VN Ren'Py KLK Ryûko's Rumble dev thread

[Envy*]

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Hello Everybody.

It's time to make another progress report.

Let's get straight to the point : I've almost crossed the finish line on the 1st build.
There's a ton of new art as you can see on the banner above.

The very last artwork I need for my playtest is currently halfway done.
I think it should be completed in something like 10 days, and playtesting will start right away when it's done.
I'm still missing some originals musics, but that's all right for the playtest as all the most important ones are here.

I've already contacted all the people involved in this playtest phase, I know more people want to get involved too, but I prefer to limit playesting to a handful of people.

I'm in the process of making the final corrections to my current build so it will be polished enough when I send the playtest build.

I'm bound to have a lot of "dilemmas" regarding this build which is basically a big introduction.

1) Finding the right balance between saying too much (which could be boring for people that actually know Kill-la-Kill) and not enough (which could lead to newcomers being lost).

2) Finding the right balance between interactivity and usefulness, as I don't want to either build a kinetic novel or a massive sandbox game. I still think the game lacks interactivity, but that will come with time. Overall, the game will remain a classic branching visual novel, but I'll possibly add some short and temporary sandbox events if I think it will fit well.

3) Finding the right way to build-up my story. This game must be exactly like Kill-la-Kill : it must have both plot and PLOT

I don't have much more to tell you. The very next progress update I will make will probably be a quick summary of how the playtest went and what I'd have to do next.

Thanks to all the people who have been reading my progress reports, it cheers you up to see people getting involved even when you're not yet in a position to let people play a concrete game.

La cover et les dessins donnent vraiment envie en tout cas !!
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The wallpaper and the drawings really make you want anyway !!

 

[FckedSilly]

Is this going to be a paid game? I just want to know if I need to save up…

 

[Envy*]

Is this going to be a paid game? I just want to know if I need to save up…

Like any indie game, there will surely be a patreon version (therefore paid) and a public version.

 

[Gwedelino]

Is this going to be a paid game? I just want to know if I need to save up…

No, and I've already made a commitment to all the artists contributing to this project that it won't be a commercial projet.
I'll accept donations, and I'll very surely set up something like a Patreon / Subscristar to help me "tank" all the development costs, but the game itself will be forever free.

I never intended to make a profit on this project. If that happens it's great, if not, I'll dealt with it.
The downside is that I have my very own job which will always be my priority.

For the time being, I've planned these rewards to the people who will support me :

- Early access to the latest build (thinking about 1 month)
- Artworks preview and private access to the high-res artworks
- Private access to devlogs

So yeah, I'll probably communicate less on F95 to give more informations to backers.

The very first build won't have any early access, it will go public right away.

And that's it.

 

[Gwedelino]

Hello everybody.

Here's a short message about the current situation and the progress of the playtest.
Several people reached the end of this first build and gave me their review.

I've found the feedback to be generally positive, but I do have a few concerns.
I think there's still room for improvement.

However, I think I greatly underestimated the number of people I needed to get enough critical feedback.

I'm going to extend the playtest phase to more people in the near future.
But first I'm going to have to make some slight modifications to the current build.

Keeping you informed.

 

[262177]

If you need suggestions on how to make your game more interactive because you feel it's too linear, just let your audience know. Kamenoike Tsurutaro (TurtleCrane) pretty much either gave up on

You must be registered to see the links

or completely vanished (the latter is more likely) and there are ideas for... inspiration for the lesbian battlefuck match parts of your novel. I might have mentioned it at some point in the distant past so sorry if I'm repeating myself. Big futanari warning by the way, but it's fortunately avoidable and can even be disabled.

This can be particularly useful if an artist offers you extra poses and you'd like to offer the player the ability to see the result (and dialogue) through strategic decision making rather than the usual save-and-reload decision flow.

Good job with all the progress so far and good luck for what's to come, Gwedelino.

 

[FckedSilly]

I’m interested in the playtest if you’re taking volunteers. It’s cool if not though.

 

[FckedSilly]

Also are you willing to sell the test build? I’m sure I’m not the only one who would buy it!

