Loudness normalized

 Just finished normalizing the audio for all the BGM tracks to -24.0 LUFS. I could've done this a long time ago, but I put it off until now. It's a very monotonous process. Now the only edit that remains is converting the MP3s to OGGs, though whether I actually bother doing this depends on the file size of the final game.

Anotha one

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10PYAz-9fA-WwUOY4IdWGcnsz98vHXuCS/view?usp=sharing 

 Another chorus test with the current voice cast. There's some peaking and out of tune areas, but since it's a test I didn't fix them.

Chapter 1 First Part Will Be Rewritten

 Unfortunately I have exhausted all my options in terms of recovering the missing document, which means I will have to write everything all over again. This missing part encompassed about 20% of the whole chapter. Well, since I remember the essential aspects of how I wanted this part to be written, it theoretically shouldn't take too long to get back on track (I may experiment with the prose style which could delay this, though).

Google Has Fucked My Ass

 So the first part of the chapter 1 draft went mysteriously missing. I never deleted the file and I accessed it just fine a week ago. I had 80 or so pages worth of writing in that thing. In spite of all this, upon accessing the link to the file I was informed the file "did not exist". Searching through the trash and through Drive yielded nothing. 

GOOGLE WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE. I MAY HAVE TO WRITE EVERYTHING AGAIN DUE TO YOUR FUCKING INCOMPETENT ASS SYSTEM EATING MY DOCUMENT. I AM ON THE VERGE OF BREAKING INTO GOOGLE HEADQUARTERS AND SLITTING SOMEONES FUCKING THROAT BECAUSE SOMEONE MUST PAY FOR THIS OTHERWISE UNEXPLAINABLE BLUNDER. GIVE ME BACK MY FUCKING FILE

Just an update

 Game hasn't been dead or in hiatus or anything, I basically just don't have anything particularly exciting to show off. Basically I've been working on the final drafts for chapters 1 and 2. The chapter 5 summary has been put on hold because it involves a lot more research than I initially anticipated.

Chapter 4 Summary Complete

 

 

See, that didn't take long at all ;p

Now it's time for Chapter 5, which is probably the most dense in terms of tackling the story's main themes. Can't wait to find out how long that'll take.

Chapter 4 True Route Summary Complete

 Not much to say other than the side route is rather short, so it shouldn't take too long to finish.

Breakfast for Dragons Introductory Post 2: Electric Boogaloo

 Once upon a time—a long, long time ago—dragons descended onto Earth. After easily overpowering humanity and reigning through terror and bloodshed, the dragons created an ultimatum: in exchange for peace, along with allowing dragons to maintain general control over the planet, a select few "chosen" humans must use their bodies as incubators for dragon eggs until they "transform" into dragons themselves, all while providing a suitable environment for these "chosen people" to flourish in. Over time, humans became accustomed to this ultimatum, even learning to appreciate it and admire their new leaders and their mysterious, beautiful, and ideal culture.

Filamena Pyke, a young woman living in the modern age, sees no merit in this system and has nothing but contempt for her alien overlords. Even so, she aims to live an accomplished and fulfilling life in what she views as a dystopia. This dream is shattered one night when she discovers a small pair of horns sprouting from her head.

What follows is a tale of delusion and fantasy, of despair and devouring, of predators and prey, of fiction and reality.

Breakfast for Dragons: A Tale of Dragons, Humans, and Foreigners from an Alien Land is a visual novel told in five chapters: Sea Lulling, Sky Dancing, Space Drifting, Rain Catching, and World Ending. Each chapter features a unique protagonist narrating their perspective on the events of a fateful four weeks in their lives.

I can't believe this story you're telling me, it's macabre!

 

In a post from the distant past, I mentioned that one of the reasons I was unwilling to search for other people to help create BFD's assets was because the game contained "a lot of uncomfortable content that few people might be willing to commit to". I want to clarify what kind of content one can expect in the final game, which will hopefully shine light on why I think I won't be able to find a person who's both comfortable with co-creating BFD with me and has the appropriate skill level for the project.

I don't think I made this clear in any of my previous posts, but BFD is a strictly 18+ game (in other words, an adults only title). Obviously I have no way of properly enforcing that minors don't play it (at most I can suggest on whatever website I publish the game on that you need to do one of those age verification things that people always lie on), and it will be especially hard to keep this rating in place since I plan to release BFD as a free game. Oh yeah, I guess this blog post doubles as the reveal that BFD is no longer planned to be a commercial project (I'll likely go into the reasons why in a future post).

When people hear that a title is intended for "adults only", the first thing that probably comes to mind is that the work contains pornographic content, especially in the case of visual novels. There are exceptions to the rule like Manhunt 2 and Hatred, which were given AO (adults only) ratings by the ESRB for their extreme violence. Now BFD is probably not going to get rated by the ESRB itself, and my rating is based off the guidelines on the ESRB website and the ratings listed on VNDB for various visual novels. I can say with a lot of certainty that BFD contains both sexual and violent content that is extreme and prolonged enough to earn it an 18+ rating in both cases. Sometimes these content types occur in tandem.

