2015 review & 2016 plans

Happy holidays to all of our readers! To end 2015 on a high note, here’s a review of everything that happened this year, as well as our plans for the upcoming year.

Satori

One of the drawings Orties made for our artbook :3

If you remember correctly, 2014 was a crazy year: we released no less than four games, made goodies, including remakes of our oldest games, ran a booth at Japan Expo and completely renewed the devblog (by adding a website). I promised myself to slow down a bit to avoid exploding. Was 2015 calmer?

Continue reading

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Hello everybody. It’s been strangely cold here since the end of summer, so much that I ended up sick, hence the interval between the Android release of HVNCML and the Android release of Garden of Oblivion. As announced last time, the latter is now available in English AND French for free, valid for all types of OS!

As for Milk, the release is just around the corner! We only have 2 CGs missing, the last bit of the translation and some tweaks for Episode 5 to be complete. So I’m pretty confident when counting on publishing the game by the end of the month. It should be noted that this would be the last until a very long time. I’ll explain everything in details later but there are big change lying ahead…

Other than that, I have good news. Along with Roganis, we expect to release the OST from Between Heaven and Hell (so Garden of Oblivion + Wounded by Words) around Halloween and I’m also thinking about possibly making another giveaway soon ~

So, as always, follow us on social networks to be the first one informed o/

Summer is over

There we are, start of the school year again! It’s time to review the situation. Concerning developement of Milk Episode 5, I’m rather satisfied insofar as I usually have troubles progressing during the summer time. Yet, this time, we managed to finish all the backgrounds, thanks to Kinect and Orties speed, and we started the rest, which isn’t half bad. I hope I’ll be able to release this Episode in the following weeks, let’s cross fingers!

Fog animation, Milk Episode 5

Having given it much thought, I decided to swap distribution service by putting all the projects of the Short Story Compilation on itchio, that turned out to be way more practical than Gumroad, hence the big move this weekend. Concretely, it doesn’t make much of a change for you but I think the reslt will be more pleasant  (no more confusion with Pay what you want).

Torture chamber background, Milk Episode 5

Speaking of our short projects, I also have a good news : every week starting from now, we’ll be releasing Android versions of our games and they wil be available on Google Play. That way, wherever you are, you will be able to read a visual novel on your phone or tablet in no time! We’ll be starting with the latest version of Being Beauteous, that includes a Spanish and Japanese translation (this version is already available on itchio BTW), and finish with Garden of Oblivion in English and French.Nothing has been decided for Wounded by Words yet insofar as it’s our most recent project: indeed, I’d like to keep some exclusive content for the physical version owners. So, we’ll see later…

Language selection menu: there’s gonna be no shortage of choices!

Meanwhile, I wish a great start of the school year to you all!

My experience as a marginalized dev: trying not to self-censor

Recently, Heiden, another game developper, asked me on Twitter if I could write about where I’m taking my inspiration from and what my motivations are. It’s a bit complicated in my case but the question is interesting enough for me to try to answer!

Inspiration: a joyful patchwork

First of all, depending of the projects, I can tap into extremely diverse source, often seemingly incompatible: classic literature classique, fairy tales, cartoons, comics, movies, videogames, anime, visual novel, mythology, etc. I’ve already mentionned some of them but here’s a more exhaustive list.

For Being Beauteous, I based the story on Disney version, especially the love song part, thinking up how the romance between the protagonists coul work without its main catalyst. Also, what’s after the usual “happy end”, how their relation can grow, what happens when they’re becoming old. I mostly applied my way of thinking to a version I didn’t particularly like. To be honest, BB is at least my 2nd or 3rd Cinderella rewriting. The other big idea I have in mind for years now implies a narcoleptic Cinderella. Also, BB is mainly born at  a time where I was discovering those kind of feelings: you can hardly pull more romantic from me and the result is still bittersweet =’).

Jaquette AmbreAmbre is my short project with the most diverse influences: as mentionned in my post-mortem, I drew a bit on World War Z by Max Brooks (the little girl who survived the zombie apocalypse chapter), the song Moment 4 Life by Nicki Minaj that illustrated the Cinderella symdrom perfectly, but also in a  news item novelized by a french lawyer.

