The Dreamer's Requiem (GxG/BxG fantasy+modern school life)

[Tsuyuri]

Story:

Dreams are a most curious thing aren’t they? While we know they exist we rarely are able to grasp the full nature of their existence. But what if dreams are much more than just dreams? The world that is commonly known as ‘The Plane of Dreams’ is the answer to that. A world closely bordering our own but far more special than one could imagine. For a long time the existence of this realm has been left unaware to humanity… Till now. The Kimura clan is not only the caretakers of a small shrine overlooking a rural town for they are what fiction often describes as ‘Exorcists’ or 'Spiritualists'. Those people having developed the unusual ability to enter the plane of dreams learned of the existence of a species resembling humans a lot. Their appearance, culture and even behavior resembled humans in such detail one might not be able to notice the difference between the two of them.

But still they couldn’t call them humans… Calling them ‘Spirits’ the Kimura clan started living among them learning more about this new world. For as long as the spirits could remember their kindred have lived in peace among the ‘Wanderers’. Wanderers, a term given to humans who enter the plane of dreams while asleep are a existence resembling their selves in reality but only temporarily for the moment they wake up they disappear, never able to be aware of their time within this world.

But in the end that peaceful time was ended brutally when the Kimura clan revealed the existence of reality, unaware of the effects it would have on the spirits of the Plane of Dreams. Haunted by paranoia whenever their existence was real or a form of fiction from a person’s imagination many of the spirits were driven into insanity to the point some took their own lives in a attempt to be freed from the fear, only to be reborn in the world anew.

Many years later a turbulent time is upon the plane of dreams. A young female spirit starts a revolution against the Dream Wardens, sacred guardians of her realm. Declaring herself a Renegade Spirit, the tile given to the traitors and criminals of their world her actions shake the hearts of many of her kindred.

The determination as she declared that she would free her people from the paranoia humanity cursed them with. The confidence that their feelings, thoughts and memories were their own, something that made them alive and real and not some form of fantasy made her companions regain the courage to stand again. But what was most surprising was when she announced she would save her people at all costs, even if she was branded a criminal and killed for her crimes, but she promised she wouldn’t perish before she shown her people the truth… By destroying the border separating their world and reality…

As the drums of war sound within the plane of dreams life continues as usually within reality or at so it seems on the surface… As a young student enjoys their every-day life among their friends something most peculiar happens when they start having dreams of another world. What is this world? Why do they have those dreams? But most importantly… Why do various people in this world look a lot like their friends in reality? That be up to you to find out!

Phew that was difficult to write without spoiling things about the story. First let me thank you all for reading this topic. The story itself was born from my desire to write a little tale tied to a character I once made for a forum roleplay. Having written it out into detail I started to recently desire to see it realized but then I thought it might be more fun to turn it into a visual novel than to make it into a book.

Features:

Choice of your main character’s gender:
Want to be a boy or maybe a girl? This choice is yours to take now! Each choice will change both the main story and the versions of various routes. And you’re actually able to encounter the other main character.

Two different heroes, two different tales:
Live out the tale of one of the two heroes that changed the plane of dreams forever. Each option will give a different main story, leading to at least four possible combinations to enjoy

Two worlds:
Enjoy how a ordinary school life story blends with a fantasy world on the brink of war. The existence of two worlds will give a different feeling to the cast of each world.

Different Romance options:
Able to decide between GxG or BxG
As much as I desired to add a BxB option my muse Tsuyuri the goddess of Yuriness declared there be no such thing on her watch.

Several Routes:
A option that obviously many games have the main character will be able to interact with various people in such a way the story will change depending on their choices. And with a cast of several heroes and heroines to enjoy there be plenty of options to pick from.

