An Actual PROGRESS Update This Time
almost 4 years ago – Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 04:49:59 PM

Yo, it's m.

As always, we start with the tl;dr - "THINGS ARE HAPPENING"

An Actual PROGRESS Update This Time

Take On Miku

I kinda felt bad that the last update felt pretty rushed and wasn't very substantial, so I want to make it up to you guys this time by making it super meaty and actually talking about real current development (and less about random rambling blog-style.)

Backgrounds

One of the struggles I've been dealing with after the Kickstarter was that there were a couple of staff changes and I had to get last minute replacements for a few people.  The previous BG artist that was working for us suddenly quit and it was quite hard to find another artist that fit the style.

It was difficult to match the old style of emulating that classic Slice of Life tv anime show look, but I think Neoclassic Games is doing a pretty good job in making the backgrounds for us. We're almost done recreating all the backgrounds in the demo, and now we're in the process of creating all the new locations for the game.

Music

I talked in the campaign about how we use a mix of free Creative Commons tracks, and a few original tracks. Here's a preview of some of our new original tracks, courtesy of Garrett Williamson, a pretty cool guy. All of our original tracks will be uploaded to Youtube to our official channel (excluding the CC tracks), but you'll be able to hear all of the music in-game as well, in the extras.

Character Art

Working on Character sprites is very difficult, and Tsungelique-sama has a daunting task of making full-body images of an insane roster cast of characters, including the side characters, each with wildly different poses and expressions. She's been working hard on making each sprite feel unique, and distinct from each other.

We also had quite a lot of comments from the Demo phase that people noticed some of the sprite poses in the game are similar to Danganronpa sprites. While we did take inspiration from the art in DR, we only meant to reference the art and not copy it. But since it was brought up a few times, we decided to rework some of the poses that were similar (they also just turned out to be better overall.)

There's been a lot of work recently towards the new stretch goal characters being added in the game. I can't show you the new characters or the sprites yet, but I CAN show you how we work on a sprite from scratch. 

We usually start with baseline emotions and poses that are associated with them -

• Default Idle
• Happy
• Angry
• Shocked

And from there, we go into more specific expressions or poses. One of the big goals we have with the character poses is that we try to make them really dynamic and expressive, not only to show how these characters are feeling in an explosive way, but also to be efficient and not needing to create too many pieces that otherwise wouldn't stand out.

When we don't have an exact emotion to work with, sometimes I use a 3d program to try to get the feel of the character and see what kind of pose they would have like this:

Tsun will then take these and make a sketch, and once the sketch is done, we both go over how we can improve the pose so that it's really over the top.

Writing

UI (User Interface)

I am planning on re-working a lot of the UI of the game. There isn't much progress on that part yet, but I did show how I improved the Charging bar mechanic in the last update. Overall, the Demo feedback taught me that I really need to improve the UI and mechanics of the game so that they are much more intuitive for people when playing.

Although, I HAVE been working on one thing in particular-

The old logo is a classic, and even though it's not bad, I kinda thought it was a bit messy. This new version I'm a lot happier with and also it's just a lot more readable.

Actual Progress?

If you asked me "Hey m, how much of the game is done, percentage wise?" 

I would tell you "Who are you and how did you get into my apartment?"

But also "idk something like 20% roughly give or take but idk really its hard to approximate these things even in a really rough ballpark kind of way so dont ask me questions"

End Note

Alright, that's it for this update. Hopefully it is VERY meaty and substantial compared to the previous updates. I can't promise every update will be as "full of stuff" as this one, but after a bit of time, I can spill the beans once in a while. Let me know what you think of any of the things I talked about in the comments!

The Good Times are Coming But Until Then I'm just gonna go chill
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Jul 18, 2022 at 06:00:50 AM

Yo, it's m.

As always, we start with the tl;dr - "How can I live, laugh, love in these conditions?!"

The Good Times are Coming But Until Then I'm just gonna go chill

Ginger Root - Loneliness

The biggest challenge in writing these updates is keeping it substantial. What I mean by that is, while I really really want to talk about a lot of things moving behind the scenes, it's difficult to talk about stuff directly because I want you to be surprised when you play the full game. The joy of discovery and being surprised is something magical in games, and I value that kind of feeling a lot.

That's not to say there isn't anything to talk about though.

What makes an Anti-Dating-Sim?

These past few months have been very eye opening in terms of figuring out the identity of the game. It was the crucial phase where every foundational block was put together before the rest of the game forms, the 'cement bricks' for our figurative game-wall, if you will.

Just recently, we have officially started writing the actual routes of the game! Because we've already written out an in-depth outline of the entire game and the structure, it really helps us be deliberate and efficiently write out the game's story.

