What visual novel development taught me

Posted on 22 March 2015 by Helia

Today, I want to come back to the differents projects the team made in order to comment our progression.

Indeed, even if things are slowly changing with the increase of early access games, one often only get a hold of a game through its finale version, in other words, it’s most complete and most accomplished version. An average player may get under the impression that the differents pieces are coming together thanks to some kind of evolution stone to change into a piece of art. Reality is less glamorous but way more reassuring : creating is something you have to learn. The bad news is that it involves a lot of work, the good news is that anyone can try it out. And the Träumendes Mädchen team is no exception, especially me who has the job of being the “leader”. It’s been almost three years now and I’ve learned so much thanks to my teammates, particularly with programming. So I want to draw up some kind of report.

June 2012 : Being Beauteous

Some of the first drafts by Morsy. She improved a lot since then!

Back then, the team had already gathered around Milk and we floundered so hard. I was aware we were jumping the gun when we started with a project this big and I really wanted to make up for that with something short. The first version of Being Beauteous was born like that and we planned to make it during some French contest that happened in a small convention. Even if it didn’t looked much, BB hold a special place in my heart because it was our first completed project. It was really simple (text and some CGs) but we did have troubles during the competition because of the GUI. So it’s only with the 2nd version (the first available one actually) that we managed to fix those bugs. Also, we slowly realized that having a translation was really important to share our works to folks around the world.

What I learned : to finish a project, to make a bug-less GUI, to understand the importance of an English translation.

February 2013 : 1st Episode of Milk

Another draft by Morsy. In the end, those variations never got into the game.

The deliivery of Milk’s 1st Espidode was a real ordeal because it took us like a whole year to see the end of the tunnel. It must be said that there was a lot of content to deal with for such a young team and I immediately understood that we couldn’t go on like that. After all, we were supposed to release the whole game in a row after that! I realized it was impossible and change the plan to an episodic publication. Hence why the demo became “1st episode”. It was also a chance to get to know Renpy a bit better (choosing a custom font, juggle with all the numerous sprites and numerous expressions). Milk’s presentation was really simple and we made a lot of mistakes but I think it was a prerequisite for what came after. Most of the mistakes were corrected (the GUI) or are pending for correction since then (*cough* the scenario). It should be noted that we released the visual novel both in French and English at that time, not without pain.

What I learned : to write a visual novel, to finish a bigger project (without dying), to draw a GUI, to make a siultaneous translation, to manage sprites and expressions.

April 2013 : Ambre

I think we all understand why Melow did the game illustrations and not me 8)

Once Milk’s Episode was behind us, I had to tackle Nanoreno! It wasn’t a technical challenge (because the story was linear) but it sure was a litterary one. Granted the deadline was a pretty difficult thing to handle too but I planned the game not to need too much assets. But really, my personal challenge was to write a short story that would inlude some kind of memorable ending, something striking. Even thought the result wasn’t perfect, I’m relatively proud of the outcome, I think the intended result is here. Ambre was also a good chance to make progress on GUI and animation. We included some light animation for the first time with the petals on the main scene and we tried something with the leafs on the city background. Some elements you would find again in the next release.

What I learned : to write a visual novel while paying attention to the assets needed, to finish a project quickly, to write a story with a memorable ending, to join an event.

March 2014 : 2nd Episode of Milk

A pretty sketch by Elairin

We took almost a year on this one again but it was mostly because of the turn-over inside the team. This second episode was mostly a validation of what we made with the first one. Indeed, many project don’t get past the demo stade, so releasing a new part of the story was a symbolic move. We wanted to show we were still game and that we wouldn’t give up so easily. We took that opportunity to change the GUI (and it was way more difficult than you would imagine!) and include animated backgrounds for the first time. Well, there are only 2 or 3 of them but it was a way to slowly get accustomed to the process.

What I learned : to carry on an under way project, to include animated backgrounds, to renew a team.

April 2014 : HVNCML

First GUI tests by Xian

Once again, I wanted to tackle Nanoreno, and once again Milk’s production was late. In 2013 we managed to finish two weeks before the beginning of the contest, this time we finished in the middle of it! Under these circumstances, it was rather difficult to deliver. HVNCML was born a whole week after the deadline. I didn’t write any postmortem because the whole game can be considered one (with a comic point of view). Back then, it was our first technical challenge because I only wanted to try my hand at a IRC-line GUI and didn’t have much planned to use it afterwards. Well, you can consider that making some part of your life public was also a challenge. In a way…it is. This little visual novel was supposed to be a funny extra to the fans that were wondering what we were doing everyday and how our meetings looked like. Yet several people who didn’t know us played it too. It was kind of embarrasing, a bit like getting naked in front of strangers. The whole approach does suppose some trust with the audience.