Final notes:
Well there we go. While I am in the process of preparing the flowchart of the story the game itself has yet to be started for several reasons. I’m sure many of you will ask ‘if you plan to make such a large game then it obviously be a lot of writing’. Indeed it will! Even with my autism and ability to spend nearly 24 hours a day behind a computer I consider this a long term project, but one I seriously plan to finish at all costs. On forum roleplays I’m know for not being satisfied with a story till I made it to the best of my abilities, and then it be up to the readers to tell me on how to improve~

Lack of a Character Cast list:
For now I have yet to write out a list for the simple reason some names are not yet decided and also because I am in the process of fleshing out things like their personality, background etc. But as the story will develop I plan to introduce the cast list bit by bit~

Team:
Since this is obviously my first visual novel ever I have been able to gather a few people around me to aid me with the process of creation.

Writer:
While I understand some novels deploy multiple writers I hope that by writing it by myself the routes will all feel like they are part of the same story. That and I’d be a bit nervous to burden someone else with having to endure all my notes and details about certain characters of events~

Sound Team:
Having gained the assistance of two friends, one who works as a professional DJ and the other studying music in university I hope we be able to bring the world to life with their assistance.

Coder:
Let me tell you a story~ On my first day on this forum while I was trying out Renpy I was so confused by the engine that I went to look for someone who was willing to help me code the script but also to teach me how to use the engine. Sending a pm to someone I explained my situation and asked for their help and like an angel descending from the sky they decided to help me out~

Ending Closure:
And that’s all for the report for now~ As we speak the visual novel is obviously in the very first stages of creation. For the moment my plan is to release a demo in the future for people to enjoy, this is mostly both to get to see if people like the style of writing I use (and to get their opinions about various things)

Finally the little team is obviously still open to those who love to help out. Obviously any help is welcome and appreciated but due to my condition I am only able to pay the artist (or artists) who work on the project (unless those who want to work with the sound can make me go ‘O_O’ (what is sort of easy to do~). Albeit once the project is finished and everything went smoothly I do hope to find a way to reward everyone on the project~

Of course if anyone ends up having questions or comments I’d love to hear them either in the topic or pm~

ps: also the actual title of the visual novel isn't decided yet~ the title for now is just a reference to the story in the plane of dreams

[Ran08]

Aha. I think this will be quite good. I'm not a fan of yuri, but I find the plot interesting.

The opening itself caught my eye. I like how you started by asking about dreams... such things are always intriguing for most.

Despite the "little team" you have, I'm hoping that you will finish this wonderful concept. I wish you all the best. Goodluck with this project!

[gekiganwing]

Ambition is a good thing. It's admirable to create complex narrative and gameplay. Unfortunately, a lot of ambitious VNs get stalled after a while, and don't make it past the planning or demo stage. (People have time management concerns and real life conflicts all the time. And it's easy to lose interest in your VN if there's a lot of stuff to write, or a lot of gameplay to program. There's another thread on this topic...)

That said, if you're creating your first freeware visual novel, then you might benefit by only having one main character. This will reduce the scope of your VN, and help you focus on the parts you want to create.

[Tsuyuri]

thank you for your compliment Ran08~ I'm looking forward to trying to make it an entertaining read

and I understand your concern Gekiganwing. It's indeed very likely to happen normally but I'll hope to lessen those chances by having a actually written out novel version of the plot available as substance. While this indeed does not cover all routes it provides me a good method to keep track of the story as a whole (that alongside the use of a flowchart and tons of word documents (I'm basically trying to write each part of a chapter/arc in a separate document. This makes it easier for me to manage and for when I need to come back to things later.

A example would be the prologue. I personally consider it divided into two parts and each into several chapters. While the prologue doesn't have many options/choices to select from a certain point in the prologue of the first part allows you to view a extra event depending on your choice. This led me to making another document that details the event and in essence has several references for me to keep in mind for later chapters that might use those references (for example having watched the event will make a later chapter different since 'you' as the main character have experienced it and hold knowledge of said event.

But luckily I myself don't have to worry about the coding. The person I have assisting me has much~ much~ much~ more experience with it than myself so I can focus entirely on the script.

