Black Doves [VN] [Circus, Drama, Fantasy, Romance] [5/30]

[Hazel-Bun]

@arttorney Hmm I'll keep that in mind! I think I'll stick to the super dark outline but it all depends.

Worked a little bit more on the script. First little section has been revised so I'll try and get to that soon. Going to try and finish up the save/load screen today along with trying my hand at a text box and or menu. Sent over the next bit to be edited as well.

I think I'll be using this as the seconday font (http://www.dafont.com/cardinal.font?text=Black+Doves) but, I'm torn at the moment between it and this, the current one (http://www.dafont.com/oldstyle-hplhs.fo ... lack+Doves).

Here's another concept along with some sounds I'm thinking about using in game! Will update more later.

http://www.freesound.org/people/Setunim ... ds/182108/
http://www.freesound.org/people/Pogotron/sounds/60832/

[Hazel-Bun]

Finished my first attempt at a save/load screen today that and get more writing done. Will try to pop out a NVL and textbox tomorrow and then on to the last screen and the one that scares me the most (code wise), settings. Now only if I knew how to code it in properly... After I wrap up the first version of the GUI, I'll hand it over to Alex to hopefully fix up the coding mess I've created.

The script is now about 5,000 words long. Still a ways to go but it's getting there slowly. I'm trying to get it finished before Friday of next week seeing as I leave for my trip then. Found a nice design for Katherine who makes use of wheelchair of sorts, though this lady is just sitting. The dress is banging though and her hair and everything just strikes me as her. (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_96XVIwBWXCM/S ... ctoria.jpg)


Here's a snippet of what I wrote today, still un-edited so excuse any mistakes on my part. b is Beato, t Trill and p is paloma. Doesn't make much sense in or out of context haha Paloma and Trill have just arrived at the circus at this point and she's a bit overwhelmed... Paloma at least. Trill's off in fairyland somewhere because she got new cloths (her circus attire in her concept work).

Just a FYI, Paloma speech is extremely stilled as her language is not the same as that of the place she is sold to. Hence the shift from "The grandiose sweeping scenery" to "I see many trees" when speaking to another character. It gets better quickly though but I can't really show this in the thread.

p “Huh?”
? “Hey-”
p “AH!”
p "I whipped around in shock, tripping over the loose ropes and boxes as I attempted to run away. What if that mad man caught me!"
? "Woah there! Watch out!"
p “Strong arms wrapped around me pulling me away from a stack of falling carts. I was a good foot off the ground it seemed when he finally set me down. Standing before me was an Earth Kin with the legs of a goat. A goat, at least, I thought it was a goat. Bushy tail too, maybe a deer? Who knows. What I did know was that he was big and smiling at me and that made me uneasy."
p "What was next? A goblin juggling those colored cotton swabs lit on fire?”
? “Well I’m not to sure that’s an attraction here, but I’ll run it by the boss when I can little dove.”
p “Oh!”
p “Stupid, stupid, stupid! I’d said it out loud!”
p “I-I am sorry. I will get back to group now.”
? “No need to rush off like that. Where do you think you’re scampering off to, hm? We haven’t even introduced ourselves properly ahaha!”
p “Huh? Oh Ahhh… Hmmm...”
? “Oh? Hmm? Ah? Oh-hmm-ah, what a pretty name. Are you foreign by any chance?”
p “His eyes twinkled as he made what I gathered to be a joke. Relaxing a bit as he was obviously not one of them, I answered with what I hoped looked like a smile on my face.”
p “No. I mean yes! Well, foreign to this nation. I am Paloma of the Moon, daughter of Kermlark and Oun-han.”
b “Hmm ahh oooh! I am Beato of the Whitetail Nation, son of the mighty Oak Bear. Nice to meet’cha Paloma-Moon-Oh-hmm-ah-Larkuh-somethin!”
p “Ah I see! You are a mix? Two Earth Kins?”
p “I held up two fingers to get my message across clearly, amused as he fumbled over my full name. Maybe he did not speak their tongue either? Or at least, not as well as the natives here.”
p “My father was also Kin. Of kin blood and a warrior too…”
p “I paused, confused, as Beato struggled to regain his breath, face red as a tomato and hacking up a lung as he did. He was... he was... laughing! Was it at me, had I said something wrong?”
b “Oh boy you’re a cutie aren’t you?! You think all that mess I just sprouted off the top of my head was real didn’t you?”
p “...”
b “Poor girl. I was kidding, joking, messing around? My name is Beato simple as that. Bay-toe. Nothing fancy and no tribes or whatever. Though I am Kin. Didn’t know people still used that term, let alone so formally!"
b "It's so outdated if you ask me. We're pretty much the same from the waist up in more ways then one... if you catch my drift. Why get into the nitty gritty of tribe and clan and so on when we can just say Beato and Paloma?"
b "So much easier to remember and wait, why did I come here again... Oh well, it'll come back to me. Man, you're old fashioned aren’t ya’? Oops I'm wondering again..."
p “You're using too many words too fast is what I wanted to spit back at him but I kept my mouth shut. It had gotten me into enough trouble as is. I did understand one part clear as daylight. He was teasing me. His laughter had been at my expense and I felt humiliated by that revelation.”
b “Ah now what’s that frown for! It was a joke little dove, no need to get all moppy…”
p “My face shot up, startled by the nickname that I had first ignored. Only Trill called me that. How did he-”
t “I fouuuund you~! Ehehe!”

