VN Unity A Long Journey - Marvellous Lunatic [Development Thread] [Released]

[Marvellous Lunatic]

DEPRECATED
Game is released, discussion moved to https://f95zone.to/threads/a-long-journey-v0-3-1-marvellous-lunatic.80170/



Overview:

It is 2048. Life on Earth for humankind continues on a downward spiral. The people live in dangerous, cramped mega cities as the environment degrades around them. Backed by government forces, the giant Hawkink Tech corporation has completed the first colony ships and launched them towards distant habitable planets.

MC is a bright young software engineer who has chosen to risk his life as a as colonist in order to escape the dying earth and follow his dream of building a new society. But something goes wrong, and he wakes from cryo-sleep too early, finding himself alone on the giant empty ship as it hurtles through the void.

Soon he learns he is not the only one awake when he meets another person, a beautiful young woman with flaming red hair. She is angry and damaged from already spending many months awake and alone. Can they work together to find a way out of their trap? Or is there more to the situation it first appears...

Trailer:

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Thread Updated: 2021-08-09
Release Date: 2021-08-08
Developer: Marvellous Lunatic

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Version: Betelgeuse [Build 0.2.0]
OS: WIN64, MacOS
Language: English
Engine: Unity

Genre:

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Installation:

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Changelog:

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Developer Notes:

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Character-Cards

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​

 

[Bismo]

Quality looks amazing in the trailer and the story seems exciting. Good look with the project

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Thank you, i appreciate it.

I'd like to show some of the locations i've already prepared for the ingame free-roaming part. As i will include a kind of day and night cycle i created a shot for each time.

Main hallway comes in different color schemes depending on the section of the ship (self-modeled)


Train-Stations come in different color schemes depending on the area of the ship (self modeld)


Cryo-chambers were mc should have stayed until ariving (self modeld)


Hallway to connect cryo-chambers (kitbashed)


Maintenance Hallway (kitbashed)


Control room for one of cargo container sections (partly self modeld / partly kitbashed)


MedBay in maintenance area (reshaded)


Community bathroom for different locations in the ship (reshaded)


More locations are ready but havn't get prepared for ingame shots yet, all self-modeld

Deluxe-Suite


Appartment


Sleep-capsule room


Information


Classroom


Pool


Messhall

 

[Lussuria]

Well done trailer and those locations look great. Best of luck!

 

[ChrisPepper]

Great work so far! I'm excited to embark on this Long Journey. Keep it up!

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Here are some ingame screenshots to show the current state of the ui.

Main menu with no tab selected.


Save files view in the main menu.


Graphic options in the main menu.


View of the character customization (character details).


View of the character customization (relationship details).


Ingame dialogue view with choice dialogue.


Ingame menu (something like a smart phone)


Ingame free roam modus with open quick navigation menu.


Possibility to highlight all triggerable areas in the current location. Green are navigation elements, blue are events.


Ingame map menu.


View of a "hacking" mini game. UI needs to be upgraded.

 

[ChrisPepper]

Here are some ingame screenshots to show the current state of the ui.

Main menu with no tab selected.
View attachment 1116021

Save files view in the main menu.
View attachment 1116022

Graphic options in the main menu.
View attachment 1116023

View of the character customization (character details).
View attachment 1116024

View of the character customization (relationship details).
View attachment 1116025

Ingame dialogue view with choice dialogue.
View attachment 1116026

Ingame menu (something like a smart phone)
View attachment 1116027

Ingame free roam modus with open quick navigation menu.
View attachment 1116030

Possibility to highlight all triggerable areas in the current location. Green are navigation elements, blue are events.
View attachment 1116032

Ingame map menu.
View attachment 1116035

View of a "hacking" mini game. UI needs to be upgraded.
View attachment 1116037

This gives me goosebumps! I'm loving the menu and the quick nav, and the MAP! This is gonna be huge! Keep it up!

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Thanks for the positiv feedback so far.

Here are some more locations shots i've been working on.

