Starlight: Update

If you've been following my progress on Wish Upon: Starlight, you probably know that I did a whole lot of going back and forth about facesets (particularly style) and the font. I think I have finally made a decision about what to do for both.

First, the facesets:

 You can see all the faces in my project thread.

I added some slight shading, definition and better-looking eyes. I think it's the perfect happy medium between having a resource that looks good and still being able to create them relatively quickly. I will be able to create the faces for all NPCs - or at the very least, the most important ones.

I will be working on some more maps/events when I get some free time. Between making resources and doing other work-related things, I've found myself with very very little free time left. And because I often feel brain-dead by the time all the work is done, I end up playing a game to wind down instead.

However, I will definitely make a very big effort to go back on track with the game production. I think it will just take some organizing and making sure I've set time aside for game progress.

Community Character

Scinaya (with a bit of help from Archeia) made this super awesome portrait for me:

Isn't it awesome?!? Scin is one talented lady!

Here's my post with my community character info. It includes a faceset and a character set along with a link to a download with all the portrait emotions.

Now you can add me to your game. How cool is that?

Tree~

I will not have time to make a proper entry this week, since I will be very busy finishing up the add-on pack for the modern tiles. So, I leave you with a graphic:

This was a tree that someone requested a few months ago. I just got to finishing it up today. Sorry for the delay, Paul!

Expect a more proper entry sometime next week.

Summer contest

We're holding a contest at the official RM forums:
Summer Fun Contest

This is your chance to win a copy of Ace, or any other product that's currently on sale at the official store. The deadline is in 3 weeks, and all you have to do is create a summer-themed mini-game! So, if you've been itching to get your hands on Ace or if you even want to just have an extra copy of Ace to give to a friend, think about joining the contest.

La-dee-da

My surprise is still on track, which I am very happy about. It will be unveiled on Saturday, the 7th at whatever time I'm up and awake. It's been a bit of a mad rush to get everything moving smoothly, and I'm still wishing I had more time for it. But between chores and other duties, I've had precious little free time.

I am still working on the tile add-ons for the Modern Day pack. I'm hoping to have them completed within 2-3 weeks - depending on how much details are still left to paint. So far, I've completed the grocery store, the clothing store and some of a newspaper kiosk. I've still got a few ideas to go through and then it'll be all about assembling and quadruple-checking the tiles.

Other than that, I can't really think of anything else that's important enough to report. Just the usual "Luna is busy like a bee!" type of thing.

And just so this update is not completely useless, I give you a random mug shot (thank you Jalen for the chibi base!):

One of these days, I will sketch up the whole RTP.

No Title

I was recently interviewed for the official blog, so I figured I should toss a link to that. There's a bit of info on my current projects, how I go about making tiles and how I got into art. It's not a terribly long read, but some of you may find it interesting.

Other than that, I'm taking a much deserved break. The past couple of days have been spent in a mad rush to get the modern tileset ready for sale. I am just blown away with how much support we've received for it already. Thank you soooo much for buying the tiles, everyone! It's inspiring and motivating me to keep making more tiles.

Lastly, there's a matter of a super secret something that will be unveiled in two weeks. I'm very much teasing you all with it right now, but I think you'll like it. It was something I've done to challenge myself and hopefully inspire others to rise to the same challenge. So, stay tuned~!

Starlight: Weekly Update 1

In between fancy tile making, I've found a bit of time to make some faces. As I've mentioned already, I'm using Jalen's chibi base and making faces with that base is almost ridiculously fun. Each face takes very little time and I know that using them will give those characters so much more personality!

And since pictures speak more than words, here is a sample of some of the NPC faces I've finished:

They will be a little less fuzzy in game.

Other than the fun artsy thing, I've also got most of the gameplay planned out. I'm actually very excited about it because it sounds both fun to make and fun to play. I'm going to try finish making the database soon, so I can be better organized through the development process.

Things to do next week:
- Finish more NPC faces for the main town hub
- Get started on skill and item icons
- Finish up items database (for stuff that's planned so far, anyway)

Future of TUAH

I've got a few pm's from you guys wondering if Twice Upon a Hero is cancelled or on hiatus now that I've unveiled the new project. The good news is that I'm still working on TUAH. The bad news is that it's taking me way too long to produce significant content.

Here are the things that take up the longest:
1- Parallax mapping.
I love it, and it's what gives the game so much of its visual appeal, but it's very time-consuming. I'm lucky if I can get one map done per day - and this is assuming I actually get hours of free time to work on said map.
2- Database.
Despite having spent weeks getting everything organized, there's still a ton of work to do. Between setting up all the skills, adding the appropriate items and setting up the quests, I have several weeks worth of work before I can use the database effectively.
3- Eventing.
Hours worth of dialogue input, several puzzles that need to be implemented and just more gameplay in general. After getting feedback from you all, I really want to incorporate more of actual play (as opposed to just a series of cutscenes).

After much thought, I'm leaning very strongly toward porting TUAH over to Ace. Although it means redoing the first two chapters, using Ace would pretty much fix all the current issues I'm having with development length. I can move to using editor mapping again, the database can be organized better and I can put in all the bits of gameplay I was planning to put in. Things like shops, bartering, ways to earn and spend money, more quests, more areas to explore, etc.

The only thing that's holding me back is that I will be delaying release, once again. I hate to disappoint those of you who are eagerly awaiting chapter 3 (and onward). So, I'm still taking some time making a final decision.

If you have any opinions about whether I should stick with VX or go to Ace, please let me know! :)

Dun dun dun dun ... Ta da!

Since a few of you have seen glimpses of the super secret project, I've decided to create a thread for it and share quite a bit of information about the game. You can read about Wish Upon: Starlight right here.

Expect more art, screenshots and info soon! ~

Art = decided, Livestream

I'm so happy right now! I've finally decided what I was going to do with the art for faces/portrait in the super secret project. I kept going back and forth on the decision. I really wanted to do original art, since it's fun and a great practice for my own artistic skill. But even with the flat colors and sketchy lines, I still hesitated that it would take too long.

I've solved the issue, however, by switching to Jalen's super adorable chibi base. It's super cute, it allows for a lot of detail and it's just fun to work with.

So, here is one of the portraits/faces you will be seeing:

 So cute! :3

In other news, I've done a livestream video of my tile-making the past couple of nights. If you're ever interested in how I make tiles, or if you want to chat while I'm making tiles, you can head over to my livestream channel. I usually post a profile feed on the official RM forums before opening the stream.