[Mad Harlequin]

I find the concept intriguing and the character art very expressive.

[Hazel-Bun]

@Mad Harlequin Thanks man! I hope they come out nice once colored and the full range of expressions are added ^^

Worked a little more on the GUI today and will start writing some more after I feel a little better. Stayed home today and knocked out haha I'm going to try and go for a ticket-esque theme for the NVL/text box and menus. Last screen is almost done (settings or preferences, whichever) and then I'll have to code it in.

I'm hoping to finish up chapters 1-3 (plus the four choices paths) combined by Sunday. That way it gives me a little leg room to get that edited, giving me some time to play around with other assets before my trip/have somewhat of a complete story or more like prologue if worse comes to worse.

It's still in-progress but this is one of the folk songs from Paloma's homeland. Saga of the Wolf, a sort of re-telling of the Boy Who Cried Wolf for the purposes of this story, is featured more so in the later half. All that needs to be know about it now is that it reflects Paloma's feelings as she goes through her journey.

“Lo, lo, lo and behold, the Goddess of the moon
See, See, Hear our plea, your children of the Earth…
Cry, cry, they cry out to you,
Our Goddess of the moon…

Peace, peace we long for peace,
And rest for weary war-torn souls,
The bitter winds swept the Earth,
Carried the curse of the dirt,
Gently you formed us, under the guidance of the Sun,
So we came into being and tilled the patience soil...

Promise~ you promised us,
If we were to praise you,
You’d yield to us the plentiful fruits, of our hard labor!

But now the war drum sounds,
Now the war sounds…

Heros have gone out to the battle, widowed many, fathered none,
Our fields run dry and homelands ravaged,
Eclipse so black it blocked the savage.

Lo, lo, lo and behold, the Goddess of the moon
See, See, Hear our plea, your children of the Earth…
Cry, cry, they cry out to you,
Our Goddess of the moon…

Bless, Bless, Bless us Goddess,
Rain down vengeance on thine savage!
The sun which burned red as the fires,
That lit our passage home,
Has been bloated out from the sky,
Darkness ruled the lands….

They cry out to you O my Goddess,
Save us from our sins,
Black as night,
Many have fallen,
Where were you?
Where were you...

Lo, lo, lo and behold, the Goddess of the moon
See, See, Hear our plea, your children of the Earth…
Cry, cry, they cry out to you,
Our Goddess of the moon…
Goddess of the moon…
Goddess of the Moon…
Where are you?”
- Saga of the Wolf

[silverpikachu99]

Hazel, I love the art!!! :0~ can't wait to see more~~!!

[Hazel-Bun]

@silverpikachu99 Well here's some more for ya~!

