The Hero Of The Prophesy [Commercial] [Cute adventure !]

A place for game announcements, and for people to discuss games being made.
Forum rules
Please read the sticky before creating a new topic. Linking to Kickstarter/Crowdfunded games requires a demo. Updates to Patreon-backed games may be posted once every 2 months. Adult content should not be posted in this forum.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

The Hero Of The Prophesy [Commercial] [Cute adventure !]

#1 Post by Nighten »

Major Update, read > this post <
Bonjour !
It's been a few month since I work on one of my first Ren'Py project, way before I finished Vincit. I think it's time to show you my progress !
Fellow developers, let me introduce you to " Le Héros de la Prophétie ", " The Hero Of The prophesy " in English !


What is it about?
The Hero Of The Prophesy is a short kinetic novel, about 15 minutes long. It's a light and childish story about Sérieuse (\se.ʁjøz\), a young member of the "adventurer trainers' guild" who just find a chosen one to train, Naïf (\na.if\); But this hero might not be ready to accomplish his destiny.
This is not really a story targeted for children only , I hope peoples would enjoy it regardless of their age.


Sprites:
This project contain a lot of sprites. When I mean a lot, I mean more than a hundred.
I waited to complete the majority of them to introduce my project: I wanted to be sure this crazy goal was possible to reach before exposing it.

As I write this line, 55 sprites are already done; It's all the poses for three characters.
Image
From left to right, you have Godefroid, "the Guardian" and Sérieuse!
(Naïf visual will come soon!)

The others ones only need some shading: Completion is near, and I'm really really happy about this!


Background (and some fanboy stuff):
I do my background in 3D, because I can, with a toon shader. I use Blender, a fantastic program that I can't recommend enough. It's free, extremely powerful, and one of the greatest open source project ever made (I'm not even exaggerating).
Image
Half of the scenes has been modeled.

Around the project:
I plan to let graphics assets and code open source: It's mean sharing my 3D files, editable files for every sprites and so on.
I don't know, maybe something might interest you and you want to see or copy how it's made; I don't want to prevent anybody to do what they want with my stuff!


[center][ :arrow: Progress so far]
Story: 100% (English translation: 0%)
Sprites: 99%
Background: 60%
UI: 0%
Music/sfx: 0%[/center]


Note about characters' names.
Sérieuse mean Serious, and Naïf mean Naive; It should give you a good idea of their personality.
I don't plan to translate the character's name; You know, when a franchise come to France, English names are nearly never translated: We have Optimus Prime, Twilight Sparkles and martian manhunter, and a very few people notice that their name actually mean something.
What do you think of doing the opposite? Would it be annoying to have french words for the names of the characters?
I'm not stuck on my choice, translation haven't even started; So I'm very interested to hear your feedback on this point!


Feedback?
Does this project interest you? Despite not being a childish kid (which is fine don't worry~)?
What do you think about the art style? Can this find its place between all the anime around?

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day :D
Last edited by Nighten on Mon Feb 10, 2020 10:21 am, edited 5 times in total.
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

gekiganwing
Lemma-Class Veteran
Posts: 2473
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:38 pm
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Free, short, kinetic] [Light, Childish]

#2 Post by gekiganwing »

Nighten wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:38 pm I don't plan to translate the character's name; You know, when a franchise come to France, English names are nearly never translated: We have Optimus Prime, Twilight Sparkles and martian manhunter, and a very few people notice that their name actually mean something.
What do you think of doing the opposite? Would it be annoying to have french words for the names of the characters?
Character names can be a good way to convey where a story occurs, and when it occurs. For instance, your characters would likely have different names if your story occurred in Mexico or Indonesia.
Nighten wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:38 pm What do you think about the art style? Can this find its place between all the anime around?
1. Distinct art can be a way to find (or possibly even create) an audience. If your illustrations look different from other visual novels on iTunes or Steam, then people might notice your project.
2. Fandom experiences vary. If you grew up in France, then you might have known about series such as Nicky Larson or Theo ou la batte de la victoire. As a person growing up near Chicago, I didn't know either series existed until I had been active in fandom for several years. A few books of the former series were translated by Gutsoon under the original title City Hunter, and the TV adaptation went straight-to-video. I have only experienced the latter series (Mitsuru Adachi's Touch) through fan translations.

