The State of the Sprite 2

 

I drew this like a year ago or something, but something about this has stuck with me. I think I finally figured out what: this is the style I should aim for.

Obviously it's not good drawing by any means, but I think its simplicity holds the key to a decent art style. The prominent lineart could be done away with in favor of something more subtle, and the shading needs more depth to it to look good. The anatomy is off, and maybe I could put more detail into the hair. But looking at this as a whole, it definitely has some benefits as a sprite art style over my more recent creations.

Compare with this produced several months later:

My main gripes with this are the eyes and sketchy outlines (though I'm not as against sketchy lineart as a whole), but otherwise I think there's some pointers I can take from it in terms of style.

Now check out this abomination I shat out an hour ago:

The rendering seems way too detailed for how simplified the actual anatomy is. Maybe with slightly better anatomy this kind of rendering could work in CGs, but as a sprite, this is kinda ass.

Chapter 1 Progress Update: ~38K words

 

I don't have an excuse for this pic I just wanted to have something to visually draw people into the post

Don't know why I never brought this up until now, but the true route draft of chapter 1 is over 50% complete; I'd estimate the actual percentage is around 70%.

Don't want to make this topic "dragon" but

 

Pic related because I live in a Dragon state. BFD is where it's at, and my mind is in the right place  :)

Hello guys today I am going to bitch about my plan for the game's release for a short while. This is a very minor thing that might not seem like it warrants a whole ass blog post to it, but it's my blog, and I make all the decisions, and it's related to development, which is the whole damn point of this blog.

 If for some godforsaken reason BFD gains a following, perhaps even a fandom after the chapter 1 demo is released, I fear this part of the story in isolation will prime them into expecting chapter 2 to be the same in terms of style, tone, themes etc. 

Unfortunately, protagonist 2 is a very different guy from protagonist 1, and his struggles and lifestyle are unique to him, so it makes little sense for the two perspectives to be consistent with one another in those previously mentioned ways. 

This may or may not piss people off. When chapter 2 comes out, there will be some tonal whiplash that could make it feel like an entirely separate game. People got invested in the perspective of chapter 1, and the switch could throw them off, maybe make them feel cheated and deceived as to what BFD really is.

Obviously I'm going to preface basically every post and update and whatever else with a statement of chapter 2's distinctive nature from chapter 1 and that CHAPTER 1 IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WHOLE GAME, THERE'S A WHOLE 'NOTHER WORLD OUT THERE JUST WAITING TO BE EXPLORED. I may have to do this for chapters 3, 4, and 5 as well, but hopefully people will have gotten the point by then.

I suspect this would be less of an issue if I released every chapter at once like I originally planned given there's less of a time sink between chapters from not being actively developed, though people would still probably get at least a little mad.

For the record, this is not a post about how I'm changing the release schedule or that I'm even considering changing the release schedule. The demo containing chapter 1 will be first, and hopefully all will be well.

(Potentially) Updated Cast List

 These are the voices I would use if/when I obtain Synthesizer V Pro + the relevant voicebanks:

 

FILAMENA: ANRI AI

ALAIRE: Kevin AI

IRMIE: Eleanor Forte AI

CARLA: Stardust/Xingchen Infinity AI

TIRZA: Weina AI

CORDI: Solaria AI

NOEL: An Xiao AI

PAULA: Natalie AI

LANA: Feng Yi AI

HAROLD: Mo Chen AI

HERCILIA: Xia Yu Yao AI

PAVEL: JUN AI

ROSURA: Tsurumaki Maki AI (English)

JEREMY: Xuan Yu AI

A hairy situation

 One of the fun aspects of art direction is working on all the minute visual details that most people probably won't even notice or care about, especially in character design. Granted, this particular case isn't that unnoticeable, but does seem pretty inconsequential when you look at it from an outside perspective. 

As you might have gleaned from the title, I'm talking about hair. Not head hair, mind you---that's a very obvious area for design specification. That leaves the other kind of hair, the hair few wish to talk about: body hair.

Should I give the characters pubes in scenes with their exposed genitals? Should I give male characters armpit and leg hair (maybe chest and forearm hair for certain characters)? Would any of this contrast with the art style or erotic appeal of the game (anime/manga-styled eroge tend to not include body hair on their characters, even the male ones)? 

Right now I'm leaning toward including it, but of course this depends on how the final art style turns out (I'm kind of rushing style development at this point because I'm trying to shorten development time...at least for the demo).

The State of the Sprite

 

Pictured above is a work-in-progress practice sprite. Still not good, but definitely getting better.

Not enough text

 Recently I plopped what I had so far for chapter 1's script into RenPy and played through it. It was about 16,000 words total, and it covered approximately 40% of the true route. I was able to clear it in 30 minutes, and my estimates showed others might complete it at an average of 46 minutes. At these rates, the true route would be around 75-115 minutes (1 hour 15 mins-1 hour 55 mins) to complete. The way I see it, the pacing is currently too damn fast. 

Of course, I'll be revising as I go along, which includes expanding scenes with more dialogue and description, but so far I'm pretty disappointed with how much I'm underwriting. I imagine waiting ~6 years and getting a 2 hour demo (assuming the higher end of playtimes) that supposedly contains all of the first chapter isn't very promising either.

Some may argue that shorter, more concise games are better, but I feel I'd be really holding back players from "getting into" BFD (especially with its unusual worldbuilding) with a short playtime. Each chapter is meant to cover 25 days in-universe, so at the current pace you'd get a 2 hour true route with roughly 12.5 minute days. Again, considering the intended nature of the game, this seems too damn fast. Hence, I will spend extra time lengthening the script as I fluff it up.

Lunar New Year Sneak Peak

 The Year of the Dragon has already kicked off, so I figured I'd post some concept sketches as a celebration of sorts. Have fun speculating on who these characters are (and what their color palettes are too I guess).

Dragon deez nuts across your---

 January 16 is Appreciate a Dragon Day, and 2024 is the year of the dragon in Chinese astrology. As I mentioned in a previous post, I originally wanted BFD to be done by Jan. 16, 2024. Obviously this did not happen.

The game still isn't close to being done. It doesn't help that IRL stuff is once again getting in the way of development for me. I want to make clear, however, that the only thing that will completely cancel BFD's development is my death, and I assure you that unless something horrible happens, I won't be kicking the bucket anytime soon.

But still, it would've been nice to have SOMETHING done by last week. Then it occurred to me: next year is the year of the snake (close enough to a dragon), and Appreciate a Dragon Day is on Jan. 16 every year. What if I got something substantial done by then?

Here's my goal: instead of releasing the entire game at once, I will try to have at least the entirety of chapter 1 done by Jan. 16, 2025. If I can't complete all of it, then I will have a demo out by then. This would at least give the 2 people who read this blog SOMETHING to enjoy after years of nothing, and it would put less strain on me for having to finish the entire game before release.

Of course, there are still some major obstacles for this. I'm still a shitty artist, so I can't guarantee the art in chapter 1/the demo will be representative of the full game's quality. It will likely be changed once the other chapters get released. But hey, better something than nothing, right? At least then I could start advertising the game on Lemmasoft and whatnot.

Expect future blog posts to focus on chapter 1-related stuff.