Once again, my main focus has been on the writing this week and it’s been quite a rollercoaster of satisfying successes and frustrating roadblocks. Writing a visual novel sure isn’t easy, even if you’ve done it once before! So, today, I’d finally like to talk a little more about the challenges of writing one.
Feb 20
Weekly Update #340: More Writing Progress!
Well, originally, I wanted to talk a bit about my writing process, buuut… since I made so much writing progress today, I’m left with not enough time to delve into such a lengthy topic, so I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone that for a bit!
Although I guess it’s a good excuse, yes?
Today was one of my most productive writing days in a while and, if I hadn’t been somewhat forced to quit, I’d actually still be writing now and you’d get an even shorter blog post much later, haha. But alas, my writing session had to come to a close and thus I’m here typing this instead.
Feb 13
Weekly Update #339: Writing Progress
So, this second week of February was mostly dedicated to script work. I started out by working on Keiichi‘s investigation route and made quite a bit of progress on it. I did, however, run into some parts that gave me difficulties, mostly in regards to flow and tone.
I know exactly what I want to do here, or rather where the goal is, but I still need to find the best path to actually get there.
Since I got stuck, I decided to jump ahead and continue with Rei‘s investigation route, rather than potentially waste a couple of days desperately trying to find solutions that might eventually present themselves. And I think that was a pretty good move, as work on Rei‘s route went much smoother. I made a lot of progress and feel generally very satisfied with what I’ve written, even though it will definitely require a bit more polish. A full first draft might very well be done in a couple more days if I keep up the pace.
Feb 06
Weekly Update #338: Asset Progress
With the start of February, I decided to finally tackle the second chapter of GENBA no Kizuna and make as much progress on it as I possibly can throughout the month. And so far, things have gone rather smoothly and I’ve actually had a very productive week!
First off, I took care of some essential assets for the start of the chapter, such as the intro screen and the route selection screen.
I’ve decided to slightly adjust the chapter introduction screens in general, so I have also gone back to the others to update them.
Originally, all of them showed the silhouettes of our four investigators, but now, the prologue only shows Keiichi‘s silhouette, the first chapter the silhouettes of our four suspects, the second chapter the silhouettes of the two witnesses and so on and so forth.
Jan 30
Weekly Update #337: Plans For February
So, before we get into today’s main topic, let’s start off with a quick progress update! As you can see above, I’ve worked on sprites a bit more and have finished a new variation for Shiku. With this, all her sprites for chapter one have been drawn now!
I also continued working on the sprites for our mystery witnesses who will be introduced in chapter 2 and will soon give their base variations to Natsu for coloring. Probably not going to give you a preview of them, though, as I’d really like their identity to be a surprise in the full game!
Speaking of spoilery previews, however, I have finally shared one for the “dead body” CG over on Patreon. So, if you’re curious as to what our victim actually looks like, you can get a first look at him right here.
Jan 23
Weekly Update #336: Quick Progress Update
As the title already gives away, today, we’re just going to have a very quick update. If you’d like to read a bit more about what’s currently going on, however, you can always check out last week’s blog post detailing how we plan to tackle 2021.
Now, with that said, what’s new?
At the moment, I’m mostly still focusing on the “dead body” CG, which takes quite a while to get done, even though that was kinda expected. There’s a lot of intricate detail going on here and a lot of thought going into it. I will probably talk more about the process and the challenges once it’s done, but this is defintely the most complicated asset I’ve worked on thus far.
It’s finally getting closer to being done, though. Just a couple more days, I think. I might actually post a preview (at long last) on Patreon soon, maybe even tomorrow.
Outside of that, I’ve been busy with script work as well, revising the investigation of Ryuunosuke‘s room and taking care of the last couple dialogue scenarios for when you talk to Amber.
This (rather big) scene should hopefully be done by next week, along with the CG. I’d definitely like to start into February with new tasks, rather than carry over old ones.
That basically sums it up for this week. I’ll get back to work now, so please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3
Jan 16
Weekly Update #335: Plans For 2021
In last week’s blog post, I focused on our plans for the first month of 2021. Today, I’d finally like to take a look at the year in general.
During the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how exactly to tackle the new year, what goals to set for myself and how to go about achieving them. And I came to the conclusion that, this year, I want to try a slightly different approach.
Jan 09
Weekly Update #334: Plans For January
Since we’re already one week into the new year, today, I’d like to focus solely on my plans for the rest of this first month, before I’ll get into how exactly we’re planning to tackle 2021 in general in next week’s blog post.
During this first week, I’ve been working on a number of different things. There’s a new CG for GENBA no Kizuna in the works, which I’d like to finish by the end of the month, along with the “dead body CG”, which I’ve already started working on at the end of last year.
At the same time, I’ll continue revising the last few scenes of the first chapter and finally get them done. Two scenes have already been completed and patrons can actually check out the script document over here. To gather a bit more feedback, I’ve decided to make them available to all patrons, rather than just the 7$-tier.
Jan 02
Weekly Update #333: Happy New Year!
A new year is upon us and I’m planning to make it a really productive one! Which is why today’s blog post is going to fall on the short side again, as I’ve ended up working on a new CG for GENBA no Kizuna for most of the day, leaving me with not much time to type something up. I just had so much fun drawing that I couldn’t really bring myself to stop, haha.
As a result, we’ll be doing our annual “plans and goals for the new year” post next Saturday. In the meantime, if you haven’t done so already, you can check out last week’s rather lengthy post with our 2020 retrospect. Patrons can also check out an additional post in which I elaborate a little further on some of the topics brought up in the retrospect and share some more personal insights into what’s been going on recently. Mainly in regards to my writing struggles and how I’ve been trying to overcome them.
Speaking of Patreon, there are also two more new posts! The first one let’s you listen to the full investigation theme for our crazy doctor, Shinketsu. As always, our composer Solo Acapello did a phenomenal job!
The other post is a preview of our New Year’s artwork. It was kind of a last minute effort, so we weren’t able to fully finish it for the 1st, but I’ll be posting it publicly with next week’s blog post, so please keep an eye out for that!
Anyway, since I’d like to get back to work (I haven’t felt this motivated about drawing in a while), I’m gonna have to wrap things up here, but not before wishing all of you a great, healthy, happy, positively exciting and also very productive start into 2021!
Let’s make sure to make the best out of it so we won’t have any regrets!
Now, as always, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
Dec 26
Weekly Update #332: 2020 Retrospect
With the year slowly coming to a close, today, I’d like to take the time to look back on it, on what we originally set out to do, how things actually unfolded and what we have ultimately accomplished. 2020 was a ride full of unexpected surprises. From a global pandemic to many personal difficulties and challenges, a lot of unforeseen developments affected our work and progress. Both in negative and positive ways. So let’s delve right into it and take a look at these past twelve months!
