Yousei is out and Jisei is cheap! Woohoo!

Buy Yousei Now ($15.00): Windows | Mac | Linux

Free demo available.

Hey gang! Yousei is out! Hurrah! Huzzah! Other cheerful exclamations! What took so long? Well, I guess it just took us a lot longer to tighten up the graphics than we thought. Also, Yousei's longer than Jisei and Kansei. And there are more characters. And images. And music. And everything, really. I also hear it's the best one yet. And there may be emotional bits, but don't quote me on that.

For those of you who haven't joined the Jisei clan yet, Jisei is currently 50% off for the entire month of February. Think of it as our Valentine's Day gift to you! Plus, the Jisei+Kansei bundle discount is still in effect, so if you buy Jisei and Kansei together, that's like...less than twenty bucks. Which is pretty cool.

NaNo Update

Poll results show that not many people know what NaNo is. But that's totally okay! Because I'm going to tell you now. : D NaNoRenO is a yearly tradition among English VN makers. In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we spend a month creating a visual novel from scratch. The goal is to start and finish creating the game within a month. Last year, we made My Magical Cosplay Cafe. This year, we're doing something a little bit different. Deji and I have been toying with ideas for a VN called "Swan's Melody," for a while, and we decided to use NaNo to make a demo for it. The final game will be much longer, but we hope to release a nice little preview to get you guys interested in it. It's less than a week before the NaNo month is over, and we've still got a ways to go. Will we finish on time? Stay tuned to find out!

Yup! I always do.	4 (2%)
It's my first time.	19 (11%)
Not this year.	30 (18%)
Never have.	57 (34%)
I don't know what that is.	81 (48%)

Votes so far: 166

New Yousei Design

Another updated character design for Yousei. Yup. Chance is back, and she's going to be a major player again! Hopefully Kangai and the team can handle her.

Happy Valentine's Day 2012

We wish you all a happy Valentine's Day! Kurara loves you, whether you're dating or not, and there will always be a cupcake for you. Blog updates have been scarce because we've been working behind the scenes on quite a bit of stuff for the summer. As a little thank you for your patience, here's a gorgeous image by Deji and sample loop from Every Sunrise by Marc: >Download<

In other news, we're already gearing up for con season! Mini A-KON is this Saturday, so if you're in the area, come by and say hi. It's free! Tell us you're a sakefan, and we'll give you a free prize.

First Look: Koda

Phew! Last week was a lot busier than I imagined it would be. I've only managed to write about a hundred words all week. orz But it seems about time for an update, so here's another character sketch from Every Sunrise! I know you've all been wanting to see him, so here's Koda! He's never been big on fashion, but don't hold it against him. XD

Wordcount Wednesday - Brace yourselves. Winter is coming.

You'd think by now I'd be done with the wordcount posts for Winter in Fairbrook. I'm not! The WiF beta has been out for a while now, and we've gotten some great feedback, bug reports, and general thoughts. One of the main things we heard was that one of the character routes felt less involved than the others. I don't want any of my boys left out in the cold (Ha! I made a joke.), so I went back and added more content to his arc. That along with the extra scene I wrote earlier (preview image above) makes this game even longer than The Flower Shop. Wooooo! Anyway, all that's left now are typos and bug fixes, so the official release should be soon.

The game contains 4,894 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 46,677 words,
for an average of 9.5 words per screen.
The game contains 26 menus.

Beta Testing in Fairbrook

You always think you're done. And then it's time to beta test. Hello, typos! Winter in Fairbrook is officially in beta testing mode right now. There are a couple bugs and typos here and there, but you can play the game all the way through, and there are endings and pretty pictures, and it's a whole lot of fun! Honestly, I think I'm wasting more time playing the flower raising bits than actually looking for bugs. I should probably not be confessing this in public. >.>;;

So what does this mean for all of you wonderful, patient, people? It means that the wait is nearly over. For real, this time. As in, before the month is over, you too can be a proud owner of Winter in Fairbrook. It also means that before the month is over, you'll get a nice, long blog post from me about writing the game, a couple hints, and probably some random commentary. (Feel free to ask questions.)

Status Update Times!

