Post by melancholicmarionette@gmail.com in Sapphire Snowe: The Bear, The Beast & The Blizzard comments

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melancholicmarionette@gmail.com90 days ago(+1)

I have that problem a lot with different things x3 I’m so glad you still decided to leave a comment though! And really happy that you enjoyed the game :3

I tried my best to not just make Saffie me, even if I did put a lot of myself into her, haha. In some ways, I’m happy that she’s relatable because it can feel very isolating to live with depression, and so it helps a little just to know you’re not alone, but on the other hand, it’s kind of saddening to hear that she is just because I wish no one in the world had to feel the way she does in the first place >.<

The choice that leads to branch B is pretty mean x3 buuuut, there’s still a happy-ish ending available in branch B at least :D it’s just not as happy as most of what’s in branch A, haha.

That’s so cool that you decided to start making your own VN :D Tyranobuilder is what I used to make my very first VN! I also made my 2nd, super short game with it before making the switch to Naninovel, but Tyrano is definitely fantastic for starting out :3 Honestly, without Tyranobuilder, I would probably never have got into making VNs at all, so I owe it a lot.

I was also terrified of Ren’Py xD I managed to make a short demo project using it, but by the end, I thought, if this is what I have to go through to make a game, then I’m not sure I want to bother x3 I just found the coding side of things so boring and headache-inducing. Luckily, I remembered that I got Tyranobuilder as part of a Humble Bundle, and decided to give that a go instead! It does what it says on the tin in terms of making it possible for a person to create games without knowing a single thing about coding :D

I still feel like an idiot for choosing to make my very first game a full-length big one (Solipsism Reigns) x3 but still, the fact that it was achievable in Tyranobuilder says a lot about the software :3 The only reasons I switched to Naninovel was because once I learned more about game dev in general over the course of working on that long project, I realised how slow it was to put things together with point and click as an interface + Tyrano was a little clunky sometimes and produced weird bugs for different people’s computers seemingly at random >.< I found it irritating that everything seemed to work fine for me when I tested it, but some people couldn’t even open the game, and others had strange issues like videos not loading, or save files disappearing :( Even now, some people can still play my first game just fine, and others can’t even get it to launch x3

But yeah, Naninovel is pretty expensive >.< I’d say it’s worth it if you end up getting really into making visual novels :3 But it’s probably best to wait until it’s on sale because it does have 50% off a few times a year for different sale events like Christmas and stuff! I managed to get it half price when I bought it. It was a bit daunting to use at first, but the simplified scripting language is actually pretty easy to pick up, and the tutorials for it are so detailed and super helpful!

Don’t worry anyhow, everything you wrote made sense to me just fine :3 And that’s so sweet of you to say! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying some of my games ^-^ And even more glad that you’ve been liking the voice acting :D One of my big hopes when I first started trying to make VNs was to win people over to liking English voice acting in VNs x3 Because back when I started, a lot of people still had the opinion that English voice acting was bad, so they would refuse to play projects with it or just mute the voice acting >.< Or they would only play VNs with Japanese VA and ignore the ones with English VA. That made me sad cos I’ve been passionate about voice acting for such a long time, and I really wanted to try and show that English VA can be incredible too! :3

I hope whenever you have a chance to check out my other stuff that you end up liking it :D And thank you so much for playing and commenting on this one <3 Good luck with your own project, and I hope you have lots of fun in the process of making it ^-^

Alira88 days ago(+1)

Ye! ^W^

Yea, I can understand that! I tend to put some ~~or alot~~ of myself into my characters, though it varies depending on whomst the level of it, though I don't always know what exactly I have cause I've not been properly diagnosed with anything(Well technically I got blanket diagnosed with BD2 a while ago, but I know myself enough to know my problems are not just that). I just know something isn't right and it does not fall under just one thing X'3

Ooooo, now I'm curious so I'll see about doing that branch when I can then! :O

Yeee, it's been super fun working with Tyrano, even when I've encountered really weird bugs like the Shake character thing repeating when it shouldn't have several lines after it happened XD But it's definitely making me want to do more than I can with it, but I'm going to stick with it until I fully know what I'm doing!

