Later Christmas

Well, the stress of Christmas is finally over. Boxes with things in them were exchanged and good times with family were had.

I plan on getting Eroico out soon, at least on this site. The H animations are done, which is what made it take longer than expected; one animation in particular was causing me to stall because I didn't know what the hell to do with it. I also happened to mess with a kind of game controller which made me encounter a bug that people have encountered in the past, so I'm making sure I get that problem fixed.

Once I stick in the new H-animations and sounds, I'll wrap up a few other things I want to do and then put it up for download. Same unlock codes will work for it, as usual.

Anyhow, murry christ and stuff.

werkin

Ended up redoing most of Eroico's H animation's from scratch, rather than adding a couple frames, so they've taken a while. Add to that about 5 days that I didn't work and you've got my current progress.

Right now I'm working on H sound effects, not just for the Eroico update, but also to be shared by other games I make, as a large library. I recorded and edited a bunch of sounds, however I'm not so sure that they will work for everything. I think there's something to be said for having a set of digital (non recorded) sounds as well.

If any of you know any good methods more making digital squishy noises, lemme know, as my current method basically involves using Wasp XT, hitting random, and adjusting until I get a usable sound. I don't have the technical knowledge to make such a specific sound from scratch, yet, and that kind of info is somewhat difficult to come by.

Two monthes,

No I aint dead -__-

Anyhow, I finished two animations this month, putting me ahead of the usual paycheck to paycheck routine; So, I'll be spending the next two months working on one of the small games.

If I can finish and release that, then I'll be putting patreon animations aside more or less forever, and keep it more as an occasional thing.

My only goal right now is to have a clean slate, so that I can work on Noaika without making dumb financial compromises in the mean time. If I finish the first small project and it makes enough money, then I'll go straight to finishing Noaika, but if it doesn't then I'll finish one of the other small projects. I especially want to hire some musicians (know any violinists or flutists?) to play instruments for some songs, and potentially pay for CGs of all the enemies. Regardless of if I have a lot of money to work on it, the bulk of my time finishing Noaika will be working on the soundtrack and sound design.

I don't know where the re-releases of Kurovadis or Eroico will fit into any of this.
As far as Eroico is concerned, I may just put in the edited CGs and leave it at that, since it feels a little pointless to spend too much time on it. Changing such an old game takes almost as much time as working on a new one so it's probably better to focus on new stuff, as people have said.

Anyhow, that's about it.
Buy lumbar support for your chairs folks.

Kyrie's all-encompassing list of things

Kyrie's all-encompassing list of things


People want a status update, so here it is.

I haven't released anything for a long time. Because I barely make enough money to live off of through residual sales (would help if I didn't have to support my family, too), I haven't paid taxes and student loans in full. Can anybody say "crippling debt"?

But hey, no problem. I have a patreon, and I can develop games pretty quickly.

Except, I suffer from insomnia, back-pain that inhibit's breathing during sleep, and find it difficult to find the will to even wake up in the morning. This, combined with lethargy from other health problems, and occasional symptoms that literally make it impossible to work at times, all might have something to do with the depression. There's nothing more frustrating than helplessly watching time slip away when you want to work, and then lacking the energy to do so when you finally can.

Yet, despite the solution to at least some of these problems being to simply release something so I have the time to deal with them properly, I find myself held back by standards, and even the smallest of projects have been delayed because I felt something wasn't good enough, or "should" be better. But then they just get caught up in the rest of my life's problems, and seem as unlikely a solution as anything else.

Promises in passing become obligations; more in the way before I can finally get back to finishing things that will make a difference. Porting Eroico and Kurovadis are examples of things that seemed simple at first, but simply take a lot of time.

List of Projects and Status.

Here's a list of all the stuff I've worked on, and their status.

