A Castle on an Island [BxG][Romance][Slice of Life][Drama]

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SelLi
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A Castle on an Island [BxG][Romance][Slice of Life][Drama]

#1 Post by SelLi »

Welcome to the work in progress thread for A Castle on an Island! A Castle on an Island is a BxG slice of life romance visual novel that's currently on hiatus. :)

Synopsis:
The main character, Ean, washes onto the shore of an island after the boat he and his family are on is struck by a terrible storm. He stumbles toward an ancient castle as it's the only man-made landmark he can see. To his surprise, it's inhabited, and several girls nurse him back to health as he starts living with them in the castle that's home to around seventy-five people.
After a time, Abi, the head lady of the castle, makes the castle private property after years of slowly accumulating the responsibilities of managing a rather large group of people and thinking up various laws. The bulk of the population returns to where they initially came from - a developing city elsewhere on the island - rather peacefully, thanks in part to Abi allowing them to stay in the castle free of charge in the first place and because of her rather young age compared to the age of most of the residents. The six people allowed to remain in the castle are Abi herself, her sister Olivia, Ean, and three acquaintances of theirs: Alicia, Tina, and Atyl. They live simple lives together and grow closer to each other in their quiet, personal castle, sharing their views and aspirations while they comfort each other in this strange world.
Last edited by SelLi on Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:41 pm, edited 18 times in total.

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SelLi
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Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:49 pm
Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#2 Post by SelLi »

Hi everyone~ I had my birthday recently and got a tablet! For years I've been drawing with my finger and a touch screen and this tablet makes drawing much easier! :)

Here are some more updates:

I'm going to be working toward completing the first part of the game so I can release it as either a free demo or as a commercial "part 1". As you'd imagine, this first part of the game is significantly smaller than the full game. It is mainly written already but I'll be editing things and perhaps changing some of scenes to be more substantial. (I'll just refer to this as "the demo" for now.) I might think of starting a kickstarter/patreon page or something like that after its release.

I plan that the demo will have 26 main art assets. (Main sprites, main backgrounds, and main CGs.) Also, I don't want to redraw many things because I know that can be a trap for me but, since I have this tablet now and didn't at the start of development, I'd like to redraw Abi and Tina's sprites: having both the tablet and a better idea of who Abi and Tina are as characters makes me feel like redrawing them would only lead to them looking better. I also wouldn't want them to feel inconsistent with the look of the rest of the characters.

I think I'd like to compose music for the game, including the demo, because I'd like to get good at making music. I don't know how many songs the demo will have as of yet but it will probably have a rather small number: maybe 4? However many are needed for the story, though, whether that be more or less than 4.

So, I have a simple checklist of base images I can update you guys with. I just drew my first background for the VN today so I have 1/26 main art assets done.

Here's the background:

Image

See you in the next update. ^^

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SelLi
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Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
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itch: SelLillianna
Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#3 Post by SelLi »

Made a nice picture of Abi. I redesigned her and drew her with my new tablet. ^^ It's interesting to see what changes. :)
Image
Image
Here's her old sprite for fun:
Image

Phoenyx75
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#4 Post by Phoenyx75 »

Hey SelLi, I think you're off to a good start :-). I have a question for you though- why was Abi the head lady to start with? Was it because her parents were something like a king and queen, or perhaps she was elected?

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SelLi
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#5 Post by SelLi »

Phoenyx75 wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:01 pm Hey SelLi, I think you're off to a good start :-). I have a question for you though- why was Abi the head lady to start with? Was it because her parents were something like a king and queen, or perhaps she was elected?
Thank you very much! Good question. It's not immediately clear to Ean what the situation is and getting to know why she's in the position she's in is part of her story. Without spoiling, though, I'll say that the question is an important one and that she didn't get into this position by blood or by election.