On terms of freeware I indeed hope to make it that (since I want to make everyone able to enjoy the story) so it might end up being a freeware with a 'feel free to donate a tiny sum if you enjoyed the game'~ Mostly so that I can keep our artist motivated (the poor soul has to draw so much T_T)

Also I think I might be a masochist in that when I have much to write I get more hyper and excited about it

But time for a little report~

January 3-5 period
The team's foundation has been completed with the recruiting of an artist
The plan is to release a Prototype of the very first scene among the team (and those interested) that will simply show a short intro scene (this is mostly a means to see if we all like the initial design (like the graphics and such) sadly this will be soundless for the time being~
Preparations with the artist have started to draw the graphics for the Prototype

Plot process: (yay~)
Prologue Part 1 Chapter 1 complete
Prologue Part 1 Chapter 2 complete
Prologue Part 1 Chapter 3 (Branch A) complete
Prologue Part 1 Chapter 3 (Branch B)
Prologue part 1 chapter 4 -Version A- (this is mostly the same chapter with certain alterations unlike the branch what involves different/additional events
Prologue part 1 Chapter 4 -Version B-
Prologue part 1 Chapter 5

--- End of Prologue Part 1--- (the prologue is divided into 2 parts, part 2 basically being two different versions depending on the option chosen at the end of part 1/start of part 2)

For now I'm planning to finish Prologue part 1 hopefully before the end of next week. This of course is only a alpha in that first I'm sending the script to the artist so they get a idea of the situation and characters. Then once they are done it's pm the script to the coder and when they are done the prototype can be prepared~

But Gekiganwing made me think for a moment. Is there anyone with former script/vn writing experience who is willing or interested to be the 'proofreader of the script' person?

It needs to be someone who isn't shy to toss critique at me (for example about the size of a chapter, or certain wording in the chapter) it's a bit different than the later proofreading because I'd need them to basically read the script anytime a chapter/chapters are finished rather than at the end of the whole creation.

But once more thank you both for your comments~

Edit: Additional chapter script is finished~

[Tsuyuri]

Dear Lemma Soft readers~

I apologize for making a double post but I wanted to provide some updates on the project.

First and foremost there has been a nice amount of process on terms of the Visual Novel. After considering the earlier advice and discussing it both with my parents (who are very supportive of the idea) and the team we decided to continue with the initial concept. While realizing the risks I still am confident enough I enjoy story-telling and writing to such a extend that I won’t leave this unfinished (I actually have volunteer work that involves story-telling verbally to children at elementary schools and most will know how picky they are on terms of their story-teller ^^

Now for the good news as I’m writing this the first part of the prologue is complete and after carefully planning decided to add a little surprise into the visual novel by means of an optional system I lazily call ‘Interactive Battles’ more details on this will follow soon but to give a bit of a hint it allows you to decide how battles unfold~. Also since our artist started working on the first character designs I plan to try to get a placeholder website up and running to provide more information about the characters, story and a list of updates.

The bad news is that it is very likely unable to become a freeware game. While this saddens me, and is of course a very difficult decision I hope by allowing the price to remain cheap (for example around 10~15 dollar) that we be able to extend the game to a larger public. The reason I made this choice is because after making several calculations it became clear to me that if I wanted to be able to work on future projects also I needed to make certain I could at least cover the costs of the visual novel. This was a thought that came up in me because after writing out the alpha version of the script I quickly opened my eyes when I realized the estimated cost for the first part of the prologue would be between 1100~1200 dollar alone already. Then if you add the fact that once chapter 1 arrives each chapter will have at least between 2~4 versions of each event CG the numbers start to skyrocket.

To end this post on a more cheerful tone. My birthday is the 20th of this month (January) and my parents already decided they are fine with giving me a bit of money to put into the project. Oh! And I’m planning to go and watch the Hobbit movie (I’m a big Tolkien fan~) with my nephew who was born on the same day as I~

Who knows watching that movie will give me a surge of inspiration~ I did love the lord of the rings movies (especially the war scenes~).

