Tera to Mura to Wasuremono

[Hime]

So, it's the time to announce Lux Visual Novels' next project! >w<

寺 と 村 と 忘れ物
Tera to Mura to Wasuremono (The temple and the village and the forgotten thing(s))
Nickname: TeraMura
Genre: Mystery, many of the arcs have romance elements
Milieu: Heian period Japan, the long lost and forgotten Futajima (note: Futajima doesn't really exist. ^^;)
Synopsis:
The main character (you) wakes up with no memories of his past. A young priestess named Fuuko has carried her to Tera, the temple. After Fuuko's grandmother, the owner of the temple, and an apathetic-seeming priestess called Inori have checked that he doesn't carry the sign of a villager, they let him stay and gave him a name, Ryuu. Afterwards Ryuu also meets Fuuko's brother and a sick girl, Sakura. However, the people of Tera are very secretive and keep secrets from Ryuu. So... Will Ryuu befriend the people of Tera and get a hold of his life without regretting losing somelike twenty years of his life? Or will he seek for his past? Fall in love, perhaps? That's up to you in this visual novel.
Main characters:
-No image for Ryuu yet...-
Ryuu: The main character, a man of unknown age and origin. He is estimatedly about 20 years old.

Aogawa Fuuko: The granddaughter of Aogawa Kasumi, who owns the whole Tera. She is a helpful priestess who wishes that Ryuu could build a new life here in Tera. She is a good girl and kind to everyone. However, like the whole Aogawa family, she is very secretive.

Futajima Inori: The second priestess of Tera, Inori is very diligent and obedient. She seems very apathetic and even cold or emotionless. Inori also cooks great tea. She doesn't show much interes in Ryuu.

However, like every apathetic priestess, she carries a great secret. She is also probably the most aware out of the all characters.

Sakura: She is a very sick girl with a weak body. Sakura is let to live in Tera due to her sickness. She is very lonely but great person. She is interested in Ryuu, and hopes they would become friends.

And who knows, she might have something more in common with Ryuu than it may seem at first...

img
Mura Saki: A woman that Ryuu might meet under some circumstances... And oh yes, she is a villager.
I can't really tell much about her, not even in spoiler tags!

Game structure:
The game could be divided in two parts: The linear storyline and the arcs. The arcs are way longer than the linear storyline. In the linear storyline, the choices are very little and not very effective, but when the key choice comes, those choices determine which arcs you can access.
There are four arcs, of which two are question arcs and two are answer arcs. (Reminds you of Higurashi, huh? Yes, it's pretty much alike.) The arcs can also be divided in two sides: Mura and Tera. So as you can probably guess, there is a Mura question arc, a Mura answer arc, a Tera question arc and a Tera answer arc. The answer arcs are "unlocked" by playing the question arcs first, so at the first playtime, you can only access the question arcs. Might sound kinda limited, but it is truly necessary.
Each arc is focussing on one character:

Tera question arc: Fuuko
Tera answer arc: Inori
Mura question arc: Sakura
Mura answer arc: Saki

...And the player won't understand everything fully until he/she has played all the arcs, muhahaa! There will also be extras that can be unlocked by attaining different endings. Oh and, there will be about 8 "good" endings that the player will get in the end of an arc, and a lot of bad endings.

And because I feel like it, I'll compare my at-the-moment-plans of TeraMura to Project Nattsu:
- This time, the text will be shown in NVL mode instead of ADV.
- Tera to Mura to Wasuremono will be a LOT longer in both writing and time. At the moment, I'm writing the second day of the linear storyline, with over 7000 words, whereas Nattsu's storyline part was about 8000 words and it contained various days with lot of alternative parts and endings. The text in TeraMura is far more detailed.
- I'll be focussing on one thing at time now, so I'll not start making the graphics before I've written the whole thing etc. This should make the quality of the different parts better.
- Because of the two things mentioned before, this project will also take a lot more time, unfornately - I'm aiming to finish the two first arcs by the end of summer (August or so), and even that might be too ambitious. This project might really take years. However, I'll be diligent and try to make it worth the waiting!
- This might be obvious if you read the whole information part, but the plot is a lot more serious.
- As there is a lot more text and characters, there will also be a lot more graphics. Especially CGs, even the linear storyline should contain from a couple to a few of them. Ugh, again something that will make the wait longer.

