No rest for the wicked...

=_= today was hellish, i wonder what deity i managed to piss off... I only got 3 hours of sleep... 3 damn hours, i had been trying to fall asleep from 2am, then i ragequit at 5/6 am, stayed up till 8, ragequit again at 9 and then fell asleep at 10. i woke up at 13/1pm and then went for an huor drive to go to a birthday party. I got back home at 21:20/9:20pm and... damn... tired....

But that doesn't mean nothing good happened for Yrja's Torment today ^_^ like i tend to do, when i doubt something i simply go ask. What's painful with Yrja's Torment is that i dare not ask anyone for feedback until i have a demo available that reaches up to at least a certain point in the story (Which will also be when i'll start looking for an artist) But i did ask some questions on the Ren'Py forums and some other places about ren'py and company management (always be one step ahead) i got some valuable information about both!

Apart from geetting some questions answered... Too tired to write any dialogues, i improved the code, mostly aesthetic stuff (different style for narration text, improved textboxes, etc). That's about all i did today, but even if i only had like an hour to work before i was at risk of getting knocked out, i still improved my game! Progress is progress! today was valuable.

Also, while at the birthday party i thuoght of a pretty interesting way i could mix together science and magic. For example i could have special designs on shields to protect against magic rather than relying on enchantments to protect against magic (for example, a shield with rubber handles that has a small spear on its bottom so it can easily be thrust into the ground would make a perfect anti-shock shield, it would stop all lightning magic for example (completely) unless the caster found a way to bypass it somehow. I'd have to do a bit of balancing with it too, then i could make an anti water shield shaped as a "V" and an anti-air (lol) shield which would have a design similar to anti-wind fences. (The wind can pass through, but it will lose all it's strength while passing through)

I could also make armors in a similar way, and weapons with "parrying magic" in mind. Sound overpowered? no, lets say the player has an anti lightning sword that can block up to level 3 lightning spells and reduce damage on up to level 6 lightning spells (less and less for each level) then he has an anti-wind shield, and anti-water armor. He would still be extremely weak versus fire damage.

The chances of parrying a lightning spell or blocking a wind spell will rely on the players skill in those acts, and the armor would be automatically anti-magic, but some bigger spells (like nukes) might actually do damage to all the parts of the players body one at a time (rather than just dealing X amount of damage). This would mean that even if the wearer of the armor has an anti-liquid armor that weakens or erases water magic, what if he has boots that provide no protection against water? depending on the spell it would either hit a random part of the body (torso most likely though as the biggest target) or it would do (uneven) damage to all parts of the body, meaning that the anti-water armor does not protect your arms or legs from damage.

Sounds a bit more complicated to make than it really is. I can envision the code for it in my head.

Additionally i could also try to make weapons that mix together science and magic. So for example you could make a stun rod by combining a battery and electricity magic. Then recharge it with electric magic. You could make a flamethrower by building a liquid tank (science) with some form of ignition (science or magic) then use water magic to load the tank with oil.

I've seen a lot of movies and games that try to make a war between science and magic, but what if i just combine them? (It's not like it hasn't been done before, Fullmetal Alchemist is an excellent example.) Science has never had a problem with making use of things it can't explain.

Note to self: An important book to read is Emilie Autumn's autobiography, "The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls". In fact i get the feeling i should be reading it before i finish Yrja's Torment, i'm guessing i'll be going to find extremely valuable content inside that book. I finally have an excuse to read that book!

Update: well i'll be fucking damned, i really must have pissed someone off, because i'm agonizingly sleep deprived (i've slept VERY little for the last 3 days, estimate like 8 hours total) my head hurts, i can't think straight, my eyes hurt... I'm beginning to understand why everyone who has tried to stay awake for as long as humanly possible commited suicide, they must've pulled some stunt that prevented them from being able to go to sleep, and being unable to sleep when your body is begging for it is MADDENING! it hurts... everywhere... and i did get suicidal thoughts too. Needless to say i'm too tired to work, but i've been trying to fall asleep for 4 hours! and i am extremely sleep deprived. What the fuck did i do to deserve this madness?! this makes no sense! I can just imagine this being used as a torture method (keeping people from sleeping), now this experience is an idea for something to write about :D

Placeholders and stuff

Well, today i decided on something important, and that is when i should release a sort of "demo" of the game to get some feedback on my work so far. I will finish writing "part 1" and at least part-way "part 2" too. (Note. The game won't actually tell the player which part he is on, it's just something in my own head)

I will also make sure to add as much of code/functions to the game as possible both to prove i can actually do that, and to make it easier when i actually have an artist or non-placeholder sfx and music.

Starting to test and get feedback early on is very important, no matter how tempting it is to wait until the project is finished with revealing it to anyone. But just displaying it online does not mean i will actually tell anyone i know in real life about it, exactly because they're the only people i could convince to play the game as i watch, letting me take notes of how they're experiencing it and how it affects them, etc. Their opinions and feedback would be different if they actually knew that i made the game myself or had any relation to this game at all except "hey i saw this cool game and...."

Unless i figure i need their help, no one i personally know is even going to know that i'm a developer, until i've actually made the main project. Shh, don't tell anyone i said that ;)


So i decided the best thing i could do at the start of this day was well... code... even if i feel like i could write again, code suddenly got a higher priority for a while.

