Ren’ai Games

Several years ago, when the creation of OEL-VN’s (Original English Language Visual Novels) were still fresh and new, there was a lot of energy and optimism in making VN’s. One of those was for the creation of a full-fledged visual novel like Tokimeki Memorial with 12 “date-able” characters, multiple locations, and of course, multiple endings. That project was called Love Revolution.

Love Revolution featured a male protagonist with possible female love interests. For the female gamer out there, Love Revolution: Fragile Hearts was created for them with a female main character with male love interests. Both projects were being worked on simultaneously by two different teams. Each was coming along nicely. I joined the Fragile Hearts team after a week or so after announcements requesting for more members as an artist.

After joining, I threw out possible character designs, started working on finished characters to be used in the game, and worked on backgrounds. All this time, the team grew a bit more with a few more members signing up. The demo script was done. Character profiles for about half the characters was complete. Art was coming along nicely and things was coming along smoothly.

That’s when things just fell apart.

I don’t know the exact cause but maybe it’s because one person just started not to show up. Then two. Then the project leader. Then in the end, I was the only one left.

When things started falling apart, I became the second project leader but since I was in the middle to two projects, it became a bit overwhelming and things just died from there. It was a very demotivating experience, I must say, but one with lots of lessons.

I think if I was a bit stronger and not so shell-shocked into being made project leader, things might have turned out better. One thing’s for sure, there definitely has to be a reliable project leader who will stick to the project. As back-up, an assistant project leader should have also been selected from the get-go so if the project leader slacks off, the assistant project leader can pick up the slack or take over completely if it’s needed.

Luckily, since I did most of the artwork, I can salvage the Fragile Hearts project. I believe I have the other materials too somewhere in one of my backup discs from the character profiles to the demo script. I don’t know if I’ll completely start a new team, push on by myself, let it fall into the unfinished-games abyss, or maybe put the assets out in the wild and see if anyone is willing to take over the project. One thing’s for sure and that is I would like to at least bring the demo out.

When? I don’t know but there’s still hope for it sometime in the future.

Filed under: Game Dev, Love Revolution: Fragile Hearts on January 26th, 2010 | No Comments »

Several days ago, I talked about the backgrounds of Love Revo: Fragile Hearts. That was a rather interesting time for me and I’ve learned some lessons from it. For one, it was the first time I was working with a large team comprised of volunteers who were interested in working on the project. I was one of the artists for the project and I did character sketches and as you saw previously, backgrounds. The team eventually dissolved but that’s another story for another time. For today, I want to touch upon one particular experience that I took away from it and that is having multiple artists can be difficult.

It’s not that artists don’t get along or have diva-like personalities or anything like that. It’s just that artists can have varying skills and letting multiple artists do the same job can make things very inconsistent. Take a look at these, for example:

All these backgrounds were colored by three different people. The first was done by one member, the one’s in the center was done by me, and the last was done by yet another artist. They look all different, don’t you think? Some colorings used airbrushing which meant colors were not set to a specific area while other coloring-styles feel more confined; colors are in their lines and not mixed with another section. Even though I did two backgrounds, they still turned out different. I think that’s because I was still experimenting with my coloring style.

From this, I can take out several things:

1) Choose a coloring style and stick with it.
2) Only have one artist do one thing. For example, one artist can color the backgrounds, while another does the character art, and so on.
3) If need be, have artists work together to set the coloring tone for the whole project or set character sheets so all the artists can use it as reference.

Number 3 is rather hard since you will need artists who can adapt their drawing and/or coloring style to fit a certain style. Don’t do it unless you are aware of your fellow artist’s abilities.

Last but not least, be sure you communicate on a regular basis. There’s nothing that can replace the feeling of being part of a group. Keep in touch. Keep motivated. Keep doing what you can to move the project along. Of course, you should have fun too! There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing something being created and finished!

Filed under: Game Dev, Love Revolution: Fragile Hearts on January 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »

In my recent Foxtaile Backgrounds and Perspective Books post, I mentioned that I didn’t think I was good enough to do backgrounds of buildings and such. Let’s take a look at some Love Revo: Fragile Hearts backgrounds I did about 5 years ago to let you get an idea of what I mean….

Personally, some look great and others…. not so great. Take the last drawing of the room with the sofa – it’s rather bland isn’t it? How about the others? Do you see anything wrong with them? Yeah, I know they’re rather small but over all what do you see or feel isn’t right?

Looking back on them, some things just don’t look right to me, perspective-wise. Some of the corners are a bit too sharp while others, from my opinion, look like they aren’t quite spaced out correctly. Take the garage on the first drawing – is it just me or is it too tight to fit a car and a person trying to open the door and get in? What about that street scene? Isn’t it a bit too tight for a car to fit through? And if it was an alleyway, wouldn’t there be stop signs or do not enter messages somewhere? How about the street that runs perpendicular to it? Will two cars fit on that road?