What I learned : to juggle between several projects at the same time, to try an IRC-like GUI, to reveal my stupidity to the world.

July 2014/September 2014 : 3rd Episode of Milk

Orties trademark: writing nonsense on her drawings :p

Milk’s third episode is really seen as an exception among our works because it’s the only damn game that went “easily”. Meaning that we didn’t enconter any particular issue (except a small false note with the translation that wasn’t immediately ready). If anything could happen like that, visual novel dev would be so easy XD. It’s all the more surprising considering we had a lot of pressure due to the fact we promised this part would be ready for Japan Expo, a French convention. The third episode also marked the spread of backgrounds animation.

What I learned : to meet a non-negotiable deadline, to spread backgrounds animation, to release a game in a relaxed way.

August 2014 : Garden of Oblivion

A relatively accurate Ludum Dare metaphor…

In the same vein as HVNCML, Garden of Oblivion was planned as a technical challenge: I wanted to put tradionnal visual novel aside to include some point & click elements instead. With an incredibly stressful deadline (Nanoreno is a stroll in a park in omparison). If the graphic part was irreproachable, the coding part was rather…wild. The first version we returned didn’t match my expectations at all and we had to add a whole week of work to get to the result with the second version. The other challenge was for me to write directly in English with the bare minimum of preparation to fit the gamejam spirit. And I’m reserved about the final result, I could have done better. At least, I managed to include more diversity among the characters. The fact remains that the community experience was on par! Ludum Dare really is a big gathering of people and that forms bonds. If you wanna know more, read the postmortem I made right after the competition.

What I learned : to write directly in English, to jon a bigger event, to learn programming in the field, to make an hybrid VN/P&C, to discover the joy of polishing, to include a bit more diversity in a cast.

Spring 2015 (?) : 4th Episode of Milk

Orties really likes to write on her drawings…

Milk’s forth episode isn’t out yet but I feel I learned so much already. I think it’s starting from this point that I really felt confortable with RenPy. To the point that I now like to rummage through the script to improve what I can improve. It wouldn’t have happened without slowly getting familiar with the engine, project after project, and the help of Keul. The direct consequence is that this episode is full of small alterations: adjusting the brightness of sprites during night scenes, adjusting the height of non-human sprites, adjusting the font to be more readable, adjusting some transitions to be more dynamic, adjusting sound effect to fit the mood better, light animations on the illustrations. Currently, that’s the work I’m the most proud about and I hope those little things will make the read more interesting, even if they’re not that useful. I also started asking the artists to try different presentation styles (object on top of the background, insert chibi, CG cut in half, CG with many variations).

What I learned : to have a good command of RenPy, to use all my time doing alterations nobody will ever notice, to use sound effects effectively, to experiment different presentations.

April 2015 (?) : Ludum Dare 2

Since the game’s production hasn’t started, for logic reason, here’s a scene from Milk Episode 4.

Since we’re planning to enter Ludum Dare again, this part will mostly be anticipation considering we didn’t even begin the project! My main goal is to break the linearity of all our projects so far. Making choices is quite a complex thing to incorporate into a story and as a litterary person, I have trouble with that and I need to learn to write differently. It’s pretty ambitious considering the short deadline but I’ll try to stick to that goal, even if it means releasing a polished version later on. The other goal is to go out of my comfort zone with writing and talk about what I want to talk in a more…frontal manner. Indeed, many of my works address our relation to the norm and try to challenge that notion but it’s mostly told in a tacit fashion. I want to go further and stop censoring myself so much. In this perspective, I want to stage characters different from usual, under-represented ones. Like disable people. Furthermore, I plan to rest on what I learned with all the projects we made up until this point to make a game that’ll make me proud. We’ll see if we’ll manage.

What I want to learn : to make th most of what I learned so far, to write an actual interactive visual novel with branching, to make diversity an essential component of the cast, to prevent myself from self-censorship, to master Renpy enough to not have a hard time…to make a good game?

Conclusion

I just wanted to share another scene from Milk Episode 4.

This little overview shows that an individual (just like a team) need time to gain self-confidence and skills. Time to make mistakes, time to correct the mistakes, time to get numerous habits, time to be able to experiment and choose what one wants to do and how. I couldn’t imagine planning the Ludum Dare project years ago, I wouldn’t have felt able to! With this approach in mind (though iterations), the advices from the pros take on their full meaning: always try to make short projects before even tackling the “game of your dreams”.

Everyone need its own pace to learn but nobody can make miracles without any experience whatsoever. The issues of some visual novel Kickstarter are really enlightening in this respect: almost all the projects made by beginners (such as the ones who bragged about the campaign being their first visual novel) are currently running into difficulties and are having troubles keeping their promises. Likewise, the Katawa Shoujo spiritual heirs have disappeared and the few survivors are stuck on demo phase.

