NaNoRenO2020 - Week 1 Devlog

In an effort to encourage other visual novel (VN) developers to document their process of creating VNs, I've decided to provide weekly updates on the production of Dear Devere.

Dear Devere is a visual novel being made during the month-long NaNoRenO2020 game jam. Week 1 has passed. Here's what happened:

Week 1:

• Schedule everything: Before March, I made a Google Spreadsheet calendar of March, with tiny lists of things to do each day. Hopefully, I can stay on schedule.
• Writing: The script is about 35 scenes in total. I charted my writing progress on this Twitter thread.
• The script totals at around 8,400 words at the moment (though the final VN is likely to have less words, since mainly of the words in the script are programming notes that the player won't see).
• Writing: I'm using Scrivener for writing and I highly recommend it, especially if you like keeping research notes, or notes on characters' names, etc.
• Writing: I'm also including descriptive text (descriptions of the visuals the player if they've turned on the VN's Self-Voicing feature) so that the game is more accessible to the visually impaired. Many players won't hear it, but for those who do, I tried to keep the descriptive text in the same style as the rest of the game's world (whilst still being brief for players' convenience). The script has also been edited by one of the proofreaders.
• UI Art: I've finished the majority of the UI art assets.
• Programming UI: I'm using a GUI template and re-doing all the art assets for it.
• Art: I've been gathering public domain and royalty free images for the art assets. I'm going for a college art style.
• Voice Acting: Recording tests are being done at the moment. Very exciting!
• Music: The VN's OST is being created by Paul Robins, who is working on tracks.
• SFX Ambience: The SFX ambience has been completed by Sarah S.
• Promoting: I've been Tweeting about Dear Devere's Itchio page on Twitter, as well as Tweeting screenshots of documents (the proofreading script and the voice actor spreadsheet), as well as Tweeting my progress on NaNoRenO.

Plans for Week 2:

• Voice Acting: Hopefully starting recording this week, as this will give the voice actors more time.
• Programming UI: There are some screens in the VN that need lots of adjustments (the Credits screen and the Help screen), as well as smaller adjustments (the bars in the Settings screen need to be more aligned after updating the UI art).
• UI Art: Need to complete a couple art assets such as the main menu.
• Art: I'm very excited to start work on the art.
• Collecting SFX: I can spend some time collecting the sound effects for Dear Devere. As I wrote the script, I made a list of what sound effects I would need--handy!
• Promoting: I'll continue Tweeting my progress of the game. I'll also be able to post art assets this week, as well as post ongoing announcements.
• Livestreams: I plan on doing some dev livestreams of me making art assets. Follow me on my Twitch channel.

So that's my week 1 devlog. Wish us luck for week 2!