Hello!
My name is Chell (as you can probably see,) and I'm a 26 year old female with a few ongoing gaming projects - or rather, my studio's! Been working in-and-out on around ten of them, not all of these made in Ren'py (I also use RPG Maker VX for visual novel + RPG hybrids, seeing as I have a license for using it). Tried making a Wordpress for displaying my project ideas but turns out making a free Wordpress is a bit difficult lol, so I'm considering sticking with Neocities or maybe even Wix or Blogger for now.
First, before mentioning my current projects, let me talk about the things I enjoy/do and think of inserting in my games! Please don't bother reading anything below if you don't enjoy at least a few of these.
- I tend to not be incredibly plot-driven, I'm more of a person who makes a script revolving around a few elements/things/aesthetics/ideas/scenes I wanna insert. Which is why I end up with a hundred projects and not enough time/motivation to actually work on them ; ; ; . But uh yea
- I really like, uh, 80s manga aesthetic. It's not a must but it's undoubtedly an inspiration. Think of something like Urusei Yatsura or Cipher or maybe even Creamy Mamy or Perfect Blue ; I like the "lazy-looking w/ a few distinguished features" aesthetic (...but not purely distorted looks from the 90s although I do like 70s shoujo art too, esp. those eyesss ♥ ; ; ; )
- For games, honestly I love indie RPG/exploration and I like otome games in every shape or form! From the likes of Angelique to Tokimemo to Mystic Messenger - I really enjoy them all. It's highly unlikely that I would script a romance story driven game that's not an otoge, (GXB) or at least GXG or BXB. Although romance isn't even my main focus - I'd much rather write stories that include full-fledged romance but do not revolve around it.
- I intend to make games that are good for learning whatever. Truth be told, I'm knowledgeable in a few areas, I'm a big fan of educational games I would play as a child and I enjoy making games that help people learn stuff without even realizing it. By the way, among my uhh interests/fields of expertise are mental health issues (worked in the field for two years, yes I know what a DSM is and no I'm not a wikipedia expert.) so that's relevant!
Not gonna lie, I have too many interests. Among them are the 16bit gen games I grew up with, later replaced by NDS and Playstation 2 games. So I enjoy and can do some basic pixel art, (check my RM2K3 games for it... all made from scratch too!) but I also grew up with manga and anime asweall as anime art (way back when CG was noveau tbh lol) which is the basis for my Ren'py games' art. So I can do these even though they're not like, super high quality but it's doable. On the other hand I do consider myself a skilled writer. Aside from English and my main language I can also speak some Spanish and Japanese (not Jouzu but!!) (and am learning French but lol Lord forbid ; ; anyway where was I ). Regarding drawing, I have been considering learning modelling and/or photography so I could draw better sceneries ; as for characters I can sew and am currently trying to get into BJD collecting so I can make them pose and all, for these purposes. Last but not least I was great at designing and making graphics way back then but I don't own current versions of Adobe Photoshop and GIMP kinda sucks, so... can do it reasonably I guess lol.
My music-making skills do suck (I tried to do some mixing and enjoy listening to music from different styles a lot but I don't seem to have a natural talent ; ), I don't have good enough equipment to even bother trying SFX and voice-acting and programming isn't my forte either (despite being raised in an apt family, ... I can only do HTML.) although I did try learning some Python basics in Codecademy way back then and am interested in learning. But I tend to gloss over thOse things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To summarize it I am a bit of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" type of game designer (although I would only call myself a game artist) and I enjoy creating games/art in general for fun. It's a way of venting for me and I always expect to cheer up people who are simply trying to enjoy being alive despite the difficult times we are going through. So, even if I AM ambitious regarding my projects, I hope people without big ambitions but with a lot of passion for the things I enjoy are willing to join me. My schedule is always full (being a social worker by day and law student by night is a lot of trouble I swear ; ; ; ) and I'm always busy except for weekends, so that's another thing one may have to deal with when working with me.
Alright, now for my current projects! Many of which are basically... sparse... ideas.
- I am currently working on Wizards' Gathering - there is a beta ver up for download on my itch.io! I had been working alone (with music courtesy of ILWAG
) but a cg artist has joined me so expect a 0.5.5 version soon ...? - Another project with a downloadable alpha ver is Cat Business ; music is courtesy of a friend and I didn't create anything but the script. I was just testing stuff, but then I felt inspired enough to begin writing a script about a young weeaboo woman who works as the manager of a big business. Those days I was studying Business Management and wanted to share my findings (and, uh, help myself through tests lol). It's nowhere near finished and it's one project I'd love to get help with. For now, it's called Moe Money Moe Problems (please get the silly reference.) and aside from business management, corporative mindset and weeaboo life there's also a bit on abusive relationships, sustainability, familial problems, friendship and magic (whooooo).
- One project I really need help with revolves around, uh, a medieval princess who was assigned a husband and all that but really wanted to be a war commander, so she ran away from the castle; I'm thinking of making it an otome game with different physical routes (i. e. you press on a map where she will run to; she is always fleeing from the guards of the castle, an expedition, etc. until she is far enough into the woods that it becomes a dating "route".) I plan on making it a very classical "fantasy dating with a princess" game because thats how Japanese gamedevs think lol with an added dimension of actual Middle Ages history mixed with some 20th century feminism. Really don't intend on making it feminist propaganda though, just uhh food for thought I guess! Also, one of the routes has a gay couple for partners and the other has a time traveller so I swear it's nothing too serious.
- Another project I would like to get some help with, I actually came up with while trying to think of ways of... teaching English to young adults ... it's the story of an "au pair" who has to learn English the hard way ; I'm not sure many people can relate or help but worth noting anyway?
- One project I simply do not know what to do with, but would gladly try to develop further if anyone more knowledgeable than me was willing to help, is based on a script I began writing for an, uh, Egypt-themed jam. Since it seemed too cliche to write a story based on Ancient Egypt, I gathered all my knowledge on present-time Egypt (which was initially "none at all", and then became "a few readings on Africa dot com and Wikipedia + a few songs and all,") and it quickly developed into the story of a young couple who lived near a river ; the guy was a fishermen and the woman was a storyteller who shared stories of Ancient Egypt, which was kinda fun until I finally gave up lol. No plans of finishing it at all unless anyone really wants me (us) to.
- Lastly but not least important there's a ... long story. On my itch.io you can find a short script which I called Girly x Study and made on a whim for a Yuri writers jam, but I kind of liked it and... thought of trying to develop it further. Nothing happened for ages until, eventually, I was inspired by a song and thought of gender-swapping it (because I'm admittedly a BL manga reader so it sounded easier to write BL ...) and at some point I realized I had a few romance-centered GL/BL scripts which didn't add up to a full story, aaand it became one of those BL manga with a hundred spinoffs telling the story of a silly-yaoihanded-character number 18725 from childhood to elderhood. At this point I have no idea what I was trying to do at all. But, anyway, it's worth noting I do write the occasional BL (and GL although I suck at it.) so if that's your thing feel free to message me and all.