Moral : Don’t jump the gun, start small. Wait until you feel ready before shifting up a gear, it can only do you good ;).

2015 plans

Posted on 31 December 2014 by Helia

Following our 2014 report, which says we did LOTS of stuff, the Träumendes Mädchen team won’t stop just now. So what do we plan to do in 2015?

(To celebrate the end of the year, here are some fanarts!)

A lovely Freyja (by Melow)

To begin with, slow down a bit X). I think it isn’t healthy to produce four games a year, not only does it lead to irrealistic expectations, but it also push the teammates to exhaust themselves. We can hardly beat 2014 record in terms of productivity anyway and I don’t want anyone to drown in a coffe’s cup (would be a fitting death but no).

We’re going to stay with basis : our top priority is to finish Milk Episode 4 first. If the work with sprites and chibis is almost done and I’m hoping we’ll be able to finish the CGs real soon (why did I write action scenes again?), I’m worried about the backgrounds. Indeed artists who can handle BGs aren’t legion and we’re missing the colouring phase. Would be galling to get stuck now so I’m hoping luck will smile at us once again ! Episode 4 should be ready in 2015, what remains unknown is when. Will it be at the beginning or at the end of the year…

Aluwo as a bisho (still by Melow)

That being said, I still want to make another short project in the following months. In fact, a specific idea haunts me (writing a story with lots of choices…moral choices) and I really want to make it. So I’m wondering about dragging the whole team with me to enter next Ludum Dare. Needless to say that if we enter a game jam in April, we won’t be doing Nanoreno in March. To be continued…

Some of you may be wondering if we gonna take part in next Japan Expo convention. Well, the answer will depend on you! Since we’re a team of hobbyists, we don’t have a big budget and we’re paying transports/accomodation cost out of our own pocket. We’re enthusiasts and we want to be sure we’re going to make you happy. So I gonna circulate a survey to know if some people are interested in last time hard copies (if we need to reprint some) and if some people are interested in new goodies. Depending on what answers we got (as well as the numbers of answers we got), we’ll be able to see more clearly into it. Of course, most international people won’t be able to attend a French convention, but please do let a comment (here or through social networks) if you’re interested in mail-order. I can’t garantee anything for now but we might be able to open an online store in the future.

Beyond Japan Expo, I think it’s reasonable to make progress with Milk Episode 5. I really hope this part will be available before the end of the year because it’s urgent to finish the common route once and for all. Or else we’ll still be making the rest 10 years from now and that doesn’t sound that tempting to me =(.

Miruku (by Clua *_*)

2015 will be more relaxed…maybe?

To conclude, 2015 should be less hectic than 2014…should be. Because, as I said, we’re not immune to surprises ~ You know me, I can’t stop myself.

2014 was a challenging year

Posted on 23 December 2014 by Helia

Let’s bring 2014 to a close with a little report of everything that happened this year (like what we did last January).

To begin with, we released Episode 2 from Milk ~La légende des étoiles during mid-March. It was a bit hasty to my taste since we were late in relation to my estimations, and we had to rush through the release to tackle the next task. Which is a shame and I really don’t want the same mistake to recur.

The good news is that with Episode 2, Milk was officially heading towards Khzi’s part that I loved to write and that contrasts a lot with what I wrote for Episode 1. The cows and Tarô aren’t the main characters anymore and just accompany the long story narrated by our nutty alien. I think Khzi has everything to be popular and the various feedbacks I got confirm that impression. Freyja seems to have fans too, I find that amusing XD.

The key element with this release is essentially our transition to the current team (who gained experience during the journey). We still have a big gap between the art assets but we’ll solve the issue in due course. The current style should stay at least for a while even if we’re not immune to something unexpected.
March was also the month of Nanoreno, and I went from Milk to How visual novel changed my life, released in April, without transition. The artists’s work was precisely limited to avoid burnout so the gain was mostly based on text and programmation. Which turned out to be a nightmare… Overwhelmed, I had to infringe upon my on-the-job training schedule in order to finish the script (and integrate the translation, while I’m at it). The whole thing with an even moreunpredictable Keul. I copped it, which may explain why the game was a bit delayed. And I thought it would only be a little gift to please our fans. That’ll teach me to do too many things at the same time =’D.

Since HVNCML was just a small thing without pretention, I didn’t expect much. So, many month later, I’m really surprised to see people discovering us like that, I sure hope they won’t take fright because of what I wrote XD.

