’s up to Frances’ owner, Malca, to take over the shelter. However, the business survives only on donations, and it's dying... and Malca has a criminal past— she only knows to do things illegitimately.


Here’s a look at the sprites:

Image

These are still just sketches of course 8)

Protagonist
Malca is the main character. She used to run a successful fake ID business (and occasionally committed identity fraud, no big deal). She’s a quick thinker and is pretty good at getting out of trouble (I haven't started programming yet, but I'm planning to make it so you can rename her (and possibly choose different outfits for her?))

Love Interests
Trace is Malca’s former (and far less competent) partner-in-crime. Malca decided to take a break, so they don’t work together anymore, but Trace still drops by sometimes to watch her TV. Trace is broke, and he lives in a tiny apartment with, like, 8 other guys. He refuses to get a job, and instead likes to come up with ridiculous schemes to make money.

Tom works at the animal shelter. He claims to only care about practicality, but his strange antiquated armor says otherwise. He always has bags under his eyes. Unsurprisingly, Tom doesn’t have a lot of faith that the shelter will survive.
Sometimes a mysterious voice can be heard around him… but if you ask about it, Tom will pretend like he didn't hear it.

Graham is a veterinarian. He takes care of & examines all the animals that come into the shelter. Graham thinks that all animals deserve to be healthy, regardless of whether or not their owner can afford it. He’s empathetic & he tends to listen more than he talks. He seems genuine, but Malca figures out pretty quickly that Graham might be hiding a few things about his past...

Progress
I’ve finished the script for the first chapter! I don’t know the exact word count, because I wrote it script-writing style, but it turned out to be ~30 pages. I’ve also made progress on a lot of the BGs that appear in chapter 1. I still need to finish them, and I need to finish the sprites. After that, I’ll have to draw the chapter 1 CGs. And of course, put it all together hahah.

I'll be back soon with BG pictures!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#2 Post by TNTiger »

here's some backgrounds I recently finished!
Image

I know it's not really professional but I want this game to feel off-kilter. I want things to be slightly off, but not in a threatening or fantasy kind of way haha. Just cartoonish!
because it certainly isn’t a realistic story… but it almost is hahahh

Now I have no excuse, I need to finish the character sprites next :cry:

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#3 Post by TNTiger »

Sprites are coming along well! I finished the lineart for Tom and Graham. Now I gotta do the lineart for Malca & Trace, and then color them all.

But I wanted to show you some extra art I made of Malca and the love interests! (that sounds like a band name)

Image

Image

Image

I guess this gives you an idea of what the CGs will probably look like, too? Well hopefully the CGs will look better and more cohesive though hahah :lol: Anyway gotta get back to work on the sprites!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#4 Post by Wudgeous »

This actually seems super cool. I love the premise of a main character who has a criminal past(/present??) thrown into an absurd situation, and your art has a gorgeous sense of lighting! I especially like the backgrounds.
I just followed you on itch. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this project~
Have confidence. Let go of perfectionism. I love you!
Image
A superhero dating sim in fresh hot development!


You can also keep up with me on Twitter and Itch!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#5 Post by TNTiger »

Oh wow thank you so much!! I'm really glad to hear that :cry: Malca's character was like the first thing I came up with haha! I really wanted to write a main character who's like needlessly criminal and ridiculous, and love interests who can either be good or bad influences on her :lol: I really hope it won't disappoint!!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#6 Post by TNTiger »

I finally finished all the sprites (for now)! I think I went a little overboard with poses, it took longer than it should've & I think I did more work than I really had to :cry: Hahah but as long as I use all of them it's worth it

I also kiind of started programming today?

Image

I'm mostly just doing tests and setting stuff up right now. I want to finish the UI before I start really doing it, ya know

I'm just glad I finished the sprites! I think I was actually getting headaches just from working on that :lol: You have no idea how much ibuprofen I've had to take cause of Funny Business

here's a look at the finished sprites. A lot cleaner than those sketches haha
Image

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#7 Post by TNTiger »

hey there!
So, I decided to change the palette of the game a little bit. Well, I kinda just exaggerated what was already there
Image
It took a long time for me to make this decision hahah, but I like it better. Since I had to put adjustment layers on all the assets, I also took that time to make some changes to the sprites. Just little things, like adding details to Trace and Graham

Also, here's a look at the main menu:
Image
I'm gonna try to get a video up in the next few days to show you the screens, sound effects & stuff!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#8 Post by TNTiger »

Hey hey the holidays were super busy, but I'm here again with a video!

