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Well, well, well! It's NaNoRenO again, and this time I have concocted something a little darker than I expected. ^^ I came up with this concept just a few days before NaNoRenO started and it's been a blast to work on so far. I've been working out kinks in the story over the last few days, making gui, did some writing and a few other odds and ends. Hopefully I'll have more to share soon! ^^

And hopefully we'll all have fun with our projects this year.

Good luck, everyone! ^^

You've managed to make the art look kind of cute even with the horror theme! (: Looking forward to seeing more from this!

Ooh I like the art a lot so far! :] And the story is intriguing, definitely curious to find out more about it.

Zelan wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 04, 2020 7:09 pm

You've managed to make the art look kind of cute even with the horror theme! (: Looking forward to seeing more from this!

Thanks, Zelan! ^^ When I originally conceived this idea I just thought of it as a fantasy story. Then I realized it was gonna have quite a few creepy elements. I've never made a game in the horror genre before so I hope I can make this scary enough.

azaraih wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 07, 2020 12:26 pm

Ooh I like the art a lot so far! :] And the story is intriguing, definitely curious to find out more about it.

Thank you, Azaraih! ^^


I do have some stuff to show, now that I've finally gotten around to making some sprites!
This is Jared, our private investigator that gets caught up in something bigger than he bargained for. ^^





Due to the amount of POV switching that comes from having multiple main characters, I have devised the screen above to handle scene changes. ^^

As for writing, it's a little difficult to track because I'm not writing this strictly linearly and I've got stuff all over the place. But I have a word count of 4,500 words programmed into Ren'py right now so that's something. ^^

Thought I'd show off Samarra today! ^^ She's one of the guardians sworn to protect the city of Memora.



This is Warin, another guardian and a friend of Samarra's. They do have different concepts of how best to protect the city, which may lead to be a bit of strife later on. ^^



I also made Samarra a casual outfit but I'm not sure if I'm going to end up using it after all.



I actually lost internet for a few days this week. At least I could still work on my visual novel with it down. Less distractions, right?



I'll have a new update soon! (Unless I lose internet again. XD )

Got a couple more characters to show off today! Here's Adrianne, our little runaway. ^^



Although I've technically shown her off before, since she's in the main illustration above. To be honest, I kinda prefer the simplified way I draw her in the various illustrations in the game over her actual sprite. ^^

Also I figured I better show off at least one of the monsters, so...



This is Insidia. She has a soft spot for Adrianne. ^^ Not that that would stop her from trying to destroy Memora, of course.

I'm impressed again with your ability to make the horror legitimately scary, but also inviting, in a way. I've never enjoyed scary things, so there are very few horror games, movies, etc. that I actually end up choosing to play or watch. This game will definitely be one of them, though. Those extra eyes and limbs, the gaping hole in her chest - those things are scary, but I don't feel immediately compelled to look away from it like I do for other horror illustrations. The clean sprite style and that genuinely cute little smile serve to soften the more horrific aspects of the illustration so that I don't feel too creeped out to even look at it.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but the point is that I'm really looking forward to your game, and I rarely say that about anything in the horror genre. (:

Thanks again, Zelan! ^^ I'm kinda the same way, I don't really seek out stuff in the horror genre. I used to hate it as a kid but growing up with family members who liked horror has desensitized me a bit. I do like some dark humor and stuff that's creepy and cute. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite movies, for example. That may be why even my scary monsters look a little on the friendly side.

Hopefully you'll be able to enjoy my visual novel, even with the horror bits~~~

As for updates...
Thought I'd share some background images today!



Due to how big the script of this visual novel is I planned from the start to make them a bit less detailed. Granted, this picture of Memora is rather intricate:



But some of them are a lot simpler/more mood focused like this one.



I also realize I haven't had a writing update in a while so here goes. I had originally planned for this visual novel to be around 20,000 words long. For me, this was a bit of a stretch since the longest visual novel I've ever written was 12,000 words and the longest NaNoRenO I've ever done was 8,500 words. However, I was really inspired to make this story this year so I decided to go for it.

This project has been a journey through unfamiliar territory for me. I don't usually have routes that split off this much. So, what am I getting at?

I accidentally made the first route WAY too long. XD It's over 10,000 words on its own! Once I realized my mistake I decided to pare down the number of scenes in the other two routes but I don't really think I can cut the first route too much without some serious rewriting.

And I'd always planned the third route to be shorter, so this visual novel is going to have a short route, a medium route, and a long route for no good reason. XD

Oh, well, this was an experiment for me. Honestly, I'm really happy I broke my longest visual novel wordcount.

I've currently got 17,600 words programmed into Ren'py, and I'm not even halfway through the second route. And I have more words written that I have to put in Ren'py, and more words to write period! So who knows how long this is gonna be by the time it's all in there. ^^

And I have so many text files... XD

Congratulations on your writing! That's a huge milestone and you should be proud. ^_^

I love the plants in the backgrounds, they make me feel warm even though it's chilly where I am. And the contrast between those two backgrounds and the third is really stark, I'm curious to see how quickly or slowly the game changes from warm to cold.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorites, too! If your horror stuff is inspired by it in any way, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. (:

Zelan wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:34 pm

Congratulations on your writing! That's a huge milestone and you should be proud. ^_^

Thank you very much! ^^

Update:
I was planning to finish this visual novel by the end of March even though we have an extended deadline, but due to non-NaNo related stuff I've been a bit stressed out and haven't worked on this game as much as I should have the last few days. So I think I'm gonna let myself take a few extra days to work on this, since I have the option. ^^

In the meantime, here's a few screenshots!







Oh, look, a sprite on a background! Except you can't really see the background very well, haha. ^^

Also, I should note that I tend to tweak the writing right up until the end so the text you see in these screenshots may change slightly in the finished version. ^^

Eislyn's Apocalypse is complete! Yay!

So, I guess this is the final update. ^^

I wasn't really sure what to update during the last couple of weeks. I took a few days off at the end of March/beginning of April. (Though I worked on it a bit even on those 'off' days.) And then when I got back to work... I got tempted to add more stuff because of the extra time, haha. ^^

I am really glad we got the extra two weeks this year. This visual novel ended up being so much bigger than I expected. The final word count was 38,000 words! Crazy. And even the route I felt was 'shorter' ended up being about 10,000 words long! All three routes were over 10k, actually. So there isn't as big of a difference in length as I had thought, thankfully. ^^

And also thanks to the extra time, Eislyn's Apocalypse has music! I was seriously thinking about releasing it without any because I only managed to make two tracks in March. I'm not very skilled in that department. ^^ But I managed to finish four more in April and I think it makes the game feel much more complete.
I also got to add more cgs, too. ^^

I had a lot of fun making this visual novel and I hope you'll all enjoy playing it! ^^

You can download the game here:
https://jennemk.itch.io/eislyns-apocalypse

Completed game thread:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=58615