Lemma Soft Forums

Introducing Catnip!, a Visual Novel for NaNoRenO 2015!

Set in a near future where genetic manipulation to create 'perfect' babies is common place, recent leaks regarding the experimental creation of super soldiers has turned public opinion against the government. The government meanwhile continues to fund private ventures into creating the perfect soldier, with one particular laboratory focusing on the addition of specific animal DNA into our own. None of this matters to our protagonist, 10 year old Rei, until one such experiment shows up at the park looking for adventure.


Catnip! is under construction using both free assets and personal work, using the Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine. Sprites, BGs and music have been or are being sourced from the Creative Commons. with the UI and script being done internally. There will be minimal branching, mostly used for in-the-moment conversational decisions that have little affect on the larger story, and will take an hour or more to complete.

If you'd like to see some art, I will be using the catgirl from this thread as the main focus of the VN, Ayako.

I will maintain updates on my progress here and on my project blog.

Very excited to get started on my first NaNoRenO project, and I hope you'll look forward to playing Catnip! at the end of the month!

I've added a neko guy sprite here in case you may find him useful for your project, though he doesn't really match any cat girls that are available in CC section.
Anyway good luck with your project!

Thanks for letting me know! Probably don't have much use for it, but you never know how things change.

Uh.. political cat game? Yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

The politics are in the background, I doubt I will have time to explore them much in the VN itself. If I had to filter it down to a short sentence, it's sort of an adventure/friendship game with a lighthearted feel and some underlying moral tones.

This seems like a neat set up C:. There's not too much info yet so I can't say much, but I wanted to wish you good luck on your project ^^.

Thanks for your support Googaboga!



Day 2 of NaNoRenO!

Work today and yesterday consisted of GUI work in photoshop. Here you can see a mockup of what the game screen will look like. I’m taking a lot of inspiration from Persona 4; the theme this month is angled rectangles!

This is also an example of Ayako’s wide range of facial expressions that came with the sprite. ray-en really outdid themselves with this art, her myriad of expressions really build a character! Hopefully I can do it justice with my own writing.

I’ve decided on a vague work plan; the first week is dedicated to getting the GUI to a respectable level in-engine, and importing/converting all of the free assets i’m using so I have have everything ready for weeks two and three, which will be solely dedicated to script writing. Week four is for finishing up; making final changes to the script draft and getting it edited, as well as polishing up the game itself.

I’ll admit I don’t do schedules well, Nano is training for me!

It seems like you have made some good progress so far! I wish you luck for the rest of Nano!

Gotta keep an eye on this adorable game! Gotta love experiments (animal hybrids/splicing, yes!)

Wow what an adorable sprite! ^^ Looking forward to seeing how all these interesting elements will play out in the game.

Hey SparkyRailgun - I'm looking forward to checking out Catnip!
The sprite is awesome, I might have to download it to use as reference (I am yet to really get into making sprites!). I like your persona inspired rotated rectangle UI, looks pretty well polished from the screenshots.

Thanks for your support folks, and sorry for not keeping up to date with my progress. The truth is, my progress on the script was mired by a lot of issues I had with it, and I eventually found myself not having any fun at all; something that to me defeats the purpose of doing something like this!

I decided a couple of days ago to throw together something, just so I could do something with the stuff I'd already worked on. The result is a very short (10-15 minutes) VN that is not at all like what I was originally working on... Other than the fact that it involves a catgirl! It's very silly and not my best writing, but I hope you'll give it a go in a few days time regardless!

Completed thread available here: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 11&t=31403