Strangely enough, I took inspiration from a romantic comedy film I only knew because of posters on the walls of stations back when I had to take the train in 2012. It tells the story of a happy couple wrecked when the woman suddenly lose her memory in an accident, only knowing what happened before meeting her husband. And I simply asked myself what would happen if my partner had to face the same problem. Since I’ve seen a lot in my life, the answer varied depending of the memory loss and my attitude was radically different. For examle, at some point in my life, I was obsessed by being normal and I tried to kill who I was to fulfill the expectations people had for me. I suffered a lot because of those attempts and it left a mark on who I became. During that dark phase, I especially tried to find bearings and ended up copying popular media (TV, cinema, radio, magazine for women) in order to know how to behave. Looking back, the result was totally ridiculous and clumsy but I was really, genuinely, trying to match what people wanted me to be. I don’t wish anybody to experience that… Hence, Ambre can be considered a fiction of what I could have become if I didn’t cracked under the pressure and decided to follow my own path.

Inspired by real facts :p

As for How visual novel changed my life, there’s not inspiration insofar as it’s a revised collage of real IRC discussions ;). One could consider the whole team wrote this one!

ss+(2014-08-25+at+21.36)

Concept art depicting The Metamorphosis by Kafka (@Eolyus)

The original idea behind Garden of Oblivion was to create some kind of written Yume Nikki (a great experimental game) with some point & click elements. Sadly, the concept never went past that. Besides, you could consider the story-related parts are also based on my personal experience: wanting to withdraw in an imaginary world, feeling like you’re not fitting in, being unable to take decisions, etc. Incidentally, the talking animals many people said were reminiscent of Dreaming Mary are nearly all stuffed animals I own and that embody my childhood.

ld1_2_by_kinectiklover-d8ptqmw

Concept art of Hassan (@Kinect)

Wounded by Words is more complicated because everything is “real”. I did base some parts on testimonies to depict Gabriel and Hassan (as I don’t master viewpoints like those) but overall, every character has the same problem, and that’s something I recently faced: the difficulty to keep going forward when you don’t belong to the dominant viewpoint. As a young woman dealing with a disability, I often struggle to do the same things as others and I’m still poorly perceived in my own family. It’s a very complicated and disheartening feeling I wanted to share. Incidentally, Dave is only here to embody the external and hurtful view the other character have to deal with daily. He’s based on my previous internship tutor and several members of my family. Mostly my father. Sorry if you’re reading me, dad, but you’re really like that and it’s insufferable…

Milk 2015-08-23 18-14-58-84

This is not a harem…

Milk~La légende des étoiles being a huge project, my influences are even more diverse depending of the segments. The whole “harem” thingy is of course based of charage/moege and I wanted to readapt them completely in my style because I’m displeased with the current state of those games. In my vision, the main character is only a catalyst, the heroines are the ones who get the spotlight, especially their psychological development. Incidentally, each heroine is inspired by a fragment of my own personality, just like the protagonist. Hence I was really inspired by the visual novel Yume Miru Kusuri. What’s ironic is that, when I wrote Milk, it was kind of a fiction about what could happen if I were to fall in love. And I know myself so well, some parts of the story did actually happen to me later…

Gamines

Extract of the Crossing Horizons artbook (@Orties)

The segment devoted to Khzi was originally a big joke based on the most stereotyped things in adventure novels and fantasy. I tried to make fun of that and took the absurd as far as I could. Khzi herself was supposed to be a super serious and classy killer (because I like the strong independant woman type) but I ended up making her completely unpredictable, a bit like Yumiko in the anime Read or Die. The super serious and classy killer hence became Freyja.

The “Légende des étoiles” part, yet to be released, is inspired by the comic book Thorgal, Ulysses 31, and mythology in general.

 

Inspiration : another perception of the world

In general, I have a complicated relationship with writing insofar as I don’t have an author I’m a fan of, I really tap into everything I integrated with time. Even stranger, I can sometimes dip into things I don’t know directly: I really like accumulating knowledge about many things, so I can know works indirectly without having read or seen them. I can even get inspired only by what I think the work is about (often to get disapointed when I get to read/see it for real).

Milk preview ep5 name

Current Chapter menu in Milk~La légende des étoiles

I work on the assumption that it’s impossible in the 21st Century to think up of raw material: everything has been done by someone else before. So, for me, writing is a kind of alchemic process: I’m mixing many different influences and add my personal touch to come up with something. And I think creativity resides in that mixing of influences. For example, the Cinderella story has been done many times before, but it’s what I can add that makes a new version possibly interesting. It’s not the idea but the execution and the way you put a bit of yourself in it!

Considering that fact, I’m relying a lot on the meeting between those influences and the way I see the world. Since my way of thinking is kinda unique, I feel like I can write about anything only by taking over the material.

