The first game created by
Oh my gosh I can't believe I'm doing this! *nervous* I'm finally ready to post my game in the 'WiP' section instead of the old 'ideas' thread I had going! I'm VERY excited and very committed to this project, and I have big plans for it! But I've never done anything like this before, so it's rather intimidating as well! So I've decided to post it here to the community for critiques, suggestions, ideas, anything you'd like to add that you think might help :3My Muse: Why Convention Kiss? Well, I've been playing otome games for a few years now and decided that, with the awesomeness that is Ren'Py making my life easier, I should just make one :3 In my spare time, I make crafts to sell at conventions. I see a LOT of at-con romances, and conventions are only 3 days long on average. All of these factors have lead me to believe that a convention would be a very simple scenario for my very first otome game, and first visual novel in general.
The Story: The protagonist is just out of high school. She is going to her first convention with her 2 friends, Sammy and Elizabeth. Sammy, her peppy and excitable convention-veteran friend, has given her the task of finding her first boyfriend at the convention. She has 3 days to find a boy she likes and she will ask him to take her to the dance on day 3 of the convention.
The Characters:
Protagonist:
The protagonist (you have the ability to choose her name) is going to her first convention with her friends, Sammy and Lizzy. She is just out of high school and is nervous about her first con.
Elizabeth (Lizzie):
Elizabeth is the protagonist's other friend. She runs a lolita panel at the convention. She loves the idea of her friend finding herself a boyfriend, but mostly just wants her to have fun at the convention, as well as worrying about her own panel.
Samantha (Sammy):
Samantha is very peppy and easily excited. She has told the protagonist that her goal for this convention is to find a date to go to the dance with on the final day of the convention. She is a little flighty but clearly cares about the protagonist. They have been friends since elementary school.
Soren:
Soren is one of the romanceable characters. He is rather stoic, almost cold, but he has a sweet side. He is very into cosplay, shojou anime, and board games.
Jonathan:
Jonathan is one of the romanceable characters. He is rather shy and nervous, but he opens up to those he cares about. He enjoys lolita fashion and horror anime.
Chris:
Chris is one of the romanceable characters. He is rather boisterous and usually very happy. He loves Visual Kei music and clothing style.
Brian:
Brian is one of the romanceable characters. He is a 'secret' character, but is rather easy to find/unlock. He is the con president and is a little snide and pompous, but very helpful. We decided he should have cat ears and a tail because, come on, have you ever been to a con and NOT seen someone in cat ears/a tail? xD
The CGs
Psych! There's no way I'm giving away all the good stuff ;3 Well, okay... Maybe one.... ;3
Spoiler - our first fully colored CG!
The Plan: My plan for this game is rather simple, I think. Once I get the game fully 1/3 done (as in, day 1 of the convention is complete, including art, CGs, music, etc) I am going to release a free demo. The demo will be the full first 1/3 of the game, to get people interested. At that point I plan to make a Kickstarter for this game so that I can hopefully be able to pay my artists for their work. The Kickstarter total will be for the price of the game production and paying the artists alone, nothing extra. I estimate it to be no more than $1,000-$2,000, but I'm still in the calculation phase so it may be even less than that.
If the Kickstarter goes well, I will be able to put more time into the game and try to get it done as quickly as possible. Once the game is complete, I will make a website for my company (Pixel Crush Studios) and I will release the game on the site for a low fee (no more than $5-$10). I will also get some business cards printed with a link to the game info to be given away at conventions. If this game goes well, I have ideas for about 3 other games as well, so this is a big deal for me! Those future games are far more involved and will be available for a small fee, but since this is my first project, I'm using it as a bit of a trial run.
The Crew
~Lilly Inverse - That's me! I do the writing of the story itself (always accepting input from friends and playesters of course ;3) and I code the game in Ren'Py.
~MoonLover - My sprite artist - he is working on all the sprites for the characters, all of their expressions, etc.
~Tisha Bush - Background Artist - she will be drawing all the backgrounds for the game.
~City of Brass Designs - Our wonderful logo company! Thanks a bunch!
~Chandra "Sakura" Hughes - Creator of our opening movie
~Shoko - Our awesome music composer (Currently MIA?)