I'll be the writer and artist for this project. I'm thinking of having drawn backgrounds this time, so I'll probably search for a background artist later. I could also make the backgrounds as an collaboration with someone. There will also be music, so I'll need a musician as well, or maybe even a couple of them. However, since the project is nowhere near being even quarter-finished, I won't be searching for those yet. I'm really inspired about this project, and I'll try to be diligent... ^^

But, I warn you, nothing is sealed yet, so every piece of information above might not be valid in the finished product.

So, at the moment...
Script:
Linear storyline ~ Maybe about 15-25%
Tera question arc ~ 0%
Tera answer arc ~ 0%
Mura question arc ~ 0%
Mura answer arc ~ 0%
Graphics:
Character graphics ~ 0%
CGs ~ 0%
Backgrounds ~ 0%
Other:
Customization ~ ??%
Music ~ 0%
Extras ~ 0%

Comments and everything would be very welcome. I'm sorry for all the grammar mistakes and typos that this first post probably has... Writing a lot of text in a short time, rrh.

[monele]

Spoilers right away? buuuh... *no wants spoilies* ^^;... But for what I've read, it sounds quite interesting ^.^... I like the story arc concept so... yay ... Haha, I just don't know how to express things but yeah, I'm looking forward to this since I know you can do great things . Oh yeah, I could add that the ladies are looking good, maybe even better than in Project Nattsu ^.^.
Woop~, ganbatte!!

[Hime]

Spoilers right away? buuuh... *no wants spoilies* ^^;... But for what I've read, it sounds quite interesting ^.^... I like the story arc concept so... yay ... Haha, I just don't know how to express things but yeah, I'm looking forward to this since I know you can do great things . Oh yeah, I could add that the ladies are looking good, maybe even better than in Project Nattsu ^.^.
Woop~, ganbatte!!

Most of them are really "soft" spoilers that just hint things, but I decided to make them spoilers anyway... ^^; And thank you a lot... It's always great to hear that someone is looking forward and interested in a project. ^^ And the women will hopefully look even better in the finished product, because the pictures in the first post were made a bit quickly plus I at least hope that my drawing skills will get better during the writing progress. I'll be doing my best!

[DaFool]

This is your epic ne? Awesome.
I was going to comment on whether you can realistically portray a classic historical Japan setting, but it really does look like you've studied the culture and language a lot.

Have fun while you're working on it ^_^.

[Hime]

This is your epic ne? Awesome.
I was going to comment on whether you can realistically portray a classic historical Japan setting, but it really does look like you've studied the culture and language a lot.

Have fun while you're working on it ^_^.

Yes, this is my epic one, probably.

The setting is probably the biggest challenge in this project, but I'm trying to make it as realistic as it should be. However, there will (somewhat fortunetly) be differences to the basic classic Japanese culture, because Futajima has some of it's own traditions and cultural differences. Something that I can say, for example, is that Tera isn't a jinja, so it won't be so very shinto-ish - so no traditional miko clothing for the priestesses, etc.

Thank you. ^^

[Hime]

I've been writing diligently, and so...

The game contains 811 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 9362 words.
For an average of 11.5 words per screen.
The game contains 13 menus.

The game contains 563 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 9437 words.
For an average of 16.8 words per screen.
The game contains 10 menus.

I know Nattsu wasn't that long, but I'm still proud that I have already written TeraMura more than Nattsu was in complete, and TeraMura is still nowhere near quarter-complete... Really. I'm happy for achieving some kind of a milestone with this project. ^^

So, for the past days, I've been writing like crazy. I might be a slow writer, though, but... I'm trying my best! Progress~! I'm definitely going to have the linear storyline at least half-written before my summer holiday starts at the beginning of June... Yes, that is my goal!