Today I:

Set a characters per second value (text rolls)
Set a default auto-forward speed
Inserted "scrolling credits" list.
Implemented Textbox background (i didn't actually make them, i just yoinked some nice ones from a guy on the Ren'Py forums that were lying around for free!)
Inserted a lot of extremely basic placeholder images and "animated" them (made them move around).


The last one really took some time because even if these aren't images i intend to use in the final game, it's important to get the animations and placements right.

I didn't get as much work done today as i'd have liked, but it was still definitely progress, and i learned a few nice tricks. Needless to say, a little progress is a hell of a lot better than no progress, every line written counts! and i wrote quite the handful of lines today. I also implemented the quite important Credits list (seeing as i'm using Creative Commons stuff the credits are a requirement if i'll release a demo in order to avoid upsetting someone.)

Note to self: before releasing any sort of demo, i must pick a font style for the game's text. I think it'd be cool to have a different font for each character, but that would be quite a lot of work so i don't think i'll do that for this game.

All the windows i need to have open while developing... i think switching to linux for development (workspaces are useful) would be something i should seriously start considering... grrrr but my linux is broken, stupid stupid soundblaster card! (It won't allow me to use 6 channels outside of speaker-test, every 3rd party application from alsa will only output stereo sound... *Cry*)

The biggest problem with going to linux would be the loss of Notepad++ (which is an excuse to try out Editra, or finally get used to Sublime) and photoshop (sure i have gimp, but i know how to use photoshop, not gimp! again... something that would take time to get used to) But the real problem is still alsa, damn you alsa! i'm way too lazy to dig into your code and fix you myself!

Update: After trying to sleep for 4 hours i ragequit on trying to do so, but it wasn't a useless 4 hours, these 4 hours i thought up a GREAT plan to try and convince a bigger company to teach me how to manage my own company by watching how they do things, in return for something of value that i would have at the time (something i'm 90% certain i will have). I also thought a bit about how i want to do a personal side project (kinetic novel, non affiliated with amodos game studios) and apart from this, i made or thought of how to make some aesthetic improvements to Yrja's Torment (while the plan was to write for a few hours then go to sleep, i got stuck when i got this great idea of code i wanted to implement to improve the aesthetic of the text, narrator text to be more specific)

The above reason is why i think i have better chances of creating my own company than actually finding a job to stick with, i can only work in my own time, and for that to happen i need to have the option not to work sometimes. I can work hard as all hell as can be seen from this blog, but i can't decide what time of the day will be used to do said work because i have limited control over my sleep schedule.

Resources!

The most fitting title theme i found (yesterday) is a bit more dramatic than i'd like, gives off a horror vibe. (The problem with not having any control over your soundtrack)

I want to re-write some chunks of the wiki and add an FAQ section. I started with the former, the wiki can wait.

I got back to resource digging, found something useful... Textboxes and stuff. Resource gathering takes a lot of time apparently, even if free content is very easily accessible, it's hard to find the right things. I found a lot of things that i can at the very least use as placeholders, also i've found some software like FotoSketcher which is pretty cool.

I took a look at Dungeon Master Chris today. Hot damn i can learn a lot from this... I'm making a list, noting things down in my computer... and it's big. It's a big list even if i just point out which features are cool and i should look into (No details) i think this is the only visual novel i've played where (almost) all written text is character dialogue, there are no description texts or anything, just character dialogue and images, i really REALLY like this, and i definitely want to do this in at least one of my games too, i figure that "Unchained" should be made like this since it saves me A LOT of trouble not to have to describe anything outside of the dialogue and leaving that to the pictures.

That game is a lot of fun and i definitely recommend it to RPG and Yuri fans. It can be compared to Lightning Warrior Raidy, there aren't any excessive amounts of sex in it, but it doesn't hold back either.

To tell the truth i didn't want to stop playing, but Yrja calls :'( i'll have to play it over time during "breaks". Playing this made me uber excited to make my own dungeon crawler, i can't wait to start working on the Fel'du game!

Progress on Yrja too. I've decided that from a design perspective, it's better to have no voices at all than to have only voices for specific things (such as combat, or special events) so i think i will have no voice acting in this game in order to enforce the dark theme, the Fel'du game which will be a little more playful might have voices, i do however want to have SFX and Music. Music in particular is extremely important for a game that has no voices.

I decided to focus on code again today rather than writing, but the need to finish writing is biting my mind all the time (even if i don't seem to enjoy it, strange...).

I decided it'd be a good idea to add some blank placeholders into the game to practice working with images (to be prepared for the time when i need to insert the real deal ones after i trick some artist into drawing them for me). I didn't really start rolling as much as i liked to, but i worked a bit on basic animations (moving images around) and made some really ugly placeholders instead of characters. (Like a circle with a word in it = character, and background is just a black screen)

First Logo Made!

Today i made a concept for the first (possible) NSFW scene in the game. I didn't actually get around to writing it into the game, but i still wrote it down so it's there, and i won't forget. This scene will be a sort of branch, in the sense that it heavily effects the story (without actually affecting the end however). Project Unchained will assume that this path was chosen rather than the (shorter) alternative.