Two visual novel in a year is quite decent, except that we never stop. Never. The big project of the year was of course the team going to the Japan Expo convention. I won’t hide hide, it’s tottaly because of the Endless Seasons guys, they have a catching enthusiasm and were looking for people to share their booth with anyway :p. In the end, Projet Saya offered to supervise and we managed to convince Atelier Dreamnoid to join us in this crazy ride. The preparation was huge, no organiser wanted to leave things to chance, so we ask every participant for thei opinion many times in oder to be in the same wavelength. The Träumendes Mädchen team had to finish many things, with the weight of the crowdfunding campaing on our shoulders, like Episode 3 and some goodies. The remakes got added really fast with the success of the first strechgoal. Thanks to our artists, including Orties and Melow who produces most of the drawings between the two of them, everything turned up alright.

In the end, it was an enriching experience. For a first time in the convention world, I think the team did a good enough job and it was a pleasure to meet everyone IRL and spend time with fellow developpers.

Once again, it should have been enough but we had to give ourselves more work =’D. The summer end was a good opportunity to put webdesign under construction. The old devblog wasn’t suitable anymore, we wanted a real “shop front” and not a messy page. If posisble, the site had to be both in English and French for pratical reasons. The result still isn’t perfect but we’re working on it!

Icing on the cake, we tried a new game jam : the Ludum Dare. With an even more challenging goal than Nanoreno and a different community, we were assured we need a lot of coffee and wouldn’t get much sleep. Many difficulties made the experience a bit painful on my side (I must be a masochist XD), the team did finish a game in time. Of course, it couldn’t be a big complex one (don’t forget it was done in a weekend) but Garden of Oblivion, published betwee August and September, was the perfect opportunity to male a real game from scratch. We did rely on what we knew well (visual novel) and the result has the same vibed but we learned a lot.

The rest of the year (not much left) was used to progress on Milk Episode 4 and some various little things : like the dematerialised version of the games we sold at Japan Expo, the arranged OST of Being Beauteous by Roganis, a big giveaway, etc.

To conclude,the planning I had in mind for 2014 was loaded and the team used a lot of energy to make it possible. It’s an achievement I’m very proud of and I shouldn’t try to do as much this year if I don’t want my lovely teammates to die of weariness…

I’ll make another post early January to reveal what we’re gonna do in 2015 (a year as surprising as the last one, I hope), so meanwhile I wish you a merry Christmas. Also, here’s a cute Christmas Miruku by Melow ;).

Rondo Duo, the future of visual novel and updates

Posted on 26 November 2014 by Helia

Today, there are various subjects I’d like to talk about, so bear with me for the moment (development updates at the end of the post)!

Rondo Duo and the future of visual novel

I already lightly touched the subject on my personal blog (French only, sorry :<) but I really wanted to talk about Rondo Duo in more details.

As you might know it, Rondo Duo ~Dawn at Fortissimo is a japanese visual novel that’s been released by doujin group Tinkle Bell last Halloween. Plot-wise, it has little to no importance (it’s a nukige, so don’t expect more than lots of H-scene) but from an artistic perspective, it’s very interesting. In fact, Tinkle Bell uses an handmade Flash engine to make everything animated. Whereas rival japanese companies (like Windmill Oasis who introduced it first with Witch Garden back in 2012) primarily uses the « Emote » system as a light gimmick, this new system does reproduce the illusion of movement pretty well. The art is gorgeous and coherent with the animation, and the sound effect really adds a lot too. In short, the cinematics are great.

Seeing the intro scene of Rondo Duo makes you wonder what it’d be like if visual novel with a real plot used cinematics like that. Of course, I’m not speaking of a full-animated visual novel, it would be expensive as hell for indie creators. Tinkle Bell itself took 6 years to finish their game (it was announced back in 2008) and there was like two or three people working in the team during all that time (I don’t think they were working full time on this though). Not bad for a doujin group but you see my point. What I’m really curious to see is a visual novel with ponctual cinematics like that, done only for key scenes. I have the feeling it would add a lot to the experience. I’m sure every visual novel reader had seen moments where static pictures weren’t enough to convey the right emotion (like fight scenes or dramatic scenes).

It’s clearly not within everybody’s range (my team would never be able to do that, for example XD), but maybe the biggest visual novel developpers can try it out. I would be very curious to see that. What’s your opinion? What visual novel do you think could include such cinematics?

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Game dev updates

Nearly a month went by since last time and it only feels like yesterday. Developping visual novel makes you kinda disoriented: since you’re working on the the same things over and over again, you can easily lose track of the time…

Concept art of two new characters by @Laniessa. If you’re nice, you’ll be able to see the finished version soon ;)

We’ve been progressing surely but quite slowly on the next part due to everybody being busy. The truth is that Episode 4 is way bigger than Episode 3, so it’ll take longer to finish it, especially with the number of CGs (there are a lot of action scenes in this one, I’m sure you’ll love it !).

Sketch of the forest background by @Orties

The good thing is that almost all the backgrounds are ready to enter coulouring phase! I hope the work on the sprites (mostly colouring) and the chibis will also be over soon, in order to be able to complete the script. I’m hoping to send it to translators in December, so let’s cross fingers!

