This is a quick update log of my progress in my visual novel concept ‘My Dear Yumesora’. Go here to see my previous post, and here to visit the game.
It has unfortunately been over a month since my last update log, and over those days I did not consistently update the game. However, within the last two or so weeks, tremendous work has been done on the main menu of the game, with it practically being complete. I do intend to make the UI of the main menu more attractive, but for the early version of the visual novel, it will serve just fine.
Also, while the first episode of the story is playable, it is by far nowhere near complete, as most of my time was spent working on the main menu and finishing writing the first episode’s script.
For the initial loading screen upon joining the game, it displays the logo of Roblox Studio. While it just signifies that the game is fully produced in Roblox Studio (obviously), it’ll be changed to the logo of my Roblox group OT Digital, of which I’ll also be redesigning the logo for that group. In the meantime, Roblox Studio will be present.
Since the last update log in October, I haven’t actually done any new illustrations on Yumesora (the female protagonist) or any other major illustrations at all. However, I do plan to redesign Yumesora. It is uncertain whether I’ll do minor alterations to her existing sprites or redraw her entirely, but since I was not a fan on how I drew her lower body and school outfit, the possibility of an entire redesign is not far-fetched (by redesign, I more or less mean that my art style has both changed and improved slightly since I first drew Yumesora’s basic character sketch, so the general appearance of Yumesora should be quite similar either way).
About the topic of the voice lines in the game; I decided on making the game partially voiced, meaning that there would be voice lines for Yumesora, but they will be short and preserved for certain dialogues, as well as being reusable. A fully-voiced Yumesora was too large of an imagination, and too ambitious for my actual capabilities. Still, partially voiced will still be able to bring life to the story, and is within my capability’s reach.
The major updates to the main menu of the game was the addition of the ‘story progression system’ and the library mechanic. The story progression system is basically just a series of scripts that locks an episode from being played unless the player earns a specific badge, which is earned in completing the previous episode.
The library mechanic was more complex, but still basic overall. By making use of badges again, any illustration earned or unlocked in an episode will also award the player with a badge, and that badge will decide whether the illustration in the library is locked or unlocked to view. The library itself is just an area for people to look over special moments in each episode, and also allows people to purchase the illustration early. The whole purpose of the “buy to unlock” system was a secondary method to earn profit from the game other than donations, since the game itself is free alongside the special dialogue options in the story.
Of the topic of monetization, I intend this game to be for the most part entirely free-to-win. Unlike a lot of free romantic visual novels on the Play Store which usually have tons of ads and locked dialogue options which require a fee, this game would work much like any other paid visual novel. Of course, being a person I’d still like to make some revenue from the game, and in order to not mess with the main purpose of the visual novel, I added a donation section for those who wish to donate to me. But, even though I wanted this visual novel to be a proof-of-concept, it would appear like I am putting a bunch more effort into it, which in turn means I would probably want to earn more from all my effort. That is also why I implemented the illustration purchase system.
Besides that, now that the main menu is pretty much done, I can now put effort into the first episode of the visual novel, since it isn’t a game without having a single finished episode out. Right now, like stated before, the script for the first episode is almost complete, so putting in all the dialogue should be easy (besides the fact that my visual novel system is overly complicated, with an utterly huge amount of scripts and UI elements). The major delays for the release of the first episode would be me trying to complete the redesign of Yumesora and drawing the special illustration for the first episode (which I intend to keep at just one). I draw quite slow unfortunately, and I color even slower digitally.
But, overall, progress has been alright. My original estimated release date for the alpha test being in mid-December has been delayed a great amount (I intend the alpha test release to include all of the episodes for the first arc of the story), and that is more likely to be around mid-January or even February 2024, with the assumption that more delays are to come. Of course, you could always request to test the game early, and I’d more or less accept any feedback (assuming I don’t change my mind).
That pretty much calls the end of this update log. Hopefully the third one doesn’t take a whole month like this time, and with all being said, I wish you a good day/ night.