Storage bay where cargo containers can be loaded and unloaded as they are stored outside the ship. (kitbashed and some own models)


Cabin in the maintenance area for workers to rest. (kitbashed)


Storage room in the maintenance area. (kitbashed)


Manufactoring facility were objects can be 3d printed. (kitbashed and some own models)


Hallway which conects appartments. (self modeld)




I'am open for critic too. Are there any informations i missed to provide?

 

[Bismo]

Locations looke very nice and clean. Great lighting. How many locations do you plan to have in total? Will there be locations "unlocked" later on?

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Thank you.

I've layed out 45 unique locations at the moment. Some of them will get more sublocations. Some locations will be reused slightly altered like hallways, appartments or bathrooms. At the moment the navigation network is made of about 160 nodes, and probably need some more adjustments. Here is screenshot of the current graph:

Not the most professional, but helps me keep track of everything.

25 of the 45 locations are completly done atm. 2 more are necessary for act 1. With writing going on i probably will bring some more locations in that i planed for later.

Locations will be unlocked over time by events as the ship is in "sleep mode" and not everything is accessible. From the very beginning only a few major locations will be unlocked like the main hallways, canteen, information and the cryo room together with the hallway where you wake up.

As act 2 will be more open and contain more free roaming there will be more locations for social events. So locations like cinema, holodeck, gym and others won't be finished until they are needed so i can start working on actual content for act 1.

 

[AncestralGroove]

The Trailer is well made which reminds one of an classical movie. Really intressted how you are going to establish a visual noval with an aspect of an sandbox element. Good Luck!

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Thank you.

Got some more location environments and location shots done.

Datacenter - where most of the ships automated process are hosted. (Mostly self modeled with some kitbashs)


Canteen (Self modeled)


Information - the first location where you would try to find out why you are the only one awake. (Self modeled)


Engine room -(Partly self modeled and partly kitbashed)


This should conclude the locations i currently planed for act 1.

Therefore i will now focus on finishing a test build and start writing the first scenes.

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Hi,

i've been working on a test-build/techdemo i want to share.
The techdemo will feature an intro scene where most of the engine features are tested.
After the intro you will be in free roam mode and explore the locations. I hid some secrets to be find (hints to them are ingame).
There is no story content in the build at the moment.
I would really appreciate if someone would like to test the techdemo and leave some critics. What features are missing. Where does the ui lack features. Any bugs?

If you experiance criticle bugs i would really appreciate it if you can post them in the discord channel or here:

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Features i added recently:
- Improved exception-handling (ability to send logfile together with a save file and a screenshot if granted within 2 clicks)
- Improved audio handling
- Minor adjustments to the location network
- several bug fixes

The techdemo is for win x64.

Link:

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[osanaiko]

Thank you.

Got some more location environments and location shots done.

Those models are fantastic. You are really good at this. Are they going to look that good in your game engine? or are those static renders?

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Those models are fantastic. You are really good at this. Are they going to look that good in your game engine? or are those static renders?

Thank you. The game will be mode of static renders only similiar to other visual novels made in renpy. I guess you wanted to know if you can view scenes with a free 3d camera. This sadly won't be the case.

Currently i'am not able to create a 3d game with character models this detailed and shaded like this. Looking in the future this probably will possible with unreal engine + metahuman or other similiar plattforms. Depending on how successful this project will be, i would like the next game to be 3d if i can manage to create a similiar look.

For the scenes in this game i will use this locations as environments of course. The lighting can vary slightly depending on the mood a particular scene is supposed to have.

 

[osanaiko]

Thank you. The game will be mode of static renders only similiar to other visual novels made in renpy. I guess you wanted to know if you can view scenes with a free 3d camera. This sadly won't be the case.

Currently i'am not able to create a 3d game with character models this detailed and shaded like this. Looking in the future this probably will possible with unreal engine + metahuman or other similiar plattforms. Depending on how successful this project will be, i would like the next game to be 3d if i can manage to create a similiar look.

For the scenes in this game i will use this locations as environments of course. The lighting can vary slightly depending on the mood a particular scene is supposed to have.

Ah, ok, with the Unity tag on the thread name I assumed it was going to be Realtime 3d. But a standard VN is just as good. Unity needs a lot of work (or plugins) to get the "Standard" VN functionality that comes out of the box with renpy, but i'm sure you know that.