Others

Milk put aside, we did work on other things. For example, we released Being Beauteous on Desura in mid-november and we plan on doing the same for Ambre when the time’ll be suitable (read: after the crazy month of December where everybody is broke and most AAA games are published). We’re really proud to be able to make our visual novel more visible to a larger audience, I hope it’ll go on ^^.

Speaking of Being Beauteous, we also realized we never released its new soundtrack. Since Roganis did such a good job, it would be a shame not to share it, right? That’s why the Being Beauteous Soundtrack will be available on Bandcamp next Monday (1st December) on a « Pay what you want » basis (the OST is so short we felt it wouldn’t be fair to ask for a definite amount). You can get it for free or give him a little tip to support his work. I’d be you, I’d definitily give him a few bucks, the guy deserve it ;).

And after the release of the Being Beauteous Soundtrack, Roganis will also publish his new album on Bandcamp. For those who couldn’t get it at the last Japan Expo convention, it’ll be your chance! So, as usual, follow us on social networks to be the first one informed o/.

Milk Episode 3 Release !

Posted on 29 September 2014 by Helia

Six months after the previous one, here’s the newest part of the story. With 100% more alien madness !

If the first two Episodes were finished in a rather chaotic fashion, this one went surprisingly well : artists were all available (which is rare), Orties was as fast as a human being can possibly be (her secret is tea, so it seems) making many assets in a go, and the French version was ready for the convention we attended this summer. So, apart for some remaining bugs and some work on the English translation, there wasn’t much to do after. Also, this Episode is a little bit on the short side because I have to save energy for the big scenes happening in Episode 4, but I can’t say more!

A CG drawn by Orties

In this Episode, Khzi’s mission gets complicated as the High Priest heading the church wants her companions dead or alive! Will she be able to retrieve the meteorite’s fragments while protecting the slave she took in on the way? You’ll find out soon ;).

For the moment, enjoy Milk ~La légende des étoiles. We’ve decided to put the game on Gumroad as well, because it allows us to make updates. So, every time an Episode comes out (every six months, as planned), you’ll receive an email. Pretty cool, hun ?

Khzi being awesome. Or crazy, it’s the same ! (by @Melow)

You can still follow our updates regularly on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Like the game ? Hate it ? Give us your feedback, it will be much appreciated =). And stay tuned because we have something reaaaaaaally cool to tell you later this week !

You know who she is: more Khzi’s madness incoming!

Posted on 25 September 2014 by Helia

We’ve been preparing it for some time now, the time has finally come…SHE’s coming back. Oh yes, you know who I’m talking about.

Click on the picture to see the GIF

But, beforehand, some little news ! (I love to make people wait for nothing :3)

As you must know, we released all of our short projects on Gumroad on « Pay what you want » : the graphic remakes of Being Beauteous and Ambre, as well as How visual novels changed my life are all available for free but you can drop a little tip to support future releases ;).

Ludum Dare has ended for some time now, as we have received the ratings of Garden of Oblivion, our entry. For a first time, we didn’t do half bad ! We even got into the Top 100 (at the very end but we made it) ! I’d say it’s a very encouraging sign and we’re gonna considerate entering once more to make another game.

I’m so happy with our LD ratings *__*

Now that those things are out of the way, it’s time for the real deal : Milk ~La légende des étoiles.

We’re officially gonna release Episode 3 next week. So why would you care ? The story is now 5 hours long, with various improvements (like a better translation for you, English folks!). Which makes like half of the common route and more Khzi’s goodness ! And I know, you like her very much ;). Who wouldn’t like such an inpredictable fellow whose hobby is to make people go crazy just for fun 8D.

Click on the picture to see the GIF

Meanwhile we’re gonna share some extra pictures on social networks to make you want to play our story. So get yourself ready because you’ll finally be able to know what happens after that pirate raid next week !

Garden of Oblivion Post-mortem [LD30]

Posted on 9 September 2014 by Helia

Check out the game here : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=39080

It’s been two weeks since the competion, now is the time to sit down and think about what I’ve learned from the experience called Ludum Dare so far. Quite a lot, to be honest…

Before the war

To really understand our experience, you have to know where we come from, and, unless you’ve just run into us, you must already know that our lovely unpronounceable team is specialized in creating story-focused games. We’ve been making visual novel for some months now and I’d say we’re starting to get a hold of it. Since I’ve always wanted to add gameplay to make our works more interactive, I thought Ludum Dare would be a good opportunity to do so. The goal was clear : we had to make a game.