Noaika: It's almost done in terms of %, but there's still a lot left to do in practice. I still need to do pretty much the whole soundtrack (at least 20 songs), fix all the bugs, do animation variations, a lot of the cutscenes and writing I've left to the end, and most importantly, I'm going to need to go through and change the way things work in order to lower the memory requirements.

Side projects: These are things I worked on whenever I was taking a break from Noaika early on, and later as potential quick projects to release so that I wouldn't be broke while working on Noaika. (Not that it ever worked out that way)

Collab-1 "Monster girls": I did a Kurovadis sized project with a sprite artist, involving mischief maker-like mechanics and monster girls. The majority of the backgrounds, H, and character animation were completed. What's left is to do around 5 songs, bosses, and some of the remaining level design. I set it aside at the time to "finish" Noaika. (This was more than a year ago)

Collab-2 "asteroids": Another collab with the same artist, but with the goal of finishing in a week. This one is an asteroids style game with some twists, and H content. Like with the other one, I'd need to finish some music, and program program some stuff. This one is the smallest of these side projects.

Side project 1 "Castlevania": This one began as a castlevania clone but kept changing, and is now in an uncertain state. In it's previous castlevania clone state, it's 50% done, but in it's current changed state it's less-so.

Side project 2 "Mario/sonic": This game was initially my project file for testing new code for the camera, controls, and various other things in Noaika. Eventually I added some animations for fun and it became a project on it's own, somewhat of a mix between Mario and Sonic (attempting to do sonic right), and with a monster girl protagonist.

Plans

So...plans. At the end of the day, despite my depression, and financial troubles, I've never really been too worried, and despite the comments from people saying I'm some scam artist, I've never really been all that concerned with my reputation, either. Money? I'll release stuff and pay it off. Players? All that matters is that I make good games, and people will be happy "eventually" when I release a string of good titles.

However, that can only go on for so long before I have to commit to something that will help my current situation, rather than repeating a self destructive cycle. I need to get out of debt, I need to start saving money for the future, and once everything is out of the way and I'm "free", I need to make sure I'm not in this situation again.

First of all, I need to release some stuff. Unfortunately, Noaika isn't the quickest solution given it's scale, and I can't scrape by until it's done the way I have been. Patreon works as a constant, temporary solution, but it's not going to make a lot of money all at once, the way a game would. The sooner I pay stuff off, the less I'm getting hit by interest in the long run.

So, from longest to shortest, I've put the previously worked on projects in this order, with the top being the shortest to complete.

Asteroids
Mario/Sonic
Monster Girls
Castlevania
Noaika

This month I need to release two Patreon animations in order to survive financially. As soon as those are finished, I'm begin finishing those previous side projects, until I'm in a financially stable again. Once I am (And given that released games contrinue to make money), I'll get back to Noaika, and potentially use some of the money to pay for help with the soundtrack.

As I've said in the past, anything I release until Noaika is done will be free for those who pre-ordered it. Less of a bonus at this point and more like a constant apology. As for Kurovadis and Eroico, given that it's taking too long, I'll probably release Eroico with the redone CGs, and leave the rest for when I have the time, though I might finish it amidst the Patreon stuff.

Anyhow, that's what's going on, and that's the plan.

Any Kurovadis and Eroico revison requests?

Manga Gamer and Nutaku want to sell Kurovadis and Eroico, so I took it as a chance to fix some of the game's long standing problems. Eroico's CGs have been revised, and Kurovadis is getting redone pixel art CGs. There are also some things I know I'll change for certain;

Both games:
Updated control code (The root of some keyboard problems)
Vibration function (and the ability to disable it)
Cheats/speed run tools (Such as restarting rooms)
Add at least 1-2 new instances of H-content.
Removal of overture interactive screen (Who the hell is that? I'm just Kyrieru)

Kurovadis:
Add options screen
Add CG and sprite gallery
Change the way starting a new game and loading works (it's easy to erase your game by mistake)
Fix a couple jumps
Gears.
Menu glitch (extra slot)
Add "level up" or "Press start to level up" text to teach player about menu screen.
Balance changes (Succubus boss)