When I originally drew these, I didn’t take into consideration all these spatial relationships. All I was concerned about was what people saw cosmetically. There’s this and that but who cares if X, Y, and Z doesn’t exactly fit? So what if the characters up front doesn’t exactly fit in with the scenery behind them? So what?

Because I care and if you have ever made something, you probably cared about how something you made turned out too. Well, here lies the quandary!

At what point do you keep something back because you know you can make it better? Or release it because you really want to get it done and move on to another game? At what point should I expect backgrounds to be 100% perfect? Should I just leave it for commercial projects and slack off for free game releases? Or put in equal effort for any and all projects?

There’s no real answer for something like this. For me, I think it’s what I am satisfied with. If I think I can use an image, even though it’s not 100% perfect, then it should be okay. If I’m dissatisfied, on the other hand, then I’ll work on it until I feel alright with the results.

So what can I do with the images above to improve it?
Garage – leave it as it is since the spatial issue is a minor detail, imo. If I had time, I would redo it and make it better but it’s fine as is.
Telephone – this is also fine as is. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it except maybe a few lines here and there that look odd.
Street – fix the corners on the “sidewalk” and maybe redo all the bushes and the house on the right but otherwise, it’s okay as is as well.
Sofa – throw the whole thing out and start over. This needs to be redone, seriously.

Other than that, there are other drawing techniques I can employ like make certain lines thicker than others, making items in the fore-view more prominent and focused than those in the background, and so on.

I hope to at least release the demo for Fragile Hearts one day. Maybe I’ll change the backgrounds by then. Maybe I won’t. But at least, I hope you’ll be there to see the end result! : )

Filed under: Game Dev, Love Revolution: Fragile Hearts on January 20th, 2010 | No Comments »

Left to right: Corus, Elena, Nadine, Vivian, Randel, and Miss B

Back when I first announced the remake, I talked about the challenges of turning the characters from black and white to colored versions.

One of the goals I wanted to do was to keep the patterns that were used on the characters such as Nadine’s animal-printed skirt and Corus’ striped shirt. I’m happy to say that I managed to keep those in for all the characters. What I didn’t manage to do is keep the stark color contrast found in the black and white versions.

Vivian, for example, didn’t retain the dark dress that I had her wear in the original. Instead, she’s sporting a much lighter color. Nadine also ended up with a dark top because when I initially had her in a white top, she looked too washed out for my comfort which prompted the change.

Another goal that I wanted to achieve with the coloring of the characters was to create distinct colors for each character, that way, they don’t all start to blend together and look alike. Also, each color said something about the character whether they were conservative, over-the-top, or friendly.

One of the benefits of doing a remake is the ability to correct past errors. With opportunity, I took the time to fix some mistakes such as Randel’s arm, and various anatomical errors for the supporting cast. I didn’t completely fix Randel; I would have preferred to have completely redrawn his face, for instance; but just enough to make it new yet still familiar.

Last but not least, another goal I set was to make the characters believable; that they can exist in the real world. The location is real, why not make the characters in the same way? That meant no fantastical pink, blue, or green hair. No wild eye color or skin color. Everything had to be possible in the real world.

This goal had to be the toughest because it meant that my range of hair and eye color became that much smaller. I also didn’t want each character to have the same shade of hair, eye, or skin color. The result was a mixed bag, all in all. For one, I’m not completely happy with Corus’ hair color. I wanted him to be blonde/reddish-blonde but the shade looks unnatural unlike Vivian’s hair which is a plausible sandy shade. For another, there’s not much difference between Elena and Randel’s hair color. Slight difference but that’s it.

With that said, I had fun with Nadine’s hair! She had white hair in the original so I made her a blonde. Going with the whole blonde, animal-print look, I decided to change up her eyes too and made them purple. Now, I know I said the colors had to be possible in the real world so my excuse is that Nadine is wearing a wig and contact lenses. ;D

If I ever have the opportunity to work on the Garden Society world again, I would love to improve upon the “errors” that I have mentioned above. Thanks for listening to me hash it out on the recoloring of The Garden Society: Kykuit cast. I hope you enjoy playing the game and getting a little insider view of the development process.

Filed under: Game Dev, Garden Society on January 16th, 2010 | No Comments »

What does a historical visual  novel have to do with a historical action, adventure video game? The backgrounds!

I’ve been playing Muramasa: The Demon Blade for awhile now and I just absolutely loooooove the backgrounds. They’re very beautiful! Muramasa is set in feudal Japan which is very similar to the Foxtaile time period and it has really inspired me to create something similar for Foxtaile.

