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@pyopyon Thanks, that clears it up for me. Do you know what this means, though? You're going to have to make an RPG spin-off sooner or later.

Zelan wrote:@pyopyon Thanks, that clears it up for me. Do you know what this means, though? You're going to have to make an RPG spin-off sooner or later.

No problem! And tbh you're right. Just imagine a Catching the Fox style FE where different staff members are acquired to join Simone's army, thus battling and beating unfair/too tight deadlines everywhere. Haha.

Sorry about the lack of talking! I've only really been updating the second post, so I'm sorry about that! I'll be updating with some of the assets! I'm not really sure what I should post though...

If there's any ideas, let me know!

Also, is it best to update the first / second posts, or to post updates in the thread as normal posts?

Like the look of the sprite outlines.

I think the best idea is to update the first and/or second post so that everything is visible, and then post something like "(Such-and-such) art is done! You can see it in the first post." This way, all of the updates are kept in the beginning where it's easy to see the progress you've made, but people who have the thread subscribed or bookmarked are notified of the update. c:

I'll respond to comments a little later, sorry!

Our teams been quite busy with midterms (and in my case a nasty cold that won't quite quit TT__TT)

The second post is up-to-date and I'll be posting more samples in a little while since I figured out a good way to add updates without the first post looking cluttered! (Which was my main concern with adding things to the first post.) :'D

Later!

pyopyon wrote:I'll respond to comments a little later, sorry!

Our teams been quite busy with midterms (and in my case a nasty cold that won't quite quit TT__TT)

The second post is up-to-date and I'll be posting more samples in a little while since I figured out a good way to add updates without the first post looking cluttered! (Which was my main concern with adding things to the first post.) :'D

Later!

LOL midterms should be on a different month so we can focus on nanreno. I'm having a difficult time managing too! And I like what I see so far for your game too, story sounds nice and I can't wait to see the full sprites.

1. What do you think of the concept as a slice-of-life game in a business setting with adult characters?
As long as the characters are likable, it's all good to me.

2. Which love interest appeals most to you (either in appearance or personality)?
Solomon, I think? He sounds confident and charismatic...like Captain Picard from Star Trek.

3. Which character do you think will be your favorite?
I'm going to guess Simone.

4. Would you be interested in a longer version of the game featuring the Art department of the magazine?
Oh, I would love that. If you decide to go for it, you have my full support!

5. Any points of critique or criticism?
You've done such a neat job with the presentation that I'm hard-pressed in finding anything to critique. Hmm...in the logo, I would say that the fox's foot overlaps a bit with the 'C' in "Catching," making it a tad difficult to read. I would suggest nudging the fox towards the left unless that was your intended effect?

Other than that, you're off to a fantastic start. I'm in love with the word play of Catching the Fox and Solomon Fox (if you've ever played my games, you'll probably know by now I'm a fan of word play ). I can't wait to see how this game turns out.

6. Any questions?
What inspired you to make the characters as they are? I'm just curious about your creative process. What went behind the development of the characters?

Good luck with Catching the Fox! I'm sure it'll be amazing.

@Lesleigh63 -- Thank you very much! Your background work for Lads in Distress is really nice btw!

@Zelan -- Okay, I'll try-- but I was a little worried that it might be too cluttered. I might resize the information sections so that they take up a little less space because I don't want to clutter the first post too much. But posting when I update is a good idea. OH! I didn't even... realize that people might have the thread subscribed/bookmarked. HAHA LOL. THANKS!

@LadyOfGatsby -- Say it twice omg. The only thing good about this forsaken month is spring break. XDDD NaNoReNo needs to be like... March 15th - April 16th, LOL. Thanks a lot! I can't wait to post them myself! ^^

@Dreamgazer -- Oh, great! I think the characters are all likable in their own way, so there's hope for us after all. ;^) Oooh, not a bad comparison! I think Solomon is more warm and probably has less of the quiet fiery...ness of Picard, but both of them do have that vibe where they both are the type of men who were made for leadership. If that makes any sense. XD As far as favorite characters... same. LOL. Thank you! ^^ I'm excited to reveal details soon enough. ^^ Oh, I see! I'll deliver your critique to the appropriate team member. (How fancy sounding. Haha.) Oh, and thank you for liking Catching the Fox! It took me a while to come up with a non... crappy title, as titles are REALLY not my forté, but it came to me and the team likes it so I feel relieved. XD Thanks so much /o/

As for your questions...

What inspired you to make the characters as they are?

I'm assuming you mean diversity-wise, but I'm not sure if you're asking about each characters specific race or just in general so if you want more, feel free to ask! So I have a personal policy that as a VN writer, I would like to create diverse casts exclusively, regardless of genre, barring any intentionally customizable characters.

That was the base concept for developing my office staff!

I sincerely believe that that there should never be a reason for diversity so as far as "Why is Solomon British?" or "Why is Trina Vietnamese?", the answer is, frankly, "because." It's... really not much deeper than that. The end. LOL.

