PAW ★ PRINTS [Tetris Clone][Space Doggies][2013]

[Sapphi]

P A W ★ P R I N T S
"On the road we travel into the final frontier, there are the paw-prints of those who went before us."

In the distant future, the memories of the ancient and valiant struggles that characterized the dawning of the space age are faded and forgotten, until a ship endeavors to leave its familiar star-system in search of new adventures. It means to warp, and does so, but becomes stuck mid-way as a strange presence blocks its path. The presence begins to send a garbled transmission... unintelligible to anyone but the keenest communications expert. Fortunately, there is such a person on the ship. You play as him.

So in Tetris terms... The blocks would be your scrambled pieces of data, and by clearing lines you are sorting out the signal. As you clear lines, you will become better locked onto the signal of the mysterious presence (meaning, its image will become clearer), until you have fully revealed what it is and can communicate with it (at which point the story progresses). So sort of like how Touhou has danmaku stages with VN interludes, just with tetramino gameplay instead.

The presence(s) as you may have guessed by now are the old spirits of Soviet space dogs. But... why are they holding an entire ship hostage in mid-warp? That you'll have to play to find out ^_^

---

Reasons I am attempting this for NaNoRenO:
1. I need to practice with Python.
2. I always wanted to make a Tetris clone.
3. I'm curious to see if it can be integrated successfully with Ren'Py.
4. I love Kudryavka/Laika very much and wanted to make a tribute to her and the others.
5. I'm out of my mind.

So without further ado here is some concept art for the girls' designs... still in the planning stages and very much subject to change
I'm working from these six dogs for now... all of them met their ends during a mission.

I want to make the development of this open, so feedback is good. Do you like the designs so far? I tried to convey the appearances of the dogs with them for the most part, although I took some stylistic liberties...

By the way, although I am doing this to try to understand Python and thus don't want a dedicated programmer (I have to do it, or I won't learn!), if you're knowledgeable and willing to guide me in the right direction if I get stuck, feel free to volunteer. XD (I'm kind of worried I won't be able to finish this by the end of the month since I'm such a novice... but I figured if I didn't force myself to start, I would never get around to it!)

[specialtantei]

Tetris...Wow, that really is somethig! Willing to play it~.
Sounds hard to do, but hey, it wouldn't be a challenge if it were easy. Good luck!

[Mink]

The presence(s) as you may have guessed by now are the old spirits of Soviet space dogs. But... why are they holding an entire ship hostage in mid-warp? That you'll have to play to find out ^_^

Maybe they're pissed of about that whole "shot into space and abandoned to die" thing. <_< Or at least in Laika's case.

Anyway, this looks fun. Though it's funny; I'd been thinking of making my project this year about Laika, but changed my mind for some reason.

[Sapphi]

Well, I got some feedback on the girls' designs so today I think I'll try to rework them a little bit to make them more distinctive from each other. Meanwhile, I made a mockup of the game screen, which is meant to emulate a screen with a communication panel and a image display area. Earlier renditions of this screen were decidedly more "sci-fi" looking as they were green/black and had a few more modules but since the mood of this game is supposed to be a little subdued, I think I like this simpler design with amber/black instead. I think it conveys a nostalgic feeling.

What it might look like while "decrypting":

And what it might look like after you finish the gameplay part of the level, with dear Pchyolka serving as our model:

(DISCLAIMER: Name of ship is just a placeholder. Starfield background also a placeholder I grabbed off the internet just to give you an idea. Everything else also subject to change. "Then what is the point of showing us this" you ask? Good question But I think in general the final game should wind up looking much like this. Your thoughts on the design are appreciated!)

[CheeryMoya]

Hey there Sapphi, the dogs look great so far :3 It might be a little hard to tell them apart if they're all wearing dresses, but if you're gonna keep them all like that maybe you can try different hems? I don't see any pleated dresses either so that's another idea. Either way they look wonderful c:

I like how the mockup looks. For the gameplay portions, I think some good things to add in are:

• Score (if it matters)
• Next Block
• Lines Left to Clear

You know, usual Tetris fare. What resolution are you developing this in? The default 800x600 might be a tad small if you add that in but I'm not sure. Looking forward to more updates!

[Arowana]

Laika's story always pulls at my heartstrings (especially with those Vocaloid vids ;_;), so I'm automatically drawn to this concept. I really like the character designs for the dog girls (such pretty dresses!). They admittedly might be a little hard to tell apart, as a lot of the dresses and haircuts have similar lengths. But if they have different colors, then it probably won't be a problem.