HONESTLY that's REALLY fair. For me the coding side just outright terrified me and overloaded my brain to where I had a mild panic attack as a result when I tried to understand it, and even though one of my best friends offered to learn Ren'Py coding for me, ngl I just want to be able to make games on my own without needing to pingpong my files between me and the friend for her to code in. Not helping matters is my current project a bit too personal to want her seeing it as I'm writing it X'D It's a bit heavy topic wise and if I post it anywhere there's going to be a disclaimer on stuff in it, cause yeah there's some heavy topics discussed at least.

Ooo, ye it does! Ngl Solipsism Reigns is another one of your games I've been meaning to play but keep getting distracted from doing so, hopefully at some point I can get my brain to focus long enough to play it fully! :D And oough, I'll keep that in mind for mine then. Hopefully the last update Tyrano got fixed those bugs? Granted the last update before any updates stopped was two years ago so, HM, dunno X'D

Ngl so far, I think I am getting into making VNs, I just, neeeed to finish my first one before I REMOTELY try to come up with or start other projects XD I have like, two other game projects I've sat on for years cause I kept changing how I wanted to handle them(RPG maker game, then novel format, and just it's a mess), but if this first test VN goes well, I may convert them over to VNs just cause it's a medium I GREATLY enjoy and can do with my usual style of writing. I just need to be able to find terms to use for finding specific sound effects XD Cause so far it's finding sound effects that's been a mild issue(also OST, but I both bought a music album from a user on Booth, "Ruha (Pastel Tone Music)" did with a artist called sasAIchi who I found thanks to playing DD and being curious on who made Castor/ia's sprites, and I know a royalty free music youtuber(granted for melancholy or dark tracks) so I'm fine on that front for the moment), cause I don't know what to search for when I'm trying to find like, a grab? grabbing? sound effect, I know places I can get free SFXs, but finding ones like that is hard XD I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for when Naninovel goes on sale though! Cause I'm really enjoying making the VN I'm working on! Even if it's emotionally draining to write at points XD

Yay! I'm always worried I don't make sense cause I tend to ramble alot and go off on tangents that go everywhere before I circle back to my original main topic, so I'm really glad I made sense! >w< Yeee, I understand that! Ngl prior to your games, I've only played exactly THREE VNs that had voice acting to my memory, and the voice acting was in Korean XD Most other ones I've played only had partial or no VA work in them, though the three I mentioned are big big BIG sources of my love for VNs. One I cannot recommend much cause it does NOT respect your time and is a big mobile game that moves in real time, plus it personally ruined my sleep schedule when I went to do all the routes that were in it at that point, but the other two I do if you don't mind them being rather pricey and very much long games ;w; They're "Nameless ~The One Thing you Must Recall~" and "Dandelion ~Wishes Brought to you~", they're really good and I adore them to utter bits, namely Nameless, even if they're not my top favorite VN I've played, they're close but not quite. But uh, side tangent about those two aside, I get what you're saying! I used to be a bit hesitant of VNs with English voice acting, but ngl I'm warming up to them thanks to your games >w< I'm just not used to understanding what's being said when it comes to voice work in VNs, I feel, but I'm getting used to it!

Ye! :D No problem and thank you! So far it's turning out really well and I'm having alot of fun, even if I'm just writing as I go for the moment instead of writing it out in a document or something beforehand, which is probably not wise but it's at least working for me XD

melancholicmarionette@gmail.com83 days ago

Yeeeah, places seem to love just slapping random diagnoses on people without taking the time to properly figure out what’s going on >.< Funnily enough, I also got a diagnosis of Bipolar 2, but after being seen for adult ASD tests and diagnosis, the people who diagnosed me with ASD think that the bipolar diagnosis is incorrect, and what I actually have is ASD + ADHD, which can look somewhat similar to bipolar, but isn’t x3 So far, I only have the ASD diagnosis, and I don’t know if I have the energy to also pursue one for ADHD >.<

Tyrano can be silly like that x3 Hopefully it’s at least improved a bit though since I used it!

It is better to be able to do stuff yourself cos it can be tough to rely on others for things when they have their own lives to live and their priorities might not necessarily be the same as yours. I know I would also end up feeling like a burden if I were asking someone to handle code for me x3 unless we were part of a proper studio/team or something I guess.

