Re: [WIP] Maid of Midsummer

Message

babyfish · #46 Post by **babyfish** » Fri May 27, 2011 4:47 am

Glad you found it helpful.

I tend to use those a lot when designing stuffs for this particular game.

Quick update here, currently working on relationships screen, and here's what it looks like~

That's all for now, but perhaps more on the setting later on.

Arithra · #47 Post by **Arithra** » Fri May 27, 2011 7:26 am

Looking at the save and load interface I personally think that it would look more elegant to remove the title from the background.
While it looks good as long as there are no saves it is kind of strange once there are.

the relationship screen is very pretty. but somehow it doesn't fit with the other screens. maybe because the face icons are so small.
I guess alexus is the main love interest?

choklitchan · #48 Post by **choklitchan** » Fri May 27, 2011 9:10 am

Though I can't add anything more to what's already been said, I'll say it anyway: This looks absolutely amazing! The storyline is right up my alley, the characters are gorgeous, the art is sweet and very much suited, and the customization blows my mind.
This is an incredible first attempt at renpy. I can only look forward to this game, and whatever else you create in the future. Great luck to you, and keep up the excellent work.

GeneDNC · #49 Post by **GeneDNC** » Fri May 27, 2011 9:57 am

Arithra wrote:the relationship screen is very pretty. but somehow it doesn't fit with the other screens. maybe because the face icons are so small.

I think it's possibly the colouring. The colours seem muted or maybe just darker overall in comparison to the other screens. It does look nice, though.

Riviera · #50 Post by **Riviera** » Fri May 27, 2011 10:41 am

I think the feather looks better that way (seems to frame the screen more when facing away, to the edge of the screen), but I'm the only one who's mentioned it, so... take that for what it's worth, lol.

I can see this being a big time sink for me. More and more with every new screenshot!

babyfish · #51 Post by **babyfish** » Fri May 27, 2011 12:44 pm

Okay, so after reading some of the feedback, I realized you guys had some pretty good points, so I made a few modifications accordingly:

Relationship screen, at full size, colors modified. This is for an imagemap, so when you hover, the coloring individual character portraits will be at their normal saturation.

Changed the feather and removed the title. I think I'll keep the title for the prefs screen though.

Good news also, I figured out what I'm going to do for music. I wanted to include some classical pieces in my work, but of course obtaining royalty-free mp3s would be hella expensive. So, I asked and got permission to use a few classical midis and render them and use them for my purposes. Link is http://www.classicalmidiconnection.com , freaking awesome site. Synthfont was used to render midis.

Here's a sample of a rendered version of Gabriel Fauré's Berceuse from Dolly Suite.

http://members.shaw.ca/ndao/romance_alexius.ogg

What do you think? Not perfect, but it sounds pretty good for game music I think. This will probably be one of the less expensive ways of obtaining royalty-free classical music. (Since Incompetech and Musopen don't have all the pieces I want.)

And yes, each dateable will have their own 'romance' theme. XD

I wouldn't call Alexius the main dateable, someone just had to be in the middle of the screen, so it might as well be him. XD I don't believe there will be a 'main' romance in the game, though that can be arguble. I mean Alexius is the royal prince, but Seth is also 'technically' your boss, and Luke is

also the gentleman who helped you land the job in the first place-

Oops, spoilers!!! X3

I think it's all really up to you and who YOUR main romance is. I find that I tend to favour one particular guy in most dating games regardless of importance anyways. (Senseiiiiii~ <3)

babyfish · #52 Post by **babyfish** » Fri May 27, 2011 3:12 pm

Sorry for the doublepost, but I finished creating a mockup of the relationship screen extensions (for Alexius at least)

So each characters' screen will have their name, their title, their relationship meter, a sprite depicting their current disposition towards you and...

...what else? I have the feeling that a screen like this should have more info, but I don't know what...? Or is that enough as it is?

Please tell me what you think.

Thanks again~

Riviera · #53 Post by **Riviera** » Fri May 27, 2011 6:11 pm

It's definitely enough, as far as game mechanics go. Up to you if you want to add some flavor text about the different characters on their respective screens or not. ^_^

SilverHyena · #54 Post by **SilverHyena** » Fri May 27, 2011 7:21 pm

I think it's good the way you have it. You could add profile information if you want to, but I think if a person is really interested in the character they'll do their best to remember the basic information that you would have included anyway. Besides, it would totally mess with the balance of the composition if you added something else. I like the way it looks now and I'm sticking to that!

