Lemma Soft Forums

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2020 1:20 pm**

"All aboard the Whirlwind Express, the first ever train to connect the capital cities of Zephyr and Gales! Officially the most luxurious train in the world, no expense was spared on this ground-breaking maiden voyage. With one of our private luxury cabins, you'll be traveling in style as we make history on this cross-country trip!"

When career thief Robin comes across a boarding pass for the Whirlwind Express, she thinks she's found a literal ticket to freedom. With a case full of stolen jewelry and her loyal bodyguard at her side, she's ready to flee the country in style...

That is, until she runs into her childhood friend turned detective. Though he doesn't appear to recognize her, he keeps her under an annoyingly watchful eye anyway.

Will Robin be able to keep her lies straight and make it off the train with the goods? Or will her cover be blown, along with her escape plan?

Robin's 'Ambition'
Growing up wealthy, Robin had everything she could ever want... or so it seemed. It always felt like something was missing, and the pieces finally fell into place the first time she stole from her father. Longing for freedom and the thrill of the chase, she became a runaway. She simply can't resist the call of adventure.

Wren's 'Suspicion'
Detective Wren has a keen eye for contradictions. Should Robin make make too many mistakes or get caught in an especially egregious error, Wren may have all the evidence he needs to prove what she's done.

Jay's 'Loyalty'
Jay is very protective of Robin (and perhaps a little jealous). If things seem to be going south, he may very well derail the whole plan. Accustomed to solving problems through the use of force, he has no qualms 'protecting' Robin by removing her from this situation, even if it's against her will.

Part one features:

A GxB story with two love interests
13k+ words (around an hour total playtime)
4 endings (2 bad, 2 good)
Currently, there are no CGs, but I hope to add some later!

Red-Handed Robin's story includes swearing and violence, including mentions of violence against a child.

There are also some sexual themes, but they are pretty tame.

Please play at your own discretion.

---------------------------------------------------
End of Edit

Hello! I'm Missy, and last year for NaNo, I made my first visual novel, Fetch Quest! I've since been working on a sort-of remake/larger game using the same characters and setting called Adventurers Wanted.

Apparently that has driven me insane, because now I'm working on this overly-ambitious monstrosity. I plan on using this thread as a dev log and posting about my process, so check it out if you want to watch me slowly burn myself to the ground.

In all seriousness, I'm excited to work on this story! I hope you'll look forward to it.

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2020 6:05 pm**

First process update! I'm going to use these updates to explain how I do things. I'm not sure if that will be interesting, but I personally like seeing how others work through their projects so...

The first thing I did was set up my Scrivner project for the script. This is how I organize it:

The story is set over the course of three days, and for now I have day 1 outlined. Each little card is a scene, and I've written a synopsis of what happens inside each one. While I do know how I want the story to end, I don't outline very far ahead. For some reason, outlining the whole story never works well for me, so I just stopped doing it.

I'll write each scene chronologically, and move them over to Ren'py later. As I write, I keep track of what sprites, backgrounds, and sound effects I'll need later in the 'research' section. (Incidentally, the 'Idea' card contains all the text i wrote at the top of this post.)

----------

When I feel like writing is getting too difficult, I switch over to something else. Right now, I'm working on getting my main character's sprites roughed out.

I take a screenshot inside of a base ren'py project (in this case, its the 'Ren'Py All-In-One GUI Template' found here) and blow it up to 200% in Clip Studio. I then sketch all the main sprites in the same file so I can make sure they are all the correct sizes relative to each other. I'll put them each in their own files when their sketches are done.

So here is my main trio, all at various levels of sketchiness! They're so ugly at this stage T-T

I'm hopefully going to have two arm poses per sprite for the guys, so they'll have a bit of movement without too much time spent. Last year, I easily spent 50% of my time endlessly tweaking the sprites. This time, I'm trying to be a little more loose and just accept that they won't ever be 'perfect' in my mind.

I'm hoping to have the sprites for these three done by the start of next week, but we'll see... Wren's dumb ponytail is already giving me problems.

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2020 9:19 pm**

I like the cut of your jib. Are you working on this by yourself??

Your cover art is amazing, very eye-catching. It's going to be a fantastic banner when you upload the game.
I love how firmly motivated these love interests are, and I find myself interested in getting to know them. I also appreciate you putting an overview of your scrivener outline -- it looks nice and succinct! Should be well within the scope of nanowrimo -- and even if you don't complete every little thing, I have faith you can make a pretty comprehensive demo.
I also enjoy switching gears between writing, art, and coding, though sometimes that drives me crazy haha. I just gave you a follow over twitter and itch. I haven't posted much to the internet at present, but I'm trying. I would be deeply flattered if we could be mutuals. <3

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2020 9:20 pm**

Oooh, this game looks quite intriguing! I absolutely loved your last NaNo (and even played it again not too long ago), and I am really lovin' the plot for this one! Really adore your art style, and I find it interesting to read your dev log posts. It's fun to see how different devs work ^^

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2020 10:10 pm**

Oh hey I liked Fetch Quest a lot last year, so I'm excited you're doing a new game! It's an intriguing plot so far and Robin seems like a fun protagonist. :] I love the eyeballs in the background of the art, it gives it a spooky ambiance.

It's cool seeing what other people's processes are! I use Scrivener also but mostly for notes, then I write in Ren'py so I don't have to reformat things later. Organizing it into different days and scenes is a great idea though, definitely a lot easier to keep track of things.