It’s a slippery slope once you start making VNs xD You’ll probably end up addicted like me :P

I always have a bit of trouble with certain SFX even though I have a pretty big library of assets at this point. What I often end up doing is combining sounds and editing them to get something close to what I want, haha. If that fails, I try to search for things that might sound similar even if they’re not exactly what I’m looking for. Like for grabs, I don’t have any actual SFX in my library labelled grabbing, but I will use one that says it’s like clothes rustling or something instead, haha.

I feel you on writing sometimes being emotionally draining too x3 I really have to be in the right frame of mind to actually make progress with writing, haha. Sometimes it comes easily, other times it’s more like it’s impossible and feels like I will never be able to write another word again xD

It does seem like more and more indie VNs are including English VA these days :3 Each year I play stuff from Spooktober Jam, there’s more voice acting, which is just awesome :D

Oh, boy, yeah, I don’t have time for games that want me to log in all different hours of the day anymore >.< I used to play stuff like that, but now I just find it too frustrating, overwhelming, and time-consuming.

Omg, I’ve played Nameless and Dandelion :D They’re definitely both great games :3 Actually, they must’ve been some of the first PC VNs I played cos I started out on like Voltage mobile ones and stuff, haha. Weirdly, I preferred Nameless to Dandelion even though I like the setting of Dandelion better! I feel like maybe cos the characters in Nameless were stronger! I even pre-ordered a special physical pack for Mystic Messenger years ago just cos I loved Nameless and Dandelion so much xD Sadly, I wasn’t able to keep up with Mystic Messenger updates though cos my phone was too crap and couldn’t physically download them, haha.

Well, having fun with it is the most important thing :3 When you’re not having fun anymore, you know something has gone wrong x3 I also used to write as I go! I found it easier for whatever reason, but I forced myself to stop doing it a while ago just because it made it soooo much harder for me to go back and check my spelling & grammar throughout >.< haha. Now I always write in a doc first to save time later on with editing x3

Hope you continue to have lots of fun with it! :3

Alira78 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Itch why didn't you send me a email for this reply aAAa- Huh! Okay ngl that gives me some optimistic hope for trying to go for a more correct diagnosis, cause I'm suspecting I have Autism/ASD, but don't know for sure and I'm going to need to see someone outside my area to get rediagnosed which isn't fun considering my physical issues. X3 Also that is honestly very fair, I haven't gone to get rediagnosed myself for much the same reasons of not having energy for it yet, plus my RA(Rheumatoid Arthritis) or whatever it is has made most physical movement very draining to do as of recent months.

Hopefully! I ended up having to install a UI theme cause the bright base one made my head ache and the new theme changed icons/layout of things so I had to relearn it, but it seems to work well enough? Though my test VN was rather small and the next thing I wish to do is decently big so I'll be pushing it once I get energy to pick what big project of mine to do. (I have like, three VN ideas, ones new while the other two are old ideas of mine)

Yeye, the most I'm really willing to do is have that friend playtest my things to catch any spelling errors, otherwise...I'd feel like a burden if she was having to code everything for me as well ngl ;w;

Yeah ngl I think I am cause after I finished that Test VN I want to make more I just need to get so many more resources before I can XD Still heavily conflicted if I'll post the test VN or not(cause wowzie, got extremely personal at the end), but! It's playable from start to finish even if my prose at times did not work with the text box constraints so it looks a bit off XD

Ooo, ngl I'd try combining SFXs if I knew how ngl, I ended up finding some cloth SFXs that worked for my purposes, just took aLOT of looking around. XD

Oh gosh, I completely understand that, it's been hard for me to find the right headspace to properly write much of anything lately X'D It's either really easy or difficult, and I only finished my Test VN after having a very rough day that I just used as a way to finish out one of the more emotionally draining segments and then was able to finish it after that more easily.

Oooo, ye!