[Veniae]

Oh, that really sounds intriguing! Thumbs up for the ambitious project, that's respectable! You seem hell-bent on getting it done, which is great, so I can just say: keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to seeing more soon!

And another thing: The Hobbit is brilliant! I've watched it four times already, and I'd gladly see it again. xD Hope you enjoy it!

[Ran08]

Ooooh, hearing that it will be commercial kinda saddens me too... but I think it will be worth it.

I do hope you're gonna make a demo though! Then who knows, maybe lots of people will buy it after that. After all, the story is really interesting! And I like the concept of Interactive Battles too.

[Tsuyuri]

Yep the plan is to make two demo versions so to speak~

One will be the Prototype that leads up the the first half of the prologue (and shows two samples of the interactive battles~) the other is an actual demo that leads till the end of the prologue~

Now the question might be what the difference between the two versions might be~ The answer to that is that the actual demo shows the intro of both the plane of dreams and the real world characters (basically you get to experience the 'first day' of the female or male real world hero alongside the prototype content)

On terms of release dates nothing is solid yet aside from a raw estimate of Q2~Q3 of this year for the Prototype~

Also I might have some samples to show in a while~ The artist send me a WIP sketch of one of the intro characters so everyone is hard at work ^^

[Ran08]

Ahaaaa! That's amazing. When will you post art here then? XD We'd love to see it.

[Tsuyuri]

*puts on a pair of glasses*

This is Yuri-sensei with another report for the day~

The first half of the prologue's script is 100% finished~ Afterwards with my biased opinion I decided to work on the female real world hero's intro and then will work on the male one~

In the meanwhile here are some statics~

First half of the prologue:
5161 words of text (alpha script, will likely become more once we turn it into beta for the prototype)
5 Characters of the cast are introduced in this prologue
9 Event CG's
2 battle events with each having about 10~15 Event CG's (those will be the optional interactive fights I been talking about~)
6 Backgrounds

I hope this gives a little insight why things take a bit long~ I'm already happy that the artist is eager to work along with such a huge project~

On terms of art samples please hang on a little longer~ I'm just as excited as some of you to see them~ especially since the WIP sketch I gotten made me really look forward to the result~

Also a character list is a work in process tied to the website creation where I'll be able to provide updates more often without seemingly shamelessly bumping my concept page =P

Update 1:

So this week has been rather eventful~ We got an additional artist on the team now~ Sadly the artist had to finish a manga collaboration with someone first but starting from next week they be joining our little team~

*spies some notes* Aha~ It appears there might be something 'interesting' to show next weekend~

On another note~ I'm afraid to report than my earlier calculations were a bit off-the-scale~

With the alpha version (basically my first write-up of the scenes) being turned into beta (basically the ACTUAL version that is to be given to the proofreaders) several new things appeared~

To help explain this right now the prologue is divided into 3 intro's so to speak~

To avoid spoiling those let's call them

Intro part 1
Intro part 2
Intro part 3

Right now the alpha script of those three was written but while reading over it I thought 'isn't it better to go like this?' and went into a writer frenzy and the next morning noticed my computer was littering with notes ^^ while the story of the intro's themselves hasn't changed there have been additional scenes implanted into them to help flesh out the characters~

That's all for now~ =3

hopefully I'll be able to report something exciting soon~

[Tsuyuri]

A new week means new things to talk about~


First of all I promised last week I would have something to show~

In the attachment below you see what happens when I and one of our artists start to toss ideas back and forth~


Our subject? The female real world protagonist in a school uniform~

note: this isn't a final design yet~ just something fun to show~

expect more to be shown very soon now that things are starting to move~

[Ran08]

Ahaaaaa, so kawaii. )
Are her eyes really meant to be like that though? They look sort of weird to me. Haha. But still cute nevertheless.