Merry Christmas everyone~! I don't have much progress to show right now because I've been busy but things are coming along well. Namely, the scene where Ean meets with Olivia for the first time after recovering has been rewritten and is now richer and gives you a better sense of who Olivia is, in my opinion. I'm having a nice time editing and trying to change and enrich pieces of the demo's story. I still have a ways to go but the scenes in the demo between Ean, Abi, and Olivia are done unless there are some small typos I missed. Looking forward to working on Ean's interactions with the other girls. :) See you next time.

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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#6 Post by Phoenyx75 »

SelLi wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 8:41 am
Phoenyx75 wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:01 pm Hey SelLi, I think you're off to a good start :-). I have a question for you though- why was Abi the head lady to start with? Was it because her parents were something like a king and queen, or perhaps she was elected?
Thank you very much! Good question. It's not immediately clear to Ean what the situation is and getting to know why she's in the position she's in is part of her story. Without spoiling, though, I'll say that the question is an important one and that she didn't get into this position by blood or by election.

Ah ok, I look forward to learning more :-)

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SelLi
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Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#7 Post by SelLi »

Hi everyone. :) I've been looking around at a lot of OEVNs and a lot of them have really high standards for art. I like the art I've been doing but, especially as I'm wanting to pursue making visual novels more professionally, I'm going to aim for a higher quality of art myself. It'll be nice: I was already wanting to up the quality of my art. I want the art to be "really something" rather than simply "okay". Please bare with me as I settle on a style and level of quality.

I've also been brainstorming about Patreon tiers and rewards and am getting into a more planned-out headspace regarding visual novel development in general. I'm not going to make a Patreon until the demo of A Castle on an Island is done, but the idea that I'm going to be making higher quality artwork and eventually see some money coming in is very exciting to me. For a long time I've been wanting to turn this hobby of mine into something more and I can't help but feel excited as I walk in that direction. I'll see you in the next update.

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SelLi
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Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:49 pm
Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#8 Post by SelLi »

Because I'm wanting this demo to essentially help kickstart my pursuit of making visual novels in a fairly professional capacity, it would probably be wise to put my best foot forward in all ways: writing quality, art quality, and music quality. In that spirit, I'm thinking about using this new outline for the demo:

Base Images:
CGs: 15 - 3 for each heroine
Sprites: 10 - 2 for each heroine
Backgrounds: 15
40 Base Images Total

Words:
~5000 for each heroine
~5000 for anything
~30,000 words total

There's something to be said for bringing your best game and testing yourself.

The songs are still a rather big question mark for me but I'll focus on those last. I still think around 4 songs would probably be good for the demo. Maybe 3 or 5 as needed. I'll just try to make those few songs good quality. I admit that music isn't my strong-suit but I do want to improve at it.

See you in the next update.

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SelLi
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Posts: 550
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Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#9 Post by SelLi »

Hi everyone, I made an update video. :) I'll be making update videos on my visual novels every Monday. Have a nice day and feel free to subscribe to stay updated on YouTube.

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SelLi
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Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#10 Post by SelLi »


User avatar
SelLi
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Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:49 pm
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Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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itch: SelLillianna
Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#11 Post by SelLi »

New update video. :) See you next Monday.

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SelLi
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Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#12 Post by SelLi »

Here with this week's update video. :) See you next week with the next one! Subscribe if you'd like~

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SelLi
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Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:49 pm
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itch: SelLillianna
Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#13 Post by SelLi »

Weekly update video number 5! See you next Monday. ^^ Subscribe if you'd like!~~

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SelLi
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Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:49 pm
Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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itch: SelLillianna
Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#14 Post by SelLi »

(Removed~)
Last edited by SelLi on Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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SelLi
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Posts: 550
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:49 pm
Completed: The Silent Column Demo, Memory Mage
Projects: The Silent Column, A Lily from the Lightless Water, A Castle on an Island
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itch: SelLillianna
Location: Canada
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Re: A Castle on an Island [BxG][Slice of Life][Romance]

#15 Post by SelLi »

New update video! See you next Monday!

Also, here's the music I made for leg 1 of the demo:

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