Elysian Days (Centome) [GxB/G, Fantasy, Nano 2014]

[Funnyguts]

Welcome to the world of Elysian Days! In the land of Elysium, humans, horses and centaurs live together in relative harmony. Near Mount Parnassus, spring is just beginning, and for one stablehand and a few suitors, love seems to be carried through the flowerbeds...

The protagonist!
Written by all of us. She's nameable!
The protagonist is a stablehand that runs an inn of sorts for travelling centaurs and humans that need a place to keep their horses. She's well known in the town for being helpful and a bit silly.
Welcome to the

Cornelius Gringolet
Written by TheUnforgiven
A falabella centaur who's not quite happy about being so tiny. He's still pretty popular and enjoys showing off his manliness.

Sleipnir
Written by Kaleidofish
A gypsy vanner, Sleipnir is one of the wealthiest people in town. He's not fond of most people he considers common folk, with one exception...

Joan
Written by Funnyguts
A curly horse centaur, Joan is a big crusader for the rights of horses who can't speak up against human oppression. She also has a strong friendship with a lot of the local gods.

The art will be done by Ryuieri and Reikun! (Ryu was the one who drew all of the excellent concept designs linked to above!)

Feel free to ask us questions! (And good luck to the other group making a centaur game, and good luck to everyone doing Nano!)

[Sora-Kuroi]

wow! an otome with centaurs, interesting! I like the plot and the art is amazing! I'll be keeping an eye on this! >w<

[Googaboga]

Wow I never thought I'd see a VN with a centaur who wears glasses. I love it X3. Centaurs are great and I really like the sound of this setting/world :3.

[Reikun]

Heeeyyy BG artist dropping in with horrid sketch updates taken with a webcam OTL

Ta-da!!

I am going to try to do the BGs for mainly traditionally~ Going to start penciling on watercolor paper tomorrow afternoon (after my exam :<). I'm a little behind schedule but nothing like working on 4 paintings simultaneously, right?!???

[Hazel-Bun]

*Hyperventilates* Centaurs and otome at that? I'm sold ovo I shall anxiously await the end of March and the first of April!

[Reikun]

sprites by Ryu! (charas not to scale w/each other...)

A little update! Obviously we didn't make the NaNo deadline so I'm going to be doing a little reflection on what I learned since this was my first year attempting NaNo (only speaking for myself here). For starters, my biggest issue was, surprise!, time management. Between exams and travel plans this was probably not the best time for me a attempt a project with a team OTL But I'm still glad I did it because I learned a lot.

For me:
1. Set expectations and time for communication. This seems kinda obvious but it's something I overlooked this time around. I feel like we sort of casually slipping into development without outlining ways we could get in touch and when we'd be available to talk to each other throughout the month due to our various schedules and timezones. As a result I didn't have too many real-time conversations with my teammates which was a shame. The lag time between asking a question and getting the answer sometimes days later really slows down development.
2. Save everything as a .PSD file. I learned this the 'hard' way. I should have confirmed with the other artist on the team what filetype was best for her in advance (especially since we already planned on splitting up work for CGs lineart/color). As a result we lost of WEEK of development time since I was out of town and couldn't correct my error until I got back (ARGH). PSD files will cover most major drawing programs so it's a safe bet, but I should also confirm my teammates' tools next time I'm collaborating!!!
3. Update each other often. I'm not gonna lie. I'm really bad at this since my mindset is "don't bother saying anything if it's not substantial." As a result I tend to come in bearing finished stuff after days/weeks of silence. Yeeeaahhh not the best practice when you're in a team (also highly unprofessional of me, even if I was just doing this for fun and working on a free project). In the future I should be sending screenshots of wips or just touching bases with people I collaborate with at least once a week or so.

There were other factors involved in my failure to deliver for this project, but I'll just say that your personal life WILL get in the way ^____^; It's hard to look at my failures and critique myself but I'll never learn if I don't do it. I'm going to lessen how often I collaborate in the future since it's hard for me to collaborate while I'm in school, not to mention I slow everyone down. That's all for me! Maybe someone else on the team will chime in. I hope reading about my experience with NaNo might help someone else out, especially if they're on the fence for participating next year.

TL;DR Be honest with yourself about your abilities and your schedule before you decide to commit to a NaNo project, especially if you're with a team or trying to build a team. OK THAT'S IT! Congrats to everyone who finished on time this year!!!

P.S. Yes, we are still working on this..!

Edit: btw we are now looking for a colorist for the CGs ;w; --> http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 38&t=26182