VN Ren'Py Engineers of Shadow-Moon Station [Development Thread]

[Ghost Island]

Welcome to Shadow-Moon Station!

Hi! I go by Ghost Island and I’m proud to present my first adult visual novel. Here’s an overview of Engineers of Shadow-Moon Station:

In a world where humanity has begun expanding to the stars, follow the story of a young man who receives a once in a lifetime job offer. He’s recruited as an engineer for a big corporation to work on setting the next stage of space colonization. By taking the job, he would have to move to the newly established Shadow-Moon Station alongside a new partner and together, on top of their engineering duties, they would have to discreetly investigate certain irregularities in the station. This newly formed partnership may soon find themselves in the middle of a corporate power struggle.

Engineers of Shadow Moon Station is a choice-based, adult visual novel with a sci-fi setting. It will contain elements of dating sim, relationship building, corporate drama and espionage.

Multiple choices:
Guide the protagonist as he balances his professional life, both as an engineer and a spy, and his personal relationships, from romantic to friendship or even something in between.

Multiple love interests:
Explore a dynamic relationship system where you can choose from different paths and different pacing with the ability of moving to a different route as you progress the story. For example: If you are looking for a romantic relationship, you can choose from a love at first sight (romance from the very beginning) or a slow burn romance (start as friends and slowly fall in love).

Multiple endings:
Craft your own version of this story by selecting between multiple choices throughout this adventure. But be aware, many of these choices will have consequences both on the professional and personal level.

Multiple kinks:
Experience intimate scenes with multiple love interests to choose from. Note: Every sexual interaction will be avoidable.

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Additional Notes:
This visual novel is being developed with the Ren’py engine and the visuals (renders and animations) are being made using Studio Neo V2 from Honey Select 2.

The first release: The Prologue, will be out very soon. At the moment it’s in the final testing and polishing phase.

Currently I’m looking into opening a Patreon and/or Itch.io page. More details in the future.

In-game screenshots:

Spoiler: Sneak Peak

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[465135473216]

Try to work on your lighting, you only need to do a bit of work on kirta or any image manipulating tool to get an image with more depth.
On the first i blurred some of the edges in the ground so they look less 3D and added a light that come from the top and faked lighting.
The second i separated it with 3 layer foreground (characters) middle ground (wall) and back ground (desk window) and darkened it after each layer, so it look like the characters are the focus of the piece.

 

[Ghost Island]

View attachment 5046072
View attachment 5046117
Try to work on your lighting, you only need to do a bit of work on kirta or any image manipulating tool to get an image with more depth.
On the first i blurred some of the edges in the ground so they look less 3D and added a light that come from the top and faked lighting.
The second i separated it with 3 layer foreground (characters) middle ground (wall) and back ground (desk window) and darkened it after each layer, so it look like the characters are the focus of the piece.

I have to admit that working on the renders has been my biggest hurdle. I have experience as a programmer and story teller (although only recreational), but when I started this project I was a complete novice when it came to renders/animations or image editing. I have learned a lot since, but I know I still have a lot of room for improvement. So, thank you for the advice and I appreciate the examples.

 

[Ghost Island]

Just a small update, I want to share the progress on two major features that I just finished implementing: The Codex and a Scene Replay. Also as a side note, the main character's default name is Jason, but the player will be able to choose their own name at the start of the game.

 

[Ghost Island]

The prologue is out!

The first release (the prologue) has been “finished” and ready for launch for a while now. It has over 950 renders and 16 animation clips.

I haven’t released the game yet because I have been looking into improving the visual quality of the renders. I have been learning some editing techniques and applying them mostly by trial and error. Sadly, I ended up with what I would call: mixed results.
I’m aware that one of the most important aspects of a visual novel is, well the visuals. So this is something that I will keep working on, but in the meantime, I decided to go forward with the launch of this current version. I want to treat the prologue as a demo of sorts. Hopefully, players that give it a chance would be willing to give feedback.

I originally planned on making page on itch.io, but with recent developments I don’t know if it would still be worth it. Yeah I know my timing sucks. But on the other hand, my patreon just got approved.

The prologue of EoSMS will be available free to play on PC (Windows and Linux) and Android. You can get it by joining on patreon as a free member:

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I also posted a game request on this forum, so you might see the download links on this site soon.

 

[465135473216]

Sadly i think the big problem you have is the software you are using to render, i don't know how "Studio Neo V2" works but i assume you don't have much control in post processing, one thing that can maybe help you is using reshade to add more amiant occlusion or even other effect that will make your render less dead.