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:28 pm**

Oh, this is such a cool premise, and I really enjoyed Fetch Quest! Looking forward to seeing this project develop. ^_^

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:36 am**

Wudgeous wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 03, 2020 9:19 pm
I like the cut of your jib. Are you working on this by yourself??

Yep, because I ~~am a control freak~~ have a lot of free time. Seriously though, coding, writing, and art are all hobbies of mine, so making VNs brings them together into one super hobby.

Thanks for the follows. I've followed you back

Kokoro Hane wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 03, 2020 9:20 pm
Oooh, this game looks quite intriguing! I absolutely loved your last NaNo (and even played it again not too long ago), and I am really lovin' the plot for this one! Really adore your art style, and I find it interesting to read your dev log posts. It's fun to see how different devs work ^^

Ahh, thank you! I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Fetch Quest last year, so I'm glad you're looking forward to this game too.

azaraih wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 03, 2020 10:10 pm
Oh hey I liked Fetch Quest a lot last year, so I'm excited you're doing a new game! It's an intriguing plot so far and Robin seems like a fun protagonist. :] I love the eyeballs in the background of the art, it gives it a spooky ambiance.

It's cool seeing what other people's processes are! I use Scrivener also but mostly for notes, then I write in Ren'py so I don't have to reformat things later. Organizing it into different days and scenes is a great idea though, definitely a lot easier to keep track of things.

Thank you for pointing out the eyeballs! It gives me the opportunity to say they are my favorite part of that piece. I intend to put lots of prying eyes in my backgrounds 0.0

As for Scrivner, I write my script pretty close to how it's formatted in ren'py. Like so:

c "This is dialogue. I\'m saying things!"

That way when I move it over, there isn't too much formatting that needs done.

Zelan wrote: ↑
Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:28 pm
Oh, this is such a cool premise, and I really enjoyed Fetch Quest! Looking forward to seeing this project develop. ^_^

Thank you! This game is a bit more ambitious than Fetch Quest, but I'm hoping I can still pull it off!

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:59 am**

HitOrMissy wrote: ↑
Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:36 am
Ahh, thank you! I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Fetch Quest last year, so I'm glad you're looking forward to this game too.

Oh I am SUPER EXCITED about this one! I forgot to mention I really love the promotional art you made for it. The lighting is really cool and eye-catching! I know this'll be a super fun ride!

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2020 5:41 pm**

I'm glad everyone likes the promo art I made! Unfortunately, since I made it before the start date, it can't be used in the game itself ;_; I'm not sure if it can be used in other ways, like as the itch thumbnail or banner.

For today's update:

I actually started the script! It's very late, I know... but starting a whole new script is very daunting. I read a trick to help get started when you can't think of your first line: Just skip it! So that's what I usually end up doing. For instance, here's the beginning of my first scene:

It's the first part of the scene I could hear the words for. Is this a good start to a brand new story? Nope, but getting my momentum going is more important. Once I have something written, its much easier to keep going. An opener will usually come to me later, and I'll go back and put it in.

At the top is my list of characters in the scene and the shorthand names I'll use for them in ren'py. Whenever a new character is introduced, I'll give them a one or two letter name to make things faster when writing. I put the # in front of each line so that when I transfer the script over to ren'py, they'll be commented out.

----------

In the art department, I've gotten the base sketches for the main 3 characters and their alternate arm poses done. The first thing I did when I opened Clip today was draw a really satisfying hand, and then Clip instantly crashed... quite possibly the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced. The second hand was drawn in a blind rage.

Anyway, I started sketching out everyone's clothes, and made it this far before my pencil died. I decided to call it a day after that.

Everyone's outfits will probably end up being different to the promo art, as I get a clearer picture of what these guys are like and what they'll be doing. They're starting to look less ugly now!

Posted: **Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:31 pm**

Everyone's fully clothed now! And Robin's the first to get some color.

I'm doing my best not to linger too long on any one stage of art, because that's usually where I get caught up in the details. Unfortunately, that means I don't have much to say today.

Posted: **Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:33 pm**

I really like looking at the sketches, especially to see how one does multiple poses.

Robin's wavy hair is fabulous, and nice coloring job! Love the eyes ^^

Posted: **Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:14 pm**

Kokoro Hane wrote: ↑
Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:33 pm
I really like looking at the sketches, especially to see how one does multiple poses.

Robin's wavy hair is fabulous, and nice coloring job! Love the eyes ^^

I’m surprised my sketches are at all readable XD they’re pretty messy.

Posted: **Fri Mar 06, 2020 5:34 pm**

Not much to say today, but here's the progress I've made on Jay's sprite.

I have a feeling I'll have less and less to say in these updates as the month goes on...

Posted: **Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:29 pm**

I love Jay's expression. I kind of get the vibes, since he is Robin's attendant, he might get easily frustrated with her lol.

Posted: **Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:54 pm**

Kokoro Hane wrote: ↑
Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:29 pm
I love Jay's expression. I kind of get the vibes, since he is Robin's attendant, he might get easily frustrated with her lol.

Haha yep! Jay is just easily frustrated in general.

And there he is! I'm not at happy with the gun holsters atm; I feel like they're reading more as a backpack or something. I'll probably come back and fiddle with it later if I have time.

I'm trying to remember why I decided to give everyone removable jackets. I guess I should just trust that past me knew what I was doing -_-;

I'm going to be working on backgrounds soon. Time to learn how to draw a train...

Lemma Soft Forums

Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020] [COMPLETE]

Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020] [COMPLETE]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]

Re: Red-Handed Robin [GxB] [Adventure] [Romance] [Gaslamp Fantasy] [NaNo2020]