I'll give your tech demo a look now

 

[osanaiko]

Ah, ok, with the Unity tag on the thread name I assumed it was going to be Realtime 3d. But a standard VN is just as good. Unity needs a lot of work (or plugins) to get the "Standard" VN functionality that comes out of the box with renpy, but i'm sure you know that.

I'll give your tech demo a look now

Damn, I take back any shit-talk about Unity. here's my notes from a quick test:

WOW! just WOW!!!

This is a very fucking polished game engine. I was concerned when i saw you were using unity but this is great!
And the renders are sweet! although maybe a little sterile, but i guess that's part of the "spaceship with no people" environment.

• the "return" button on the "SD" screens is small and kind of hard to hit.
• Game title is "A long journey" but it says "alpha centauri" on the corner of the SD screens
• Acheivements screen has "Generell" is that a typo for General? or someone's name?
• Are you going to let players change their own name from "Elios"? (as they are called by others)
• SD main menu has a typo on the "messenger" button.
• The "A" character in the game font looks weird
• The hover text on the SD secrets page can be very long. would look better if you had line-wrapping
• Ideally there would be a close button on the SD main menu (i know you can click the icon again or right click)
• why not allow both left and right ctrl key be a "skip"
• instead of click icon to show interactive targets, could you make it so just mouseover activates (for a timer)
• NOt sure if this is something you plan to change, but as you move around the Main Hallway ring, every image being nearly identical is a drag. might be good to place some decoration stuff overtop the image so it looks at least a little different even if the underlying architecture is identical
• i'm really confused about the how the locations relate to each other - no mental model about how it fits together. Not sure what could help that. perhaps some external ship images with various parts pointed out? (or an animation ). Oh! i finally found the map in the SD. yeah, that's a bit better. still confusing though
• needs a UI hint on how to close the quick nav
• when there are a lot of items in quick nav, and you move locaitons, your current location might be scrolled out of visiblity
• on "main hallway information" the door hover is "labour ring" but it takes you to information
• i'm sad because i couldn't unlock one of the secrets. It's the 7th one (1st on second row) The hint is "You should take a look at the servers in the Datacenter", but i already found that one and it unlocked one of the other secrets. -> i finally found it, the final unlock was the bench in the main hallway of residential. so i guess the hover hint was just wrong.
• In the hacking game i found it hard to read the text - small font size and not very good contrast.

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Damn, I take back any shit-talk about Unity. here's my notes from a quick test:

WOW! just WOW!!!

This is a very fucking polished game engine. I was concerned when i saw you were using unity but this is great!
And the renders are sweet! although maybe a little sterile, but i guess that's part of the "spaceship with no people" environment.

• the "return" button on the "SD" screens is small and kind of hard to hit.
• Game title is "A long journey" but it says "alpha centauri" on the corner of the SD screens
• Acheivements screen has "Generell" is that a typo for General? or someone's name?
• Are you going to let players change their own name from "Elios"? (as they are called by others)
• SD main menu has a typo on the "messenger" button.
• The "A" character in the game font looks weird
• The hover text on the SD secrets page can be very long. would look better if you had line-wrapping
• Ideally there would be a close button on the SD main menu (i know you can click the icon again or right click)
• why not allow both left and right ctrl key be a "skip"
• instead of click icon to show interactive targets, could you make it so just mouseover activates (for a timer)
• NOt sure if this is something you plan to change, but as you move around the Main Hallway ring, every image being nearly identical is a drag. might be good to place some decoration stuff overtop the image so it looks at least a little different even if the underlying architecture is identical
• i'm really confused about the how the locations relate to each other - no mental model about how it fits together. Not sure what could help that. perhaps some external ship images with various parts pointed out? (or an animation ). Oh! i finally found the map in the SD. yeah, that's a bit better. still confusing though
• needs a UI hint on how to close the quick nav
• when there are a lot of items in quick nav, and you move locaitons, your current location might be scrolled out of visiblity
• on "main hallway information" the door hover is "labour ring" but it takes you to information
• i'm sad because i couldn't unlock one of the secrets. It's the 7th one (1st on second row) The hint is "You should take a look at the servers in the Datacenter", but i already found that one and it unlocked one of the other secrets. -> i finally found it, the final unlock was the bench in the main hallway of residential. so i guess the hover hint was just wrong.
• In the hacking game i found it hard to read the text - small font size and not very good contrast.