So, is BFD a porn game? Not necessarily. I intend BFD to be a story-focused work, but graphic sex scenes are prevalent. What about a torture porn game? Again, not necessarily. Graphic violence is prevalent, but the story still takes precedence. Essentially, neither of these are meant to be the main draw of the game, but they can act as repellents. So then, what specific kinds of content will BFD contain, and what does it mean that "sometimes these content types occur in tandem"?

First, let's get into what people can expect to find in BFD. Sexual content-wise, the sex scenes will feature completely uncensored (including no mosaics, sorry Japanese players) primary and secondary sex characteristics in various circumstances (including on-screen penetration). Some of these scenes are coercive or non-consensual, contain strange or unusual sexual acts/fetishes, and are mixed with violence and gore (there is actual eroguro in the game, it's actually an important part of the themes of the story, believe it or not). Violence-wise, people can expect the usual torture and murder, but there's also depictions of cruel and unusual punishments, cannibalism, desecration of corpses, suicide, self-harm, and of course, sexual violence.

I don't know if I'm ready to go into a more detailed content warning at this time, and I'd have to be conscious of spoilers anyway. Of course, this blog post won't be the only place people will be able to refer to when looking for a content warning. One of the screens that will pop up once the game has been started should contain roughly the same information in this post. I plan on putting BFD on VNDB once it's released, and I'll have to manually add in all the relevant content and character trait tags, including the spoilery ones.

BGM ASSETS COMPLETE

 

The first type of game asset has been completed! As of right now, BFD has a total of 50 background music tracks! At this point I will not be creating any more BGMs since 50 is already quite a lot considering the projected length of the game, and I should probably really start spending more time on the chapter summaries and art. Speaking of which:

1. Art practice is still really frustrating for me, but I can already see improvements. My main focus is still on digital painting.

2. The drafts for chapters 1 and 2 are coming along nicely with very few edits needing to be made, and chapter 3's draft has also been started. The summary for chapter 4 is about 1/4th of the way done. Since there's only one choice in chapter 4 and therefore only one alternate route that occurs towards the end of the chapter, chapter 4 should not take too long once I get the true route completed.

Overall, I still expect many of my IRL commitments (school, work) to slow progress down a bit (especially school), but once May comes around I should be ready to start up chapter 5's summary.

On art being the weakest link

 

Hai hai~~~TEOL Dev aka nihilloligasan here with another blog post on the hit visual novel in development, Breakfast for Dragons. In this post, I will be whinging about how shitty I am at art.

But before we get to the whinging, I will say that I have been improving slowly but surely. I'm still not at an acceptable level of quality to make assets for the game, but I'm getting a bit closer. As long as I keep a regular practice/study schedule, I should eventually get there. I'm not sure how long that will take, though.

Here's the problem: the year of the dragon is going to be in 2024, and the year of the snake is in 2025.

Why does this Chinese astrology bullshit matter? Well, I thought it would be fun to release the game sometime in 2024 since, ya know, it's about dragons. This is what I thought back in 2019. Of course, snakes have been pretty integral to the history of dragons, so I'd be willing to push the game's deadline to 2025 if need be. The thing is, my artistic skill is still not good enough, so I might have to delay the game even longer. That is, of course, unless I become godlike at digital art in a suspiciously low amount of time. I'm not even afraid of making pacts with the Devil at this point if it means I have acceptable art skills.

Specifically, digital painting is kicking my ass right now. Well, pretty much all aspects of art have been kicking my ass, but painting is my current focus, and I suck at it. Actually, the picture I used for this post was recently subjected to my terrible painting skills. I would've posted the final result here, but I was so sickened by how garbage it was that I deleted it as soon as I was done. Plus, if you thought that sounded bad, wait til you hear about my attempt at painting an environmental piece.

So, what should the 2 people who read this blog take away from this whiny little post? Namely that the game is going to take a while, and art will probably be the main prolonging factor. Yeah, the other assets are taking a while as well (I'm still not done with the first drafts yet?!?!?!?!), but this game is going to take like 10 more years to make because of the goddamn art, and the worst part is, I think I'm okay with that.

CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY COMPLETE!

 

After over a little less than a year, the summary for chapter 3 is complete! Only 2 more chapters to go before I can start moving into all the chapters' final drafts. Chapter 4's summary has already been started.

The document for chapter 3's summary is 70,414 words long and 149 pages. It's easily the most narratively complex chapter I've worked on so far, and I spent a hell of a lot of time planning the various scenes in it. Chapter 4 is somewhat of a recap of the previous chapters while also juggling its own new story, but hopefully it isn't as complicated to write as chapter 3.

Oops I'm sorry...another chorus test

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nt_n4pLg5b7hLPmEpCM8USbPj3Gz25bU/view?usp=share_link

 

Pretty sure I straight up just got some of the notes wrong. Other than that, somewhat of an improvement I think.