Doing little else than writing all day over the last 2 days was sort of repetitive, not to mention mentally intense (both because it's the first time i write a visual novel, and because of the dark theme that takes a bit of a toll on my sanity and mental health, which is why i'll be going with a fantasy theme next)

So i put the "pen" down for a moment, and allowed myself to get side-tracked into other things. I made a logo for starters. It's nothing glorious (you can see it at the top of the page) and it's bound to change when i get an actual artist to work with me. But for now it's good enough and certainly beats nothing.

Needless to say that took a lot of hours. I also decided on a title theme for Yrja's Torment. And a name, the codename had been Yrja for a while now because that's the protagonists name, but i figured i had to find a title, and seeing how painful it has been to write it so far... Torment was a fitting suffix.

I also improved this blogspot, i added a "Games" page, put up the logo (i even modified it a little just for this page, resized it to fit exactly and altered the colors a bit because of the background theme i'm using.) I also signed up for adsense just in case it might be useful later (ads are as good a source of income as any).

I also added a link to the wiki.

I created a Paypal account, but i'm not opening up for donations until i finish Yrja's Torment. Funny aint it? I aim to finish a game before asking for donations, isn't it usually the other way around? Fuck Kickstarter (for now, but i might use it after i finish my main project to make an even bigger one, and perhaps actually put together a team)

Finally, i dug around for resources. As i said before i found something i'm fairly satisfied with to use as a title theme for Yrja's Torment. Find "A Singular Perversion" in here to hear it. I think it fits really well, and that is basically just free music lying around there for the taking, i'll probably rely quite a bit on that until i can convince a friend to be a composer for me (like half my friends are musicians)

I also found several other cool songs here and there, the problem with not having a composer is that there isn't going to be much consistency in the soundtrack, i'll do my best to try to keep it sensible, but it's going to be some work.

I created a Main Menu (Placeholder) image, i think it looks pretty cool actually even if it's just text. I also customized the menu color scheme a bit. A lot better than a black screen! (Black Screen with text! but i feel inclined to add at least a texture to the background until i can get someone to draw this menu image for me)

But as well as i had started rolling, the time for sleep had come. I'll just work even harder tomorrow!

Why'd i have to do that...

I continued the story the mature themes and violence against children, as well as child slavery theme might be a bit too much for people, i'll have to make sure to put a content warning on it just to warn people about it. There will be several bad endings but only one good ending, the one good ending will be the one assumed in the main project to have taken place. (Originally i intended to have no good ending, but i loved the protagonist a bit too much to give her no way out of it all... And besides, everyone knows that good endings are what people tend to appreciate the most. The light at the end of the tunnel.)

The depressing theme of the story actually kills me a little bit on the inside, I now know what they were talking about how great it felt to move from the wastelands of fallout 3 to the beautiful vast nature of skyrim over at bethesda. I really understand now. How much a few pictures could do for the game though... I have some voices to implement at some point though, i just need to write more before carefully considering where to place them.

I'm getting closed to the end of Part 1 of the game (it'll be a 4 parter) but i do dread the time when i will have to write the NSFW content for part one, it even makes me cringe a little, it goes beyond being just NSFW it'll be downright disturbing. The part 1 NSFW content, there probably won't be any in part 2, possibly bad end though. The ones i look forward to writing are in part 3 and 4.

I took some inspirations from Rainbow: Nishar Rokubou no Shichinin, and Maiden Rape Assault (Note: Do not play that sick stuff. I mean i don't even mind guro, but that... i'm permanently scarred. Elfen Lied is nothing!)

But most likely the NSFW scenes wont be written until after the rest of the story, i might take it in parts though when i feel like i'm up to it, apart from just being depressing, it's hard for me to write those scenes for various reasons. Even harder to re-read and edit them.

I really hit a small block today, i wrote a quite complicated scene with questionable content and a lot of mixed feelings and some atmosphere changes, the psychological effect it has on you to write a dark and downright depressing story like this... Silly that i didn't figure it'd be at least as bad as reading one, the next story i write will definitely have a lighter theme. I'm thinking i should write a story that happens in Kalhiri next, the Fel'du are the friendliest race in the game after all. Writing about a child slave going through mental suffering feels like i'm climbing over a barbed wire, naked, but no more complaining! i will finish what i set out to do. It'll get better after i reach a certain part of the story, endure!!!

---

I didn't write a lot of scenes today, but i wrote one very difficult one, it was extremely challenging to write it in a way that will deliver an experience rather than just pure disgust. I hope i succeeded, if i did it's a great achievement, and one of the two most difficult parts to write for the story.

I stopped to think today that there wont be very many deep characters in the game, for example the first main antagonist which i'd also argue is the most evil one doesn't even get a back story. (Not in this game, but he might in the final one.) Then there's also going to be another one, a really big character, an important piece of Amodos lore, but again he wont get his background revealed in this game either. Apart from the characters the player will actually like no one gets any big background stories revealed in this first game, that is fine from my perspective though, i just hope it wont hurt the experience.

Let the story begin!

After writing down some more story i thought up i got back to my little Half Faerie game! and i figured i could start writing it now, certainly it could use a bit more pre-production than it has (theres a sort of 1 year gap in the story that i need to fill, but otherwise it's complete) but i just wanna get started, i can worry about that when the time comes since after all... I don't have any deadlines.

