I am fairly new to using Itch.io for blog posting, but I am currently making this a bit of a devlog and an announcement. I am doing a small-scale project on Godot, a visual novel! The game name and concept are subject to change, but I got some of the framework down for the game itself right now.

The concept? 

 In a world where humans and vampires co-exist, you are a human detective tasked with working with the prince of vampires to solve a rising string of crimes within your city's district, which led to the sudden kidnapping of a human, Josiah "Infin" Wells. Word was given that the suspect is a regular at a local bar, so it is up to you and Seilrin to start an investigation and bring the perpetrator to justice. Time is of the essence. Will you find the right person to throw behind bars and find Josiah before it's too late?

Current Development Screenshots 

 Further comments

Currently, the game is rough, but I hope that I can continue to update as I go, sharing what I learned on Godot and making improvements! I hope to change the sprite work I did and create proper backgrounds when I get time. Right now, the backgrounds are placeholders, and soon, I will implement some music. I am hoping I could commission an artist who could make video game music soon, but if push comes to shove, I am willing to learn to do it myself if I gotta. As mentioned, I am using Godot and using the Dialogic 2.0 plugin, and so far, I have been enjoying my time with it as it is easy to handle with the visual event lists, which not only is good on the eyes for me, but it makes things easier to implement right away. I am still learning Godot's ways of handling things like nodes and its scripting, but I can't wait to dig into some tutorial videos and posts to try and understand this game engine.

Bloody Detective on Gdevelop (An old version)

Ironically, this project started out as a Gdevelop game, but the engine was too limiting to use as I kept running into roadblocks no matter what I did. I had to switch to Godot recently and had a much easier time managing my resources and getting things squared away there. Gdevelop is a simple program to start out in if you don't want to code. However, its simplicity became inflexible when trying to make a visual novel despite the developers saying how easy it is to make one on it. I don't have any hatred or bad blood toward Gdevelop. I even hope people can use it for their own projects as it is like an advanced version of Scratch where you could export and monetize your games for free, but the software and I just kept butting heads even no matter many hours I put into it. Sprites and assets kept getting low-quality resolution no matter what I did. The event sheet kept giving me problems despite the organization I put into, and my options were limited. My game needed Godot's flexibility, and I am happy I made the change. 

Currently, college is my priority, but I will try to keep updates coming! There is no projected release date or possible beta test prediction at the moment, so stay tuned!

                                                                                                                                                                            Stay Bright !      - - Neon (˙∀˙)🎮

Devlog #2

Bloody Detective Progress Intro

Yo! It's been a little since my last update, but I am happy to say that after looking into some tutorials for Godot and Dialogic 2.0, I got some working dialogue branches that work. All I gotta do is tighten up character interactions and continue at the pace I am at. However, I ran into a slight problem that I will mention later in this post.

Spritework Placeholders and Dialogic

Right now, I finished the placeholder sprites and currently am trying to wrap my head around the dialogic events, but today I had to take a day long break both for my own sanity and just to have fun playing Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. Though, making Belamy's (the drab-looking guy in the screenie) sprites was a pain cause I am stuck using Medibang for my art, and in it, there is no proper symmetry ruler. They have a symmetry pen, but I absolutely hate it so much... I am used to drawing on my phone with Ibis Paint X, but months back, I switched to drawing on my computer, and it had been an adjustment. I am glad that most of my art is of higher quality and outside Ibis, but dealing with the limitations of making sprite work on Medibang was a trip. 

As mentioned, I am currently cleaning up dialogue and trying to tidy things up because there is a possibility I may get a small demo out to get feedback and to show my friends and potential players the game concept. Of course, there is a lot to change, like the backgrounds and textbox design. I also want to include cutscenes for certain interactions you do, as well as the use of certain paths affecting others. I don't know how to explain it well, but just know that if you ask a character a certain question, new choices may crop up for other characters. I just know it will require a lot of variables and potential signals that need to be in place, but I hope this potential demo will be good enough. I am trying to take it easy as I make the game, so I will update you all when the demo release date is.

The problem

Ever since developing, my brain has been running with ideas for other cool games. Maybe after I finish Bloody Detective, I could do these projects when I do have time.  I just don't want feature creep to kick my butt right now, so I will only be focusing on making Bloody Detective, so I will just list these ideas to come back to later if I do look at this devlog after finishing it. BD is supposed to be a one-and-done deal that is easy to consume and enjoy, and these projects in my noggin are too expansive for me to tackle right now as a baby developer.