Apparently I'm sort of incompetent when it comes to recording haha, so the quality isn't totally crisp. Rest assured, the actual game is! And of course, things are still subject to change. There's a few little bugs I need to figure out with the settings :cry:

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#9 Post by TNTiger »

Hey hey! Sorry about the slow updates :cry:
I have a huge deadline for my comic (need to finish volume 1 and get physical copies printed in time for a convention), so I've had to focus on that for a while. I work on it so much that by the time I'm done with my daily goal, my hand hurts too much to work on anything else haha, so Funny Business has been a little neglected lately! But I really want to work on it more, so I'm trying to fit it in :')
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Here's a Tom in a different style than the game! :lol:
I had a dream about Tom last night. It was supposed to be Funny Business, but it looked more like Candy Land, and he was showing me around. But then his hair started changing to purple (?) I don't know, it was all strange but inspiring. When I woke up I was all confused and I couldn't remember what Tom was actually like. And, naturally, now I feel like Tom's hair needs to change over the course of the story

anyway, I'm getting closer to finishing my comic goal, so after that I'll be able to make a lot more progress on Funny Business!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#10 Post by TNTiger »

Hello again!
I pushed myself to major burnout with my comic, so I'm ready to focus on Funny Business again 8) Hahaha

I finished the toucan sprites, which were long overdue!
Image

Now I'm thinking about going back & editing the character sprites a little bit again. I also want to redraw a couple of the backgrounds. But I will try not to get stuck in the cycle of redrawing things (instead of making progress)

I'm starting to rewrite the first chapter too, because I realized that the story is sort of lacking. It could be more intriguing :? Buut I don't feel confident in my writing ability lately, so I'm kind of putting that off and focusing on assets again. AKA, more backgrounds! I haven't finished any yet but I'll show you when I do.

I also did a picture of Trace and Malca for fun
Image
Hahahahh

Anyway, I'll be back soon with more!

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#11 Post by TNTiger »

Hey hey, so I did end up revising the character sprites! I changed the colors (again), and I tried to make them look more polished (but still match the game style!):

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Now I think I am finally satisfied! I'm not gonna go back and change these anymore.

But, you might've noticed that I gave Tom a new outfit:

Image

I'm taking away his magic armor plotline altogether, actually. I want Funny Business to be more grounded in reality hahah (but you know, still absurd of course). I tried to use the same silhouette and themes in this new outfit, so hopefully it still reads "Tom"

Actually, I drew him this alt outfit first:
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And then I ended up liking it so much that I wanted to change his main outfit too. I just feel like he looks a lot better with normal clothes, and it feels more congruent with the rest of the game

I was afraid it'd be a big hassle to draw new outfits, but it wasn't that difficult! Thank god I obsessively save bases/backups/project files 8)

So now I think I'll give everyone else alt outfits, too! (something more tomboy-ish for Malca, something more respectable for Trace (lol), and for Graham, something more...... actually, I have no idea for Graham yet hahaa) Tom gets a heart, Trace gets a brain, Graham gets courage

I also finished another background but I don't wanna post it here yet, maybe once I finish more I'll share a few of them all at once!

And- I'm redrawing three "promo" pictures, or whatever you wanna call it. I just hate the last ones I did, so I want to replace them. Here's some very low-res sketches haha:
Image
(I hate how Malca's outfit looks sort of "school girl" in these sketches, so I'll probably change that)

I'm also starting to do sketches for the minor character sprites. I'll show you some of those soon!