You know, the hardest part is always creating the names... Damn it, if only i could create names as fast as i can characters :(

Writing isn't an easy job, but i think i'm doing it quite nicely. At least so far i like what i've written and i've been very careful with details and wording. In fact i probably spent more time trying to find the right words and descriptions than actually figuring out what to write (I already know roughly what i'm going to write, since i already have a short version of the story written down)

I've written a real damn decent intro, but coding and design is more fun than writing a story for me, perhaps i'll consider hiring a writer later on, but for now i can't let something like that stop me. But after writing the intro, that is the intro sequence and the background story for how Yrja (that's the protagonist's name) ended up in that situation, i already needed a break before the next part.

This would be a lot more fun if i actually had some pictures to use for the backgrounds and characters and stuff. (It would mean i have to write more code right from the start)

I'll figure something out.

I really spent a lot of time ironing out the first part of the game, first impressions are really important, so any feedback i can get on this will be nice.

Today i also bought nyaatrap's yuri game, Demon Master Chris (Also in japanese on DLsite) i haven't played it yet, but it looks like it's completely awesome! And since i'm developing on Ren'Py i have a legit excuse to spend development time on playing it for at least an hour, i know there's probably a ton i can learn from that game though, nyaatrap for example gave away a dungeon crawling frame code which is definitely going to make my life easier in the near future since it both has a dungeon crawling system and a simple turn based combat system, both things i need!

It's hard to write what i've actually done with Yrja's game so far without spoiling it, but it's going to be free upon release so you'll get to see for yourself! I'm fairly exicted about how it's turning out though, hopefully i'll manage to get some free or cheap artwork for it.

Back to Amodos!

Well today i went back to the classes again, and did the quiz. Scored 96% on the quiz! (whatever was wrong must've been the fault of not reading the question well enough)

And classes just sort of hit me in the face, they're really such a simple concept, but that doesn't mean they're easy to master. I'll need to take some extra lessons in that.

Note to self: Go through graphics design tutorial before you do any real UI design.

But now back to Amodos! i'll need to change the wiki soon to be fully SFW, i think it'll be best to make a SFW wiki, then make the NSFW patch and just make a small manual for it that'll explain the differences between it and the NSFW version.

Now what was it i was going to do next... Ah yes, Character creation! amazing how far i've come in only one week, i'm a good chunk of the way through pre-production already!

No sense getting cold feet(starting for real is always the hardest part), i'm stocked on brain juice and everything! ONWARD!

I need to plan a little bit ahead, one step at a time is always best.

Now what makes a good character creator, lets see if i look at some games...

After looking through Slave Maker, Wizardry 8(I actually figured out a lot of useful stuff in here) and VTMB...

This is what i came up with:

General:
Story Intro (Skippable, introduce the universe lore to newcomers)
Race and Gender selection seperate from Class/Skills selection.
Gameplay Options (Limit Saves, Toggle Gore, etc. Most will be configurable in-game.)

Saves)
Menu option to access tutorials for different gameplay styles ||OR|| create character -> play tutorial ->

choose/create class.

GUI(General):
Multiple Background Textures (<html>, <body>, etc)

Race/Gender/Name:
Save/Load Preset (Make the game remember your favorite avatars!)
Religion (Recommended(Race's default), and Agnostic(Sandbox mode) for main mission selection)
Create Avatar/Player Model (Body, Sizes(Including height, bust and fat), hairstyle, face, etc)
Listbox for Race selection
Voice Selection (Could configure the pitch and depth of the voice? This is something i want but might not include)
Avatar Creation (Choose a default expression for character avatar)
Full Name/Nickname System (This could be cool)


Class/Skills:
Save/Load Preset (There will be a menu, Combat, Magic, Social and Custom presets, the first 3 created by me.)
Points System (Customization of skills/attributes is ultimately limited by a specified amount of points)
Starting Item Points (Seperate points system for selecting which items you get to start with)
Advantages (Skill/Stat/Attr bonuses or minuses (to get or spend creation points))
Perks (Starting perks, also limited by the same points as everything else)
Starting Items (Also limited by the same points)

Now just to create it... hmm... Painfully enough, i didn't get any real work done today apart from that list i just made, it's only a matter of getting started though.

I think in the end i should start by doing something Ren'Py is actually designed for, a mini-game... i should play with it before i get to actually making the character creation system.

Hmm.. what could i do that's really simple... I could create a small game but with what goal... hmm... I could make a spin-off story for a faerie character.... yes.... yes that sounds nice. Lets see i should make a game (or several ones) as practice projects to increase my skill with Ren'Py.

So, make a game, about a faerie that has...

Dialogue
Choices
Images (Placeholders)
Sounds (Anything i can get for free)
Sprites
Animations & Transitions (Minor movements and effects)
1v1 combat minigame.

Sounds easy enough, and definitely not intimidating, by the time that's finished i'm sure i could do a character creator :) (In the next side project)

Now the hardest part is the actual story, lets see... Not gonna spoil it in here! but i've got something, in fact i even got so many nice story ideas i briefly wrote down a good story idea for an "undead" minigame :) just the setting is all, not the actual story. And i halfway finished the Fae story, turns out it's going to be a half fae, half human!