Script:
Linear storyline ~ About 20-30%
Tera question arc ~ 0%
Tera answer arc ~ 0%
Mura question arc ~ 0%
Mura answer arc ~ 0%
Graphics:
Character graphics ~ 0%
CGs ~ 0%
Backgrounds ~ 0%
Other:
Customization ~ ??%
Music ~ 0%
Extras ~ 0%

[monele]

Impressive ô_o... I pray for the flame of writing to keep burning ^.^

[Hime]

Yeah, I hope so too. Thanks! ^^

And, now when I have a post anyway:

The game contains 586 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 10000 words.
For an average of 17.1 words per screen.
The game contains 10 menus.

Yay! \o/ From now on, the word counts will have one number more. Mentionable, I think.

[Hime]

Huh. I've been working somewhat hard, though I haven't made much progress, because I've been stressing all the school things so terribly much that my inspiration has suffered from it. I'm sorry. ._. I think I should set a new goal that I would have one question arc finished or two question arcs halfway finished by the end of the summer. I'm sorry... I just think that I won't be able to finish the text that quickly unless I want the quality to suffer because of rushing. So... This project will take even more time than I've thought.

I'm about to get a difficult scene finished, and then I can start writing like a machine again! Yes, with that 1500 words per day speed! ^^

Script:
Linear storyline ~ Estimatedly 47%
Tera question arc ~ 0%
Tera answer arc ~ 0%
Mura question arc ~ 0%
Mura answer arc ~ 0%
Graphics:
Character graphics ~ 0%
CGs ~ 0%
Backgrounds ~ 0%
Other:
Customization ~ ??%
Music ~ 0%
Extras ~ 0%

The game contains 704 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 12068 words.
For an average of 17.1 words per screen.
The game contains 10 menus.

[Hime]

Long time no post!

...Well, I've been under a lot of personal pressure lately, and I had a great writer's block in the beginning of June. So, the progress hasn't been amazing, but there certainly has been some progress. I've just got over the day two, and beginning the day three, which I think will be the last day of the linear story part. Yes... When I reach the nightfall of day three, I'll get to struggle with the paths! FINALLY! >3<

So yeah. I'm sorry for not having that much progress. However, I'm still just shortly getting over the block, and I don't want to rush it for the sake of the quality. So yeah, here's a little apology pic, a scribble featuring my terrible handwriting and the most moé girl in whole Futajima~. I've got better since Project Nattsu, haven't I?



Script:
Linear storyline ~ Estimatedly 69%
Tera question arc ~ 0%
Tera answer arc ~ 0%
Mura question arc ~ 0%
Mura answer arc ~ 0%
Graphics:
Character graphics ~ 0%
CGs ~ 0%
Backgrounds ~ 0%
Other:
Customization ~ ??%
Music ~ 0%
Extras ~ 0%
The colour codes so that I can remember them: 0%, 1-15%, 16-50%, 51-99%, 100%

The game contains 871 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 15065 words.
For an average of 17.3 words per screen.
The game contains 11 menus.

And, some random quotes just for fun! No plotline spoilers, but might spoil a few situations.

"I feel nothing, and yet I feel a terrible pain at the same time."
One of the first lines of the whole game. ^^

"Well, I think I shall escort him to his room. We will be going, then."
A random average line of Fuuko.

"Even though her words make me want to ask more, her expression tells me not to."
O ho ho~... The atmosphere gets a bit more like it. >:3

"Yes, I'm not a priestess - my bodial condition could not possibly allow such a thing."
Sakura! ;_;

"If you insist."
Could be Inori's motto if she had one, lol.

And last but not the least...
"Perhaps I'm just paranoid."
...Well, this is a mystery game after all.

[monele]

Ganbatteeeee~!... *waves lil banners*

Just so you don't think we've stopped waiting for this ^^

[Hime]

Thanks for the comment. It always makes me happy and inspires me when I recieve one. ^^

Oh and... I feel like posting my random thoughts about this project. I've been thinking a lot, you see.