User avatar
Zelan
Lemma-Class Veteran
Posts: 2436
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 7:23 pm
Completed: The Dark
Projects: Cosplay Couple
Tumblr: evns
itch: Zelan
Discord: ltnkitsuragi#7082
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Free, short, kinetic] [Light, Childish]

#3 Post by Zelan »

Does this project interest you? Despite not being a childish kid (which is fine don't worry~)?: Yup! I like the art style, and all of those sprites are super ambitious, I'd love to see the finished project. Plus, I liked Vincit. c:
What do you think about the art style? Can this find its place between all the anime around?: I like it! I actually tend to lean towards more Western art styles.
About the names: I think it's fine not to translate them - you're totally right that English names usually don't get translated, so why bother doing it the other way around? Besides, the French names are similar enough to the English words that I think many players will still understand the meaning. ^_^

User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Free, short, kinetic] [Light, Childish]

#4 Post by Nighten »

gekiganwing wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:15 pm Character names can be a good way to convey where a story occurs, and when it occurs. For instance, your characters would likely have different names if your story occurred in Mexico or Indonesia.
The setting isn't really developed in this story ; It's a medieval fantasy kind of period, but never really defined. Sérieuse and Naïf are not common in any universe anyway, their name are more an excuse to convey what their attitude are.

gekiganwing wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:15 pm 1. Distinct art can be a way to find (or possibly even create) an audience. […]
2. Fandom experiences vary. [...]
Woaw, create an audience with my kind of style seems out of my ambition haha. Seriously, I know Lemma Soft is pretty open with different style that aren't purely anime; But I was just asking in case mine wasn't in somebody's tastes!
Yeah, it's tend to fade off with time and the massive internet accessibility today, but our vision and reference of anime aren't exactly the same; and influence us differently. We got Dragon Ball on TV seven years before the USA for example, so today a lot of french professional comics artist and animator claim to be influenced by Toriyama's work (the biggest DBZ fan comics is french too).
It's a very interesting topic, but we diverge a bit from the topic :D
Zelan wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:18 pm Does this project interest you? Despite not being a childish kid (which is fine don't worry~)?: Yup! I like the art style, and all of those sprites are super ambitious, I'd love to see the finished project. Plus, I liked Vincit. c:
Thank you Zelan c: <3
This story was wrote for an animated short that I turn into a Kinetic novel; This is why I tend to do a pose for almost every action. Not a reasonable thing to do, but at least it force me to practice a lot :')

Zelan wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:18 pm About the names: I think it's fine not to translate them - you're totally right that English names usually don't get translated, so why bother doing it the other way around? Besides, the French names are similar enough to the English words that I think many players will still understand the meaning. ^_^
I hope most peoples will agree on that choice too; I don't know enough native English people to know how they will react to it! As long as it doesn't distract readers I think it should be fine…

Thank you both a lot for your your early and quick feedback :3
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Free, short, kinetic] [Light, Childish]

#5 Post by Nighten »

Hi there !

I finished 120 sprites, sketched, inked, colorized and shaded !
As I integrate them in the script is noticed that I will need a few more variation for some dialogues (not an entire pose to make, but just redraw the mouth) plus some color adjustment, but that's ok ; some more won't make a difference now.

Now I can show you our two main protagonists: Naïf and Sérieuse!
Image

Also I made some improvement on the backgrounds, changed some settings and finally figure how to do a cute path in Blender (I just add a Shrinkwrap Modifier on an extruded curve, if that make any sense).
Image

So, that's it for now! I will continue to integrate all my sprites with some nice ATL while writing on the side what variations are missing. If you have any questions, for exemple about how to setup a 3D render like mines, feel free to ask! I'm in a "tutorial mood" these days, so I'll be happy to help you and those who have the sames problems!

Amour!
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

User avatar
Anna
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 708
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2010 10:30 am
Completed: Binary Soul, Days of the Divine, Nanolife, Firefly
Projects: current: Path of Dreamers
Organization: Circle Pegasi
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Free, short, kinetic] [Light, Childish]

#6 Post by Anna »

Your idea sounds very cute and I like the style!

I'm not too fond of the names since naming a character after words which describe their exact personality seems a bit too unbelievable and simple, but maybe it works if the game doesn't take itself seriously/there's a special reason for it.
This project contain a lot of sprites. When I mean a lot, I mean more than a hundred.
I waited to complete the majority of them to introduce my project: I wanted to be sure this crazy goal was possible to reach before exposing it.

As I write this line, 55 sprites are already done; It's all the poses for three characters.
It's a fun idea to make a TON of sprites when the design is so simple! It's like using the simplicity to your advantage, I like it a lot! With that many sprites in such a short VN, it's almost like reading a comic.

User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Free, short, kinetic] [Light, Childish]

#7 Post by Nighten »

Anna wrote: Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:55 pm Your idea sounds very cute and I like the style!