Same tbh, I can hardly keep up with the mobile games I play and they aren't nearly as demanding of my time, so stuff like MysMes I can't really return to easily XD

:DD Yay!!! Ngl that makes me super happy cause I've not found anyone who's played Nameless and Dandelion before ^W^ They were definitely among the first PC VNs I've played among like.....ngl I can only remember Princess of Ruin(which I recommend since it got a Itch release recently) cause I played way too many VNs/Otomes back then including mobile ones in the "Shall We Date" series XD But I definitely get preferring Nameless to Dandelion! I loved Dandelion alot cause I played it first, but generally I prefer Nameless due to the characters...that does remind me I want to replay it, oops XD Oooo, that's awesome! :O I don't have any physical merch for MysMes or any of the dev's games cause couldn't afford it, but I might eventually try at some point ^^ And ye, I was the same, I managed to complete all the base routes of MysMes after spending a bit to unlock the "Deep" routes(which I admittedly did at the start cause the route I wanted to do was not one of the free ones), but I wasn't able to keep up with the updates after a point and despite there now being a route for V which I had been wanting(which I would also need to pay for, why), I still haven't gone back besides to reread chats when I have the space XD

Yeee! :D I'm definitely going to need to write in a doc first from this point on, namely cause besides my friend catching some spelling and grammar mistakes(only around four-ish surprisingly but still I was mildly embarrassed), the write as I go isn't going to work for any of my bigger projects, it'd only work for something really short like what I did but not for longer ones XD Especially if I try to have route splits or variable tracking, good god that would be, a big mess XD

Thank you, I hope so too! I'm currently trying to mentally plot out my next project as well as buy the assets I'm going to need, but it's fun to do and I can't wait to make another VN! ^W^

melancholicmarionette@gmail.com71 days ago

That happens to me all the time, haha.

I hope you’re able to eventually get somewhere with a diagnosis :3 That sucks you’ve got arthritis >.< It sort of runs in my family, and it’s what stopped my gran from eventually being able to walk cos it was so bad in her knees. My poor dad has it in his knees, back, and fingers as a result of his work, and even though I’m only in my thirties, I’ve also got it in my knees, though nowhere near as bad as my dad. But yeah, it’s horrible :(

I hate having to redo any kind of UI stuff, it drives me insane x3 haha.

There are a lot of free assets and stuff out there too if you don’t mind using those so you don’t have to pay for every single thing :3 It’s just the terms of use on free ones tend to be stricter than on paid ones.

That’s fantastic you managed to finish that first project though :D If you’re worried about posting it, you could always work on more projects to build up experience, and then come back to deciding whether or not to post it at a later date :3

Oooo, nice, Princess of Ruin is one that’s been on my list of things to play for a looooong time now, but I had no idea it had an itch release! :o

Hehe, yeah, I used to just devour most VNs I could get my hands on whether they were PC or mobile years ago x3 Now I’m a lot more picky since I never give myself as much time as I should to play stuff T_T

I know some people use things like Scrivener or even Twine for writing their stories and testing branches etc. I never have myself cos I’m kind of terrible at trying out new things when I’m already stuck in my ways x3 but I imagine they’d be very helpful for planning stuff better!

So glad you’re having fun with it all anyhow :D I hope you continue to enjoy it cos it’s an awesome thing to do :P

Alira70 days ago(+1)

Hopefully! And, god, I know that feeling, it's in my knees too, as well as right hand and most of my feet, makes walking really hard ;w; Arthritis runs in my family as well, I don't know if my dad has it but my mother does though she's kept quiet on how it affects her. Meanwhile with me I've also gotten the possibility of Fibro adding to it after my last visit to my RA doc and general doc ;w; Cause since the RA meds haven't done anything to help besides take the edge off, when I told the RA doc that he brought up the high possibility of Fibromyalgia as to why I'm still in so much pain, which just. Was such a severe gutpunch that I spent most of the day crying cause I'm still in my twenties and there's no cure for for it, so. Yeah :')

Yeee, I ended up only using free SFXs, it was just hard finding a cloth sound effect that'd work for grabs XD As for everything else, I honestly just have ALOT of problems finding what I'm looking for unless it costs money, like sprites and backgrounds I've had to resort to DLsite and Booth cause I just don't know where else to look and google doesn't help much XD

Yee, that's true, I just don't know when I can get around to my next project, I'm still needing to buy assets for it like backgrounds XD But I may end up just posting it and making sure to put the trigger warning I put in the game on the page. Nothing really overt occurs, and it's mainly just mentioned in passing, but it's still heavy considering the MC is not in a good headspace. I also am sliiightly nervous to post it just because I didn't realize the terms for one of the artists of the royalty free music I used had a thing where I would need to email him if I wanted to use in a commercial project, which I just planned to make it pay what you want, but since his music ended up being the main ones I used, slight fear cause I'm too shy/socially anxious to email him so it may just end up free with my ko-fi listed in the description XD