Python!

Well good news, last night i decided the 4 version release model might not be the best idea, even if i want to have a free version and a commercial version i'm starting to see it less and less likely to actually work out. So maybe in the end i'll just have a playable (free) alpha, then beta accessible to any donators and when the game would be released, all said donators would get the game. Then i'd just release an NSFW patch on a project website (Hopefully not here)

The real good news is however that i realized since i'm in no rush to make this project, i might make several smaller (free) games to allow people to get into it. As planned i will keep prototyping this main project until i've got a prototype i'm satisfied with (as a prototype) and then i might get sidetracked into making a few smaller games introducing the systems for the final game over time. This could make building the main project significantly easier when i'd be working on it, since i could pretty much make a small game focused on one feature of the main project everytime before i implement it to the main project. Something along those lines.

Sounds good right? everyone loves free stuff right? yeah i knew you'd like the idea :) (if not i could elaborate on it later when anyone actually reads this stuff)

So i worked my way through that python tutorial, and although i didn't learn much new stuff it certainly refreshed my memory on how to code in python :) i recommend it for anyone who is starting out programming or jumping into python. If you're gonna do it i recommend using notepad++(or editor of choice) and writing the code from that guide all into one big script (make sure to include comments and stuff) both for future reference, and just so you can try it in action instead of on a web page.

It really did help to learn Functions and Classes though, those were areas i hadn't covered much.

I also took my first healthy break (first one that lasts more than an hour) from Amodos related stuff and played a bit of Skullgirls :) (Not on my previous list, i know. But a break is a break so i did whatever i felt like doing)

My youtube music playlist also seems to have grown to be pretty big in this time, i've secretly been retracing my steps through a music thread on certain forums and picking up my favorites. You might think this is pointless, but it does serve a purpose for me personally, it means that if i'm mobile, developing somewhere in the middle of nowhere on my laptop. I could access that playlist and go through it instead of listening to nothing, or digging through youtube to find the songs i'm placing in that list. You have to admit too, some of these songs are really good! i'd doubt your humanity if you can't find one song on that playlist you like!

There's a chance that playlist wont be there forever, when i actually start pumping out videos i might end up removing it.

Following through that tutorial actually consumed most of my day, not because it's actually long (you can finish that within an hour if you're planning to go fast) but because i want to be thorough, so i use a lot of extra information such as "Common Methods" (for various things, like lists and strings) and i actually code all of that into my own document to make sure i understand it decently enough to think of using it if i'll ever need it.

I wanted to spend some of today on making a character creator, but i'd say this day was productive enough, i (re)learned a lot! and it will ultimately speed up the development process to have refreshed myself on python rather than trying to catch it as i go with Ren'Py.

Fun fact: i almost didn't get past the Dictionary(similar to arrays) part today, but then i managed to get some brain juice (pizza, or just any carbohydrates) and i was completely revived!

I learned a lot of cool, and useful things today, and best of all, i keep it documented in two files (simple & advanced, advanced showing everything in that tutorial after and including "lists")

One other thing i did today was create a document on my computer called "Random Ideas"(.txt sadly) and it's purpose is as the name sounds, to throw any random ideas that i get while coding that i can't try out yet, but feel like i'd rather not forget. Things like "I could use try/except to allow players to make their own spells and items without risking the game crashing!"

I also learned that the one inconvenience of using notepad++ as an editor is that i can't debug as quickly as i can in say visual studio, but i'll find a way i'm sure (if not, i'll just make my own damn tools for it!) in the meantime if it becomes a real bother, i could always just use IDLE.

Seems i was a bit low on juice as i was reading through classes (I stayed up longer than usual), so i'll have to go over that again tomorrow, but that's only going to be fun anyways! and i also have to take the Python Quiz too. But right now i'm going to sleep on what i've learned.

Ren'Py!

I started experimenting with Ren'py today, nothing fancy but i learned a lot of useful things such as how to use init scripts, and how the game engine handles loading any scripts i've divided into subdirectories by itself (it loads all scripts written into one big script when it loads up the game, even if it's not exactly elegant, it's quite convenient and gets the job done since most VNs aren't gonna have a lot of code anyways, even if this game seems to be headed towards being big, if not huge it's still gonna be less than a gigabyte in size)

There's not really much to say since i haven't started working on the real game and i'm only experimenting, i'm not creating anything yet, i'm learning and modifying other peoples codes to suit my needs for the prototype. But as i predicted, as soon as i get my head into it theres plenty of things i can say about Ren'py itself even if theres not much new info  on the game i'm working on.

I also gave the youtube channel some purpose besides commenting. I made a playlist for the music i like listening to while developing! it'll increase in size over time, there will be various genres and stuff in there, but i'm a little bit of an enthusiast when it comes to music, so everything on that list is something i consider extremely high quality.

I'm not gonna spend time sniffing out my favorite songs and adding to the playlist, but whenever i remember i'll be adding to the list.

Anyways, back to Ren'py, i'm understanding it more and more every minute i spend on trying to make something work the way i want it to. I figured out how i want the "start" script (that is what shows up when you press new game) to work. Quite simple really.

label start:
    jump ccreator

And that's it. Then at the end of ccreator (character creator) i'll have "jump start1_racename" or "start2_racename" or "start3_racename" or something along those lines, where i'll jump the player after character creation right to the story.