 

Motivation : message in a bottle

I read a lot when I was younger but I never really found a work that was like me. To begin with, as a woman, it’s not always easy to get properly depicted insofar as most classic and recent books only deals with male preoccupations or show stereotyped female preoccupations (shoes, shopping and prince charming, yay). And as an autist, my way of thinking is never depicted anywhere, making me feel unconcerned by most current cultural productions. Fortunately, there are hidden gems that are really worth discovering but let’s say I’m not as favored as others, who will find what they’re looking for more easily. You have to search very hard to find an autistic protagonist in a story non-related to explaining autism. Let’s be clear, it doesn’t mean interesting neurotypical stories don’t exist, only that my tastes are not the majority. That’s why I’m interested in indies: I hope to find with them more diversity than anywhere else.

Quite frankly, what motivates me to write is to try to make stories that I will like. Since I struggle to find things like me, I decided to make them. If my works manage to satisfy my peculiar expectations, I’m quite happy, and it would make me happier if others could share that vision. It would mean I’m not really the only one to think that way and that I could be useful one way or another. I guess it’s just as if I was sending a message in a bottle: I transmit a part of myself in my games in the hope that maybe, someone, somewhere, will come across it and share my vision, find some interest in it.

Milk 2015-07-18 20-10-29-27

Screenshot of Milk Episode 5, under developement

I don’t know what other developers are trying to do when they start to make games but, for me, everything echoes back to my disability: it’s at the same time my inspiration, what drives me to write, my curse and my gift. I wouldn’t want to fight as much if I didn’t have a different voice to make people hear, but I wouldn’t be struggling so much if I didn’t have a different voice in the first place. I’d like people who have a difference to be able to access as much content they’d likely enjoy as the others do. If child/teenage Helia is able to find what she likes, then I would have accomplished my mission. The road is still long before then ;).

What visual novel development taught me

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 ;).

2014 was a challenging year

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.

Savane

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.

IMG_03032014_221220

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.

tmgoods

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.

vnje

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!

title screenIcing 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 ;).

D-3 : restlessness and overexcitement

It’s on starting blocks that the team is delivering to you the latest news before Japan Expo 2014. And, to start off on the right foot, here is our promotional visual !

tmgoods

Goodies

Last time we told you all the orders had been send. In the meantime Projet Saya received the packages and was kind enough to take some pictures to satisfy our curiosity. Here is a sneak peek, I hope you’re drooling as much as we do XD.

IMG_1682

The cover for the Short Story Collection’s hard copy

IMG_1687

The music album

IMG_1694

The bookmarks (don’t mind the ones on the left, they’re from Atelier Dreamnoid, one of the teams we’re sharing the booth with)

IMG_1697

Being Beauteous’ posters

 

Hard copies

exselect

After a long month of fierce work, we were finally able to finish the Short Story Collection we promised during the Indiegogo campaign. Therefore we will sell it next to Milk first volume (episodes 1 to 3). Speaking of Milk, we’re deeply sorry to announce we didn’t made it on time for the English translation. If you buy Milk hard copy on our booth, you’ll have access to a patch later (if you want so) to correct that mistake. As for the free wev versions, they still are planned way later this summer, so if you didn’t preorder, you’ll have to be patient ~

Booth activities

In addition to the goodies sales, we really want to make the most of our talented artists. Roganis won’t be able to bring his music instruments as planned, due to technical issues, but our three lovely designers will make drawings on request. Morsy will only be there on Thursday and Sunday, whereas Melow and Orties will be there the entire week. Don’t hesitate to ask them !

Since Projet Saya has a camera, we won’t forget those who can’t go to the convention ! If you follow us on social networks (Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook), you’ll be able to see us clown around  live XD.

Japan Expo is getting closer

Japan Expo is coming soon, so let’s give some news about what we’re preparing for this event ! Spoil : a lot of things (as usual).

Goodies

Items have been successfully send to be printed. Among the various stuffs we already showed you, there is one we hadn’t finish at that time. Indeed Morsy couldn’t find the time to do the last bookmark so Orties had to take care of it in her place. Here’s the result, I hope you’ll like it !

Miruku_Marque_Page-typoThe other thing is about the music album. It was intended to allow you to fully appreciate Roganis’ work but we also thought about making it a Milk OST, which wasn’t a good idea given that we haven’t finished the game’s music yet. So, all things considered, Roganis finally made up his mind and produced the following tracklist for The Milky Way of Music !

