Chaarge!

I finally got myself a light table! I’ve been wanting one for years and years, and finally it was possible thanks to my awesome boss.

This is great. I’ll be able to do a lot of snazzy stuff now that I’ve wanted to do… and it inspires me to try it out and get some real work done on the art side of Blue Rose.

Apart from that I have reached the point in the script where Lena and co. are going on their Great Mission in the mountains. I spent some of my time at work today making small map sketches with arrows, planning how the battle is going to be handled.

Mmmm maps with arrows…

Hopefully I’ll be able to write the action scenes properly.

Numbers

Work on Blue Rose is slowly progressing. As with Angelic Orbs I’m mainly focusing on the script at this stage – only a few design sketches here and there are made on the art front, and I try to ignore the future programming problems that will inevitably come up.

And I have come quite a way with the script already. Because of the (annoying) event system that I am going to use in this project, it is mostly written in a program that lets me branch out the story as I write. Other portions of the story are scattered word documents, mails(!) and paper notes. But exporting what I have in my wiki program lets me count up to 16673 words written so far. Of course some of these are notes and jump directions, so the real number is a bit lower than that.

But yes, these events are proving quite a pain to organize. I don’t have any trouble keeping track of where the story is going so far, but organizing my scripts and making them connect the way they’re supposed to is a pain. The more linear branching of Angelic Orbs was a lot easier to control…

I’m also lying about the coding – I actually did code part of the system already. I think I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but the map is working! Hurrah! Unfortunately there is a lot left to be coded in order to make the game’s system work. Those are the parts that I am ignoring so far. First things first…

As for the sketch above, yes that is another picture-in-progress of Lena, protagonist of Blue Rose. You’d think that seeing the faces of the main guys in an otome game would be better, but I don’t have any sketches of them that I want to show off yet. And getting Lena to appear the way I want her is hard enough.

Gift for iPhone/iTouch

One of the many things that came out while I was away was a few english language visual novels for the iPhone and iPod Touch! Which is amazing for me, since I only just got myself an iPod Touch.

Two of these are Gift and Kira Kira, a game already released in english by Mangagamer. I bought both the moment I got home, curious about how this works out. So far I have only played a little of Gift, since I want to save Kira Kira for when I have better time – I hear really good things about that game, and I’m really happy to be able to play a non-h version of it.

But just to clarify some of the questions about these iPhone games, here is a run-down about what I know about the Gift game for now:

Gift is playable on both iPhone and iPod Touch. You can get it in both english and japanese versions, and there are also free “Lite” versions (demos) that you can get to try it out before buying.

I heard somewhere that it isn’t possible to save or load in Gift – this is not true! It is definitely possible to both save, load, skip text and so on. So don’t worry about missing out on these features if you consider buying the iPhone version. I don’t know if the people mentioning this were playing the Lite version, since I haven’t tried that. The Lite version may be missing these features, but the full version does not.

Then there is the translation… well, it’s not impressive. You’ll be able to know what is going on, but I personally can’t help but laugh out loud at the strange choice of words that appear from time to time. I mean, even I can do better than that…

Considering that this is an iPhone app, we can all hope that some sort of update for the translation will be released some day. But it’s still playable, I guess that works.

Art looks nice, although a little generic/boring to me. Story seems to be pretty ordinary too so far – the main character is reunited with his not-really-his-sister after several years, while also being courted by a shy, clumsy and very smitten friend. The setting is a city with a rainbow that never disappears, no matter the weather, and one of the heroines is researching this rare rainbow along with something called “Gift”.

I hope this answers some questions for people interested in getting this app. Maybe I’ll be able to do a better review if I finish Gift some day. Hopefully Kira Kira makes use of the Mangagamer translation which should be really good, because that would make me a happy bunny.

Back to work!

Finally back again!

Was nice to get away from everything for a little while, but now I can’t wait to get back to work on my projects again. Also got a lot of new ideas and great inspirational  photos for my next game. Amazingly enough, I even got a title too. For now my mystery otome visual novel project will be called “Blue Rose”.