[Tsuyuri]

So~ I know this has been a long time, and people likely assume it died but it hasn't! *flails arms* Me and my friend have been really busy working on the story ideas and art~ However the person who was going to help us with the Ren'Py coding poofed out of existence. This means I'm mostly just experimenting with it myself till I find someone who wants to work with us on that. In other news~~ The game will end up being free, so no need for me to worry about financial stuff >_<

Now where was I~ Updates! aye in those months there's been more plotting (and of course drawing)

Concept Art:
http://oi40.tinypic.com/aol344.jpg
Don't let this girl deceive you, she's more than she appears to be!

http://oi44.tinypic.com/2j4vmmq.jpg
Did someone order a bodyguard?

http://oi40.tinypic.com/33l06kk.jpg
Plane of dreams really likes having a different type of attire than our real world~
(no that's totally not inspired by the Final Fantasy 14 arcanist outfit~ *whistles innocently*

That's all I be showing for now~ =3 maybe next time I'll have one of the male characters to show~

Once more I apologize for the delay in updates *makes a mental note to update more frequently*

[wererat42]

Good to see this is still alive. Story outline kind of reminds me of Dreameater Merry (not sure if that was intentional or not) and the character designs are nice. Can't say no to a lady in a suit.

[Tsuyuri]

I know the series~ but I started this project before reading the manga.

Aside from that...

We all know this nasty thing called real life, it likes to pop up at the most unexpected moments and does all in its might to occupy you and keep you from doing what you want to do. Fortunately things have been calming down, and honestly I got a lot to report as a result.

First things first, on terms of team members we saw a small shift recently. Due to work and school our previous artist decided to remain on standby and while they will work with us on future endeavors they became unable to continue working on the project. In return however we gained the joy of working with Badriel from the forums here who has been actively working with us at such a pace that we’re nearing the arrival of a Work in Process demo of the first part of the prologue.

Alongside that I have another, maybe a bit crazy of an announcement to make. One of the reasons there was a lack of response was because an important aspect of the project was being discussed, the idea of making both a visual novel and an RPG out of it. While my choice was easily made due to my love of Roleplaying Games the end result did lead me to make a few decisions budget-wise.

The male protagonist of the real world and his routes will be temporarily suspended till after the female character her version is completed. To explain more about my reason of making an RPG out of the game I’ll hope to be able to explain myself a bit further.

You see, when I started this project I didn’t want to merely shape a story, but an actual world for people to explore. It was obvious to me that while Ren’py can easily be used to make captivating stories it’s a bit more difficult coding-wise to create an actual world for players to explore in a way I desired. In the end it was for that reason I made contact with two individuals. One is a very talented musician in the RPG maker community who aside from (in later parts of the project) will start doing the audio for the project, but is also working on the mapping of the areas, having gone as far as commissioning a tileset builder (for those who are foreign to the term, consider maps in RPG maker like a puzzle and the tileset builder makes the pieces while the mapper creates the puzzle). Finally I was incredibly lucky to snatch a talented pixel artist who made us able to obtain the necessary tools to give life to our characters in the game by making the sprites (not to be confused with the character sprites of a visual novel) and animated battlers, yes the game will have animated combat.

Now the question most are likely waiting for, when will a demo become available? I judge if all things go well January might be the month where we can display something, or maybe even during the holidays in December. All in all we are simply waiting for two more Event CG, a few more poses for our sprites and for a proofreading to be done before we can start putting everything together to make the little demo. Do note that this is mostly a proof of concept, and therefore won’t take more than a couple of minutes to play through (perhaps 10 at most). Consider it more of a trailer than an actual demo. A site is also being worked on, but more on that later

But before I’ll poof into the abyss of the internet let me provide you all with a bit of art~

An Event CG~

The Kimura shrine, one of the many backgrounds in the visual novel

Every story needs a wise old man

Shizuka is very serious about me making this post, so I'll try to behave

It's our real world protagonist, in casual clothes. Summer, if only it was that warm here in Belgium...

U-Umm if anyone asks why this loli suddenly grown a pair of pillows, I blame the fact she had a bit too much milk to drink...