Solipsism Reigns BxG Version
What Could Have Been + What Could Be
Okaaaay, so, I'll start off by saying that if you're following me here on itch.io specifically for this project, I am so sorry for the lack of updates >.< Progress has been made, I just haven't posted about it for various reasons.
Basically, the Student Route + the Mage Route are 100% playable. The Clan Route is 25% finished. The other routes are currently 0% complete. While CiQ is my priority project right now, I am still working on this whenever I can't make progress with CiQ for whatever reason. It's just that SR is so huge that it's gonna take a while no matter what :(
On top of that, I recently acquired a brand new engine which is heaps better than Tyranobuilder. I'm talking crazy differences. It makes Tyrano look pretty awful actually. So now I'm faced with a pretty big dilemma. Do I continue to make this version of SR in Tyranobuilder since I've already got 2 routes done, or do I just start again from scratch in the new engine where I know I can make the whole thing much better? If you are following me because you're waiting for this game, your input would be much appreciated :3
Lastly, I know this is kinda teasing, but I might as well post it anyhow or it will just sit on a PC forever and no one will ever see it. This is art that my best friend was working on for this version of SR. It was going to be for one of the CGs in the Student Route. A couple of months ago, my friend offered to draw a few CGs for each route, but he's given up before finishing the first piece >.< I don't really blame him, but still, it sucks, cos I love his art. So yeah, here's a look at what could have been. I hope you're managing to stay safe + having a lovely week so far! ^_^/
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Hey, it's been half a year. Any updates on the game so far or is it on hiatus rn?
Hey! Thanks for checking in :3
It's a weird sort of situation really in that, on my end, I've not worked on it at all in terms of getting it put together in the new engine, but there is work going on. I haven't posted about this, but I did mention it briefly in a reply to a recentish comment. Basically, I've teamed up with an absolutely amazing artist who is redesigning all the sprites in her style + drawing CGs for this version of the game :3
She's already finished full-colour CGs for all of the student route and they're absolutely gorgeous! I would post something as a little preview, but I'm not sure what I could post without spoiling anything too much, haha. Even her sketches for the rest of the CGs and the sprites blow me away :D Also, since the game isn't particularly close to completion, I feel like posting stuff now would maybe be too early? I'm not sure. I'm not very good at anything related to promotion and social media >.<
Maybe I should change the status on itch, but then it is still technically in development x3 It's just fairly slow-paced right now. I still need to finish CiQ since that's supposed to be my main project. I had planned to release that before the end of this year. The problem is, my friend and I had hoped to run a Kickstarter for it, but due to my lack of activity on social media (and possibly because folks just don't care for it as well xD) we just don't have anywhere near enough eyes on the project to bother trying one. It would just fall flat on its face because no one would know it was running >.< Considering it's a game of a similar length to SR, and that a young artist from Japan redrew all the sprites and they now look gorgeous, it's quite disheartening to think that I'll likely end up releasing it only for it to go completely unnoticed. I didn't even want to pay myself with a KS. I just wanted enough funding to be able to afford a CG artist and to get voice acting in there.
So yeah, that has me incredibly bummed out right now.
I did just finish another game for Otome Jam 2021 (Apartment No.9) and I feel like it's my most polished release so far as I get more comfortable with the new engine + I got to work with artists who are all fantastic :3 I have no idea if it would be your cup of tea, but I'm thinking I might make a genderbent version of A9 with a male protagonist and the love interests become female. I don't think it would take too long to get it done since the framework is already there in the otome version and it's not that long of a story!
Sorry for going on a huge ramble there >.< I hope you're well, managing to stay safe, and having a brilliant week so far :3
Oh that's nice! It's good to hear that the CGs will be in this version of the game too. Also if it spoils too much of the game I guess posting the CGs shouldn't be done, maybe you could post a sprite of every route once the artist is done redrawing them as an update though?
As for CiQ, since Manly decided to play a few of your VNs I hope you now have enough people interested in the game.
Tbh, Apartment No.9 really doesn't seem like my cup of tea, but if you decide to make a genderbent version of it, I'll definitively check it out.
Eitherway, I am just happy to hear that this game is still being worked on (albeit slowly) and not on hiatus. Cheers.
They are absolutely gorgeous CGs as well! The artist is so incredibly talented :3 I shall have to ask first but I wonder if maybe posting some of the sprite and CG sketches would be a bit less spoilery! But yeah, once the sprites are completed, posting one or two from every route as updates is a good idea :D
Hmm, I think CiQ is still pretty much dead in the water even with all the amazing support I've gained since Manly played some of my other stuff. I'm not sure if it's because it just looks boring to anyone who looks at it, because people don't know it exists, or if it's just because there's really not much interest in otome/bl games compared to VNs with female LIs available. It'll probably have to take a back seat I guess. All the writing for it is finished, and I definitely will finish the project at some point because I don't want to let down the people who have helped out with the new demo, but as far as I can tell, there might be like 5 people who actually want to see the game finished >.< haha. I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to do about that one.