Eroico:
Add powerup in first level (sword wave) to other levels (I forgot about it at the time.)
Make changes to final boss fight? (Add alternative damage methods, teach player about mechanic earlier in the level)
possibly add Infinite health in "animation viewer" rooms.
Give Hud eyebrows.
Make hud change expressions? (The sprites were always there, but un-implemented)


I'm going to be doing a short runthrough of each game to determine what else should be changed. However, if there are any mistakes in the game that you can think of, or things that annoyed you about the games, then now is the time to mention them. Some changes will take very little time, especially if I've already done it other games since then (such as Noaika), so feel free to mention something, even if you think it's unlikely.

Started a Twitter account

I started a Twitter account on a whim today, in order to respond to someone.
https://twitter.com/Kyrieru

So, I figure I may as well use it. Perhaps I'll use it for all the random small stuff that doesn't really fit in here. I'll have to check twitter's terms of service for adult content though..

Oh hey

Oh hey. Nah, not dead yet.

I more or less just took a break from the blog for the month while I worked on stuff (And played some Dark Souls). However I'll always be responding to emails, especially given that it's a part of the job.

Anyhow, as for what I've been up to, here's the Curly Brace animation. I may make a few changes here and their, especially once a day has passed and I'm seeing it differently, but for now here it is.
http://kyrierua.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page_66.html

The other thing that's been taking up my time is my attempt to redo Kurovadis's CGs, which are pretty awful, frankly. To give some examples. (click to view fullscreen)

Original / Redo

However, some of the CGs are sort of beyond saving through minor fixes, and so I decided to do them from scratch. (And I may do the others from scratch since some of them are just kind of boring.)
Also keep in mind that the difference in size is because the the new ones are the same resolution of the game, whereas the old ones weren't.

Still not done, though. I've been having a lot of trouble making stuff I'm satisfied with, mostly because I suck at perspective. That last WIP is a good example of one that's giving me a lot of trouble. Once I get to Noaika's CGs, I'll probably take a while to just study anatomy, before attempting them, so I don't run into the same lack of experience.

Anyhow, that's what I've been up to. I'm not dead. I want to finish redoing the CGs so I can stop feeling embarrassed over the old ones. As it is I'd rather there were none at all, instead of what's there.

Other than that, I've got a bunch of stuff I've gotta do this month. I'm back to reading and responding to comments, so feel free to vent all your belated frustrations now.

Coolguy AMD.

Alright, time for some updates.

Basically, my previous video card failed on me. Since then, I've been able to use most of, but not all of my software, and some of it has had some weird issues (For example, GM had a bunch of error messages I've never seen before, so I can only assume it was something about the integrated graphics). As a result, I've mostly been working on music, in the meantime

That said, after going back and fourth with AMD customer service for about a week and a half, they eventually agreed to send me a refurbished replacement card (I had a 7970, and they sent me a 7990, which is about $500 more than what I had). It arrived today, and I've just finished setting it up. At least so far, I haven't run into any problems, so hopefully that whole set of problems is over and done with.

MangaGamer / Kurovadis

Manga Gamer Approached me about selling my games with their service. However, I'm feeling pretty ashamed of how bad the CGs were, particularly in regards to anatomy.

So, I'm considering going back and fixing some of the more obvious mistakes in the CGs before selling it with MangaGamer. I thought about fixing some other stuff, and adding some of the things people have been asking for, but I probably shouldn't be doing stuff like that, at the moment, so I'll resist the urge for now.

If I do the Cgs, though, maybe I'll stream the process, for the heck of it.

Patreon Stuff

First off, the winner of the Vote was Hatsune Miku.

Also, I should have done this a while ago; but I'm going to do the draw for the animations and image after I'm done with this post. The first person who won the draw never got back to me, so I'll be doing two of them, as well as an image one.