Album

1 – Shadow of the Moon, Sea of Shadow
2 – Un Matin Rayonnant
3 – Clepsydra
4 – The Dream of a Little Planet
5 – Les Cloches du Couchant
6 – Wind in the Hair
7 – Song of Storm ~Roganis Remix
8 – Crépuscule du soir mystique
9 – Endless Road
10 – Lost Woods ~Roganis Remix
11 – Le carrousel des Rêves
12 – Pluie de Cendres ~Gymnopédie
13 – Nevermore

The music album will have 13 tracks including a good amount from Milk (all episodes mixed up, even those that haven’t been released yet) or Träumendes Mädchen’s games, but also some covers and an original one. The first edition will be printed in very limited numbers and a lot of people already reserved their copies during the crowdfunding campaign, so there won’t be much left. If you’re interested in having one, please do tell, so that we know in case we’ll have to produce some more copies !

Milk Episode 3

Milk 003

Good news : the game is almost finished. We only have some programming to do and Episode 3 will be available for the convention. We took that chance to completely remake the textbox (from the old GUI) and enhance Episode 1 translation that wasn’t on a par with the rest anymore. Yet, having to deal with some withdrawals, we find ourselves very short to finish Episode 3 English translation. We’ll do everything we can in the remaining time but we might not be able to finish it on time for those attending the convention. We’re crossing our fingers !

Short VNs collection

Since we met the first strechgoal of our Indiegogo campaign, we’re working on a compilation that will include all of our little projects.

Being Beauteous is currently receiving quite the makeover ! Roganis remade his old tracks and some new ones to enhance the sound experience while we’re doing a brand new GUI inspired by Melow’s poster. We’re also redoing all of the CGs to stick to the new size (1280×720 instead of the old 1024×768) and ofer a more polished experience. Since Morsy didn’t have the time, Orties once again took care of the art and her style is of course very different. We tried to stick to the original spirit and we hope you’ll like the new graphics.

scene 01

As for Ambre, as promised we’re redoing the translation. We’re trying to enhance some backgrounds as well, as you can see on Melow’s sketch.

IMG_07062014_184022

However we’re experiencing issued with How visual novel changed my life. We wanted to add some extra scenes but we’re finding ourselves overwhelmed by the workload. Since it’s our more recent game, we’d rather focus on improving the old ones and won’t be able to deliver the extra scenes. We’re deeply sorry for the inconvenience.

Our schedule before Japan Expo is tough but we have a lot of energy to burn and we really want to please all of our fans =).

On a very different subject, the Träumendes Mädchen team is finally getting a real website. The devblog has become inadequate and we want browsing to be easy. Modifications are to be expected soon, we’re keeping you informed !

Träumendes Mädchen at Japan Expo 2014

The whole Träumendes Mädchen team is very proud to announce that we’ll be at Japan Expo 2014 from 2nd to 6th July !

For a long time we were hoping to come at a convention in an official way and that’s now a reality. You’ll be able to find us at our booth to discuss our various projects, chat or enjoy our fabulous artists : our composer will improvise some music and many designers will do little illustrations on request. If you’re passing by, go visit us, we’ll be very happy! Chibi_1Those who read How visual novels changed my life, our recent Nanoreno project, must have understood by now but we’re planning to come to japan Expo with something for you. Indeed, as exhibitors, nothing would please us more than to offer our fans some goodies. The thing is, we’re too poor to afford it by ourselves, that’s why we teamed up with Atelier Dreamnoid and Enless Seasons, two others visual novel creators, to gather our ressources. With the help of Projet Saya who kindly proposed to take care of logistics. We just launched an Indiegogo campaign to collect the funds we need to go to our first convention together.

20140412113248-tm

Here, at Träumendes Mädchen, we’ll be offering some goodies : three designs for posters, three design for pin-badges and three designs for bookmarks (the last one isn’t finished yet) for our different games (Being Beauteous, Ambre and Milk). There will also be a music album composed by Roganis (we’ll be showing the tracklist sometime soon) as well as physical copies of the first three episodes of our visual novel Milk. This edition will feature technical improvements over the online version, a new illustration for the main menu and the exclusive episode 3! Indeed, the lucky owners of the physical version will have access to the story as soon as early July while the others will have to wait until the end of summer.

stretch2

If the initial goal is met before the end of the campaign, we’ll be offering even more choice! With the first stretch goal, we’re going to produce a re-mastered compilation of our short projects with improvements here and there : How visual novels changed my life will include additional scene with new extra illustrations, the translation of Ambre will be enhanced and we’ll redo some of the backgrounds, where Being Beauteous will receive a new GUI (with some graphical enhancement if we still have the time). And with the second stretch goal, we’ll have twice as much goodies to offer!

vnje

So, if you liked our work or if you want to support the western visual novel creation, don’t hesitate to pre-order on our Indiegogo campaign, even if you’re not coming to Japan Expo : we’re shipping products, with additional fee sadly. Even the simplest donation will be helpful. The whole team is counting on you ;).