Thanks for the feedback! That's very helpful!

The sterile look is indeed intended. It should look like a brand new modern ship that's not been heavily used as "all" are asleep. I weren't going for a cyberpunk look.

• "Small return button" - got that feedback multiple times now. I will change that in the next build
• "Alpha Centauri" - is the name of the current build, like "KitKat", "Oreo" or how ever android named it's versions.
• "Typos" - took notes of the typos, will fix them
• "Change player name" - there actually is a whole character configurator in the main menu under settings. Maybe i need to place it more prominent as i think it's quite a cool feature where you can customize names, nicknames, name color and age of each character, as well as the relation between some characters ... At least i should mention it in the help i guess.
• "A" tbh i like it
• "Wrapping" - Haven't thought about auto wrapping, depending on how complex it is to implement i will add it, otherwise i need to take care of line breaks in the default localisation.
• "SD Menu close button" - i will add the option to close the menu when clicking in the background/next to the menu frame to close it to. Not sure if a close button will be needed. Maybe i could reuse the return button. I will think about it.
• "Right control to skip" - i wasn't aware there would be a need for, not a problem to add, will do.
• "Timer instead of clicking for highlighting" - Not a bad idea, wil take it in consideration
• "Repeating locations more unique" - I do want to look them different. I already tried that by giving the different "rings" different colors and have each location other signs and icons to seperate them. I see they are not different enough to seperate them clearly. I will try to think of something to seperate them more. Maybe decals, or easy replaceable ceilings or something like that. As this is more of an aesthetics aspect that will take quite some time to do it for the many locations i have to push it back, as i starting to work on actual content. But it's definitely on my todo list, even if it has a lower priority atm
• "Location relations" - I was thinking about make a more detailed map and had some ideas but were never completly satisfied. A few posts above is a slightly outdated graph of the location network in case you are interested in that. In the actual game i will try to explain the navigation a bit more. Basically each "ring" has a train which is parallel to da main hallway and can access locations on this ring for faster access of this locations. I guess very few have noticed this but nearly each location change "costs" time and trains are faster. Each train station on the rings has an elevator that leads to the core of the ship and with that to another train. This train connects the different sections of the ship (propulsion, navigation, storage and the 3 rings.) For the rings you have to take the elevator up to get to the trainstation on those rings again.
• "Hint for close quick nav" - Had a small text on the panel of the current location to indicate this, but felt it takes to much place. At least it is mentioned in the help I will think about adding a hint again.
• "Wrong hint on information" - I named the information centers after the ring they are one. I guess that's not really fitting. I will rename them to something more suitable.
• "Wrong hint on secret" - Copy&Paste error, will fix it
• "Small text on hacking game" - That's pretty much the point. You shouldn't really read the code fragments its more about pattern recognizing. I was thinking to abstract the text even more to make it not readable at all. The texts are just for the lolz i guess I scratched the text where i explain that before the game. I wanted to add it in a "tutorial sequence" within the game. I will consider changing the game a bit. It's a 3 or 4 year old mini project i did and thought it would kinda fit in.

Thank your very much for the feedback. I really appreciate it!

 

[osanaiko]

Thank your very much for the feedback. I really appreciate it!

No problem. If you are looking for beta test / script review (like an editor) in the future as you get closer to release, please let me know. I would like to help (although I've already doing the same for a number of games so sometimes scheduling might result in it taking a few days to complete a review).

Good luck!

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

I'm quite happy about the feedback i got. Other than some typos, wrong labels and improvement requests to the ui, no critical or game breaking bugs got reported which i'm really happy about.

Besides fixing minor issues i've written the important background stories for the main characters of act 1 and i finished the timeline for the whole of act one. So the plot for act 1 is settled if i don't missed any big plot holes that would drag you out of the story.

The first scene is nearly written out and i just had to start rendering the first shots of the wake up scene.

I'd like to share some of them, to give a hint about the art direction the scenes will have.