Random ideas

Castlevania fan game with original characters- Lately, I have been binge-consuming Castlevania content, and I sorta blame the fact I watched the Netflix adaption when it was released years ago. Now I am about to turn twenty thanks to my birthday coming up in like two weeks and now I managed to watch video essays on the games, played Symphony of the Night on an online emulator, and I got Harmony of Dissonance for my gameboy advance as an early birthday gift. I had to see what the source material was about and I don't regret this sudden fixation I have cause it at least is inspiring me to make a fan game to try to sorta capture the vibes in my own way. My only exposure to Metroidvanias at the time was Hollow Knight, which I adore to bits and pieces, so playing the games it was inspired by felt super enlightening. Heck, I already have concepts of this game even before Bloody Detective and I chose to make this VN as a bite sized project to get a feel for game deving, but of course a VN is way different to a Metroidvania. We'll just have to see and maybe when asked I could share the story and art I made of it so far cause I already even make a mock-up poster that wasn't even finished. The image shown below is just me brainrotting and trying to emulate Symphony of the Night's pixel art style, but it could only go so far when your oc is a mage who wears a cloak.

Identity V fangame for silly oc x canon cringe-      This is WAYYYYY too long of a story, and despite IDV having millions of players, it's still sorta that one game people either don't know or heard of out the blue due to their insane collaborations. I have this fanfic-y oc x canon thing based on one of the game's limited essence story [basically, they're gachas with special theming that is connected to each character], and the Man in Red essence is stuck in my brain. I can't tell if it's the fact I fell in love with the design of Naib's limited S tier, or the story being so interesting with an eldritch cult leader in some sort of purgatory world, but either way, I ate that up, and I made an oc to kiss him. I hate to admit I wrote about it and posted it on my Tumblr, but hey, I am cringe and free, and I don't mind it at all. The story ain't finished, so when I do finish I might turn it into a game. 

Black Butler mixed with Ace Attorney, Danganronpa(?), and Horror-     On the topic of cringe, I still love Black Butler despite the glaring flaws, and I mainly follow the current Manga rather than care about the anime (We do not talk about season 2).  I don't know how to explain it, but when I was 15, Sebastian scared the hell out of me when I first watched the anime when I had Netflix on my phone. It could be cause I grew up in a religious household, or because he looked uncanny with his long chin cause of how they drew him years ago, but I can't lie about the fact that he still gives me the creeps. There always was something uncanny about him, even in updated art, recent volumes, and chapters. It's actually really cool to see the author tap into that to make some cool scenes. The idea for a game for the series just came into my head in a dear where my Oc had to navigate the Victorian high society, cause people be frickin' lying, and put up so many facades that the idea of doing investigations, whether you are a demon or a noble just sounds really cool to me. I can't stop thinking of mixing some Ace Attorney and some Danganronpa mechanics of finding the truth in each testimony! Maybe a dash of horror would tie it all together because even though Sebastian scared me, I am still a fan of horror and I wanna see how far I could push the scare factor of something as Black Butler. Also, within this game, I am just gonna have my oc simp and treat Grell right cause I will never forgive the author for constantly letting Grell be misgendered and demeaned for being a transwoman bruh. That is something I always hated about BB, where she gets constantly misgendered along with many things in the series, so I am just gonna use my liberties as a game dev to rewrite certain things, both for the sake of the game to fit and for the characters. 

Bullet hell with an old story from high school-      There is an old story that I had where a guy turned into a cybernetically enhanced human after getting into an accident and accepting a deal to join this society that fights against huge monsters. I forgot how it went because this is back in high school in my public speaking class where my awesome teacher let me do a storybook assignment. I made a pretty poorly drawn comic for it with the two main characters involved, the cybernetic guy and his maintainer, I remember somehow getting an A cause the teacher liked how I had to narrate the comic at the time. I know I wanted the two characters to kiss at some point, but I forgot most of the plot points, and my teacher kept the comic, so I unfortunately don't have much to say about the story. I know it's supposed to be inspired off Evangelion and would deal with overcoming stuff, but again I mostly forgot. Maybe it would have gameplay like those classic games like Galaga or something? I dunno, I'll think more about it.