 

[Gwedelino]

Also are you willing to sell the test build? I’m sure I’m not the only one who would buy it!

That won't happen. I don't see any point in doing this. it would be completely detrimental to the whole testing process.

 

[FckedSilly]

That won't happen. I don't see any point in doing this. it would be completely detrimental to the whole testing process.

Understood, hope the testing goes well!

 

[FckedSilly]

Is anyone else super stoked for this game? I’m sure it’s gonna be awesome!

 

[lagaard]

Ah heard about this on ULMF, and been keeping an ear to the ground - so to speak. Been quiet a bit, but seems development is still ongoing, which is good. Deeply curious as to how it'll all play out... and then getting a look at the writing.

 

[Gwedelino]

Hello everybody.

I realized that it's been a year since I've been working on my game's project and I wanted to make a little recap of my adventure.

So get ready for a wall of text and good luck for people who want to read the full thing.

The first thing I want to say is that I'm a bit disappointed to see that I've not been able to release anything after 1 year of work.

It's not that I've been underestimating the amount of work required to release a V 0.1, but it's more like I never stopped increasing the amount of content and functionality I wanted to add to this V 0.1, hence adding more and more work to the to-do pile. I want to feel that the very first public release of my game will be "complete" and that's why something like :

- Not having a proper gallery or replay system;
- Using default placeholder assets;
- Releasing a barebone tech-demo;

felt wrong to me. That's also why I decided to do some playtests. Those are really useful to help me spot all the little flaws I missed alone. Even if those playtests aren't finished, I can already tell you that some big changes will be made thanks to the review people made for me.

On another hand, I'm quite happy to see that the very first ideas I had about how challenging working on a game would be were pretty accurate.

I would summarize it with this motto: "it's hard work but not complicated work."

I've never been completely stuck at some point and I've always managed to move forwards. It feels like a challenge for which motivation is way more important than skill.

It's true that I often had to remake the very same thing again and again (visuals/ text / code) , and I probably lost a lot of time doing this, but I think there's still room for improvement, and I can only get faster the more I progress.

Of course, I'm not doing everything alone, that has to be taken into consideration. As you know I'm the main writer and programmer on this project and I'm also making all the non-complex graphic assets like everything that's UI related. However this whole game is also carried by :

- Two musicians
- 7 artists
- 1 proofreader

That’s t'en people ! This game wouldn't have the look it has if I had to do everything myself. What you would have instead would be royalty free music and MS paint quality visuals.

Moreover, letting other people do the art also saves me a tremendous amount of time. This whole project would be incredibly much slower if I was doing everything myself. Instead of spending more than ten hours on a single artwork, I just need to spend 30 minutes writing out the instructions that I then give to the artist: this is a huge time-saver.

Of course, the downside is that I have to spend a not so small sum of money into this project. To be perfectly honest, as of today, I roughly spent 8000 $ into this game. This is something I can afford thanks to my daily job, for which I am well paid and which also leaves me enough free time to work on the game in a decent way. Considering how many developers here are just broke, I know that I’m privileged.

But everybody have to keep in mind that this project is being carried out alongside my main job, and not the opposite. I'm not dreaming of earning my life thanks to this game, absolutely not.

I would like to end this post by sending a big thanks to all the people who are posting on this thread. That's currently the only way (with discord) I can interact and see people that are interested in this game.

That's all. Thank you for reading this and here a little W.I.P reward :

 

[lagaard]

I read the entire thing!
I haven't really made games myself (not in any serious capacity), but what you're going through sounds... normal? Expected? I suppose to me. It's easy to start with an idea, and as you start doing it, you think up things, or certain expectations...

I didn't quite expect such a team working on the game, but that's a nice sign regardless. Glad you can keep the development going though!

I'm certainly still interested to see how this game could go down, even if it has been quite a wait on my part. But waiting isn't particularly hard I suppose, just a matter of time. There was shockingly little KLK-based/inspired/at all in the H-game department, and a yuri focused one was an unexpected, but not unwelcome offering to see.

