Toning it down

 Thinking of reducing the number of sprites I have to complete by only giving characters 1-2 outfits. I've heard it can take a while to complete a single sprite (around a week to even a month), and I really don't want to be spending so much time on sprites. Sure, it's less believable that characters are wearing basically the same thing everyday, but plenty of characters in other pieces of media commit to only 1 outfit anyways. I may have to do a couple re-designs to make the clothing choices more unique to each character, but if it means less development time being spent on sprites, I'm all for it.

Accountability

 

Meet the Twilight Dragon.

Ignore the owl duck, that's not relevant. The Twilight Dragon watches over me and makes sure I'm still working on BFD. I always do what the Twilight Dragon wants me to do :)

Some updates:

44 BGM tracks are currently planned for the game, 5 are still being worked on.

 Chapter 3's alt routes are still being worked on, I have 2 whole side routes and 1 small part of a route remaining.

Chapter 4's summary has been started.

The first drafts of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 are progressing. I'm kind of editing as I go on these, so "first draft" might not be the most accurate term for them right now.

Still shitty at art. Gotta practice.

 

Fun fact: I experienced ego death a few days ago. I finally got to feel just how meaningless it all truly is! God's still commanding me to finish BFD, though

 

NEW DRAWING TABLET RECEIVED

 

Chapter 3 True Route Summary Completed

 We did it kids, now time to finish the side routes

Clothing finalized

 Finalized the clothing design for all characters last night. Thank god for online clothing stores.

750

is the tentative number of total sprites that are currently planned for the game. Goddamn

chorus test 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XZaNIkOYdT5XdUt7e8LcPxOxwab2hpJ_/view?usp=sharing

using current cast, same song, some tuning issues still, mainly to test how each voice works in a chorus

chrous test 1

 Here is a test of various vocal synthesizers singing Henry Purcell's Hear My Prayer. It's not very good (mostly because I didn't spend enough time tuning, so it sounds really crunchy and out of time on some parts).

Current Cast List!

 CAST:

FILAMENA: ANRI Lite (Synth V)

ALAIRE: Solaria Lite (Synth V)

IRMIE:  Eleanor Forte AI Lite (Synth V)

CARLA: Eleanor Forte AI Lite (Synth V)

TIRZA: Solaria Lite (Synth V)

CORDI: Chiyu Lite (Synth V)

NOEL: Eleanor Forte AI Lite (Synth V)

PAULA: Haruka AI (Vocaloid)

LANA: Megpoid AI (Vocaloid)

HAROLD:ANRI Lite (Synth V)

HERCILIA: Eleanor Forte Lite (Synth V)

PAVEL: Akito AI (Vocaloid)

ROSURA: Tsurumaki Maki AI Lite (Synth V)

JEREMY: Allen AI (Vocaloid)

CHORUS: all voices

actual plan for the priorities of game completion

 This is basically just a post detailing the plan as far as when certain assets will be created and when certain things will be done. The ordering starts at first to complete and ends at last to complete. Interchangeable events or events that can be done simultaneously are represented by a backslash /.

1. Chapter summaries/voice recording

2. Drafts/editing/songwriting

3.Character sprites/CGs/background art/video art

4. Programming/video editing

any order: BGMs/GUI/UI/logo

 

LOOKS LIKE MEAT'S BACK ON THE MENU

 

 

  It's been 2 years since I last posted anything on this blog.

Well, that's not entirely true. My last post was on April 20th of 2020, so still a few days over 2 years. But, to be honest, it feels like it's been more than 2 years. Maybe I have no sense of time. Either way, I wouldn't be able to tell.

My lack of substantial progress on BFD comes down to me being busy with IRL stuff. A lot has been going on, and it's sometimes hard to remain focused on a passion project that I have no societal obligation to complete when I'm getting more and more responsibilities thrown my way. However, even in spite of all that's been going on,

I still

feel

that agonizing urge

to work on the game.

 

So here I am after (almost) an entire year has gone by without any status updates to write about how BFD is still being worked on, it's just that the pace of development has been extremely slow. Most of the progress is based on my development as an artist and musician-I've been drawing and composing a lot more often to improve my skills. I haven't been creating any assets, just practicing. I'll be scattering some screenshots of these practice sessions throughout the post.

Something I noticed over the past year is that at this point in development, I tend to base my progress level on the plot outlines.  I think it has something to do with the fact that BFD's narrative dictates what assets will be needed to create an entire vn; once the outlines are done, all planning can be finalized, and the concept of BFD will begin to take shape as a game with writing, art, music, and all other assets, guided by the outline, come into fruition. 