~CG Artsit - KairiKat7
The Future
I am really not 100% sure when I will be able to release the completed game. At this point, it really depends on a couple of the crew member's schedules, but I would ideally like to have my Kickstarter up and running by June or July of 2016.
The Progress
08/18/13 - So far, I am about 95% done with the script and coding for day 1. The music has been procured, and 2 of the character sprites are completely finished and put into the game. I have 2 or 3 more scenes to finish coding, and I need to add the music to the game itself.
08/20/13 - Added Soren's sprite and implemented it into the code. Still need the others, and am missing one expression for Soren.
08/27/13 - Created custom text box and implemented it. Added 'day 1' page to the game, so you can easier keep track of where you are in the game. 3143 lines of script.rpy ^_^
-HUGE BREAK-
11/19/13 - Added Brian and Protagonist sprite and implemented them into the code. Hired a musician! Finished writing/coding day 1!
All that's left are a couple sprites and CGs and then I'll have a working demo~! 3417 lines of script.rpy ^_^11/20/13 - Received Jonathan's sprite and implemented him into the code. Figured out how to make the credits roll at the end ^_^
11/25/13 - Got the final expression from Soren & implemented it. Moved to the WiP forum!
Had a meeting with the musician today. He's going out of town for the holidays so no work will be done until he gets back. Have a meeting with the background artist tomorrow. I'm sure I'll post updates here as to how it goes! Started coding day two of the convention - 3795 lines of script.rpy ^_^03/14/2014 - Got the final expression for Lizzie, implemented her sprite into the code. Hired a (HOPEFULLY) reliable background artist
Let the project continue!07/14/2014 - Got the sketches for the CGs for the first part of the game. YAY! Hired someone to do the opening movie. Working on replacing the composer.
07/15/2014 - We have a logo, and an official company name! We also have a composer for the songs! Woo! Lastly, I decided to make a Facebook page - like it and share it, spread the word! https://www.facebook.com/conventionkiss
07/18/2014 - Pixel Crush, the company I've chosen to create in order to do all of my game-creating, has a logo!
07/23/2014 - We have our opening theme!
08/09/2014 - Our CG artist quit :C working on hiring someone new! The main background theme and the cute-sy CG theme has been finished though!
08/13/2014 - Got quite a bit done today! Edited this post a bit to make it more up to date, including a new hopeful release date, and reiterating the fact that this game will be FREE. I also was able to fix an annoying code error that was causing something to fail in the game itself. With that fixed, I can continue to work on coding the story and plug in the music/CGs as I get them from the team. I implemented the sketches for the first CG, yippee! 3831 lines of script.rpy ^_^
08/25/2014 - I once again find myself without a CG artist... Wish me luck as I scour lemmasoft, deviantart, and a few other resources I've got collected in order to try to replace the last one >.<
10/16/2014 - Sorry for the lack of updates, but there's really been nothing to report. I'm just waiting on CGs at this point, but my last CG artist had to quit due to school :/
11/29/2014 - Got a new CG artist
Got more music for the game Fixed some 'flubs' in the art with characters wiggling around while changing emotions Made a Tumblr! Got my butt in gear and learned how to clean up my code, hence the LOWER number of lines, even though I've added more things (like the music xD). I have finished cleaning up about 1/4 of the code so far, the rest will be done tomorrow. 3786 lines in script.rpy12/01/2014 - Got all the script edited. Added a few more scenes ^_^ Heard back from the background artist! Moving right along
3851 lines in script.rpy1/10/2015 - First fully colored CG is completed!
11/23/2015 - I'm a derp! We have TONS more CGs (almost all of them for the intro in fact!) and are only waiting on 1 or 2 more music pieces from Shoko and the opening movie from Sakura! Things are coming together nicely on this end!
5/15/2016 - Still waiting on Shoko, feeling like it might be time to move on unfortunately :/ If anyone knows of affordable midi composers I think I'm in the market now? I did get some backgrounds done today, though, which is a big step! Also, our lovely CG artist made a big art update to our first CG, so I updated that as well :3
I've never been to a convention, but I've always wanted to go. Glad to hear everything is going smoothly with your project - it's so fun to create something you care about, and it looks like you've got a great team. Good luck; I look forward to playing the demo when it's released! 
