Weather Wizard [Otome][2013]

[Sharm]

Strange weather has been terrorizing the area then suddenly everything stopped. Her neighbors are happy to enjoy the pleasant days, but Eri thinks it's a sign of worse things to come. She's off to find what the problem is and put a stop to it.

I started this project as an entry to the Worst VN challenge, but I didn't manage to come up with a plot that I could allow to be horrible and because of that I couldn't finish. What was written and drawn before will now be an outline. The music already complete thanks to the talented Ziassan is the one thing I'll be using from my first attempt. In the course of the story Eri will have to choose one of 4 guys to help her in her fight with the villain. You'll be able to play all four routes in one game, then chose the end you like best.


Eri is brash and adventurous, the idea of settling down terrifies her. She's the POV character for this story. Here's a preview of the other characters.





The Plan:
Week 1 - Sprites [DONE!]
Week 2 - Backgrounds
Week 3 - Writing
Week 4 - Programming

[Sharm]

Today went better than expected, and I was able to get done as much as I had planned plus a bunch more. I'm hoping it's because this will be easier than I thought and not some error in planning. If I can keep up this pace, I may actually be done with sprites by tomorrow! Here's a preview of how the sprites will look this time around. [Edit: Previews now in first post]

[akizakura]

Like your sprites so far!

[Carassaurat]

That looks very nice — clean and efficient.

I have to wonder about your schedule, though; isn't it a better idea to write first and create the art later, or perhaps do them roughly at the same time? For one thing, I made a bunch of sprites for my project last year only to find out while writing that the project wasn't going to go anywhere, and I had just wasted my drawing time, and your Worst VN/KN experience sounds similar. For another, it seems to me to be easier to figure out what art assets you need and what elements about them are important once you've actually got your script done.

[Sharm]

Thank you both! I'm pretty happy with how they're turning out, I didn't think I could make something so nice looking in such a short period of time, especially since I lost my tablet pen before this started! The pen tool became my best friend.

I'm not too worried about making a bunch of sprites and not finishing the story. Even if all my plans were to fall apart and sprites are the only things that get done I'll count it as time well spent. I needed the practice and I can always release them as CC resources. I'll probably be okay though, I have a much more thorough plan and a better idea of what I'm doing than I did with my last attempt. I probably wouldn't have failed the Worst VN Challenge if I hadn't tried to plan during the same month. I'm also not going to fuss about facial expressions until I do the script, so I won't be wasting a lot of time on that.

I had totally forgotten that yesterday was Saturday so my hopeful plan for getting all the sprites done was completely unrealistic. It's now Monday's goal, which still puts me ahead of where I wanted to be at this point. I did manage to get some things done before real life intruded, you can now see another of the boys and the player character.

[Sharm]

I finished the sprites, even though I'm ill today! Now I'm off to draw some backgrounds.

[Sharm]

After fighting with backgrounds for two days I finally have one that isn't terrible. It's not finished, but it's close enough to show off. I also got some writing done and a text box made while avoiding backgrounds. Hopefully this means the backgrounds will start coming together, because I figure I need at least 8 backgrounds not counting minor variations.

[vividXP]

Not terrible? You are selling yourself short, that background looks fantastic.

[Hazel-Bun]

I agree with Vivid, it looks great! Don't doubt yourself and I hope this will come out very soon. Such pretty artwork ^^

[EchoLove]

The sprites look really good!

[Sharm]

Thank you! I was hoping I could do better, but it's probably an unreasonable expectation. I've been doing a lot of research on how other, much better artists do backgrounds and all I see is where I want to be instead of how far I've come. I'm just glad the quality doesn't clash with the sprite, I have much more practice doing those!

Today I made the mistake of adding the music into the first few minutes of the game, just to check how it would work. Before I knew it I'd gotten myself more music, found some sound effects, made one I couldn't find, did more work on the GUI (resulting logo in first post), tweaked the writing, and I'm to the point where I can pretend I have a game. I still managed to finish a few backgrounds too, but I'm not where I wanted to be today with those. This game needs a surprising number of locations! Tomorrow I'll try to figure out a way to cut a few or make them edits of other bgs.

[Reikun]

Your BGs are GREAT (and that one's not every finished yet??) I'm jealous... xD
I like your sprites! I know you're already done with them but it's a little weird to see them all wearing the same type of shirt (the neckline being the same mostly). Maybe if you have time towards the end of the month you can consider changing them but for now it's probably better just to work on other things.

Good luck!! I'm rooting for you~ ♥

[Sharm]

Ah, by unfinished I meant I needed to fix a few minor errors, like the small tree on the right having no shading or a random straight line in the foliage. It really makes me happy you all like what I've done so far, I've been focusing on learning how to do backgrounds for the last year or so just so I could make a good VN.



I didn't make this week's goal for getting backgrounds finished, but I think I need a break from art anyway. I'm going to pause for a little while and come back to backgrounds later. Time to get some writing done, wish me luck!

[Sharm]

I now have one path completely finished, story, programming, backgrounds, effects, sounds, music and all. I'm very unhappy with it right now, the pacing is terrible and I still want to add that mini game. I'm hoping that's just me being my own worst critic, because I don't have time to worry about it. Only 3 more paths to finish! In a week! I'm doomed.

[arl Linnaeaeaneaaean]

Those backgrounds are totally kick-ass!! The visuals on this are really looking superb.