But, of course, jumping from mostly linear visual novel to full fledged game in a few days wouldn’t be that easy. So we decided to make a warmup game to practice. Soon, I had some assets to create a tiny prototype. The only thing missing was the code. Being a writer and a manager above all else, I was only able to code simple things and I had never done jumpscares before. So I needed the programmer. And he was so late to help me, I barely had any sleep the night before the launch. But we did it, we finished the prototype (with less features than I intended but, well, it was for practice purpose after all). Then the real deal started.

An incomplete idea : Escape paradise

Finding the right view to draw the garden wasn’t easy

I’m the kind of person who sucks at improvising. When I write something, I need time to think about the story I’m going to make so that everything fall into place. It could take weeks or months depending on the plot. So, I can’t just enter a gam jam like « YOLO, no preparation whatsoever », I have to at least have some kind of trail. And, luckily, I had an idea about what to do for the contest : a short horror story with some point & click elements. There would be this character trapped in a beautiful garden and he would have to escape but doing so would only uncover terrible things. It was a simple idea that needed work but I thought the theme would help me expand it. The first thing I noticed when I woke up early that Saturday is that the theme was way too vague for my taste. « Connected Worlds » didn’t hold much potential for me. I went with the « life and death » approach but wasn’t really satisfied with the result.

You must have noticed by now that I’m used to write games that lean solely on plot. Plot that sometimes has shock value (like what I did with Ambre) or is built to make people think (like Being Beauteous). But Garden of Oblivion wasn’t leaning on plot like my other projects, it didn’t even need a strong plot. It was relying on the mood, on the gameplay and eventually on the litterary references I put everywhere. Plus, I was too busy managing the artists and trying to code to be able to focus on writing a decent story. So I couldn’t really find a way to expand my idea like I wanted to, making the main character suffer a bit from this issue.

The main character : never say reven

Usually I tend to be very specific when I ask one of my artists to draw me an important character. Here I didn’t know what I wanted and I didn’t really cared. It could be a man or a woman, white or black, I didn’t mind one bit. I intended to ask Melow to be the character artist but she was a bit sick and couldn’t really work that much. Morsy offered to draw the MC instead because she was interested. Thing is Melow tends to draw cute girls whereas Morsy tends to draw alternative characters, so that little choice completely changed the way the character was brought to life. She was happy to experiment new things and asked me about the gender of that protagonist. Since I didn’t care and had trouble answering properly, she offered me to make the MC gender-neutral. And so, Reven was born without a gender, because we felt it was not a key element to the story (making writing a bit more difficult actually but it was interesting). Since I suck at finding names and I don’t like normal ones, I called Reven like that because it was « never » in reverse. Yeah.

From a sketch to the almost finished sprite

I was happy with my new designed character but that didn’t help one bit finding how to go into its backstory in depth (like, the reason Reven was send to Eden in the first place is briefly touched upon but not developped). So I didn’t, even though I really wanted to, due to the lack of time. Because of that, Reven is not that much of a well-rounded character, not as deep a others I wrote, and that still bothers me.

Puppies make everything better !

To make a perfect purgatory for our poor Reven, I wanted cute animals to keep the character some company. I asked Melow to draw them inspired by some of the real life plushes I have (hey, stuffed animals are great gifts). Finding names was once again tricky so I went with whatever popped on my mind. Hence the duck being called « Duck McDuck » (I suck at names, remember), the otter « Lotte » and the fox « Fox-tan » (Firefox reference, I guess). The rabbit was more difficult, I racked my brains and decided « Humpty » fitted (he has a big head, he looks like an egg-man to me). Giving them personnality went quite easily. I’m just a bit dispointed we didn’t have the time to make their sprites change expressions outside of dialogues. Another time, maybe.

The turning point or « What went horribly wrong »

Hopefully the artists were really motivated and they worked really hard throughout the weekend. One was kinda sick but managed to do some drawings nonetheless, one was staying at my house and hardly took any break and the other stayed late at night to finish as much as she could. The first day was kinda misleading because I had time to tweet a lot, to show people some screenshots, everything seemed to go alright and all. It was definitely the best day for me and I enjoyed the full community experience. But I hadn’t made much progress on the script and was behind schedule, which was an alarming sign. I had to work really hard the other days to make up for it. Thing is, while the graphists were advancing well, Roganis, our musician, wasn’t getting anywhere because of a huge block. He did what he could though and managed to produce some tracks for the game (you can listen to the unused track in the trailer video BTW). But, well, otherwise, everything was going well, right ?

The duchess looked a bit off on the first sketch, so we made a more modern version.

Not really. The biggest problem was that the code was way too complex for me to handle alone. So I couldn’t even start to write all the little interactions I wanted to make or even ensure we had something playable. I was worried sick because in two days, the programmer almost hadn’t showed up. When he finally helped me a bit, there were TONS and TONS of bugs to fix…and he only came the last night to do so. I was on the verge of giving up. He wanted to try his best though, so while the others had finished and gone to their well-deserved rest, we stayed together to finish the game. But we were lacking time so much we could barely add the gameplay part. So the entry we submitted that night at the last minute was a linear story whithout any polish and full of bugs. Like a story-less visual novel. The empty shell of a game, if you will.

