Post by Melancholy Marionette in Darling Duality comments

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Yeah, without Manly playing it, I'm pretty sure it would have remained largely unknown forever, haha. I'm so glad you enjoyed it :D Thank you very much for taking the time to play + comment. It's much appreciated!

I can't take much credit for the art as I cannot draw to save my life, sadly :( The sprites come from a sprite pack that I purchased in a sale from a Japanese artist. However, whenever I purchase sprites to use, I like to at least make them somewhat unique to my projects by altering the colours in GIMP if I can, so that they look as different from the originals as I can make them. The original versions have blonde hair, blue eyes, and their outfits are white and blue. I would love to be able to afford an artist someday to make some CGs for the game and maybe even someone who can mimic the art style or redraw in their style so that the sprites can have more poses!

The expressions took a lot of work, so I'm glad that was something that stood out :D The pack basically comes with the eyebrows, eyes, and mouths all separately, and along with the standard sorta mouth shapes, you also get A, E, I, O, U shape mouths to allow you to create quite a decent range of expressions. So I spent an awfully long time putting those together, and then even longer trying to get all the ones mid-sentence to match up with the voice acting, haha.

I'm very excited to get to writing the next episode for Castor/ia, but I think it might make more sense for me to release the introductory episodes for all the other characters first so that folks have an idea of the other characters on the roster :3 With enough support, I might be able to afford to have everyone voiced! So your support really makes a difference.

I do have a Patreon, but honestly, it's not very exciting x3 I've never had many Patrons on there, so I'm a little unsure what sort of content people would actually like to see me putting out as exclusive to Patrons! If everything goes smoothly with DD though, and I can actually afford to fund full voice acting, I might be able to add things on there like use of a person's name by a character of their choice, or exclusive Patron-only episodes.

Thank you again for your support :3

Alacritical4 years ago(+2)

Of course! I'm always glad to support any game developer I find who clearly is passionate about what they're making and creates good games, and you certainly fit that bill!

I see! My mistake about the art. I can certainly relate, as I'm much more of an author than an artist, myself. Regardless, though, the sprites and general artwork looked lovely, and the adjustments you made to the sprites fit the game very well.

Yeah, the expressions and how they changed as the text progressed really stood out to me! I'm kind of just used to characters in visual novels only having one expression per dialogue box, so seeing Castoria's often change as the text advanced definitely impressed me.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the Castoriaverse (for that is what I have dubbed it) develops! Personally, I would be glad to support you on Patreon without any consideration of patron-exclusive content or anything, but I definitely get the reason why it's included. I'm certainly glad to provide whatever support I can--and while I'm on the subject of thanks, thank you, as well, for the in-depth response! As someone who has aspirations of creating my own video games in the future, seeing you describe your creative process in regards to making the game was enriching, and I wholeheartedly appreciate it. Your passion for what you do is apparent, and that's awesome! Keep up the great work; I know there'll be more in the future!

Melancholy Marionette4 years ago(+1)

I'm glad that shines through cos if there's one thing I do have bucketloads of, it's passion for my projects xD

To be honest, I would love to be able to utilise Live 2D, but when I looked into that I just felt so out of my depth >.< Adding the mid-sentence expression changes was pretty much my answer to being too incompetent/lacking the resources to have Live 2D in the game :3 My brother said I was insane because, as you mentioned, he said that you generally only see expression changes with the start of the next bit text in VNs, but when I showed him the end result, he changed his tune because he said it makes it look kind of animated without actually being animated, haha. I'm not gonna lie though, it's an absolute nightmare to implement xD And it definitely doesn't work for anyone who wants to change the text print speed >.< I plan on keeping it up throughout the game though!

That's super sweet of you regarding Patreon :3 And I'm sorry if I rambled, haha. Sometimes I think I go a little too in-depth because I get so worked up about the stuff I'm passionate about that I type forever >.< aheh. That's awesome that you hope to make stuff too at some point though! You should definitely go for it when you feel ready :3 It may be challenging, but it's so much fun!

Thank you again for all the kind words and support :D

Alacritical4 years ago(+1)

I think the fact that you already implemented the expression changes is impressive in its own right, and I would imagine that you'd only become more proficient in and capable of handling more complex processes like Live 2D as you develop more games. We all have to build up to somewhere, eh?

There's no need to apologize at all, as you definitely didn't ramble! Your enthusiasm for what you're doing really is quite heartwarming. Thank you for the kind words, as well! I definitely have several game ideas drifting around in my head, but I just need to get off my lazy butt and get to work! (Or maybe not, since I would still be sitting down while I work... the phrase is a bit ill-fitting for this particular scenario, but you get my point, haha.)

It's lightheartedly funny how this series of messages has generally consisted of us taking turns thanking the other person, I must admit. I won't contribute to it much more, I promise, as I fear I may be creating some sort of infinite gratitude time loop, but I would like to thank you for these brief interactions, as a whole. I already knew you were a good game developer before, but now I know that you're a good, kind person, as well. My apologies if that was awkward or anything of that sort; I just sort of thought you deserved to know that. I'll leave it here on my end, as I already feel like I've been rambling myself; keep doing what you're doing and making great games!

Melancholy Marionette4 years ago(+1)

I guess you're right about becoming more proficient in other stuff as I develop more games :3 I often beat myself up for not being able to do what I want to, haha. But I do try to learn at least 1 new skill or trick with each game I make. There's always room for improvement :3

Hehe, yeah, I get your point :D I wish you much luck with bringing those ideas to life at some point! I have a bunch of ideas that kinda just get put on the back shelf because I need to make sure I'm finishing the stuff I've started before beginning too many side projects and such, haha. Game jams give me a bit of an excuse to revisit my jumble of ideas and actually turn them into something more solid. I think the next jam I attempt to make something for will be the Spooktober VN jam in September if it's going to be running this year! I missed it last year cos I didn't realise it was a September jam and not an October one >.<

I suppose we probably should stop before we get stuck in the loop forever xD I can't bring myself to not say one final thing back though because it feels wrong, haha. So I will send this and shush myself as well x3 You have my thanks for the interactions too as well as the general support :3 It's really nice to hear from anyone who's interested in the stuff I'm working on! Heck, it even gives me motivational boosts on days when I might be feeling down. I'll never be able to put into words just how much I appreciate the support for my stuff, and I'll continue to thank everyone for it until I kick the bucket, haha. There's only so much I can achieve on my own, and having help from folks who like what I'm trying to do really aids me in making everything better than I could make it without that help.

I didn't think it was awkward anyways, I thought it was really sweet :3 So thank you for saying so. I certainly try my best not to be an asshole in life, haha. You seem like a wonderful person yourself!

(One last thank you incoming for now xD) Thank you again for all your kind words :3 You keep on being awesome!

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