In writing, we learn that a story is actually made up out of smaller stories - this is called story structure. This especially true in formats like our game's writing, for example. 

You could say the main plot of the game (where Aya wants to be single), that's the main story. In that bigger plot, there's other, smaller plotlines going around as well, those come in the form of character routes. And in those character routes, there are smaller chunks of stories, we can call those "beats" or "scenarios."

Now, this is all really abstract theory mumbo jumbo, so let's break it down into a more practical example - specifically, how we designed the structure of the game.

In the main Kickstarter campaign, I mentioned that one of the big goals I had was that I wanted the game to feel like an anime, instead of a typical visual novel. 

Let's for a moment, pretend that IJWTBS is an anime and not a game. Well, then we can easily put it into the same structure as before. A "beat" or "scenario" is a single episode of the anime. Those go into "character routes" which is sort of like an anime Season. Put those anime seasons together- and you got yourself a slice of life, comedy anime! 

This is how we want to tie in the aesthetic and themes of the story together with the writing, so that it'll give you the feeling of watching a feel good show on a Saturday evening.

Of course, story is one thing, but you need to consider gameplay as well.

Visual Novel "gameplay" KEK

As another thing I mentioned in the original campaign, gameplay sections are also really important to me for this game. I really wanted IJWTBS to not feel like the typical VN that gets boring or a little stale cause there's just so much reading to do. Of course, it's still a visual novel at the end of the day, but to me, those small sections really help break up the monotony and it helps pacing overall. Also, minigames are just plain fun. (unless we count the half-assed really boring ones)

This means that I'm putting a lot of effort into making each section of the game fresh and have some kind of novelty in them. Thanks to the budget we have, I can afford to hire a real programmer to handle the more complex side while I direct them on what to do. This has already proven to be a great improvement to the game as you see here-

Yeah, we all know that the charging mechanic from the demo was scuffed, not very well designed, and everyone forgot it existed. Stuff like this and other overall game mechanics are being improved systematically, as well as us just making sure things are easier to understand. (If you've played the demo, you might be able to tell how much better this is already from the old charging bar UI)

These mechanics are generally part of the "main game mechanics", however, that's not the only "gameplay" you should expect. Real minigames, like the drawing game are planned to be sprinkled in here and there often. There's a lot of fun and wacky things I have in store for you.

Now, I can't really tell you what exactly some of the things I've planned are, cause I want to surprise you.

But, I can talk about what inspires me in my creative process.

What's a Comedy Game?

I really wanted to emphasize comedy as a big feature in IJWTBS. Most other forms of media uses comedy has a complimentary genre, like a side dish to a main course. The most common example is the Rom-Com, short for Romance-Comedy. Comedy can actually compliment pretty much anything, even things you wouldn't expect, like Horror. (Horror Comedy is actually a really popular genre these days)

But very very few creators take Comedy as a main genre to tackle as their medium, especially so in games. In fact, if I had to count "Comedy Games", I could probably do so with one hand.

A few very notable examples:

These games don't rely on gameplay or story to entertain you, they strongly, (and sometimes solely) rely JUST on jokes to let you have a good time. And that is super admirable.

So yes, while most people used the drawing minigame as a challenge to actually draw well, it did provide an opportunity for the player themselves to make a quick joke at the developer's expense - me! And I think that's hilarious.

While IJWTBS, doesn't solely rely on jokes alone, the story and gameplay both work together for a single goal - to make you laugh and have a good time.

It's Summer and so I'll Just Pretend Things are not on Fire
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 11:48:55 PM

Hi. Hey. Hoi.

It's me, -m.

This is going to be a long update. 

Here's a quick bottom-line tl;dr:  "We're on schedule! Also give Tsungelique your love"

It's June. It's hot. I'm pretending things aren't on fire.

Ginger Root - City Slicker (Full EP)

Well, what have I been up to? A lot, but at the same time? Not much.

One thing you should know about me, is that I really like to research and prepare before I do anything. I guess you could call it being cautious. I think that's one of the big reasons why our kickstarter was such a big success, I researched and prepared our page literally 3-4 months in advance. 

That and I have sort of a high standard when it comes to presenting stuff. A bit of a hypocritical perfectionist attitude. But hey, we all want to show our best sides, right?

That's probably why I've been waiting a bit to make this update, I wanted to have some things to talk about. Will I do this every time? Let's just say I'll keep updates to being monthly from now on. Personally I don't really want to feel pressured to make an update on a specific deadline and I don't really wanna put out a post when there isn't anything substantial to talk about. That being said, I do realize the scary prospect of a kickstarter dev going Ghost mode and just completely disappearing off the face of the earth (with all the backer money.) 

You can always check if I'm alive or not through our Twitter and Discord.