And so much has happened while I was gone, too. Will take a while to catch up with everything.

Scripting chaos

So, I guess I should make a post on the project that I’m working on now – the secret otome project.

Since all my free art-time is being spend on a race for the finish line for a few commissions before I leave the country, most of the work on this project is still focused on the script. Like with Angelic Orbs I prefer to write a good deal of the script before drawing any art assets for it anyway.

So, how is the script coming along?

One thing is for sure – since I have decided that this game is going to work differently than the somewhat “linear” paths with choices in AO, scripting can be really hard. Harder than I thought <_<;; Keeping track of what comes where when takes some work.

One good thing is that the map system is mostly finished. Coding really isn’t a strength of mine, so getting that out of the way is a relief. (Know that this isn’t some impressive walk-around map, it’s actually pretty simple “choose where to go” map )

Because of the way that I organize scripts at the moment, I don’t really have a clear number of how many words have been written yet, but most of the prologue has been written along with events for something like 6 days.

So yah. What is the story even about?

Unfinished costume-test-sketch-thing

Who knows! This is all for now

My Eternal Rival – oh so Cute and Fluffy

The “Cute, Light and Fluffy Project” has finally been released!! You can find it:

Here (LemmaSoft Forums)
or:
Here (RenAi Archives)

4 short stories are collected in this OELVN anthology. One of them is my own “My Eternal Rival”. I really hope you’ll check out these stories and enjoy the results!

“My Eternal Rival” is about the black witch Luna and her desperate attempt to get even with her rival, the red witch Lera. A story of rivalry, servitude and frog cakes.

On another note, I’m finally updating my blogroll. It was about time, too many were missing there (and a few links had even died).

Nitro+, JAST USA and fan translators…

As you may already know, a lot of things have happened in the english VN scene lately. MangaGamer has licensed Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Navel’s games, and JAST USA revealed their new partnership with Nitro+. Their first game is Demonbane, and Jingai Makyou is also hinted at by the picture in the background.

Now for the interesting part – (as if the rest wasn’t) – when Jast announced their partnership, every Nitro+ translation project was taken down from TLWiki by the translators, with the message that people should wait for an official announcement. And now that announcement is up.

Here’s your official statement regarding our Nitro+ translations.

We are currently trying out a bit of a partnership with JAST USA in order to do a few different things:

1) Increase the speed at which the finished products are released. This is probably the item of most interest.
2) Ensure that Nitro+ fans are working on the projects, in order to provide the highest localization quality possible.
3) Simply get more Nitro+ titles translated in general and help support the companies involved. The fact that we can do this with Nitro+’s blessing is even better.

As for details of the partnership… Basically, we’ll just let them have our current work and continue to work with them to finish anything we’re not done with. We’re also interested in working with them on games that haven’t seen any sort of translation attempt as of yet.

Obviously, since we’ll be working with JAST to have our translations released officially, we’ve taken the script files and patches offline. This was done in order to both support future official releases and to provide incentive for others to actually buy the damn games.

If you have any questions about this, or are someone who has translated or is interested in translating Nitro+ games, please don’t hesitate to contact me or LoSs about the matter.

By the way, we will continue to work on the Noah translation project.

I, for one, find this very awesome. The chance that I will actually buy these games is pretty slim since I usually avoid h-games, but this is still great news. I wish them luck with their partnership – if the miracle should happen that even a game like Chaos;Head gets a localisation, I won’t hesitate from buying another copy.

And the possibility for companies and fan translators to work together like this is great. After all, why not help eachother out when the chance presents itself? Unfortunately I doubt that such an opportunity will present itself for our team

Whether this deal with Nitro+ is going to affect NitroChiral games is unknown. Who knows – in the future BL game fans may get their fix as well in commercial form, helped along by their fan translators?

Anime?