(By the way, I appreciate they kyaa note. If it was actually in the game that would amuse me greatly. Maybe some silly notes like that would be fun to add to the profiles. Especially if they could change based on the characters opinion. Like maybe you could draw some devil horns on the character if the main girl had a bad relationship with them. Hah. That's probably a stupid idea, but there you have it.)

Aaanyway, Alexius is hot. I feel like I needed to end my post on that note.

babyfish · #55 Post by **babyfish** » Fri May 27, 2011 8:06 pm

True, I had planned to put profile information as part of the 'extra stuff'. Plus the screen looks nice enough with just the sprite and the relationship bar. It's functional enough, riiiiight?

I was thinking of including small quotes, said either by the heroine or the dateable in question based on their relationship. Then again, I don't want to cram my screens with too much text. I'll decide soon. Maybe. Probably.

And yes, I tried to make draw all of the gentlemen as being pretty 'hot', Alexius being 'cute' as well as hot. XD Especially when he blushes (kyaa~ X3)

Aleema · #56 Post by **Aleema** » Fri May 27, 2011 9:43 pm

I like your style. *high five for GUI* Art and interface are top notch.

I think it's cute that all your stats start with a C, but I can see myself becoming confused down the line ... Especially if they're important. Maybe give them icons or colors? That would help my memory (and English as a second language peeps).

Also, just want to throw this out there since you're very good at this graphics stuff: I'm not a fan of the white feather for the game menus. Maybe if it was the same pink color as the bookend flourishes? Maybe not. Ehh, the 2nd version looks better. Maybe with the screenshots filled (and the white BG less) it looks worse. Or flipping it really helped. OH, it's because you made the nav links white. There ya go.

That's all! Have fun!

Looking awesome.

Riviera · #57 Post by **Riviera** » Sat May 28, 2011 12:11 pm

Giving each of the stats a different icon could be very cute! Like a mop for cleaning, a mirror for charm, a book for culture, a muffin on a plate (or a wooden spoon) for cooking, a white glove for courtesy, and... I'm not sure what for cunning. My first thought was a small pair of glasses, since so many people think of that guy pushing his glasses down when they make a crazy (and usually slightly witty) pun, but not everyone might get that reference or agree with that being "cunning".

Question is, how to do that? Put the picture next to the word, at the other end of the bar from the word, or on the progress meter, where it moves along the bar as your skill increases, marking where your skill is currently?

babyfish · #58 Post by **babyfish** » Sat May 28, 2011 12:44 pm

I really like the icon idea, so I'll definitely roll with that XD They're gonna have to be pretty small, pixel art even, but I think I'll be able to manage!

The tricky part is that this is a modified version of the DSE, so all of the stats are pretty much grouped together, and they all use the same styles. However, I THINK I can get around that if I edit this code here:

Code: Select all

    def register_stat(name, var, default, max):
        __dse_stats.append(__Stat(name, var, default, max))

....and make it so that it also appends an icon...

Code: Select all

    def register_stat(name, var, default, max):
        __dse_stats.append(__Stat(name, var, ***ICON***, default, max))

Then perhaps I can put an ui.image line under def display_stats so that an icon shows for each line of stats.

Then when I register the stat name...

Code: Select all


register_stat("Courtesy", "courtesy", ***ICON IMAGE NAME/FILE***, 100, 99)

Any coding experts want to verify that this is the way to go? *scratches head* I know I'll have to modify the way the class is defined...

And yeah, I set the default value for the courtesy stat to be 100 because I was testing stats normalization. That WON'T be the default value when you start the completed game! (lolhax)

babyfish · #59 Post by **babyfish** » Sat May 28, 2011 2:26 pm

Double post, sorry about that, but here's what I got so far while tweaking the code a bit:

icon is just a placeholder, but they'll be around that size (image is to scale). Of course I need to fix the formatting, but that'll come later.

Now comes the question as to whether I should have the icon ONLY next to the stats bar, or should I have the stat NAME alongside? What do you guys think?

Riviera · #60 Post by **Riviera** » Sat May 28, 2011 2:35 pm

My only thing with just having the icon is that not everyone may immediately understand what the icon stands for.

If you go that route, maybe some hover text that says what it is? I'm making this complicated, aren't I? I do that. >_>

Lemma Soft Forums