In closing, that looks like a nice WIP offering... hope the progress towards a playable demo continues smoothly!
quick lemme playtest

 

[Gwedelino]

I didn't quite expect such a team working on the game, but that's a nice sign regardless. Glad you can keep the development going though!

It's hard to imagine the sheer volume of artworks required for a 2D game if one want to have a decent amount of art.

You need :

- Sprites
- Backgrounds
- Unique artworks to illustrate specific scenes

It's completely impossible to have one artist doing everything if you want to have each piece of art done in a relatively short time and more importantly if you want to avoid a burn-out of your artist.

So you end up with several artists working on each kind of assets. This way you can progress quickly while having some back-up if something unexpected happen.

BTW I cheated a bit on the WIP. I'm not a fan of leaking everything so I posted a failed sketch. The real artwork will be way more "suggestive".

 

[lagaard]

It's hard to imagine the sheer volume of artworks required for a 2D game if one want to have a decent amount of art.

You need :

- Sprites
- Backgrounds
- Unique artworks to illustrate specific scenes

It's completely impossible to have one artist doing everything if you want to have each piece of art done in a relatively short time and more importantly if you want to avoid a burn-out of your artist.

So you end up with several artists working on each kind of assets. This way you can progress quickly while having some back-up if something unexpected happen.

BTW I cheated a bit on the WIP. I'm not a fan of leaking everything so I posted a failed sketch. The real artwork will be way more "suggestive".

Makes sense when I think about it, yeah. I know of a few game devs who only have a single artist who does everything, so they are always pretty busy as a result... the fact they can keep themselves going is impressive on its own! Although the amount of art they might need in their game, versus yours isn't probably the same.

Gotta keep some kinda secret after all. Just a tease!

 

[FckedSilly]

Wow! I never thought about how much work would go into a game like this!

Are you still expanding the playtest?

 

[Gwedelino]

Wow! I never thought about how much work would go into a game like this!

Are you still expanding the playtest?

Yes, but all the people who will be part of this second wave have already been contacted.

 

[FckedSilly]

Yes, but all the people who will be part of this second wave have already been contacted.

Aww… big sad… Good luck though!

 

[Gwedelino]

Hello everybody.

I'm currently on vacation, but a lot of progress has been made on the meantime. That's why it's time for another progress report.

As you know, I started some playtests a while ago. Two groups of people received an early build of my game and I nearly had a review from every people involved.

Those playtests aren't finished yet but I can still give you a little summary of what people thought about the game.

Let's start with the good things :

- People liked the art and the 18+ content as well. There's still discrepancies and improvement to be made, but that's something that will have to be worked on over a longer span of time. Most people also didn't have any problem about seeing different artstyles involved (like between sprites and CGS). Adding small animations and movement to sprites was also received as a good idea.

- People liked the music overall. I didn't see anything negative about it.

- Nobody got lost. The story was pretty clear, and it managed to satisfy both players that are familiar with and aren't familiar with KLK's fandom. Most testers told me that the characters personalities were spot on/uniques.

And now about the less good things :

- Writing is nice, but still require a bit of improvement. It does the job, it looks good to most people, it's far away from being horrendous MTL text, but it could be better for native english reader. I think getting more and more experience at writing in english will help me a lot at avoiding common mistakes.

- The "fighting parts" of the fights are too static and slow-paced compared to the rest of the game. If the "sexy time" are fully illustrated, it's not the case for every other fighting actions like when characters moves, attack or defend themselves. Several testers told me that it was a bit disappointing for a game focused on Sexfight to use text only for the fight part, even if it's still a visual novel.

I found a solution but it implies to commission some extra art. It will very surely means that I'll have to delay the first official release quite a bit, but that's not enough to postpone the whole thing to 2024.

Overall I'm quite satisfied about those playtests. It was a good idea to do it as it helped me to spot some flaws and bugs I missed.

Speaking about something else, I recently found another artist to help my two lead artists. He's already working on his very first artwork. This will especially be helpful to keep the pace when my two main artists are taking a break from taking commissions.

Here is a sneak peak at some recent art pieces.