The Passage of Ingenuity [NaNo18][Drama][Sci-Fi][BxG][Demo]

[arachni42]

A demo is up

Story

Turner and Lun live in a small, ordinary village in a fantasy-like setting. They are childhood acquaintances who were never close, but lately Lun's been pestering Turner to go with her to explore some ancestral ruins. There are numerous ruins around, but exploring them can be dangerous, and they've been seemingly void of any valuable materials for hundreds of years. But Lun is insistent upon going. Turner doesn't expect to find anything, but he couldn't be more wrong. What they uncover makes even their wildest dreams obsolete...

Characters

Lun, 14-year-old girl
A lively, eccentric girl who loves to invent things. She prided herself on her creativity as a child, but she is coming to see that everyone considers her inventions impractical and useless... and even she would agree. She longs to explore and find new things.

Turner, 15 year-old boy
Turner, in contrast to Lun, is a pragmatist. He is not focused on possibilities but on the here and now. He has a curious mind, but he prefers laid-back hobbies like people-watching.

The story is told in first person from Turner's POV. There are 3 endings that depend on player dialogue choices.

A long summary of the story (including spoilers) is in the Ideas thread. viewtopic.php?f=16&t=48135

Lun:


A draft of one of the backgrounds:


Screenshot:



Writing: Me
Programming: Me
Sprite artist: alliotus
Object artist: gintokidev
Proofreader/editor: Angela de Frost
Music: Definitely not Me (Creative Commons)

[Donmai]

Wishing you success. I will be surely watching this thread with interest.

[arachni42]

Update:
There's not a lot to show yet, but I made a basic logo that I plan to fancy up later.



I've been focusing on the writing. I'm maybe about halfway? Not as far along as I'd hoped, because I need time to code it, but it's coming along.

P.S. @Donmai Thanks, and nice to see you still around

[arachni42]

Tonight I took a break from writing and worked on a background. I learned a lot of things about brushes in Photoshop I didn't know about. Here's my WIP:

[Nay]

Wow, that bg looks great. I love how nice that field looks, it really looks peaceful. I'm looking forward to this one!!

[Zelan]

I agree with Nay, that background is lovely. I totally wanna be there. Your experimenting with brushes paid off. c:

[arachni42]

Thanks! ^_^ There's a lot to be done on the parts of the BG that aren't part of the field, but I'm sure that will be a learning experience, too.

[arachni42]

Updates!

alliotus has created some wonderful sprites for Lun:


I've been working on my background some more. There is still a ways to go, but it's gotten better.


Writing is coming along. I will at the very least have the first 4k words ready by the deadline. I expect the complete script to be around 10k words. I still have coding and at least one other major background to do. Most of the script is written, but like the above background, some parts are more finished than others.

[IronForPistons]

Glad to hear you're making good progress! Lun's sprite is gorgeous and your background is looking great too! I've been following this idea for a while and I can't wait to see what you come up with!

[alliotus]

Super hyped for it when it's finished

[arachni42]

Thanks for the support, guys!

I updated the background again but I definitely won't be satisfied with it by the 31st, lol. I'm focusing on getting a demo together with the first 2/5 of the story as I mentioned, and I'll be continuing to work on the project. I'm aiming to finish it in April.

In past Nano's I've gotten to the end of the month but was burnt out on the project. I've taken care to not push myself TOO hard this time. But enough to keep some momentum.

[arachni42]

I'm going out of town this weekend, so I won't get a demo posted until the 1st or 2nd, but the script is all coded in. GUI needs some work. I have a screenshot with another WIP background. I also made some nighttime versions of the sprites.

[arachni42]

Okay, it's the 3rd already, but I got a demo up.

https://arachni42.itch.io/the-passage-of-ingenuity

Edit: I'm glad I have NaNo to motivate me; sometimes it's hard for me to take that last step and just get something out there

[IronForPistons]

Yay! I played through it and it was a lot of fun! Both characters have very well-defined personalities and they really show well through the script. Not to mention the awesome visuals! The sprites are amazing, the backgrounds fit in perfectly, and the GUI meshes really well with the other parts. I'm looking forward to seeing more!