Yeye! I only found out thanks to googling the dev and finding out they were still alive after many years of being inactive. I plan to buy it when I'm able cause, ngl, I originally played it via pirating it(Cause I'm poor 99% of the time ;w;) but cause I ended up loving it I want to officially buy it to support the dev. just need to save up to afford it X'D

Saaaame, though my issue is my brain being a twat and not letting me focus on things besides what it wants to hyperfocus on with it severely biting me if I try to focus on anything but that, I have such a large backlog of games I have but haven't played yet it's ridiculous thanks to it ;w;

Honestly that's fair, I don't think I'll end up using those myself, just cause I THINK I tried twine but it was confusing so I ended up dropping it X'D I might just fully write in Google docs and just trust myself to remember things/make big enough notes for route splits, it's just programming tracking what route is being chosen that I imagine I'll have issues with XD

Ye!

melancholicmarionette@gmail.com57 days ago

That's not good :( Tbh, I'm really scared of ending up like my grandma because she was so frustrated at the fact that her mind worked perfectly fine but she couldn't get her body to cooperate, and in the end, she was in so much pain that she struggled to stand without aid >.< It's such a horrible thing to have. And man, fibro on top is even worse! I have a friend with Fibromyalgia and it really impacts her life a lot. She tries really hard to not let it stop her from doing things, but some days, she just really struggles.

I'm so sorry that you're in that situation :( I don't blame you for being upset about it because it's a devastating thing to hear when you're so young >.<

Hehe, finding the perfect SFX is a big challenge! Once I find one that works well for certain things, like grabbing, I tend to end up using the same one across multiple projects because it's easier than trying to find new ones x3

And yeah, getting decent assets is pretty hard, especially if you don't have much money to spend on that sort of thing >.< I've never really totalled up exactly how much it cost me to make each of my games, but all of them involved me buying assets of some kind. Sapphire Snowe was probably the most expensive one so far cos I used soooo many assets x3

Actually, I struggle to find backgrounds more than anything because there don't seem to be that many artists making background assets, so then you wind up seeing a whole bunch of VNs all using Minikle's backgrounds, haha. Also, backgrounds seem to be the most expensive to buy too >.<

Google never helped me much either since most available assets seem to come from Japan >.< I know there are a few indie devs and artists who sell assets on itch.io that are pretty nice :3 I've seen sprites and music and stuff on itch. And also there's a lot on the Unity asset store too depending on your needs with some pretty good sales sometimes!

Yeah, it's always best to mention trigger stuff regardless of how much focus there is on it just so as not to accidentally harm anyone :3 I always find it hard to write the warnings & triggers cos it's tough to know what to say without spoilers. That's why I started putting the main ones as bullet points and then using spoiler tags to make a dropdown that contains literally everything I could think of that might be touched on x3

Ahh, right, yeah you've gotta be careful with the terms of use and stuff, haha. Though, I've actually played a fair few projects on itch where I recognise some of the assets used because they're ones I've got as well, and the devs have actually failed to follow the terms and not credited artists and stuff like they're supposed to >.<

You have to be especially careful with sprites because sometimes, even the ones that you buy which say they can be used for personal or commercial use have extra terms that say things like, but you're not allowed to redraw them in CGs or other poses, not allowed to make merch of them, not allowed to change the colours, and a whole bunch of other things that they don't want you to do >.< I've bought a few asset packs that are completely useless to me because I didn't understand the full terms of use (because using Google translate on Japanese text isn't exactly ideal >.<)

Hehe, yeah, I get that with brains being a twat x3 I find it extremely difficult to tear myself away from whatever my hyperfocus of choice at the time is >.< it's a nightmare, haha.

Google docs seems to work well enough for me :3 I use stuff like different text colours and headings/subheadings etc. to try and organise my stuff a bit better and see things easier, haha. Like I can do choices with subheadings so that it allows me to see them at a glance on the side panel rather than having to scroll through it all. And then I write notes that aren't part of the story writing in like purple or whatever, haha.