♥ NaNoRenO Awaits! ♥

(This is a post originally from Patreon, that I'm now mirroring over onto the project for anyone interested in the process!) 

I'll be reposting those posts over the next week, please check them out over on the source if you'd like to read them all in one go!

Hi everyone! ♥

For those of you who don't know, NaNoRenO is a 1 month visual novel jam taking place in March. I had fun last year with Just Kiss Her Already!, I've decided I'm jumping into it again this year! (Hopefully this year I don't get sick like last time!!)

This month I'll be doing a VN revolving around some of my more recent interests, as well as something a bit moodier (especially when it comes to the color palette!)

I have a couple images of the characters, though!:

These are the 3 characters I'll be working with!! A Magic user named Fern, as well as 2 siblings he gets involved with...

NaNoRenO doesn't really allow much work on it BEFORE the jam, so it' just doodles of them I did in the leadup to the Jam-- I'm excited to start on assets officially!  

Here is some more Esca and Sienna -- The pink and green men are characters belonging to my friend pann!  who'll also be taking part in Nanoreno. (I'll be including a nod to these 2 in the story too, please keep your eyes peeled! hehe.)

(Edit: Pann got busy and wasn't able to complete Nano this year! ><)

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GOALS!!

I've been reflecting on what I want to do with the visual novel medium and I think more interesting visuals'll be my focus for now. There's so much potential! (I'm far more of an artist than a writer...if people couldn't tell haha)

I don't have any single goal I'd like to achieve with this VN, rather a collection of mini-goals instead.  

I'll list them here for accountability's sake!

• Thick borders!
• Speech bubbles?
• Watercolor!!

Thick borders:

I've realized I have a love for thick borders... Sort of like how PC-98 VNS all had! I'd like to mess with that with this VN , as well as it doubling as a potential time saving method, having smaller (on screen) bgs might help, considering I want a couple locations this time around...

Speech Bubbles: 

Bonus goal is using speech bubbles!

I also have a love of comics/manga...So having speech bubbles I think could be fun. (Now that renpy's baloon system can display multiple on screen + wipe them, I'm excited to give it a go!) Maybe some additional panels too, with some of the aformentioned thick border look (If I can squeeze them in!)

This is currently relegated to the "nice to haves" catagory, that I'll aim for once the base game is complete and I know how much time I have.

Watercolor:

A less negotiable part of this, however, is watercolor!

I love watercolors! And since Hot Cocoa Magic turned out well, I'll try that process on something a little bigger!

To be on the safe side, I'm going to start with (maybe sketchy) digital versions of everything, before turning them into traditional media later (Which is my process with a lot of watercolor stuff anyways.) I'll make sure to try and cover the process + materials here!

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PLANS FOR WEEK 1

I should also mention I'm also working in collaboration with Yuluco , who is kindly helping out with the music!

(Edit-- Yuluco had to drop due to personal reasons, I'm still very thankful for the offer-- and their work is amazing, please check it out!)

My first goal is to get deliver a list of (musical assets) potentially needed + the VN assets roughed out in a way that can help showcase what the final VN will look like. after that, it's GOGOGO on the writing and drawing!

My current plans require: 

• 3 character sprites
• 4-5 BGS (though the BGs are 1/2 size)
• ~ 5 CGs (could be cut out?)
•  ~ 5k words

...Should be do-able! I'll report back next week and see if I'm having any serious trouble LOL

That's all for now- See you in a week's time for progress on the game itself! ♥