Speaking of Kickstarter success-

Am I still broke?

No! Hooray!

Technically no, but actually yes. All of the backer money goes directly into the game and paying my friends. Thanks to the amount of money we raised, there's a lot more we can do with the game. One example in particular, the new Main Girls.

The implication of having 3 complete main characters is much bigger than people realize, myself included when I proposed them as stretch goals. I thought "ah well, it's just 3 more girl designs" but it also means 3 whole routes in the game, not to mention additional art, music and backgrounds, programming to go along with routes AND we didn't even touch on the ------------------- but that's a spoiler. Because of this, the scope of the game balooned massively, and the entire structure of the game actually changed a bit.

Before you start worrying, no, this isn't a bad thing. Thankfully with the amount of money we raised from the campaign a lot of things that I wish I could do with the game is possible, and even if I didn't exactly expect to raise that much, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for it. It opened up a lot of possibilities and it allowed me to plan and execute a game that I could only dream of. 

Oh yeah, they have names now. Meet Mika, Random Girl and Chloe. Well, "meet" kind of.

About them, we have fully finished designing them and but haven't finished doing all the poses and sprite expressions for the game. I don't want to reveal them just yet because I plan to do them at a later date via video presentation. But at least you know their names! Another thing that some of you may have missed, is that yes, Random Girl is still called Random Girl. Why? How? I don't know but it was too funny to change so we kept it. Also we sort of retconned the part where Mika is an alien. She's still a gyaru but not an alien anymore. There IS still an alien in the game but I won't spoil who it is.

So, are we still on schedule?

So far, yes! We actually did complete the outline for all of the routes so far and I'm incredibly glad to report so. Our narrative designer Sandro did a fantastic job and there's so much fun stuff to discover in the game. (There's still one secret ending I'm having trouble with but it's an optional ending so it's not a big deal.)

More character routes means there's effectively a lot more workload. But having more characters in the game (especially an even number of them) allows for more interesting scenarios to be in the narrative as well. With the addition of 3 main characters, that totals up to 8 routes you can play! All of them having unique and multiple endings.

Thanks to the outline being done, a lot of the production of the game opens up from this point. For example, having a solid outline reduces the need to change things later down the line and it's the backbone of a good VN. With it, you have a general direction for your scene writing, dialogue, music and art to follow. Speaking of which, it's only now we're able to start working on all of those things, which I've talked to our amazing artists and gotten them rolling on the ball.

A big goal we set out with the outline and narrative design is that we didn't want to overscope the game so that we have an impossible workload within our budget but we also didn't want to cheapen the experience. There's very little point in adding stretch goals and promising extra content if the action of adding that content is going to harm the overall experience or it comes at the cost of the previous planned content having lower quality, that's just unacceptable. 

Passion vs. Product

I mentioned earlier, that I was hoping to raise a lot of money for the game so I can add a lot of things. Having a large ambition is something I tend to see in a lot of devs, but makes a dev be able to execute on that ambition? Proper planning, experience and solid vision. That's where a lot of newbie devs go wrong, and you'll notice that quite a bit here on Kickstarter (not naming any names.)

Research and preparation is one of the most important things to make a good product, and most developers get too caught up in being passionate about their game. Game development isn't the same as playing a game. It's not all fun and games and a lot of it is work (even though it is a lot of fun.) You have to remember that you are also delivering a product to people for money. Unless you're rich, or you literally don't give two hoots about money at all (or a good game for that matter,) it's easy to get trapped into the naive mentality that what you're doing isn't a job or that you aren't making a product. Ultimately, game devs make games so that other people will play them and that's just reality. 

There's a lot of pressure on me to deliver an awesome game, especially to not disappoint everyone who supports our game and everyone who follows us, but I'm such a narcissistic bastard that the thing I'm most worried about is disappointing myself. But the point is, you need a realistic plan, and you need to have the discipline and vision to execute on that plan.

The Consequences of Success

A lot of this talk about money, vision, execution and planning comes down to sustainability. The AAA game industry is a mess (I mean, so is a lot of big media,) and it's all because of sustainability, or rather, the lack of it. Their model of production is crunch, crunch, crunch, and meet goals set by people who have never made anything artistic in their life.

Sustainability is why I employ a lot of contract workers to do things I can't do myself (which is basically everything.) It also means no single person has the burden of making an entire game themselves, not only is that kinda unreasonable, that's also why some games take 6-8 years to make (bruh.)

Sustainability is Reponsibility

Being responsible isn't just about your responsibility to others, it's also about having resposibility to yourself, to your body, to yourself as a human. If your responsibility is to do a good job, then your responsibility includes taking care of yourself and making sure you're able to do a good job in the first place. Enabling yourself, being smart, efficient, being careful and taking care of yourself and others around you is responsibility. Moral, or otherwise.