I mean, sure there's the normal stuff, like I'm black and I like to see black characters that aren't stereotypes, or I like to see characters that reflect people I see in real life but I think that's true for most who feel invisible in media.

I'm just curious about your creative process. What went behind the development of the characters?

Honestly, it wasn't really different from creating any other of my characters... I write their traits and give them a voice based off of it. Once I have an idea of my character's voice, then I add mental notes for how I would guess they look. Then, I develop their voice based off of the main personality traits I want to show and develop it further by writing in that voice.

The more I write of a character, the more unique they become!

That's... my general creative process so for CtF, it wasn't much different. There were vague concepts always, but they weren't much beyond things like, "Hm... it would be nice to showcase a black love interest who's doesn't feel tacked on", or "I want each character to have a distinctive trait that I find attractive" (dimples, birthmark, freckles and moles, curly ponytails, glasses, etc.) but I never picked who got what beforehand. Haha.

Uhm... that's really it. I guess the only other thing of note is just... for me, I don't tie the character's personality to their race, but I do tie their race to the character itself. That is to say... a brown or black person can have any kind of personality, so don't write a new character with their race in mind. If you do that, you'll find that you get very easily locked into (ugly, boring, overused, even racist) stereotypes. Write the person's inside first, THEN give them skin, and you'll do much better.

That's the most important part of this whole answer, so I'm bolding it. The second most important part is this: unless the narrative is specifically a racial narrative, you never need a reason for a brown or black person to be there. Seriously. When someone asks, "why is this character 'x' race?" or, "why do they have 'x' origin?" The answer (unless it's a racial narrative) should always be, in my opinion, "because I want them to be."

I mean this, of course, for any story that does not have an extremely specific setting (like Japanese high school in Japan... though, of course, there are other South/East Asian students who are non-Japanese who's existence is largely absent in Japanese media and all derivatives but... I digress, especially since I have no intentions on making a VN with that particular overdone setting.)

And I say 'unless it's a racial narrative' because of course, as a racial narrative, the character's race will be intrinsically tied to how they view the events that occur in the story, so it would be extremely important in that kind of situation.

As a side note, with Catching the Fox's cast, their personalities actually confused a few people so I ended up having to label my NaNo Team Building post that the artist must be able to draw brown and black people.' Even though it was a nuisance that they were assumed to all be white, it's also a sign of success. If you can't tell a character's race by reading a description of their personality, then you've won.

Phew, sorry for the long reply and thank you for your well wishes! I hope you enjoy the game! ^^ I hope that also gives you insight if you were asking in order to have help writing brown and black characters of your own. ouo b
Today, I'll be reorganizing the first post. It'll be different very soon, so look forward to it! (Though I will be posting it when it's up. Haha. ^^

First post clean up is done! Now there's a little more space and a designated area for new and older post updates. I hope that makes it easier to keep track of us!

I can't wait to play this! I love slice of life stories, and now that I'm getting older (wah! where have the years gone?), I really appreciate playing games about older characters. So - I am a big fan of the concept.

"Pmail" cx Parodies of apps and such are my favorite thing ever - if anyone here has played Visual Novel Tycoon, they've got CompliantArt, LemmingSoft, Icewolf (as oppose to Firefox), Grungeband... the list goes on, and it's hilarious.

pyopyon wrote:Phew, sorry for the long reply and thank you for your well wishes! I hope you enjoy the game! ^^ I hope that also gives you insight if you were asking in order to have help writing brown and black characters of your own. ouo b

Thanks for answering my questions, pyopyon! I wasn't actually asking about their diversity, though I did like hearing your intentions behind it. Your description for the characters felt distinct and realistic, so my curiosity couldn't help but get piqued. Were you influenced by real life experiences? Were these the kinds of characters you liked? And so on and so forth. I have always felt that a person's creation is a look at their heart. But, speaking personally, I have found that it can be easily misunderstood. So, I made a point of simply asking you about your creative process rather than make any assumptions, and you answered it wonderfully.

I agree with how you shouldn't tie a character's personality to their race, barring exceptions like the ones you mentioned. I actually can't imagine writing someone based off their skin. Call me idealistic, but I'm a strong believer in the idea of the melting pot and all other sentiments written in the Declaration of Independence. The color of someone's skin doesn't mean anything.

From one writer to another, I love hearing about what goes on behind the scenes, so if you ever want to give more details, I'd be happy to hear it. Write as long as you like. I have also written about black and brown characters before, and I even tried touching very briefly on the subject of racism in my last game, lightly based off some of my friends' experience. (I notice that it somehow tends to go over most players' heads, though.) If you ever have any critique for me, I'm open to it.

More on subject, I like how you re-organized the first post and that main screen is beautiful. The sneak peek of that e-mail GUI is definitely getting me excited for the game.