I also think it's admirable you're trying to program a Tetris framework on top of everything else! Best of luck with this!

[Sapphi]

Post-NanoReno Analysis
or
Why I Didn't Finish This in a Month

I started off strong the first week of this... I was very excited about it and very optimistic about my ability to complete it. I planned to work every night on this and for the first week I think I actually did... I would come home and sketch something or try to program a little or do research for the game. I also thought about it a lot at work.

The second week in, I was thrown off course when I experienced some mood difficulties... the mania that caused me to work so diligently in the first week vanished and I was left in a pretty depressive state. I didn't want to do much creative work. Drawing was difficult so I attempted to work on the programming. Unfortunately I hit many snags... since this was my first time attempting something of this kind. I was also sleep-deprived and it's hard to think logically when you haven't had enough rest!

As the third week continued I was still in an emotional slump. I started to think about the chances I wouldn't finish this. I didn't like the thought of that so I made a big effort to try to program something that worked. I spent a few hours on it one day and didn't succeed, and then the next day I got into a slump again. I think it was then that I mentally resigned.

There were other factors that went into distracting me from this work, but none of them were pressing issues that needed to be attended to, so I can't make the "real life got in the way" excuse here. Looking back it seems it was entirely a problem of my mood. I was depressed so I wanted to do things that made me feel less depressed, and working on this was not one of those things.

My first mistake, I think, was to assume (in a fit of nonsensical optimism) that I was capable of doing this in the span of a month. I think that if I would have REMAINED nonsensically optimistic I would have been able to power through and present something at the end of the month, but that's never what happens with me. What I should have done was to take my emotional instability into account and not rely on the (silly) assumption that I would remain excited and driven for a full 31 days in a row.

I'm not quite sure how to address the problem of my emotional instability, but if I were to do this over, I would at least have picked a project that was a little more basic to make. I think I got too optimistic about my abilities for this one. I'm happy that I tried, because I'm more familiar with Python than I was when I started... and I'm also happy because this is a project that I want to see to completion at some future date, and getting started is a step on that path.

What I'm not happy about is that I wasn't able to complete it during the month like I was supposed to. I hate making promises and not delivering, which is why I rarely promise anything... perfectionism! But I think it might help me to fail once in awhile, too, so I'll take this as a lesson in failure and hope to learn from my mistakes for next time.

[SusanTheCat]

Virtual Hug!

I am unhappy with my NaNo entry this year for very similar reasons. March is my worst month emotionally wise. I can't give you any helpful tips because I am still dealing with it.

I am looking forward to when you do release this game.

Susan

[xavimat]

Hey, Sapphi! Another virtual hug!
I didn't post here before, but I subscribed it when I saw it. I like very much the two ideas: the story of the lost memories of the "dog-heroes" and the tetris part, to unravel the information. It's sad to read that you were depressed and couldn't finish it in a month, but, anyway, I'd love to play it in the future.

May I say you something? You say that you were too optimistic at first (that's very common, and it's good to start with optimism). Maybe a team work can help you to keep on in a project. I'd be pleased to help you in coding, if you want. I don't know a lot of python, but I learn quick, and I'm improving. PM me if you are interested in some help.

[Sapphi]

Thanks for the hugs, Susan and xavimat.

I've been working on this project on-and-off - mostly finalising character designs and drafting character stories. My baseline for the sprites is one pose per girl with minimal variations. After I have the important spites created, I'll try to turn my attention to the programming again.

Thinking about this concept more, I decided that implementing a sort of BxG-style mode would be easy and would add some light-hearted fun to the game. How I currently envision it: After you go through the main story, in which you meet all the girls, you gain access to free-play mode. In free-play mode, you pick a girl to play with who chats with you while you play. As you level up, she becomes more receptive to you, until you finally win her heart by getting a high score. I thought it would be fun if these levels dispensed CGs. At the very least, I would want it to yield one CG for each of them, when you managed to impress them enough with your score! But I'll work on that as a bonus of sorts, after the main story is finished.

For now, here are is a current mockup of the game screen, where you can see Chayka's working sprite. I changed the text display to be black and white because I wanted the colored sprites to be the most eye-catching thing, and the font for now is Kochi Gothic. I'm still undecided about the final nature of the font, but it needs to be pleasant and readable yet not too "polished".