Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Serious Game Development


Recently, I had an urge to make a visual novel after playing Eastern Starlight Romance: Eternal Dilemma. In case you hadn't heard, I'm a fairly avid Touhou fan these days. Most music I listen to are remixes of the music and usually when I want a break I'll play some bullet hell goodness.

The game's demo can be found here, for those interested: http://dsd.faceroll.net/

This, obviously, is not what this blog is about.

No, the engine, Ren'Py, what that game was made with, is available for commercial distribution and use on the Android and PC platforms. Since I'm an artist and a writer, and the coding for Ren'Py is pretty simple...I could feasibly sell a game. I have a composer waiting in the wings, who has offered to do my work for free...but after some practice ;p

Would it be worth it, I wonder? Would that be selling out my dreams and ideals...not really, I think. But I do plan on getting into game development as a serious field, and that sort of thing could give me a real leg up in getting into a related course.

If I was going to do so I'd have to really look at the market and start considering things like that. Namely this would call for an official name change, which was planned anyway.

For all games released by me and my imaginary team from now on, it'll be under the title of Sorcery Studios, if it isn't taken. If it is, not too hard to come up with something else, but Sorceress Studios is a tad sexist. Just a tad.

Other things I'd have to consider is the level of skill involved in the games that do get published and what I'd have to do to get my game out there. I'm no where near as good as tooya, who did the artwork for Re:Alistair++, which was available for free. But if I was to decide to publish said game, I'd probably be shunned from indie game communities who freak at the concept of donations. =3=. Not to mention I can't get any commissions.

My biggest hook is usually my story. I'm a fairly decent writer, and if I could get a game that looked decent and read professionally, why not sell it? I worked hard on it, after all.

But anyway, moving on. I started learning Ren'Py, of course. It seems far easier to understand than novelty (Yes, I have looked into VN development before). I got the first 'scene' done text and code wise, but of course, I haven't worked on any art yet. Don't really plan too either.

Blood Rose (formerly known as DarkXBlood to all you stalkers) is progressing well. I've got the first frame of Sidian's idle pose done and the first scene in the game fully evented. Still missing graphics and such and such because I'm a slow worker with a lot on my plate. I finished up Emile's default faceset buuuuttt I'm not posting it because apparently it looks like something from a porn movie?

As for the visual novel idea's story...it's AST business as usual, though it's much more traditional in terms of Japanese manga. School kids, drama, etc. It, like Blood Rose, is a prequel, though it takes place a few years before the main stories. The story, currently titled End of Light, will be the first official return of Jackson in game form since the craptastic release of Darkseed: Revival. Yes, THAT Jackson. However, he's fourteen here, as are the rest of the characters. It's a month or so prior to the beginning of the original Darkseed, and it also starts off Kaira's journey to become an Organization agent. End of Light is more or less told from Kaira's perspective as odd things begin to occur around her, Jackson and Lex.
End of Light crosses over into Darkseed territory, and ends when Jackson's...uh...'ability' awakens, which is the only part of the novel that is not told from Kaira's view point. The original Darkseed has this occur two chapters into the story. And no I didn't see the symbolism in the two titles until just now. I have skillz.

If I had time, I wouldn't mind polishing up and rewriting Darkseed... probably just because Jackson and Lex have a major brawl as it nears the ending. I like writing fight scenes. Especially between friends, and plus, it's one of the few times where Jackson ends up on the other end of the spectrum.
I'll leave it at that.