Cinders, by MoaCube

Pretty much everything is done for this game short of the writing. Code, art, music, everything. Tom and I are both working on the writing, but there's a lot to do. This game is kind of incredible because there are a lot of choices, and they all make a difference, so the branching is kind of nuts. The cool part is that you can play the game a second time and see a completely different story. That means a loooot of writing. But hey, it'll all be worth it in the end!

The Flower Shop - Winter in Fairbrook, by Winter Wolves
This game is late, excuses and other things here, blah blah. This year has been a complete mess for me outside of making games, and unfortunately, that's done terrible things to my ability to work on games. The writing is all complete, AND I wrote a really cute bonus scene last week to apologize for taking so long to get this out. Soon, my friends. Really, really, soon.

hanami x 2, by sakevisual (Ooh, that's us!)

Sprites are done, backgrounds are done, and the game will likely have at least some original music in it. Where are we now? Making CGs, and I'm saving up to hire voice actors for at least the boys (maybe not for the lead female, we'll see). The artist for this game is working on a volunteer basis, so getting all the art done for it will take a while because it's not top priority for her.

Oneiro, by sakevisual

This feels almost backwards. Usually, recording the voices is the last step in creation, but in this case, all the voices are recorded already, but the art isn't really that close to being finished. Again, it's because it's a really low priority project for the artist, so it's coming along slowly. We have an original soundtrack, at least!

Jisei Chapter 03, by sakevisual

Although I'm still in the planning stages for this, Deji has already started on the sprite artwork for the main cast (Kan, Aki, Naoki, Li Mei, Miko), so the art is further along than the writing (There is no writing. Ha!). I already have a rough outline of the story from the initial planning stages for Jisei, but now I need to fill in the details like how people get killed. If the government ever gets their hands on my search history, I might be trouble. My current search history includes, "how much cyanide it takes to kill a person," "can you taste arsenic in a drink," "blunt force needed to kill a person," and "how to hide a corpse." Does that mean there will be cyanide, arsenic and hitting people? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. I can tell you that one body disposal might make you less hungry for a while. NO, not like that.

Something Else, lalala!

It's something else! It's something you've been asking for. It's something I've been hinting at. It WILL be part of the Green Tea Line, but I promise you won't be disappointed by it, and there will be plenty of free giveaway options and stuff. bo_o

Another something else~

Deji mentioned it in her blog here, and she and I are both really, really excited about this project. There's not much I can say about it yet because we're still trying to make it work. O_< But it won't be like a normal visual novel. Yup.

Wordcount Wednesday - Every Sunrise

Sprite preview shamelessly lifted from Deji's tumblr.

Hey! It's Wordcount Wednesday! On Wednesday! Let's see how long that lasts. XD I've been talking about it on and off, but I haven't officially announced this project yet. Well, here goes! Yes, Ripples is getting a sequel, and it's called "Every Sunrise." If you've been following our facebook page, you already saw the design sketches for Kuu there, but hey, here's a sprite preview! Woo! We've been planning this for a while, but we've just started actual work on it recently. This is sort of a side project right now (as Winter in Fairbrook and Cinders take precedence for me and Deji has other work, too), but at least we've begun!

Statistics:
The game contains 53 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 562 words,
for an average of 10.6 words per screen.
The game contains 0 menus.

P.S.

This game will be free.

Updated Art

To the left, you can see art from our first build of Kansei. The initial plan was to use the same sprites for the returning characters for the sake of consistency, but as we worked on it, we quickly changed our minds. Deji felt that her art had improved enough that she wanted to redo the characters. Looking at some of the feedback we received, we decided to update the art style to something more mature and fitting for a murder mystery, so Deji changed the style and the color palette to have a darker feel. As this game has a good deal more exploration than the first, my plan was to use 3D backgrounds to generate all the environments, but after getting the first few done, I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about how it meshed with the sprites. Once Deji updated her art, the 3D backgrounds were completely inconsistent with the sprites, so I switched back to 2D. The current build (pictured on the right) is, in my biased opinion, much better than our first go. I'm really excited by the way this game looks, and I hope that you guys like our updated look as well.

Twins

Well then. Guess who didn't update on Wednesday? I wasn't kidding when I said we'd be back to our normal schedule. owo Please enjoy this screencap from Kansei. Only one of these characters is female.

We now return you to your regular blogging schedule.