As you can see, I am making every excuse not to write

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#12 Post by TNTiger »

I finished the drawings I was talking about! I also did another one, so here's quite a few new illustrations:
Image
Hmmm I wonder who let the chickens out

I also posted bigger versions of these drawings on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/funny-business-64055089
(it's a public post of course! If you wanna see them bigger/individually)

There's some characters there I haven't told you about yet :!: I'm still working on their sprites, so I'll talk a little more about them next time

So what I'm working on now is finishing the minor character sprites & finishing alt outfits for the main characters. I'm getting pretty used to doing sprite work, so I don't think it will take too long (??) Hahaha

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#13 Post by TNTiger »

Heya, sorry for that little break! I was trapped in Sprite Purgatory
SPRITE ROUNDUP TIME
SPRITE ROUNDUP TIME
Finally all of the characters are done! Now I will tell you a little bit about them :!: :!:

Well, first, I need to say that I completely redrew Malca:
Image
I was just too unhappy with her old sprite. I wanted to try to make her look cuter & give her different clothes. I like this version a lot more! I also gave her three outfits, because I want her to wear different things for different situations 8) And, because, you know, the second I put effort into doing extra illustrations, I need to redesign the main character & make them all irrelevant & Malca has 6 poses!

Now, onto some more characters:
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Tyler and Nolan are Trace's roommates! I think I made a joke before that Trace has 10 roommates haha, but now he really only has two. Honestly Tyler was just supposed to be a one-off joke character, but then I started to love him too much... every time I see him, it makes me wanna laugh. So now I am finding every excuse to write him in!
& Even if you're not on Trace's route, you will still meet Nolan and Tyler.
Jocelyn is Nolan's girlfriend. She doesn't live with them, but you will also still meet her & befriend her. And Malca will hang out with her on her own- I mean, Jocelyn isn't always around Nolan. Actually, I'm pretty sure she will break up with Nolan haha
They each have 2 poses :)

Then we have the Worth family
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Madison and her daughter Ashlyn. Ash is two years old! And Madison is barely an adult- she had Ashlyn when she was a teenager. Ashlyn has her own sprites (two poses), which you can see in that big banner, but since she's so small, I'll have to find workarounds to actually show them haha. Madison has three poses!

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Finally, Aloysius
As you can see, he is the only other character that has three outfits. And 6 poses. And multiple hairstyles. Now I wonder why I would give him so much special attention?
But he doesn't come in til a little later in the story ;)

Anyway, I hope you will eventually like all of these characters! Some of them are antagonists *cough*, but I still want them to feel human. I sincerely hope that my character writing can make up for what my drawing skills lack :lol: I'm glad I can focus on scripts now. I'm getting antsy. I wanna see more progress :evil:

I'm working on making a tumblr for Funny Business, so I'll talk about that next time! ♡

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#14 Post by TNTiger »

Heyya, I finally made the tumblr!

https://funnybusinessotome.tumblr.com/

It is especially for Funny Business

I've already posted some things, like character profiles:
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And some other.... things

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(catboy aloysius does have his own tag)

I'm trying to organize it with tags, so there are tags for the characters, drawings, meme-y things, etc. I will post updates and screenshots there! Things that don't feel big enough to post here haha. But I also wanna share silly stuff.
Informative stuff and entertaining stuff. Funny stuff and Business stuff.

I don't really like social media, so this is the only profile I will make for Funny Business :wink:

Now now back to writing

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Re: Funny Business [GxB Otome] [Comedy] [Absurd]

#15 Post by TNTiger »

Heya! I had to focus on convention prep the last few weeks, but now I have time again!

I'm still writing the episode 1 script for Funny Business :lol: Progress feels so slow
I was going to spend a whole afternoon working on it earlier this week, but then I turned my laptop on and it updated for like 4 hours... it was so frustrating. I didn't end up writing anything that day.

ANYWAY, I'd say I'm about 1/3 done with it? I'm planning to spend most of this weekend working on it too, so hopefully in the next week I can finally say "episode 1 is written!"

By the way, I was thinking that I'd update the game 5 episodes at a time? Because one at a time feels too frequent for a vn (especially one where you might not be able to transfer saves), but I don't want long gaps without updates either. 5 seemed like the best compromise to me. I think that also fits with the story beats I've outlined haha.

But I really want people to start getting to know the characters, so I might make an exception for episode 1. I might just post it when I'm done with it. Like a super early "pilot" or something haha, I don't know yet!

Well, I feel bad not having anything visual to show, so here's something small I've been working on:

Image

Just little speech bubble thingies for some extra flavor :wink: I'd like to make a lot of variations for these

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