HI EVERYONE.

Sorry I skipped last month! I had a big event on the 1st and ultimately decided not to play catchup during the month. SOOO, here’s the big update for this month!

THE WRITING IS DONE & THE GAME IS PLAYABLE!

Currently, I’ve played through one route* and managed to reach the end with no errors. A lot of art assets still aren’t in, so it’s not like, a super engaging experience (kind of just a more cumbersome way of reading a book) BUT, if you wanted to play it right now, you theoretically could!

So currently the main thrust of the work is drawing all the assets and putting them in the game. A lot of the sprites are… well, the way I work means I won’t 100% know they’re “done” until the game is done, but I have base expressions for most of the cast.

Actually, let’s talk a bit about how I do sprites!

So this method works for me because I’m a solo dev. If I was say, commissioning an artist, I would go through the script and specifically figure out which expressions I needed and send them that list (or negotiate a rate for last-minute additions). However, as a solo dev, here’s how I do it:

1. I draw the base character - I have a sheet in my files that has everyone lined up in height order, so I can tell how the characters will look next to each other in a scene. (I did not have this when I started, which meant I had to resize the hell out of a lot of sprites early on. One of the nice things about basically redoing all the sprites is it means I can make sure the sprites aren’t super crunchy because I had to keep resizing them!!!)
2. Because I’m doing layeredimages, once I get my sketch & colors to a good working place, I cut their head off to a new layer. If I want their arms to move, I cut off the arms too. I then finish the rendering - by splitting the layers now, I can make sure everything looks good and there aren’t any weird gaps.
3. Every character gets five basic expressions: neutral, angry, happy, sad, and surprised. The neutral expression is usually first, and then I copy & paste the head, draw a new expression, rinse and repeat.
4. Some bonus expressions usually come out of this process, like transitory stages between expressions. Additionally, if I know a character is prone to a certain emotion, I’ll try to make sure I’ve got a few variations on that emotion - Worthy, for instance, is usually stressed, so she has a lot of anxious expressions.
5. Whether or not a character gets alternate poses is based entirely on 1. personality and 2. screentime. 
   1. Personality - Changing poses can tell you a lot about the physicality of a character! My best example of this is the Ace Attorney series - for instance, an energetic and youthful character like Maya has a new pose for every expression, while a reserved character like Edgeworth only changes his pose during moments of great emotion (the infamous “unnecessary… feelings” scene).
   2. Screentime - Sometimes you have a character who would theoretically change poses a lot, but they’re in two scenes, and you look at yourself and say “I understand it would be appropriate acting wise, but my time is gonna be better spent somewhere else” and you do that.
6. I then set up the layeredimages in Ren’py and start blocking** scenes! I usually just have the folder with their sprites open on one monitor and the code in another and start typing like that. If I notice I don’t have an appropriate expression, I’ll either make a note of it or draw a new one right there.
7. Then I test the scenes! I play through them and note whenever an expression seems odd or inappropriate, or if a character appears too static since they haven’t changed expressions in a bit. If I have a good alternate expression, I’ll edit it directly in the code and then reload the scene to see if it works better.
8. If I don’t have a good alternate expression, I’ll make a note of that and then go back to the file and draw a few more expressions! This is what I mean when I say my process would be different if I were working with someone else - my current workflow is a lot of spur of the moment edits.
9. Repeat 7 & 8 until I’m satisfied!

So there’s some of my thoughts on sprites! I hope they’re helpful, or if not helpful, at least interesting. If you have any thoughts on them, or questions, or anything else you would like me to go into my process or thoughts on, let me know!

That’s me for the month! Next month is mostly just drawing and putting the drawings in the game. Hope you had a good July and will have a good August!

*btw, I’ll confirm this now: at the time of writing, there are approximately 10 endings! Two of them are based off last-minute choices, so maybe it’s closer to 8 and two halves? 8-10 endings, depending on how you count. 

**idk if this is the common term for it but I did theater in college so that’s what I call it.