Ohai! I finished all the writing for Winter in Fairbrook, which means that we'll soon be able to show you all sorts of fun stuff like gameplay videos. Above you can see the "success" screen after Natalie does a good job at work. The current word count is 42,591 words, which is slightly longer than The Flower Shop, so the games should be pretty equal in length of gameplay.

I'm back to blogging like I used to now with biweekly polls and Wordcount Wednesday (and Apology Thursday) and lots of new art to share with you all! Please look forward to it.

Kansei Update

I suspect that if I ever chose to move Wordcount Wednesday to Thursday, we'd begin to celebrate Apology Friday instead. Anyway, here's a sneak peek of Detective Gurski from Kansei. This is a sketch by Deji of the updated design, and personally I rather like it. What do you guys think?

Also, Kansei is currently at 13,650 words, and the victim just died about a thousand words ago. This is most definitely going to be a longer game.

It's the Glasses

Welcome to another exciting edition of Apology Thursday! We're 21,137 words in to Winter in Fairbrook, and the end is in sight! All the sprites and CGs are done, leaving us to work on extra art, some fun minigames, and lots of cute, romantic scenes to go in between. And hey, look! Another familiar face from Fairbrook. Just look at those glasses.

Maybe we should rename it to "Apology Thursday"

The less I update, the more work I'm getting done. It also makes it look as if I'm not getting any work done at all. orz

Anyway, hello! Another update for all you patient readers out there. Two things on the horizon that should make you happy:

-Winter in Fairbrook reaches a milestone. Nearly all the art assets are complete. We still have one CG and a few backgrounds to go, but the art is definitely close to being done. After that, there's still the actual gardening sim (along with some other modifications) and about 1/3 more of the story to write. But hey, art! Rock on.

-Planet Stronghold is nearly complete. Planet Stronghold is an RPG by Winter Wolves, and I've been working a little bit on it lately doing editing and casting and directing the voices for the battle scenes. The game is very very close to completion, and I'm looking forward to seeing it done, at least so I can hear all the voices in action. XD

Anyway, I promise I'll have a real word count for you next week. Things have been very much spread out over planning new things and doing writing for other projects that I'm not allowed to mention yet.

Biweekly Poll - Minigames

Hey, all! Look what I got in the mail the other day. Deji drew me like the prettiest thing ever. ::hearts:: It's up on my mantle now next to my Lelouch figure and my sonic screwdriver. I call it my mantle of yay.*

Anyway, this poll clocked in 255 votes, and I haven't seen this level of division before. I asked your thoughts on minigames in visual novels, and they really ranged the gamut.

Skippable	159 (62%)
Replayable	137 (53%)
Frequent	23 (9%)
Moderate	137 (53%)
Rare	42 (16%)
Not in visual novels	31 (12%)

I've been reading your comments and thinking about it, and I think I've hit upon an idea. What if the game allows you to choose between "novel mode" and "game mode?" In game mode, you'd be presented with a mini game in which you open a puzzle box. In novel mode, minigames are automatically skipped, and replaced with text like "After wrestling with it for a few minutes, I managed to open the puzzle box." That way people who want to just read don't have to be bothered to skip puzzles, and people who want to play will be able to. Beating all the minigames might unlock a hidden arcade or something so that you can go back and replay the games any time you want. Does that sound good? Any suggestions on other features or content?


*I never claimed to be good at naming anything.

Wednesday Update Wooo!

Yay, another actual update on a Wednesday! Deji's hard at work drawing some beautiful romance CGs, but showing those would be cheating, so have a picture of Jacob instead. That looks like an awfully comfy sweater.

Kansei Teaser

Hey, look! A progress update on Kansei! Exciting, isn't it? This is a screencap from the opening scene of Kansei. Check out the protagonist's new look! I wonder where he is right now. He certainly doesn't look happy to be there. D:

Ewwww...responsibility.

Ooh, hey! It's a teaser image from the opening scene of Winter in Fairbrook. Natalie doesn't look too thrilled about the prospect of getting her first job. She reminds me of a certain someone, although he seems to be doing better these days.

Wordcount Wednesday - Branching Out

This week, the wordcount is for Winter in Fairbrook, a visual novel not being made by sakevisual. It's a Winter Wolves project. I'm just the writer, but I really like this project, and I think a lot of you guys are looking forward to it as well. So yey! The current count is 11,759 words full of cute boys and flowers. Yey!

Sketch was filched from project artist, Deji-chan. As usual. >.>