VN Ren'Py Glowing Stones : Heroes' Awakening [Ch.5 Hotfix] [MoonLightDevCorp]

[CurtimusPrime92]

You have to decide: get the achievement on Steam or go on with Sam. You could made a save, get the achievement and then continue from save point. Up to you.

OK I'll be mindful of that, since i don't play 18+ games on steam 'achievement' guides are big bunch of nothing for me lol
(i play most VNs out of System&Network Access blocked Sandbox)

 

[Crusader of Romance]

Is this game as cool as it looks on the screens?

 

[Tremonia]

Is this game as cool as it looks on the screens?

I think it is.

 

[flaviopaganini]

Progress report #11

Hello there!

First off, with sales season in full swing, I invite you to check out the amazing bundles featuring Glowing Stones! There’s a brand-new one focused on urban fantasy—perfect for those who love magic, supernatural powers, and action, but also enjoy characters who carry smartphones and guns. Don’t hesitate to dive in!


On a personal note, I’m now working full-time on my game! Thanks to those of you who chose to support me by purchasing the early access version, I’ve been able to leave my job and take another step toward fulfilling my dream. For that, I owe you all a huge thank you!

That said, I wasn’t fully prepared for the amount of paperwork involved. Between end-of-year declarations for my company (yes, even as a one-person team, I need a legal structure for Glowing Stones), signing up for artist support programs, and more… let’s just say France loves paperwork! But things are starting to stabilize, which is a relief.

It’s still a bit scary, though. Taking this leap means handling financial responsibilities, and while my family fully supports this journey, it’s a step into the unknown. My income now depends entirely on the goodwill of players and their desire to support me.

To show my appreciation, here’s a little gift for you—more are on the way in the coming days. (Make sure to view it in full screen; it’s in 4K!)



As for the game’s development, progress is steady. My days are filled with rendering, improving code and scripts, and adding little touches here and there. This chapter is particularly special—it’s calm at first, but if I pull it off, the tension should build gradually.

I haven’t received much direct feedback on the renders for Chapter 0 yet, but the refund rate has dropped by a third. It was already pretty low, but now it’s hovering around 2% (excluding fraud), which is excellent. I take this as a sign that the decision to enhance the visuals was the right one. After all, the game does look better now!

Here are some current stats:

• 350 renders
• 20 animations
• 1,250 finished lines of dialogue
• 950 lines left to script and render

We’re still far from finishing this chapter, but to me, what matters most is that we’re moving forward. I’ve seen so many devs lose motivation after two years of work, so I’m grateful that every morning, I still feel excited to continue.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season! ✨

 

[Tremonia]

To all the Donors who are watching this thread. If you have not yet voted in the Christmas contest, please consider giving one of your votes to MoonlightDevCorp.

 

[DeadpoolandWolverine]

is there any news when the new update comes out this year ?

 

[Tremonia]

Dev is on it.

 

[Tremonia]

You must be registered to see the links

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the long silence, but you’ll understand why pretty quickly…

Since Christmas, I’ve been pretty sick. It’s not a life-threatening illness (well, as long as it’s treated in time—otherwise, it can lead to fatal kidney failure), so no need to worry. However, it’s been quite debilitating. I’ve had occasional gout attacks for years, but this past Christmas, I had a particularly severe one—one that hurt really, really bad. Let me explain quickly:

Gout is caused by a buildup of uric acid, which forms crystals in different parts of the body. In my case, it affects my ankles and feet (for now). Basically, my body struggles to eliminate uric acid properly, which comes from foods rich in purines, like meat, cabbage, beer (not an issue for me since I don’t like it), and more. Up until now, my gout attacks were sporadic—once or twice a year.

But in 2024, I’ve already had four. So, with my doctor, I finally decided to start long-term treatment to help my body eliminate uric acid more efficiently and get rid of the deposits already in my body.

However, there’s a side effect: the uric acid being removed has to pass through my bloodstream before being eliminated. Some of it gets flushed out, but the rest can trigger temporary gout attacks.

And since Christmas, I’ve already had four more. On the bright side, that means the treatment is working. But on the downside, a gout attack is as painful as breaking the affected joint (before getting any pain treatment for the fracture). So yeah, it’s literally unbearable.

The go-to treatment for a gout attack is Colchimax, a mix of colchicine and opium powder. It’s very effective, but as you can guess, the presence of opium makes it addictive (so I have to be careful not to overuse it). And, well… it makes me delirious and completely unable to focus on anything for more than ten seconds (you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to write this message).

So, it’s a necessary evil, but as long as I have uric acid in my system, it’s going to be rough.

On top of that, as some of you know, I have a 4-year-old kid. And, well, little ones are basically biological weapons of mass infection. He managed to give us both COVID and a nasty case of strep throat.