In the protoype however it will just be

"jump wmap" where instead of starting anywhere, i'll go to the worldmap, however since in this first prototype i don't intend to go creating any worlds, the wmap will only be used for selecting minigames like dungeon crawling, or combat, or other things i intend to include in the game so i can get a feel for them and stuff.

(Ren'py is extremely easy to use, you hardly need to have any programming knowledge to use it, since it's about as complicated as python, and anyone who can program in any language can master python in a week)

Turns out i overexerted myself on squats doing my routine exercises, it's rare but it happens when picking up exercising again for the first time in months, and so i decided to go to sleep early rather than crawl into the bathroom to get a toothbrush later tonight (at some point soon my legs will literally stop functioning, and will not function again until i have rested)

Long story short/TL;DR: I've started rolling, but there's no way to tell how fast yet.

I had to cut this day a bit short due to various circumstances and go to sleep a bit earlier than planned, but thankfully by now i have a clear idea of what to do tomorrow, i will familiarize myself with pythong (once again) using this great tutorial. Once i am through with that i shall start focusing on one thing at a time, starting with a character creator.

Ren'Py and storylines

4 stories based on character selection, each with 3 different starting scenarios depending on difficulty, and all with various possible endings and moral choices... yeah, that sounds nice.

Even if i have full confidence in my capabilities of writing an interesting story, i'm still not a writer so i guess i should be careful in how i construct the main storylines. Which is why i start by creating a box for it just like i've created a box for the game to happen inside of. This box will be the universe it happens inside of.

And today i managed to build that box, or roughly anyways. Not a lot of details but enough to go by for now.

Next i think i'll have to decide the differences between the various starting scenarios, and what the 4 main storylines will be about.

And so i took a shower to think on it, and here's what i thought.

The 3 different starting scenarios based on difficulty will be:
Easy: Start in a capital city with enough money to buy whatever starting gear you need.
Medium: Start in a village with enough money to buy a weapon.
Hard: Start in a dungeon with no money, but one item of choice (out of a list)

The 4 different storylines will be about:
Maton asking the player to help in his war against Xandis and her abominations.
Xandis asking player for help to defend against Maton.
Quiline asking player for help in causing chaos, griefing Maton, and teasing the other gods.
Zanth asking player for help in fixing the balance broken by the overpowered dragons.

I think that creates a nice variety...

Attack.
Protect.
Have a lot of fun.
Save the world.

I decided at this point since i have a rough idea of what i want the stories to be like, difficulty levels, etc that now would be an ideal time to start making the first prototype! Ren'Py! Prepare yourself!

There are also a few games i'll have to play before i reach alpha for ideas. Namely:

Fallout 2
Long Live The Queen
Record of Agarest War
Contrast (it seems to have some interesting things that might inspire me)
Chantelise (I already played Recettear, it inspired me to make a business system alongside with Kamidori)
Wizardry 8 (I need to replay it for some combat system, leveling system and magic system ideas among other things)
Hate Plus (I'm thinking i might get some story and character ideas)
Heileen series
Lands of Lore (If i get my hands on it)

And possibly some others. Luckily i have most of these games on steam. Some who are reading this might be thinking "what kind of a developer spends precious development time playing other games?" but trust me when i say, playing other games is a huge and important part of being a game designer, it's important to play other games and investigate their features and pick out the ones that are well done for ideas and inspirations. I wouldn't have started working on this game for example if it wasn't for Fenoxo's Corruption of Champions. Another inspiration for me to start working on this project by myself is Josh Parnell who is currently working on a much bigger project (Limit Theory) mostly by himself! i would never know what features i want to cram into this game if i didn't play other games for ideas. Just watch some Extra Credits, and you'll get what i mean.

But before playing any of these games i want to start at least working on the first prototype!

I started by cheating a little, and surfing renpy's cookbook forum for example codes so that i wouldn't have to start off empty handed while learning how to use this engine.

First i found a dungeon crawling frame and a dress-up game example (for character creation and possibly equipment system) and inventory system. First thing is first, i need to create a game that can combine these various scripts, or quite specifically, a game that will dump the player into a character creator upon pressing new game, which will then drop the player to a menu selection to pick out the other minigames (such as dungeon crawling or dress-up). This doesn't sound like it will be very complicated, but i guess that's just something i'll have to work on tomorrow since i'm out of brain juice :(

Note: I will not be relying on other peoples code in the alpha, but i will be relying heavily on it for the prototype(s). When i start working on the alpha i will use the prototype code for reference, but actually rewrite everything that i didn't make myself originally.

Since i am only just learning to use renpy, i might not write a post daily anymore, but everytime there is something to say i will say it! Judging by my experiences with programming so far though, i suspect that once i get into it there will be plenty to say though :)

Dividing content and entering final stages of conceptualizing!

Well, as it turns out i found out today that the wikia terms of use say i can't post obscene or pornographic content, confusing since they have a h-games wikia and stuff, but luckily i hadn't progressed very far and i really want to keep using wikia for what i've been using it for, so i started today by removing some of the explicit content (sex related mostly) and placing it into documents of my own. This means that sex related info on the wikia will be very very limited, but when/if the time comes that i need that info to be more accessible. I will find an alternative to wikia (such as my own website if i'll have the funding.)