Finished the Beast sketch sprite and started the redesign for Nebuchadnezzar. Still kicking myself for naming him that when I can't spell to save my life ahahaha... Also collected the last of the BGs and added a messy chart of how I planned them. Obviously won't be drawn unless everything else gets finished and I magically get skills.

But a girl can dream.

Hope to polish off a good chunk of the writing tomorrow and will update the word count then. Next week is super busy and I leave on Friday so I have to get moving if I want to finish in time!

And speaking of polish... Beast's gold tipped nails make me a very happy girly.

[Haze]

Still kicking myself for naming him that when I can't spell to save my life ahahaha...

It's not super hard to spell Nebuchadnezzar if you divide the word up. It's easy: Neb-u-chad-nezzar. One of the few words you definitely don't want to spell like it sounds.

I like Neb's head shot, by the way!

[Luce Jumble]

Have I really not posted here yet? Silly me!! I probably broke my keyboard with all the smashing that I was busy doing.

Eeeee! Neb's redesign looks great so far! Everything looks great so far! I'm a huge fan of circus themes, so I'm really excited for this and Beast's gold tipped nails!
And naw pshh I actually really like Nebuchadnezzar. HOW YOU COME UP WITH SUCH CREATIVE NAMES!? I tried doing that once with one of my characters, and one of my friends wouldn't stop calling him 'Telefono.' ): lol At least Neb is a cool name on it's own, too!

[Hazel-Bun]

@Haze Haha yeah it is when you put it like that. Glad new Neb is liked.

@Luce aka Junior Squee Thanks man!! My goal is to spread confetti and gold- think up good names for my characters and make this game something fun to play!

Sketched two CG concepts. The one with the Beast will most defiantly be reworked to avoid my crutch of close head shots rather than the full body type deal I imagine... but struggle to draw haha. Attempted to make some spark things but that's not going to well >>" Passed the 8,000 mark (Almost longer than AtPF's demo Jesus) and chapter 3 is almost finished. Working on the second to last screen (last if you don't count extras) and will start coding it shortly.

If nothing else, I'm going to make it my goal to release the first three chapter, or phase, of Black Doves come April 1st. That'll include the full GUI, sprites and a CG (hopefully), the rest free resources.

Still looking for a good font to use in-game that's readable and won't clash to much with the screens. Think I'll use this as the ctc icon http://www.iconarchive.com/show/native- ... -icon.html

[Hazel-Bun]

Finished the preference screen yesterday ^^ Might be the last update I can show here for a while because I leave for my trip tomorrow. I'll keep chipping away at the writing and Haze it doing a great job of editing.

If I have anything else to show in-between now and then, I'll make sure to post it.

[arachni42]

It looks like it's coming along nicely! I'm definitely interested in seeing how the story goes.

Unrelatedly, every time I see the title I get the Tori Amos song (Black Dove) in my head, haha.

[Hazel-Bun]

@arachni42 Thanks for your support! Haha I love it when things remind you of unrelated stuff.

Here's a little screenshot of an ember animation. So happy cause I can use it in AtPF for the ash and, it looks a little more natural using this code then sakura blossom/etc.

[Auro-Cyanide]

The world you have set out for the story sounds pretty cool and deep. I'm curious to learn more about it
Your use of shapes when sketching the faces is also quite nice.

[Hazel-Bun]

@Auro-Cyanide Thanks man, haha I hope it comes off as "deep" rather than meandering garbage ^^ Shapes? Hmm, never noticed that till you pointed it out. Your game looks great as usual ! Hope to play it soon as the premise is too my liking. Hope the move worked out well and you didn't binge to too much on Kill La Kill

Got back from my trip ready to roll. I updated the first post reflecting what I aiming to get out by the end of NaNo and then tweak from there.

Here are some screenshots of what I worked on today. Still looking for a font that clicks. I'm thinking of using tarot cards as themes for the title cards, going along with the chapters title but I'unno quite yet. Sprites will be a little worse seeing as I'm going to try and do them all myself/can't color or line very well but I'll try D<

Still cleaning the lines. Later!

[Hazel-Bun]

Got a lot done today/yesterday! Where did the time go, man. All the needed text is on the first post.

Push everybody so I can play your awesome games D<!