Making a half-game really frustrated me. After a day of rest, to sleep a bit, I took the following day with the programmer to fix some of the major bugs (turned out game wasn’t beatable). And I worked hard later that week to finally add what I wanted, while asking him for some help. It took us three more days at a normal pace.

Garden of horror

When I thought of making an horror game within 72h, I knew we had to work hard on the backgrounds to offer many variations, including creepy ones. Noone could have pulled it better than Orties since she loves scary things so much. The last version of the garden is especially…lovely. It looked like one of Saya no Uta’s. But, we couldn’t make the animated bits right away, since I needed my programmer for that, so the glowing and moving part are only in the post-jam version. As well as the jumpscares actually. I fiddled with some sound effects and animations to make those. I feel the game wouldn’t have much sense without them. An horror game without jumpscares is just too sad. Say hello to the scarecrow !

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles everywhere !

Surprisingly, we had fun with making the puzzles. Morsy had difficulties to understand what I wanted at first but she managed to make really pretty drawings. I only asked for simple ones but I can’t complain when I see how the knife and axe ones turned out. Even the extra puzzle looked great. Coding them wasn’t too difficult either, so the main task was really more about making the interactions on the background.

And then, there was the riddle… I was planning all along to insert one into the game but in the haste I had to come up with something real quick and we couldn’t ask someone to test the result for us. So, in a predictable way, many players complained that the clues weren’t clear and that they had no idea how to pass it, showing us how important it is to ask someone to play your game beforehand X).

Afterthoughts

So, what can I learn from this mess ? To begin with, it was obvious that our first time adding gameplay would be painful, and it has been. We learned the hard way that making a game isn’t just putting some assets together, you have to test the game over and over again to correct bugs and make it work for real. What seems like a short and innocent bit of gamedev actually takes you A LOT of time. But it’s that testing phase that makes the game feel alive. But the experience has been enriching and I think we’re now more ready to add gameplay in our stories. Maybe for another edition of Ludum Dare ? Who knows…

Enter the Garden of Oblivion [LD30 entry]

Posted on 1 September 2014 by Helia

Those among you who’re following us on social networks (especially Twitter) already saw this but the Traumendes Madchen team entered Ludum Dare for the first time last week ! It was a very stressful and interesting experience but we’re gonna go into more details in an upcoming post-mortem. For the moment, enjoy our little game : Garden of Oblivion.

Since Ludum Dare has a 72h time limitation, needless to say we had troubles finishing our entry on time, hence many many bugs. So we took some days to make a polished version. You can grab it on itch.io for free but if you liked it, you can also give us a little tip to support future releases !

Once we’re not busy anymore with the Ludum Dare judging, we’ll finally be able to release the third episode of Milk (finished since June for those who bought it at Japan Expo !) and provide the new download link for our Nanoreno 2014 game (we’ll try to correct it a bit while we’re at it).

So stay tuned and follow us on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook to be the first to know what we’re going to do next ;).

Website launch

Posted on 20 August 2014 by Helia

I’ve been talking about it for a while now, but the team is finally having a real website ! About time, right =’) ?

Being Beauteous Remake

Now that we have that new website, we’re gonna take the opportunity to release all the remakes of our short projects one at a day through the week. So, I you didn’t play them, this would be a good time ! And if you already did, you can now enjoy all the corrections we’ve done to improve the experience :).

We’re gonna take down all the old download links in the process, so please don’t freak out if you don’t see them anymore in the following days, they will be uploaded on our website instead !

We feel it’s also a good time to move the devblog as well and we want to do that in the near future. Just not yet, so you can get used to the website first. It would be a little confusing to have too much new things at the same time, right ^^ ? I don’t have a date in mind but we’ll let you know anyway ;).

Ambre Remake

And if you see a mistake somewhere on the site or if you want to be added to the dev list, don’t hesitate to tell us ! You can follow us on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook anytime to be brought up to date.

At the end of the week, we’re gonna announce our next project, I hope you’re as impatient as I am ~

Japan Expo 2014 – Leap of Faith

Posted on 14 July 2014 by Helia

From 2nd to 6th July, the whole team attended Japan Expo, the biggest european convention around japanese culture (anime, manga, videogame, etc). Being more of the discreet kind, I confess that I don’t go to convention very often, so it was my first time at Japan Expo. I was very nervous, not knowing what I should expect except a lot of troubles, and starting right off the bat as an exhibitor was scary as hell ! Fortunately, this first experience went well.