This didn't take long, it was largely a question of rephrasing certain things, removing a few "unneeded" (Obvious) descriptions and doing some copy paste work.

I removed the sex items list i had, sex specialization skills, and a few stats

Anus (How big insertions your anus can handle)
Wetness (Female,How big insertions you can handle) (Sex)
Size (Males/Hermaphrodites, How big your dick is, this has side effects)
Sexual Endurance (How many times you can cum in a row without side effects) (VIT, WILL)


And placed all of these into my own reliable notepad documents (I should really find a better format than .txt to store my design plans! but txt > nothing right?)

And so the time came to skim over everything i've written, make sure everything is roughly in place and finish up the magic section! I'm getting so close to starting a prototype i can taste it!

Finishing up the spell concept was hard work (huff, puff...) but i'm sure it'll be worth it in the long run because i've been dying for a game that actually has a ton of spells, rather than just 20 or so.

I started working on the lore. Why are gods always used in fantasy world creation? Because they're a good excuse!! and so i created 4 gods, to keep it relatively simple. The incestuous sisters of "Darkness" and "Chaos" (Chaos is a hermaphrodite), the genderless "Balance" god (it's really just a female with no genitals) and the human-male "Light" god. Each of them created a few races, magic schools and some other stuff, etc, etc. "Light" was the only god that didn't create a race in a form similar to his own, so "Balance" did it instead. Twists, turns, free will, big bang, etc. Work in progress! :)

When i'm satisfied enough with the universe lore, i should start working on the main-quests, i need to decide how i want the game to start depending on player choices, and how many different quests i want to have, the original plan was to have 3 (difficulty based) but it's suddenly tempting to have 7 (Race based) still, i'm NOT going to make 7 main quests, so i'll have to brainstorm a bit on how to make the pieces fit together without being boring to the player, it's going to be 3 quests...

Humans were created by "Balance" but the squid ancestors of the Shifs by "Light". Fel'du were created by "Light" as well. But Fel'du just didn't like "Light" and started worshipping "Balance" instead, Humans however very much liked "Light" and agreed with him on most things, and so they made him their deity instead of Balance (this was actually plotted by "Balance" to keep the world balanced)

Didn't take long, middle ground! i will have 4 main quests based on race choices. One quest for each god. Nobody, i will make use of the world map layout to choose who gets what quest, Fel'Du and Humans and Shifs get the same quest for "Light", Demons and Garax get the same quest for "Chaos" Fae and Fel'Du get the same quest for "Balance" and Undead get their own quest for "Darkness" Any more info would be a spoiler ;)

And i finally decided what the name for shifs/amphibes will be! it's going to be Surkif. A less obvious mixing of letters from the word Fish, since Shif was obviously pretty much fish backwards, i figured since i wasn't thinking of anything better, I decided to use the Icelandic word for fish which is Fiskur, re-arrenge the letters in a similar fashion and voila!

As you can see, today was very productive! i'm definitely progressing a lot faster than i had ever dared hope!

Magic and Items!

Today i worked more on magic, i started this morning creating the basic spells of the game, and as it turns out, there's going to be a ridiculous amount of spells in the game, and even more spells will be available through modding!

I decided that naming the spells can come later, i named a few i guess but since i'm making so many spells, i can't name all of them right now. I mean how can i name "summon food" if i haven't even decided what kinds of foods there will be available in the game!

So naming spells will be put on hold until i really need to have names for them.
I didn't really finish up deciding on spells, but i didn't let that stop me, i created a content list to make the wiki more managable and i created a monster list! I'm quite happy with the list, it has a LOT of monsters :) but any opportunity to add to the monster and special list is one i would take, although i wnat to keep animals and critters to a limited number, mostly because they serve less gameplay value than monsters, they're just cannon fodder for the player except for these that can be used as cattle.

It didn't end there either cus i decided an item list was next in line! Making an item list was a bigger undertaking than i expected it to be. I'm sure it will be a pain to get an artist to draw icons for each and every one of these, but i'm thinking i'll find ways so that the game would need less actual icons drawn with the help of procedural generation! This is a problem for later anyways so i'm not gonna worry about it.

It seems that i'm progressing faster than i expected, i might start working on a prototype before this month is even over! I just need to finish the things i've left half finished up till now and then i think it will be time to start building the lore for the universe and it's contents. But that is quite the huge task though, so i'm not expecting to be able to do it fast, once that's all done i'm pretty sure the next step will be to make a prototype, unless i'm forgetting something.

Release Model is Magic

When i woke up today i decided a lot of things, i decided what business/release model i want and how i can make the complicated release model less painful by developing it with that in mind from the start.

Thinking a bit outside the box, i decided that seeing how big this game will be, i want to release it unto the world and not just to the dedicated fanbase of adult games. So i will make 4 versions of the game, or more specifically 2 versions and 2 free NSFW patches.

The game will be freely playable during alpha and i will open for donations which will be very highly appreciated at that time. When the alpha is finished 90% of the game will really be finished, problem being that it will just be text-only. I decided to turn this into an advantage, so in a similar way to the inspirational Corruption of Champions, i will have a text-only version of this game that will be completely free, donations will remain open on the website for anyone who wants to donate.