I'm not too fond of the names since naming a character after words which describe their exact personality seems a bit too unbelievable and simple, but maybe it works if the game doesn't take itself seriously/there's a special reason for it.

[...]

It's a fun idea to make a TON of sprites when the design is so simple! It's like using the simplicity to your advantage, I like it a lot! With that many sprites in such a short VN, it's almost like reading a comic.
Thanks for your kind comment Anna !

Yeah, that kind of name doesn't allow subtlety, but since the story might be targeted for child it's not a big deal ; It shouldn't be taken too seriously. Image
But I totally agree with you, thanks for your feedback !

Making million of sprites is fun but it's not easy at all, even with a simple style like mine ; I can believe I've done so much !
Sadly, as I integrate all those sprite I remark some mistakes and inconsistency in all the poses ; It took me so long to finish them, my skill evolved during all the project. I hope it won't be too much noticed by the readers !
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy

#8 Post by Nighten »

Hi everyone !
It's been quite a while; the project was stopped a long time ago, when I realized some major flaws in the writing and the balance between show and tell. Since then, I have done a lot of smaller VN (that you can find on my Itch !) and gained a lot of experience. But there was always this failed project on the back of my head...

So I've basically restarted from scratch one month ago, and I have some WIP to show you now !

Image

First of, I'm currently rewriting the script; the original one was very difficult to understand, because I relied too much on the sprites and different poses to show the action. But it was just really confusing, because there was very few description. The game is now a lot more understandable, and no longer kinetic : the plot is still mostly linear, but you can now have fun by choosing between different dialogue option to get out of risky situation without fighting your opponent.

My artistic skill vastly improved in two years, and the whole design didn't fit my taste now. Here's a exemple of the redesign of the MC, now named Timothy :
Image

I'll not draw a millions sprites again; but I want the action to be illustrated in little panels to give a comic-book feel, and for the sake of clarity.
Image


Finally, the game will be my first commercial game; I hope to released it before my birthday, in April !
I've sent a short demo to a publisher, but it's a bit early to announce something: at least, the game will be on Itch.io for around 2 to 5$.

I don't expect anyone to remember this project here, it was just fun for me to blow the dust after all this time!

What do you think about the project with this new coat of paint? Would you support a game like this?
Don't hesitate to ask questions if I wasn't clear on anything !

Thanks for your time, have a wonderful day ! <3
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Commercial] [Cute adventure !]

#9 Post by Nighten »

Bonjour !
Here's a quick update about my recent progress on the game.

First off, the project has been renamed to be more clear and less generic: It's now called Cutesy Prophecy : The harmless Hero !
I'll not rename this topic so you guys aren't lost while following the development, so don't be surprised if it didn't match!

Here's a first logo I've made for the game, still WIP so if you have any thoughts about how to improve it let me know !
Image


Summary of the story (because I've no idea how I phrased it two years ago):
Cutesy Prophecy tell the story of a young and naive man who is chosen by the prophesy to fight the hidden force of evil, but he doesn't want to hurt anyone!
You follow the journey of the hero and his master, and choose between absurd dialogue option to get out of perilous situations!

---

I'm still working on the script, and I've done some UI improvement! Using ATL on screens is a lot of fun when everything work :D
Image

That's it for today, take care! △
Last edited by Nighten on Thu Feb 27, 2020 10:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

User avatar
Zelan
Lemma-Class Veteran
Posts: 2436
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 7:23 pm
Completed: The Dark
Projects: Cosplay Couple
Tumblr: evns
itch: Zelan
Discord: ltnkitsuragi#7082
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Commercial] [Cute adventure !]

#10 Post by Zelan »

Wow, I love the animations! They look so smooth ^_^ it's great to see how much this project has changed and improved!

User avatar
Nighten
Regular
Posts: 48
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:29 am
Completed: Vincit, Sentiment Enneigés, The Devil took my Candies
Github: NightenDushi
itch: nighten
Location: France
Discord: Nighten#3081
Contact:

Re: The Hero Of The Prophesy [Commercial] [Cute adventure !]

#11 Post by Nighten »

Zelan wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2020 10:13 pm Wow, I love the animations! They look so smooth ^_^ it's great to see how much this project has changed and improved!
Thank you so much! I'm really happy to see you around after all this time :D
This was really weird to come back to this project; I learned a lot with my other completed VN, so I'm really happy to raise the quality of this little game. I hope the result will be fun to play!
If you need help with your project, you can hire me as a programmer! :D

Image ImageImage

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users