There's some problems with this outlook, though. Even before completing the outline to Chapter 1, I've been creating character designs and BGM tracks. It's like I was so excited to make a game that I went against my fixation on planning things out meticulously to mindlessly create. I've heard other game developers avoid working on anything before the planning stage and sometimes even scrap assets created during this period since they don't adhere to the set plan. So, should I consider these rogue assets of mine to be extraneous concepts that are getting in the way of necessary organization? Should these assets even be considered assets since they were created before the game they were meant to belong to hadn't been fully conceptualized yet?

 

I kind of realized that when I wrote about scrapping the red poses and the base art they were drawn over back in July of 2019. The art I created did not meet the standards I had, and, as it turned out, I didn't have sufficient tools to create the art I needed. So, I started over. I knew that my current skill level was insufficient to create the art I needed, so I decided to start studying and practicing drawing. To this day, I'm still practicing. I still don't have a tablet (but I'm working on it!), so all I can do is practice.

I recently began doing that with the music assets as well. I created 11 tracks in total at the time when I decided to review my musical work, and I had to make a lot of difficult calls regarding the sufficiency of the compositions. I spent several days on each of those tracks, but in spite of that, very few of them met the standards I set. Most of them had to be tweaked, and some had to be scrapped since they were messy beyond repair. To this day, I suck at music composition, and I've been studying music theory in hopes of honing my skills to make better tracks.

In certain standards of game development, I haven't really made any progress at all. It's a question of whether improving one's skills can be considered actual contribution to a project. Sure, you're improving your abilities for the sake of the project, but you're not actually making anything to contribute. However, if we take that mindset to the extreme, then what can be said about things created during alpha and beta testing stages? Do they not count as progress? Are they merely hurdles on a track, immobile slabs of abstraction to be leapt over to get closer to the finish line? 

I have no choice but to claim responsibility for everything that stands in the way of BFD's development. I am the only person working on the project, and I am the only person pushing the game forward. Every fiber of BFD's being hinges on my actions. If BFD gets stalled, then I'm the only one to blame.

When I look forward, I see a massive black void.

 

Darkness everywhere. Not a single speck of light. All consuming, all knowing. Everything I've ever needed to understand is contained within its depths, but I can't reach any of it.

So, BFD has been inactive for around a year. Is that really a huge surprise? It wasn't a professional venture by any means, and hobbyist art is infamous for remaining incomplete if it's to take a long time to complete. How many cases of writers giving up on the first draft of a book after three chapters have you heard of? And even with projects that do get finished, how many reach notoriety that matches the effort put into the work?

Visual novels are a niche medium associated with otaku hentai games. Many people don't take them seriously as an art form. Within this ostracized community, English-original visual novels are considered even more niche. They're often reputed to be cheap knockoffs of Japanese titles. Many of them are cheap knockoffs, failed attempts at mimicking their more well-known progenitors. However, even if they're entirely original projects that might not even take inspiration from Japanese VNs, they're assumed to be of lower quality.

VNs are the perfect medium for new game developers. They require a minimal amount of programming, especially if engines like Ren'Py are used. As a result, the medium is flooded with amateur products. The expectation for EVNs to be more amateur than JVNs is not unfounded if we keep this in mind. 

BFD is an amateur VN in production. To add insult to injury, it's being made by one person with no budget. BFD is peak dilettantism. It's bound to be chained down to the stigma surrounding EVNs, and, perhaps, it deserves this stigma. There's no guarantee it will be a high-quality work, and there's no guarantee it will be received well by the VN community (if it even gains traction at all). 

Katawa Shoujo is one of the most well-known EVNs, and also one of the most well-received. Upon release, a lot of its acclaim came from people who were following its development, and it can be inferred that these people advertised the game across the internet, allowing it to grow a sizable fandom. KS is, in many ways, the model EVN: it stands on its own as a strong story with decent assets, but it also closely mirrors the tropes of JVNs to the point where many consider it to capture the quality of most commercial JVNs. 

KS is a damn good game, and it deserves the love it gets, but it feels like the EVNS that came after it are often compared to it. Plenty of people in the VN community flat out deny that any EVN could supersede it. I also feel that pressure.

That void. That goddamn massive, all-consuming blackness. It's like the shadow of death itself.

 

The thing is, I'm still working on the game. Progress has been made.

There are now a total of 18 music tracks for the game. Certain design details have been finalized. The chapter 2 summary has been completed, the chapter 3 summary is being worked on, the first drafts of chapters 1 and 2 are being written, and vocals have been produced. 

In spite of that void, I've been able to push forward. Why do I spend my time on this game that at most like 5 people will play? No-only one person needs to play it. Me. I'm the only member of TEOL Dev. I'm the only person this project really exists to. BFD can't exist on other people's terms if I want it to exist. I must define my own terms. Art for art's sake. Its reason for existing? To exist.

So I look into that void. I am lured into its depths. All I see is a hole that can be filled with beauty.