What I would like to take away from the Muramasa backgrounds are the wonderful ambiance and mood that they portray. Here are a few images from the game to give you an idea of what I’m aiming for:

Filed under: Foxtaile on January 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

The last time I spoke about Foxtaile, I mentioned that we haven’t found an artist to fill that roll. We still haven’t found one but I’m willing to try my hand at it and see what turns up. I must say that doing backgrounds is one area that I haven’t been doing on a regular basis. I am able to do backgrounds but they’re mainly nature-related such as seascapes, forests, and rocky area-type scenes. Buildings is one area that I’m still improving on and Foxtaile is a game that requires several scenes with structures. Well, there’s nothing like a challenge so I hope to do my best and improve my skills along with it!

Sooo, what exactly do I do to improve aside from practicing? Read up on perspective! There were several perspective books that I’ve been reading to get a better grasp on how to draw structures and I have to say that they’ve really helped me a lot. I’ve poured through quite a number of perspective books from easy how-to’s, to “advanced” perspective, to perspective books for comic book and manga artists. The two best perspective books that I would highly recommend you read through are Ernest Norlings Perspective Made Easy and Joseph D’Amelio’s Perspective Drawing Handbook. Norlings’ book was initially published in the 30’s with D’Amelio’s in the 60’s. They’re great books that have withstood time and been republished over the years with very much the same info found in the original. (I initially borrowed out the “originals” from the library and have since bought my own 2004/2008 re-released edition.)

Other perspective books that have various degrees of useful information are:
Perspective! For Comic Book Artists by David Chelsea
How to Draw Manga: All About Perspective
and if you can get a hold of it How to Draw Manga: Putting Things In Perspective.

Whether you’re an artist or not, I recommend you read up on perspective just to get a sense of how things relate to one another. I think you’ll better understand spatial relationships, camera angles, and better understand how things work or how they cannot work. Give it a try and tell me what you think!

Filed under: Foxtaile on January 12th, 2010 | No Comments »

I love New Year’s! I see it as a new beginning and this year, I have several goals I would like to achieve. One I definitely want to accomplish is to finish and release Foxtaile. The other is to buckle down and get cracking on Blind Love. I may or may not release it this year but I hope to at least get the majority of it done by the year’s end.

The other work-in-progress game I have on my list is Love Revolution: Fragile Heart. I would love to release the demo for this game which is all ready scripted and just needs more character art and backgrounds. Beyond that, there’s no set plans. I may continue it on my own but the most likely scenario is to start up fresh with a new team.

I would also like to involve you more in the development process of Foxtaile. I’ve been rather secretive with Garden Society: Kykuit Remake and it was pretty hard (not to mention boring) keeping things all to myself. So this year, I’m opening things up for you guys so stay tuned for updates and progress reports. If you haven’t done so yet, make sure to add me to your RSS Feed.

Have a Happy New Year everyone!

Filed under: A Word from Rio, Blind Love, Foxtaile, Garden Society, Love Revolution: Fragile Hearts on January 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

With GSK Remake finally released, you must be wondering about Foxtaile. As of Sept. 2009, midnighticequeen has finished 2/6 of the script and she’s planning to have it completely done by January of next year. We haven’t had any luck with finding a backgorund artist but midnighticequeen and I will hash that out between us. Regarding character art, I will be making some changes to the main character so expect a different look when you see the main character.

For updates from midnighticequeen, be sure to visit her blog Dreamsoft. We hope to release Foxtaile next year.

Filed under: Foxtaile on December 26th, 2009 | No Comments »

I would like to announce the long-awaited release of Garden Society: Kykuit Remake! Thanks to everyone for their patience and to mikey for all his hard work. The game has not only been redone in color, it has been re-envisioned with new beginning and ending scenes, and other additions. Enjoy!

Garden Society: Kykuit (2009)
Synopsis: After escaping his past, Arthur finds himself in Kykuit – a tranquil place, where the members of the Garden Society came to socialize and discuss art. Will he fit in, befriend people… or more?
Released: 2009-12-25 (original 2005-03-30)
Completion Time: 40 minutes
Credits: presented by Ren’Ai Games / ATP Projects; photography by May, shurraycmu, John Q. Hong, and Tim Smith; special thanks to kplewish; engine: Ren’Py; music: JestaAriadne; artist and writer: Rio; producer/director: mikey
Minimum Requirements: Win9x-Vista, Linux, Mac, 64 MB RAM, 180 MB HDD, HiColor
Download Now (73.9 MB) (Mirrors: ATP Projects and Lemmasoft Forums)

Filed under: Garden Society on December 25th, 2009 | No Comments »

Happy holidays everyone! I hope Santa has been good to you. Keep warm, safe, and enjoy the festivities. Be sure to stop by tomorrow for some exciting news! *<:D

Filed under: A Word from Rio on December 24th, 2009 | No Comments »