Other than that, there's still a bunch of stuff I've gotta do, and should have had done by now. However, I'll get through it eventually.

Noaika

To give some insight into what still needs to be done, the bulk of the remaining work pretty much comes down to tilesets, music, sound, a small category of H-animations, the main bosses (not the ones that roam around), any fixes I'll end up needing to do at the end, and then stuff like H options, menus, and all the other stuff you need to do to wrap things up. Oh, and CGs, though that's only if I decide to have them at all.

Honestly, the most time consuming part of it will probably be the music. People always talk about how long it takes to make something, but the real problem is how long it takes to make the 3-5 things that  come before the thing that works. It's pretty rare for me to just work on a song from beginning to end, without running into roadblocks.

RIP$500VC

Character vote

Making such a small post feels awkward so here's a picture.

Anyhow, sorry about the delay. Got caught up in trying to fix something yesterday and completely forgot to put up the character vote. Here it is.

http://kyrierua.blogspot.ca/p/character-voting.html

Shoutouts to the guy who literally made an excel document covering the number of votes and scenario requests - . -

So what now?

Once again, I'm of the state of mind where I wish I could properly explain my situation, but finding the words seems impossible. So, instead of wasting your time trying to describe the pulses in my brain running into brick walls, I'll just go over the information that actually matters.

Also, I apologize for my absence from the comments recently.

Patreon Animations
For the past month I've had absolutely no drive to work on Patreon animations at all. There's no use fooling myself into thinking that it's a disinterest that will pass. Before I close the Patreon, I'll finish everything I have an obligation to finish (with extras being based on the number of animations I've done)

After that, I may do animations every so often, even if it's not as a Patreon. But I won't be going back to the weekly thing. Oh, and I'll check who won the voting and open a poll tomorrow.

Weekly Game
I need to work on something that will help me renew my motivation, and allow me to explore ideas that are impossible with Noaika. Animation is great, but games are where my heart is, and Noaika has been my focus for so long that while it will be amazing to finish it, getting there isn't as exciting as it used to be, and there's other stuff I want to do while I work on it.

I'll be making it with the intention of updating it weekly. It may be a Patreon thing, or it may not be. Dunno yet.

Secret game
So, I sent out an unlock code on Patreon a while back,

Way before I ever did the Patreon (almost a year ago now), I worked on an H-game during my free time while still working on Noaika. It originally started as a "let's make something simple in a week!" sort of thing but only got as far as one level. As time went on, I worked on it here and there, and almost finished it. However once I started the Patreon and it took more time and energy than I originally anticipated, the game fell to the wayside, and I never got around to finishing it. I figured I'd pick it back up at some point.

So, in the next month I want to try to finish it. I sent out the unlock code then in case some of the people quit the Patreon at some point.

Once it's done, everyone who pre-ordered Noaika will get it for free, and anyone who supported the Patreon will get it for free (I'll send out the code again soon on Patreon for new Patrons, and anyone who left can email me to get it).

The game is about the size of Eroico, or a little bigger (and with much better H-animations), so I'll charge $4 for it if it ends up having no CGs, or $5 if it does.

Other than that, that's about it. Sorry for being dumb, and sorry that I'm probably going to keep being dumb for a while. Someday Noaika will be done and I'll take new steps, but until then being in the midst of such a big project isn't easy. But it will be done.

Anyhow, thanks for watching.

Yesterdays stream

Here's yesterday's stream for those who missed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A3wd1YeY-g&feature=youtu.be

Streaming soon

I'll be streaming in about a half hour. (Or as soon as I get OBS to go live properly -__-) I'll be creating examples for the basic animation tutorial, which will basically involve creating a sprite's idle pose, and then animating an attack of some kind. If I still feel like streaming after that, I'll probably do a basic tileset, since that's something I haven't covered yet. See you then.

(Stream is over. Was like 7 hours long -___-)