Add to that the fact that this winter has been unusually cold (at least for this region), and that I’ve had ear problems since childhood (both my eardrums were perforated by ear infections, so I still get them regularly), and you can probably understand why there hasn’t been a single day since Christmas where I wasn’t dealing with some kind of health issue.

But again, the good news is that winter is ending, and the gout treatment is working.

Now, about the game:
Despite everything, I’ve kept working on it as best as I could. The upcoming chapter is a bit special. Structurally, it’s similar to a filler episode in a TV series. However, it lays the groundwork for the final part of this first book and starts wrapping up some narrative arcs.

This means there’s less action, more dialogue, and a lot of lore. This chapter will also start showing that the world of Glowing Stones isn’t as black and white as it may have seemed at first. Until now, we had a “good people vs. evil megacorps” setup, which was necessary to establish the initial setting. But now that the groundwork is laid, it’s time to take a closer look and realize that the world—and its conflicts—aren’t that simple.

Of course, this isn’t a shift in the story or its themes—this was always planned. Narratively, it was important to introduce things gradually to avoid overwhelming players. Plus, as more characters enter the story, it’s only natural to introduce a wider range of perspectives. With two or three characters, you get two or three opinions. But as the cast expands, so do the nuances.

Some scenes in this chapter are also much more complex to create. For example, I managed to animate a scene with over 12 characters on screen at once. Obviously, this means animating 12 characters individually and optimizing the scene afterward (since Daz3D, my rendering software, normally doesn’t allow that many characters at once).

And one last thing that’s pretty important… I’m adding sound design to the game. Until now, there was music, but the complete lack of ambient sounds has been frustrating for me. Sound won’t replace the text, but it will complement it. This isn’t full voice acting (if I ever decide to do that, I’d have to sell a kidney first and wait until the game is completely finished). But now, every cinematic will have not just music, but also sound effects. The game itself will also include more audio to enhance immersion.

Progress Update:

• 600 static renders
• 25 animations
• 2,200 lines of script fully completed

I’ll keep you posted on how things evolve, but for now, I need to go lie down—writing this message already took me an hour…

Thanks to all of you for your support, and see you soon!

 

[xapican]

Tremonia ; thank's for sharing, and keeping us in the loop !

 

[Tremonia]

You must be registered to see the links

Hey everyone!

First of all, thank you so much for your messages of support. They really mean a lot to me!

Regarding my health, things are getting better—I’m having fewer gout flare-ups (about one every two weeks now), which is a good sign. It means the medication is working and my condition is improving. I'll get some blood work done in the next few days and then follow up with my doctor to adjust medication dosages.

Next up, following the poll, I'm going to organize one or more live streams where I’ll set up some renders in front of you. There's no way I’d lose productive time without working, but why not mix work with pleasure, right? I'll try to schedule several sessions, mainly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons or early evenings (Paris time).

As for the game, things are progressing very nicely as well.

The audio work is quite far along: I've created almost all of the sound effects, and all the animations from chapters 0 to 5 now have sound. The only things left to do are integrating the audio into the code, tweaking balances and volumes, and testing. Oh, and of course, creating sound for chapter 6 animations, but that's coming soon.

Regarding the story: Chapter 6 is fully written (except for two spicy scenes, but since those are closely tied to visuals, I usually handle them almost simultaneously). This chapter will have a somewhat different pacing compared to previous ones. The first part has more of a "filler episode" vibe, bringing a lot of lore, background details, and setting up the remaining plots for this book. It’ll take its time resolving some existing storylines and gradually introducing new ones. The second part, however, will be much faster-paced, with action, urgency… Well, you'll see soon enough!

Visually: I've made good progress, even though there’s still quite a lot left to do. I was able to reuse knowledge I'd gained from previous scenes, especially with Blender, which also reassured me for future scenes—particularly some major sequences in book two with even more intense VFX than we've seen so far. Additionally, I've experimented with some short animations (a few seconds each) to enrich the atmosphere. And currently, I'm working on a massive animation—I think we can call it a cinematic at this point. Honestly, it’s pushing my PC to its limits and forcing me to learn even more about Blender. But a nice side effect is that I'm picking up a ton of new tricks for future animations as well. (Oh boy, if only you knew all the cool little VFX I’ve learned to make now…)

Also, I've decided to invest in a one-day training course focused on character animation in Blender, to speed things up. Even though I might not do the final renders in Blender (it wouldn’t match the quality of Daz renders), it still allows me to animate characters within Blender and then import them into Daz. But first, obviously, I need to know how to do it properly—hence the training.

And here's where we're currently at:

• 800 static renders
• 28 animations
• 2700 fully completed script lines
• 1000 lines of dialogue waiting to be scripted and implemented

As you can see, progress is solid, though we're not at the finish line just yet.

Thank you all again for your amazing support, and see you soon!