(upd Jan 23, 2015) Caramel Mokaccino (Open-ish Dev)

[LondonIvy]

I'm a huge fan of the art. If this was a VN written on the back of a cocktail napkin that required you to flip to the inside to get the epilogue...well, I'd still play it with a smile because I really love your art that much. The story itself interests me. I love stories like this, and this sees sort of slice-of-life. The inclusion of GXG is appreciated. Even though I probably won't go there myself on the first playthrough, it's nice to have the choice.

This has my support!

[Deji]

@LondonIvy: Thank you ^___^
I'm glad you appreciate the GxG, we thought it'd be a nice and cute touch C:
Also, with the Friendship ending available for most routes, you can still go after one of the girls and get to know the story without getting romantically involved, but hopefully still with a good amount of cute and fluffy

[Deji]

Sorry for the double post >>;
Caramel meeting for today got canceled ): Maybe w'll have it this Friday.
I'm still expecting the revision of the script... (I'm sure they're not good, as my friend said she'll mail me later instead of saying "yay!" or something, like she does when she approves of something I do X_x; )

In the meantime I've kept working on the promo image.

I also started to roughly make sprites for the technical demo of day1, regular VN version, and put together a mockup of what it would look like.

The photograph was googled randomly and it's just a placeholder. I'm allergic to backgrounds so much, I'll probably won't even sketch them until I start working on the actual art for the game ^^;

And that's all for today.

[Aleema]

The coffee beans look like Mickey Mouse. Disney might sue. xD

[Julie]

I really love the art! The coloring is magnificent! ^^ Is this game commercial?

[Deji]

I really love the art! The coloring is magnificent! ^^ Is this game commercial?

Thanks ^^
I honestly don't know if it'll be commercial or not xD; I mean, this is just something I'm doing for fun on my spare time that will probably take forever, but some people have told me I should make it commercial.
I think that if I end up hiring somebody else to write it for me and/or start investing serious time and money on this, I may end up charging for it, but it's way too early to say right now ^^;

[Julie]

Take your time! It really looks great so far. If you decide to make it commercial, I will not be able to play it because I can't afford to buy games online. It's still up to you of course! The art is definitely something people would be willing to pay for, but if you're doing this mainly for fun, making it free is okay too so everybody can enjoy your work. ^^ Good luck with this! I will be stalking this thread until the game is done.xD

[jack_norton]

The art is awesome (well, no surprise here!) and I would be honestly shocked if this wasn't commercial. I mean, everyone is free to do what they want of course, but I think you deserve something for your efforts (especially if you're going to pay people to write for you).

[Deji]

The art is awesome (well, no surprise here!) and I would be honestly shocked if this wasn't commercial. I mean, everyone is free to do what they want of course, but I think you deserve something for your efforts (especially if you're going to pay people to write for you).

Thanks
Hiring somebody to write the story for me is only a possibility, not something I'm dead set on doing ^^; I still want to try and write this myself and asking for kind help to get it edited and proofread!
In case I do pay somebody to write, code, compose or whatever, I will have to raise money somehow. I may still not make this commercial and just enslave myself doing commissions overtime xD

[jack_norton]

Well, between me and Ayu and others you won't run out of commissions for sure

[Miss-Mae]

Wow, the art for this game is looking amazing so far! I for one can't wait to try this game!

[Deji]

*Comes back from the dead*
No pictures this time, sorry D:

So... I had a meeting with my co-author/editor/advisor friend and she scolded me ;o;
I told her I hadn't drawn nor written anything because I was all 'meh' and all 'I can't write, boo-hoo', it seemed like a huge work and I was being all emo about life lately and yadda yadda.
And when I lazily asked "What was the problem we had last time we met we couldn't solve again?" while drinking some Strawberry Creme Frapuccino and eating a cinnamon roll, she looked at me with this serious face and said:

"You know what... cut the crap and just write. Worry about what happens in week #4 when you ACTUALLY GET THERE.".

And then she shared some good advice with me about how it was a bad thing to stop writing to think about how big or how bad or how lame or how whatever what you were writing was because that made you stop writing; and how about I shouldn't be like her, writing up to chapter 6 then saying "I'll go back and check some stuff" and getting horrified to the point of not wanting to write it anymore... and some other similar advice.
And I told her I needed feedback badly! And she said that, honestly, she was afraid to critic my stuff because my self-esteem as a writer was so poor right now that It would be counterproductive.

So we made a deal. I'd write all week one, I'd send it to her, she'd look at it and then we'd meet and she'd give me feedback on what to fix.

So I sat down and started to write.

After a couple of days on and off, I'm already done up to Day 3 with 12400+ words and a couple of menus.
I'm having lots of fun and I think my slice-of-life scenes are probably ridiculously long and pointless (because I keep thinking in terms of script for a comic than for a VN, so I can have a lot of tiny speech bubbles of 'Hi~!' on the screen that don't bother much... On the other hand, I have no internal monologues), but my friend said it's better to have too much so you can trim it down later than have too little... So I'm doing just that.
Thanks to her advice, though, I'm rather scared to go and test play this thing xD I just go through the scrip when I feel there's something I wrote before that I should change.... I'm scared I'll be horrified and stop writing, haha, but I guess it's too soon for that to happen... I think. >>;
Story wise... While writing I realized I started wanting for things to happen really quick, to be hinted, to be shared... so I think I'll have to adjust the original pacing I had in mind for, well, whatever I feel that works (that until my friend comes and says it's awful xD). So far I think I like where this is going C:

The FFD/comic-like idea is still there, even when I haven't drawn a thing. My friend suggests I should go regular sprites+bg+eventCG VN if it ends up being too big... But idk... It seems like it'd be so pretty having everything drawn...

But! I'll follow what I preach and complete my script before starting with the art! >O
It actually works as a motivator! "I can't draw it until I'm done writing!!".

Anyway, just wanted to share that with you, I'm rather proud of being able to sit down and write this much for the first time ^^.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Yay! Well Done. That is a great achievement. Your friend is truly a well spring of good advice (hang on to her so she can't get away >.>)
But it is good you got to do some writing. You have to start somewhere after all, otherwise, well, you never start and then you wander around in circles wondering what the hell you are doing...Yeah. And you can of course fix things later. I read a wonderful thing by an author once, where she suggests you start making your story fat, to write down everything you want, and then you make it skinny by cutting down to necessary detail, and then you can fatten it up again to make it good. I thought it was a good lesson. You should try and write down everything you can so you have a choose and you don't forget or lose what is good, and then cull to find out what really makes your story tick. And then you can add bits here and there to round it all out.

Maybe you should have drawing as a reward, since that is what you really want to do and it might help spice it up. Maybe finish a chapter, draw something, finish another chapter. If you can stick to it, it may be a good way to get work done and motivate yourself with the project by doing what you love.

[Samu-kun]

Don't worry about it. Usually, when you test play what you've made and see how the writing comes together with the music and the art, you realize that it's a whole lot better than what you expected and you feel more motivated. Well, of course, from time to time, you can also facepalm at something obviously wrong you wrote, but at least now you know what to go back and fix!

[Snowflower]

You... You... YOU!!!! Why is your artwork always so supreme?!

While little me here received no talent... or very minimum... in art :/

The art is absolutely, positively, AWESOME!!!!!!!!!