First of all, the atmosphere behind the Projet Saya booth was very enjoyable. We were many people : the Swiss team Endless Seasons, the organiser from projet Saya, a good ten or so of the Träumendes Mädchen team (luckily never at the same time) and Atelier Dreamnoid at the end of the week. Being that much people was clearly a weakness in terms of comfort (not many chairs, not many place for everyone’s bag, the back of the booth being a real mess) but is was a real strength in terms of motivation. Everyone was taking turns to manage the booth, so you could take break whenever you wanted to rest or go take a look at the convention. Since an exhibitor has to wake up early in the morning, stay up all day long with the crowd and noise all around, and go back late in the night, needless to say we were all soon tired. But thanks to our number, we managed to stay awake and energetic throughout the week, which is kinda miraculous ! Besides, we were united and there was always someone to chat or clown around to lighten the atmosphere. In brief, it was very enjoyable to be a part of a motivated and welcoming collective.

Our booth was decently located : we regularly had visitors stopping in the amateurs area to look around. The people on the booths next to us were all adorable and put ut with our constent babbling. Roganis, our composer, also befriended the booths in front of us that were selling doujin music : Butterfly Odyssey, a French group doing celtic music and seam ( he bought himself a soft cat paw) and Showdo Records, a Japanese group that was very kind (Melow gave them some little sketches as a gift). It was a real pleasure to talk with them and we’ll be sure to greet all of them if we come back to Japan Expo.

Even the visitors were all super nice to us ! We were attending the convention to promote the creation of visual novel and not to make a lot money, so we simply were happy to talk about what we liked. It was interesting each time : with people who didn’t know what this was about, we shared our passion for visual novel, and with accustomed people, we exchanged about our favorite games. A bunch of Nitro+ fans came to us because of the banner referencing Saya no Uta BTW ! I think our honesty was showing because a lot of visitors actually listened to our speeches XD. It was heartwarming and we didn’t expect that much interest. Some visitors even spoiled us : there was a girl that showed up to offer us handmade cake and a man let us a little tip. Being able to discuss about visual novel with Polish guys was also super cool and we hope to see more foreigners next time.

The biggest surprise we encountered was the little success of our products. We never attended any convention before, so we came expecting the worst (even if Endless Seasons and the organiser from Project Saya had both experience which was reassuring). In reality, all physical copies sold well so much we were out of stock Sunday evening (hard copies for the Indiegogo’s backers were of course booked, they’re not affected). Roganis music album sold well too. On the other hand we didn’t print enough leaflet and quickly lacked stock, we’ll have to correct that mistake another time.

Only regret : Snow Light wasn’t ready on time. Projet Saya announced in a campaign update that the dev would sell physical copies at our booth but he had to retire because of many unexpected problems…

In the end, only the goodies are left since they didn’t sell that well. Some people could call it a failure but that’s not our opinion. Goodies bring some colors and fill the space (a booth with only two things on sale would be sad), plus they flesh out the world we’ve created. Most visitors didn’t know our visual novel before, so it’s natural that they don’t want to buy goodies of an unknown story right off the bat. But, if they enjoy their read after discovering us, mayve they’ll be interested next time. Those goodies aren’t gonna go to waste, they’re part of a long-term strategy and we won’t print that every year (would be way too expensive !).

Apart from managing the Projet Saya booth, I didn’t really get the chance to visit Japan Expo. The only event I got to see was the Kalafina live. Fans were so on fire, they applauded each time they could (in any instrumental break of any song, for example). I would have appreciated more songs from their first albums but I expected that they would focus on their newest and I was delighted when they ended the live by singing Sprinter. I hope Wakana, Keiko and Hikaru liked they stay in France.

While a part of the team was attending the concert, another part went to Oyari Ashito’s signing session, a famous artist that illustrated several visual novel (with lots of lolis :p).

To finish this lenghty post, here is my humble loot :

* A FFXIV shirt given by Xian from Projet Saya. He went to the Square Enix booth almost every day to beat Leviathan and got many. Since I’m a big fan, I asked him for one XD. He also gave me a Type Moon cleaning tissue for glasses ‘cause, well, he doesn’t have glasses…
* The Kalafina European Edition which includes their first albums and a promotional poster. I would have loved to get that album signed but I didn’t get the chance.
* A music album from Butterfly Odyssey. I actually heard of the composer for a while and I really wanted to get one of his work.
* Child of Light fanarts ! I really wanted to buy goodies on the amateurs booths to support them but I confess that I don’t really watch the most recent animes (like Kill La Kill, Free or Shingeki no Kyojin). So I went for the most recent thing I knew and liked : Child of Light (I love that game XD).

Want to see more pictures ? There are some on the last update from our Indiegogo page and we posted a whole album on Facebook with descriptions. Your comments are welcome ;).

Träumendes Mädchen Devblog

Category Archives: Doujin