One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is the music, and it really is a hard question. TeraMura is, for a big part, mostly about the atmosphere and feeling, which the music should be able to support, and which it absolutely must not ruin. There are a lot of scenes that will probably be really hard for whoever ends up being the musician, even some scenes that might be a little bit better without any music. There are also many scenes which would rather need voice than music, for example, the voices of the cicadas. (Reminds me of Higurashi!) At the moment I think that the best way would be to get some voices, make some situations silent, and get many different people to make the music. This really is a demanding thought, but the atmosphere is really an important thing in TeraMura, and if only one artist would try to fit all the atmospheres... He or she would have to do a lot of work, a lot of great work that needs a lot of feeling and also knowledge of what kind of a feeling I'm seeking for with the scenes. Which would mean that I'll have to co-operate with the musician(s) closely. One thing that I've been thinking about is what kind of music it should be when thinking in the terms of genres... And I think that it could be something like trance or downtempo. Peaceful, supporting the atmosphere, in the best case it could be perfect for TeraMura.

The other major issue is the graphics. I'm probably again sounding demanding and everything, but I want them to look as professional as possible. They should, just like the music, support the atmosphere. Thus I'm intending to make a lot of graphics for the game. I've learnt many new techniques and tricks, and evolved a bit, so should be able to make them quicker and better than I did with Nattsu. My previous Sakura scribble, for example, took me probably about ten minutes, but it's better than the Nattsu CGs which usually took me at least a few hours per piece. I know that the newer pic doesn't have a background and all but... Still. The character graphics shouldn't be a big problem as long as I am able to put time on them and try my best, but the backgrounds will probably be a great problem. I doubt I even could use photographs this time, so they should be drawn. For that, though, I think I'll use source photos... But since I'm not living on a nonexistant island in feudal Japan, improvisation will be needed in many cases. For this, I might need help: Maybe someone who could collaborate with me in the BGs, and most likely a few critics.

Hmm. But I'm still really excited and inspired about this project. From what I've read it seems that people tend to make a game, announce that their second one will be epic, and then announce that the project is dead. I bet TeraMura might sound like one of those projects, who knows, it might even be one, but at the moment... It sure doesn't look like it. TeraMura is, despite it's slow progress, an important part of my life these days, and I'm not intending to give up. The progress might seems slow, but compared to my usual speed, the progress has been amazing. So I'm actually a bit proud of myself, even though I've already missed some goals that I've set to myself about the progress. However... I'm glad that I'm not rushing, because I know the quality would suffer. A lot. I need to keep up the fluentness, depth and atmosphere of the text, even if it means that the project is going to get finished years later than it would in other cases. I really like the idea myself, even if it is conceit to, and want to at least try to make this game a good one. ^^

And to kill the serious-ness: I'm probably the king of monologues.

[monele]

Don't forget about the Commons for music. Since you don't mind having multiple musicians, maybe just picking from existing stuff might be good enough? (as long as it fits of course)

I'm probably the king of monologues.

You should be a villain It's a requirement for it I think ^^

[Hime]

Well, that's true, and I've thought about it too... But I doubt it would be possible to find enough fitting stuff to cover the whole game, so I'll probably need at least some tracks that are exclusively made for TeraMura.

...Perhaps I am a villain? >:3

[DaFool]

That really sounds a bit demanding for a project.

This is something I learned recently (*cough* through my failed projects *cough* So while everyone starts small and scales up I started huge and is scaling down) but one may need to estimate the total resource count...

...especially about the custom backgrounds and music... good pieces take several sittings and multiple days to crank out and tweak (and I'm still just an amateur). I don't know about professionals -- perhaps you do need someone professional to be able to do these jobs? Professional maybe (hopefully) who knows about visual novels, but as may be more likely the case, maybe someone who just needs to do their task well even if they may not see the final project (like the musician for O3).

If you're talking about more than 10 pieces each, that is definitely something to consider. So it may be in your best interest to recruit outside this community as well. Although I think there are enough CC-licensed work out there to convey the approximate mood. But yes, the advantage of custom music is that there can be one or two particular themes that after you hear often enough, you can hum and it reminds you of the theme of the game.