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So! This is going to be my first shot at this and my first solo games project, so this is going to be an incredibly uphill battle, but it sounds like a lot of fun, so! I'll keep updating this post with my progress, please feel free to leave comments / questions / suggestions.

Space Monks (Working Title)

Basic Premise:
You crash your escape pod on a planet closed off as a Sanctuary. The only individuals who live there are the Monks, and the refugees that they protect. The Monks take you in, give you shelter and food, and you meet the inhabitants of this strange little world. You learn that the primary mission of the Monastery is to give Sanctuary for any and all who require it - which means that they often go on interstellar rescue missions to other planets, in response to distress signals sent them from around the galaxy. Though they technically have an over arching goal of Non-Interference, things never quite work out as planned.

Goals:
- Different Playable Races, unlockable after finishing storylines
- Episodic (one episode per planet)
- Romance Options (Subplot to the main game)

My goal for this month is to finish the first episode (your arrival and the first rescue mission), as well as at least two romance storylines. After that, if I can, I'll be trying to keep it up.

I'll be editing this with links to various parts of the project as I complete them.
http://www.twitter.com/daestwen
http://shhhsekkrit.tumblr.com

Wow you're flying solo? Be sure to update your progress so we can cheer you on, it's not easy. >o<

I really love the premise (More Sci Fi plz). I wish you good luck!

KittyKatStar wrote:Wow you're flying solo? Be sure to update your progress so we can cheer you on, it's not easy. >o<

I really love the premise (More Sci Fi plz). I wish you good luck!

Thanks! Yeah, I have no idea if I'll be able to get it all done (probably not) but I like a good challenge and have friends that I can bug if I get into any really tight spots.

Yay more scifi romance! Good luck to you

Dev Blog, Day 1 (Since I started a day late):

Just dove right into ren.py, really. Not doing a lot of prep, writing as I go and figuring what assets I will need as I do it. Already wondering about how I'm going to code stuff later (haven't really done a lot of this before), but so far I'm keeping it pretty simple.

Game Stats so far:
First Character brief also figured out. Meet Helmsmere:



Novice and Starship Pilot, Helmsmere was brought to Sanctuary by his father while he was still an infant. Dedicated, Loyal, Naive. Male, Human (altered), and probably a romance option, deciding on how I feel as I go.

Day Two plans:

Have absolutely no idea how to code the GUI, so, research! Already found a bunch of helpful tutorials here on the site, and I have a pretty solid idea for the design I want to use, so just need to figure out how to implement. I've done GUI design before, but I had someone else to implement it for me every time, so this time should be a new experience.

Other than that, I want to get a second character in. So far I have vague Ideas for the Abbess and for a Space Elf Acolyte, but I'd like to do an alien race that kind of has deer horns, so I'll probably do some sketching for that.

Still not 100% sure how I want to do my sprites. My original idea was to keep them very simple (line and colour) as I'm doing them all myself and didn't want to get in over my head, but then I have to say goodbye to my fancy rim lighting.... ;-; Realistically, though, the rim lighting is a bad idea anyway since the scenes will change, but I wasn't really liking how Helmsmere was looking without something to articulate him into a more 3D object.

Gonna be pretty busy today otherwise, so not sure how much I'll actually get done today, but still! Time to hit my nose to the grindstone.

Drew up some quick thoughts on the habits for the monks - obviously the character will also be appearing in other outfits, but this is what they wear the majority of the time because yay monks.

YES! I'm a real softy for sci-fi you know, and this looks great. You designs are incredible as well!
but why must NaNo be so short but feel so long.

Anyway happy NaNo-ing ^.^

Helmsmere looks pretty cute, and I dig the outfit designs! Good luck with the first episode!

Dev Blog Day Two!
Okay! So not a whole lot of writing done today. Instead, I was focusing on figuring out the GUI and how to personalize it. GUI design is a huge part in the look and feel of a game, and since I had never done GUI in the ren.py engine, I wanted to sink my teeth in right away. After doing a bit of research on it, I decided to go with the image button method. I downloaded the GUI guide available here: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 51&t=22565, and started fiddling around with it. It took a bit to figure out which parts of the code I needed/wanted and how to reuse them. So far I've got the layout for the Main Menu, and the Save/Load menus down.

One of the major downsides of image buttons is that it's very hard to change the text - which means that localization can really be an issue. But since I'm the only one on the team and I really doubt I'll be translating into different languages any time soon, I figured the reward (having everything look pretty) was worth the risk. Especially since I'm already well versed in making buttons in Photoshop, it was a much shorter learning curve than making myself learn Python's system. THAT BEING SAID.... I ended up having to learn it anyway (at least a bit). I ended up deciding to keep the Ren.py system for the Preferences screen - mostly because I wasn't yet 100% sure of how I wanted it set up and what I wanted to include, so I wanted to keep it easily editable for now. That may change in the future.

Here's a very rough layout for the Main Menu (you can see where I'm still using the Guide's provided buttons, haha!)



So beyond that I wrote a bit more of the story, and did some sketches for the monk's clothing that you can see above if you scroll up. Learned lots today, can't wait to learn more.

This looks like it's coming together nicely! That Main Menu is really looking very sc-fi and futuristic. Can't wait to hear more about it

Thanks everyone, the votes of confidence really mean a lot.

Day Three Dev Blog:
Only got a little work in on this today, but got a looping question screen figured out, as well as Helmsmere's growing flirt variable. I was looking into doing a map where you could wander around the Abbey a bit, but couldn't find documentation for one that I liked (admittedly I only did a cursory search), and then wasn't sure how I would manage a fairly linear plot with that sort of open movement, so I decided to hold off for now. For the First Episode, it isn't really necessary anyway.

Got to the point where I'm about to introduce the Abbess, so will have a second character to show you soon! She won't be romancable, but you can flirt with her anyway. She just Won't Be Amused.

I really love the art and concepts you have going and the premise definitely sounds interesting! I know you are taking a lot on so I wish you the best of luck with it! I look forward to see what you have produced by the end of the month

Auro-Cyanide wrote:I really love the art and concepts you have going and the premise definitely sounds interesting! I know you are taking a lot on so I wish you the best of luck with it! I look forward to see what you have produced by the end of the month

Yeah, not to sure it'll be anywhere near anything 'complete', but this is all a learning process anyway.

Ooh, monks in space. Will be keeping an eye on this! Good luck!