Recently a friend asked me: “Are you completely leaving the anime fandom behind?”

I was surprised by this question. But at the same time I could clearly see where he came from – for a long time now, he has often tried making conversation with me about anime and the new shows and seasons that have come and passed. But more and more often my answers have been a plain: “Sorry, I’m not watching any of the new shows these days.”

I think the last new show I watched (while it was still new, that is) is Code Geass R2. And I even waited a while with that, because I wanted to be able to marathon the last episodes. Since then I have watched a little here and there, but mostly things that I have lying around on DVD (Yay for Emma and Ouran!). To some people it doesn’t seem like I’m involved with anime at all any more.

But! No, I’m not out of the anime fandom! Really! I’m there just as much as I’ve always been.

I feel like I see a lot of people around me writing about this – how the excitement has left them, that they don’t feel like watching new episodes any more, and that they’re ultimately leaving the fandom behind. But although I can relate to much of what they write, this is not the case for me.

I have been terribly busy with work lately, and besides that my hobbies tend to go through many different phases. For example, one of the things that got me into anime in the first place is videogames. I used to play a lot of videogames. But after a couple of years I shifted over to watching a lot of anime instead. Not enough time for everything after all. After that, it was manga. A couple of years more have passed, and guess what – now I’m into videogames again.

In general I’m still in the same fandom – many of the games I’m playing are somehow related to the anime/mange world, I’m just involving myself with another side of the matter. It’s been ages since I last really had fun with games, so it’s nice to try and catch up again. Besides, I also have the whole “Visual Novel” genre added in this time. Unfortunately my increasing lack of time also means that I’m not actually clearing a lot of games <_<. I takes me forever to finish one, so I’m jumping between a lot of titles… sigh.

The bottom line is that I am very much into this whole fandom still. And although I don’t feel like it right now, I know that I, at some point, am going to increase my anime watching again on account of something else.

And I’m sure that those reading this blog already knew this, since I don’t talk about much else here. But I doubt the beforementioned friend knows this place even exists

Steins;Gate

Today while I was procrastinating and surfing some websites, I coincidentally ended up on 5pb’s website. There I saw an announcement for a new game – Stein’s;Gate.

Just from looking at the title, you may already have noticed similarities with Chaos;Head. This title is also advertised as the “2nd collaboration between 5pb and Nitroplus”. Website got up today, and so far only shows a clock counting down, probably until release of the game (apparently 06.12.2009 – please correct me if I’m reading it wrong).

Now, I have to say that I am already VERY intrigued. I love Chaos;Head, and to see another creepy game come out from these two publishers makes me happy. Nice story and no ero – goes right up my alley.

Unfortunately I also got very dissapointed when reading further on the announcement on 5pb’s website – apparantly this is coming out for Xbox360.

Bummer ;_;

I wish they would have made a pc release, and then ported it later like with C;H, but… doesn’t seem like it. Well, hopefully that means we’ll get a lovely port for pc later……. Right?

Right!?

What next….

My first visual novel was finally released a few days back. A lot of things could have been done better, but in general I’m happy about the result.

Shortly the “Cute, light and Fluffy” VN project will hopefully be released as well, where I have contributed with a short story.

But apart from these things, what is up next?

For one thing I would like to return to updating my webcomic, but I have just been commissioned to do art for yet another game, and also have a lot of other loose ends to take care of. So unfortunately it seems like AO will have to wait a little bit longer.

But I’m already preparing for my next game project after Broken Memories as well. A couple of ideas have been circling in my head, but recent discussions on a certain forum have made me decide on a final story that I will start working on.

Yes, my next visual novel is going to be an otome game. In spite of me once saying that I would probably never make one that wasn’t BxG!
I have a story that I’m happy about, and have begun writing a few drafts. Other than that, there isn’t much I can say about this project yet. It’s still in its planning stages, and it will take a long time before it gets finished (Broken Memories took me 2 years after all).

Alright, time to get back to work!