Well, I am indeed going ahead with making a BxG version of Apartment No.9! Holding auditions as we speak. I think it makes sense to do it now while everything is still fresh in my mind from the jam version + all the code is there already so it really shouldn't take all that long to finish. The only thing that sucks is that it won't have fancy sprite art like the jam version and it likely won't have any CGs because it would be unfair to ask the artists who helped me out during the jam to do any more when they already helped so much, and with it no longer being a jam, I can't see me managing to find anyone who is willing to help on that front >.<
But yeah, everything will get there in the end :3 Cheers for sticking around! I'm sorry I can't get it done faster really, haha. If it were the length of my jam games, it wouldn't take all that long, but SR is just so darn big that anything to do with it is just gonna take ages >.< I think it was like 3-5ish years to make the otome version in the end. But that's including some long breaks since I was caring for my grandma and for other personal reasons. I don't really take breaks nowadays because I don't know how to anymore xD
I am curious as to what this new engine you are using is called, if you don't mind my asking. I don't know if you would remember me, but you gave me some advice over visual novel development on reddit a while back. I'm wondering if whatever you've switched to would be well suited to what I want to accomplish.
I'm not sure if I replied to you elsewhere or if I somehow just managed to completely miss your comment >.< If I did miss it, I'm so sorry that it's taken me 5 whole months to see it and get back to you! My answer is probably of no use now whatsoever >.< but I switched from Tyranobuilder to Naninovel for Unity!
How exactly would switching to the new engine improve the VN? Besides probably a better performance.
One of the biggest things would be that people using macs would actually be able to play it. Tyrano is supposed to have the ability to export projects for mac, but it's been messed up for over a year now and I don't think the devs are gonna bother fixing it :( Basically, the stuff it exports for mac only seems to be playable for a small number of users, most report being unable to get it to start. The devs know it's an issue, they've known for a long time. The last I saw, they just sorta stated that macs are awkward and it's not their problem, but someone else reckoned they promised to look into it in a future update... they've promised a lot of features in future updates that just haven't seen the light of day, sadly >.< It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't any more updates.
Whereas the engine I'm using now is constantly being updated by the dev + new features tend to get added when users request them.
I would also be able to export for Linux, which can't be done with Tyrano.
I know that there aren't that many folk using macs to play stuff like this compared to windows users, but whenever I get someone on mac comment on the GxB version saying they really wanna play it but it won't open, it kinda breaks my heart that I can't do anything to help :(
I guess it would probably be easier to put the other reasons as bullet points so I'm not writing a giant wall of mushed together text here, haha.
I'm sure there are probably more things, but it's almost 2am here and my brain is a bit frazzled, haha. Those are some of the reasons why switching to the other engine would improve the project overall though :3 Also, cheers for the support :D
Oh damn, that is a lot. Yeah ok in that case you should definitively go for the new engine, especially since a lot of mac users cannot play the game with the old engine. Waiting years for a game, just to not be able to play it yourself in the end does really suck. : (
Yeah, the mac thing with Tyrano sucks so damn much >.<
I think once I get settled in the new year (hopefully with a workspace in my room at my dad's so that I can actually use my PC when I'm there) I'm gonna start dividing my time by either having a certain amount of hours per day for working on this and CiQ like half and half, ooor, divide the week and have X amount of days as SR days and X amount as CiQ days just so I can actually make more progress on both at the same time!
I mean starting from scratch would suck but I don't mind waiting longer if that's what you decide to do.
Thanks for the support :3 The funny thing is, it could possibly work out faster overall to switch the new engine, even though it would mean starting from scratch, just because the way Tyrano works is so slow in comparison.
Don't get me wrong, Tyrano is brilliant if you want a purely visual interface where you don't really have to type much at all, but dragging and dropping every single component is pretty time consuming >.< Whereas the new engine works using an easy to understand scripting language, so you just type everything out in a text document and watch the game come to life :3 It's tonnes faster just being able to type everything out, especially when the editor starts auto-filling frequently used phrases! Oh, and testing is easier in the new engine too, so I could get through testing much faster.
SR would require a hell of a lot of typing though xD I honestly don't know how people code for a living and don't get screwed up eyes from looking at so much text, haha.
I would say to keep working with the current engine, as you said this a BIG project and while you're nowhere near completing it starting from scratch would still suck.
It would indeed suck, haha. As I said in the comment above though, it's possible that it could work out faster overall if I were to make the switch. If I could manage to somehow afford and fit a desk in my room at my dad's, and get 2 monitors, it would be much easier to copy the text out of Tyrano and the general template of sprite's expressions and stuff to the new engine by having the Tyrano version up on one screen and the new version up on another! :3
Right now, I can't work on anything properly (apart from projects that are very small in size) cos I'm stuck using my ancient low-spec laptop (which can't even open the SR project files cos it just crashes T_T) I basically don't have a workspace of my own. I mainly used my partner's PC setup to make the first version of SR in Tyrano, but I don't have as much access to his PC as I used to since we broke up. I did have a PC setup at my dad's, but when I partially moved out a few years ago, my brother kinda just took over and used all my stuff until it was broken, then bought his own, and now that I really need it all back, he refuses to replace what he broke :( Sooo, yeah, working on stuff is pretty awkward at the moment cos I have very little money to buy myself anything + very little space to put stuff (my room is the smallest in the house and only just fits a bed lengthways, haha.)
Thanks for your support btw, much appreciated! :3