I will then move into beta, and during beta i will dedicate the money that's been donated to hiring an artist and a sound director, i will also hire a few voice actors for moaning (Sex scenes and Combat scenes) which shouldn't be very expensive, what will be expensive is buying the gear for recording studio quality audio.

The beta will not be freely playable, but once i have enough images in the game to make a trailer, i'll make a trailer for the SFW version of the game and throw it into steam's greenlight system, or contact valve and try to convince them to just release it for me when it's ready. During beta i will keep improving the text-version of the game which will at that point be released, but i will also start adding artist made images to the game and sound effects/voices, i will finalize the product and then release it on Steam. I will make sure that the SFW version of the game will be just as enjoyable as the NSFW version just without all the sex. But for the steam users who buy the SFW version (since i obviously can't put the NSFW version on steam) they will be able to go to the project's homepage (currently here, but in the future i might rent a server for an official website) and download a free NSFW patch.

Users who just want to play the free text-only product, will be able to download a SFW and NSFW version as well. So the game will be made for everyone and anyone!

The SFW version will however not be completely sex-free, i will squeeze in all the sexual content that i can without raising eyebrows. For example there will still be romances in the game, you'll be able to get married, have sex and children, but there wont be sound effects, images or detailed descriptions of those events, just a black-screen deal.

While i was at it i created a document to use as a reference for later development where i write down how to convert sexual content into something else (for example arousal system will be turned into a morale system. dildos will turn into something else that will boost women's morale!)

Next up i decided to rename the project from Unrestrained to Unchained. I think it sounds fitting, and having the version names, Chained(SFW) version and Unchained(NSFW) version has a really nice ring to it, and i think it will fit the main storyline(s) of the game well!

Amphibes were re-imagined, they were originally going to be shark people, now they've been changed to Shifs and are squid people. The name is still subject to change though.

I created a sort of preset system, as a substitute for classes. The character creation will be similar to Morrowind. (There will be presets or "classes" you can select, but you can also just make a custom character with no specific class. There will not be story tie-ins related to what gameplay style you choose.)

I also started work on the magic system. Seems that it turned out just about as complicated as i hoped it would be. Because there is no class system to govern who gets what spells, i had to create a substitute for that in the magic system itself. This i did in a similar way as i designed Major/Specialization skills. I use Major skills (Schools) and specialization (Sub-schools) which determine what magic the user will be able to use.

I further divided magic by splitting it to INT/WILL based magic, each having 4 schools and each school having 3 specializations.

I decided to test all my work so far on paper to balance the whole leveling systems of the game a bit around. I figured i needed to fix up the specialization skill level up formula i used a "+number" in it, but since i want it to be equally hard to level up all the major skills (take as much time/effort) i had to change that into a multiplication formula. I figured out something that could work, it's good enough for a conceptual design so i'll stick with it until i get to actually testing it in a prototype or early alpha.

Next i started making and naming spells... Am i including too many spells? i'm estimating about 102 spells in the destruction tree alone. (Of course many will share similar effects and code though, so adding them will mostly be repetition work for me, but i think having many spells really adds to the game if i'll just make sure it isn't generic) Right now it's looking pretty generic though, i need to get a bit more original with spell naming, i'm thinking i should look to EverQuest for that since i don't think i know any game that has anywhere near as massive collection of spells as that one! But the first step of course is to build some generic spell collection and then modify it slowly to be less generic.

Thats it for today, i didn't get as much work done as i would have liked to because i haven't been sleeping very well. But i intend to continue with the spells system tomorrow.

Leveling System

Today i came up with a codename for the game. "Unrestrained" has a nice ring to it seeing as this game is all about doing the things few other games would ever allow you to do. I made a project page on the wiki which lists my planned features, release model and some basic info about the game such as genres. I finished working on attributes and the major skills in the game as well as the specialization skills (sub-skills for the major skills). I also added a few minor skills and i decided that minor skills can be added later on whenever i need them, since adding specialization or minor skills to the game will be easy even during late development stages or with mods. I decided that there will be perks in the game but just like minor skills i do not need them until later so i will not decide what they will do until i decide how best to use them.

To wrap this all up i finished the primary Stats and most of the secondary Stats. What i will need to do tomorrow is to review the specialized skills and decide how exactly i want modifiers to work, and which modifiers should affect what. When all that is done i should review and finalize the secondary Stats, and then let the whole leveling system go and jump into the Magic system, i need to decide how i want the spell system to work, and then i need to actually make some spells. While at it i might add debuffs.

Amodos is born

Yesterday (16th November 2013) a decision was made to make a game, and the first step in making this game is creating the game universe, lore and everything! You can watch my progress on the Amodos wiki.

No promises, but I intend to post my progress here daily.

Yesterday i finished conceptualizing the continents to the point where the next step for them is level design work, which will probably happen months from now.

I have partially made the concept of the 7 major races in the game, they all have names now but Amphibes could be subject to name change. What i have not finished in this matter is attribute distribution, skill/stat bonuses and special bonuses (such as special attacks, racial skills or racial feats) which will be my next step after creating the Attributes and Skills.