@vociferocity -- Oh, thanks! I'm really glad that you're excited (since I am also super excited. To play my own game? Yes. Totally. Haha.) I'm twenty-one but I've found that high school aged kids feel younger and younger to me (and in turn, their stories and narratives aren't as fun to play.) Plus, I feel a growing mama factor that annoys itself into all my mental game narraration; namely, WHAT ARE THESE KIDS DOING?! THEY'RE TOO YOUNG FOR THIS TO BE HAPPENING TO THEM THEY SHOULD TELL AN ADULT. Haha, I know how you feel! Thanks for (your future) playing and I hope you enjoy the game! (^':

@Zelan -- Ahhh, pmail! Yeah, it stands for pigeon mail since we kinda have... a (totally unrelated to the game but still reoccurring because of the cute factor) bird motif. Haha. XD I played through a little of Visual Novel Tycoon and I noticed those things too! I love parodies too! We intended on having some more desktop icons for Simone with jokes, but decided to wait until NaNo+ since the computer stuff is all in a pixel art style and can take a bit of time. ^^ Thanks for noticing LOL

@Dreamgazer -- Oh, sorry! XD I totally misunderstood. People don't ask me about my characters often so I didn't know what your angle of questions was. Well, in that case, as far as the personality of Simone, she's not really based off of anyone, but she does quote my family members on occasion. They say crazy things that she would say (well... that all the characters would say, but mostly Simone.) For the others, I just picked personalities that I thought would fit their roles. Solomon is the only one who was really intentional (since there's all kinds of bosses, you know?) But I wanted to pick someone who you could understand why Simone was attracted to them. I felt it was important since the game is named after him, you know? If Solomon had Milo's personality, for example, it wouldn't work nearly as well XD

Also, I just got the shivers imagining Milo's personality in Solomon's body. Someone like Milo should... never be in a position of leadership. Ever. But Milo's personality... I wanted him to be a jerk because rivals are fun and a jerk journalist sounds realistic, but then one of the artists said that Milo was borderline tsundere and that made me laugh, so I pushed him a little long on that direction. He's still not REALLY tsundere, but it's funny to imagine he does the things he does because he is. Does that make sense?

Joel's personality... I like meek personalities who are not pushovers. Joel happens to be a nice person, so he complies with a lot of foolishness (like Milo's demands for him to get fresh coffee) but mostly because he would do those things anyway.

So I guess I chose personalities I thought would make the office fun? This is especially true for the yet unseen Art Department. The full office is quite funny, especially because in the NaNo version, you don't really meet anyone who dislikes Solomon. Someone in the art department dislikes him, and because Solomon is so calm and mature that writing someone who is ALSO likable (since he's a romanceable, of course) but at the same time gets under Sol's skin is really fun. The completed office relationship chart is really detailed and is amusing in itself for that reason. I could write about their office antics without the romance, no problem.

Ah, see... the only thing I disagree with is that skin color doesn't matter. I mean, I do agree that skin color doesn't matter strictly when talking about personality type-- but when it comes to the actual character, especially when developing backstory, I think it can be an important, even character defining trait. I think skin color is an important part of a person, especially if it's impacted their world view. Rather than skin color or race being ignored, I think it should be something that's a part of a person-- just not the part of a person that directly correlates to how they're viewed, either positive or negative.

LOL I'm glad you said that since I ended up writing a lot again. I definitely intend on making more black and brown characters and I'm especially excited for my fantasy project that's in the works for that reason. ^^ I can't work on it again until post-NaNo but I'm really looking forward to it anyway. Ah, racism. A difficult subject to write about, so I can understand if there was some difficulty with perception. I'll admit, I was a bit nervous to play War since I'm a really light hearted both in what I read and write and hacing both dark and psychological scared me off... but I'll give it a try! I am REALLY really Queen Weenie though, so if I can't finish it, I'll let you know ouo;;;;;;;;

Oh, thank you! I was hoping to make it a little more spacious. ISN'T THAT MAIN MENU SCREEN LOVELY! I think the painterly style (as House calls is) really suits the game, and we've gotten our first BG together, which doubles my happiness and certainty. Everything is coming together so nicely ; w ; I'm really proud of my teammates. Now to make sure the writing doesn't disappoint... haha. (^'''':

Ah, Milo already sounds like an interesting rival force in the office! And yes, seeming tsundere but not really being tsundere totally makes sense to me. It somehow makes me like him a little more, too. I can't wait to see the completed office relationship chart.

Oh, no, wait, did I make it sound like I was being dismissive of skin color or race? That's totally not what I meant. I completely agree with what you said. I thought we were still on the subject of personality types. It's my bad, I should have been clearer. It seems I'll definitely need you to tell me if I'm ever making any statements that sound careless in my writing!

Did you say fantasy project? That's my favorite genre, hands down. I don't suppose I could have any further hints on its story? Ah, and please don't feel any pressure to play War: 13th Day! If you're into light-hearted things, I would really recommend the fluffy Valentine special, which is the last game I made. (But if you do decide to try War: 13th Day, I would suggest picking the warriorress's story in the beginning and not the lady's. Nothing scary there, I promise.)

From what it sounds like, you have a clear, distinct voice and, if I'm not mistaken, love for each character. I'm sure it'll show in your writing and take the game far. Bring it on home, pyopyon! You got this!