By far, the person who works hardest on the game is non other my friend and co-developer Tsungelique. She's possibly one of, if not the- hardest working and humblest person I know.  She's responsible for all of the sprite work (the heaviest load in the art department), most of the character designs and she helped shape the visual style of the game. That's not even counting the other responsibilities she has, like financial accounting, and management she does on the backend.

I'm not really the most social person, and I don't really like being in the spotlight, however, I do interact a lot with the community and post frequently to promote the game. So a common thing that happens is that, a lot of people tend to forget that I'm not the only one that works on the game, which is why I wanted to highlight Tsun (and Sandro to an extent) today. 

Tsun has a tendency to be an overachiever, and ever since I've met her two years ago, she's done nothing except continually impress me, and impress me even more so by her sheer improvement and dedication to art. There are times when she has art block, and there are times where she is discouraged.

But I've never really met anyone that willing to consistently work their hardest on a goal to the end. 

I've never met anyone who is constantly looking for ways to improve and become better like her.

I've never met anyone who is able to take criticism and be able to work on themselves like her.

I've definitely never met anyone who trusts me as much as her.

That's why it is a shame whenever I see people not give her attention and instead, a lot of the credit and attribution of the game goes to me. 

A recent thought I had, is that I kind of regret naming us "Tsundere Studio," because it gives off the impression that we're a whole studio and that kind of implies there's a lot of people working on games.

Outside of the contract workers and commission artists, it's really just us. Me and Tsun at the end of the day.  And I think people tend to overlook Tsun since she isn't really at the "front" side of things.

That's why I wanted to say that "Tsundere Studio" isn't just a funny name, it's a name that means something to us.

BackerKit surveys are here and Discord Link!
about 4 years ago – Wed, May 11, 2022 at 10:21:39 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

The future.
about 4 years ago – Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 12:54:44 AM

Thank you.

I think that every time I say the words "Thank You" on here, it seems like I can never quite articulate the real feelings and emotions I'm feeling. I can't quite describe the gratitude and emotions I feel. It feels like the words themselves can't stand up to the meaning I want to put behind them.

Hello everyone, we are now within the final 24 hours of the campaign and there is one more story left to tell. This will be the final public update and probably the final update for a while for campaign backers.

In my last post, I mentioned I was thinking back to where I was two years ago. Let me share with you what that looked like. Back in early 2020, just when the pandemic was just starting, and things weren't very serious yet, I was in an apartment. My old one-room apartment, old and creaky, and I was alone.

I was in a bad place in my life, physically and mentally. I didn't have much in the way of friends, ambitions or dreams. I didn't have much going for me. But the only thing I did have was games, I suppose that part hasn't changed even now.

I liked making small projects and games/mods even if nobody else liked them, and I just enjoyed making silly and humorous memes to share with people on the internet. I really wanted to become a game dev but... as weird as it sounds now, it seemed like something that was so far out of reach back then, maybe even impossible, like a dream. 

I didn't really have any confidence or skills, and I didn't have any goals. I was just... existing.

2020 was not a great year for many of us, and especially not for me. I was at my lowest point in my life and I was pretty unstable. But then something happened, something changed within me. I wanted to do something, I wanted to try something. I wanted to make something happen. So I did some sketches, talked to people, starting googling and searching on youtube for tutorials. I did odd jobs and traded skills. That's how I met my wonderful and amazing friend Tsungelique (the artist for the game) and we've been working on visual novels since.

If there's anything I've learned, it's that once you hit rock bottom, there's no where else to go but up. 

Flash forward to now, it is 2022, 13th of April.

And here I am, a new game dev, sitting at my computer, writing an update to a successful Kickstarter nearing it's campaign. I made and put a game on Steam (a demo technically.) I ran social media accounts, made tiktok memes, I run a discord server. Recently I got an irl job. A big youtuber played my game. I got fan-art for the first time, lots of them in fact. I'm still a bit out of shape physically, but mentally, I'm doing great. I never thought I'd see myself like this, even just only 2 years prior. 

In the future, I have tons of things planned that I want to do, even past this game. I know I've got a lot of work ahead of me and I still very much intend to keep all of my promises and deliver on this game. But I've never looked forward to my future so much in my life.

I want to tell you that if you have something deep inside of you that you've always wanted to do, something that you've wanted to achieve, something that you dream of-

well, this is your sign that you can reach it. 

You can reach it, and you will reach it. Maybe you don't believe that you can but I do. I genuinely believe that you can, so you should too.

I want you to go on the path that you believe in yourself. 

The path of dreams and living life to the fullest.

And as long as you keep dreaming and believing, 

I know you'll make it.

-m.