Conclusion

That's enough of me rambling anyway. To summarize, progress is coming in, but I had to take a tiny break. Baby steps are being taken, and I will do my best to bring a small demo out soon. I'll even work on some menus needed for the game and get some placeholder music soon. Right now, I could say progress has bumped up to like 22%. Also, compared to my first post, I decided to write informally cause A) this is my devlog, B) pretending to be professional is hardly something I could do, and C) In the end, I am making casual games and stuff I personally find fun. 

Stay Bright !      - - Neon (˙∀˙)🎮

Devlog #3

Proper Planning and Coherent Ideas

Throughout development, I was basically shooting in the dark as I started to learn more concepts in Godot, like signals, node functions, and how to make menus. It has been a major trip learning GDScript, especially when looking for specific concepts that need to be implemented for a gameplay hook that I finally came up with, which I will touch on later. I knew I had to organize the project sooner or later, so I used Milanote to organize my thoughts. Thank god I did because I managed to get some design concepts on updating character sprites, a potential budget for the game IF I were to go to the route of getting someone for music, and a checklist where I got about three things done so far by the time I make this post. 

I currently have a lot that I will have to withhold so I wouldn't spoil the game's plot and characters, but for now, I am willing to show two screenies of the Milanote chaos I am in.

Also, within the screenshot explaining how Seilrin was described as looking like Soma Cruz from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, it was a thing that happened some time ago when I showed my friend my redesign for Seilrin, reviving him because he was an old oc since I was about 12 (?) years old, they pointed it out. My friend is also a major Castlevania nerd, and I guess I freaked out noticing the similarities, but I will change up his design when I remake the sprites. It is kinda funny how coincidental it is, but honestly, I might keep Seilrin's general look and make small nods to Soma just because my  friend pointed it out. There are already a lot of differences between Seilrin and Soma cause my vampire dork is in his mid-twenties working as a detective to somewhat spite his father, whereas Soma is a high schooler who somehow got teleported to Dracula's castle lol. Either way, this isn't the only obligatory Castlevania reference I am shoving in this game because Juste's name came from Juste Belmont in Harmony of Dissonance, and I am lowkey adding Dracula in the game as a myth within the world-building I am doing. I am that cringe...

GDScript Insanity and Gameplay Hooks

I already detailed how much of a beginner I am with GDScript and got Dialogic 2.0 to make the process of making a visual novel much easier, and things were smooth sailing until I watched a Devlog of Goodgis, the current developer of Dewdrop Dynasty. I recently watched some devlogs to learn and point me in the right direction in my development journey, which also made me look into projects where I can support other developers. However, when I was watching a Dewdrop Dynasty devlog, Goodgis pointed out how important it was to find a gameplay hook, and I immediately panicked.

I was pacing in my room and shaking my cat, Mac, trying to find a proper gameplay hook that would actually make people interested in my project cause all I had right now was a basic visual novel of a concept I found interesting, but it is still a small indie project that needs to convince people "Hey guys, come play my game! I have hot vampires and you can play detective!". However, the crushing reality is that not everyone is like me and is immediately interested in the prospect of hot vampires in a visual novel. I can't just dangle a hot vampire on a fishing pole to attract people to my game. Every game has to have some type of hook for the player, whether that is Doki Doki Literature Club and its psychological horror or Castlevania and its sprawling maps and chaotic storytelling. 

My game is meant to be a detective game, and so I got to work thinking of ideas until I remembered Identity V and its super simple deduction system in many of its main story events (When the devs finally feel like dropping main story lore. Literally Ashes of Memory took way too long to come out for such a short mainline update).  I thought of many other games as well and how they added light detective elements to their game, and I finally came up with a small concept to work on.

It is a simple system where you collect claims from the people in the bar and refute other's claims to make them fess up or reveal more info that you need to bust the perp! It is a very rough idea, but it immediately fell apart when I started trying to code it by making a simple inventory of claims you can fish out. I am not going to describe it in too much detail, but just know that Dialogic 2.0 is kicking my butt when it comes to making separate GUI and mechanics outside of it, so I am currently trying to get creative as I go. I even tried to make an interface to get your filed claims that you got from people, but now I am afraid I may have to scrap it...

I worked hard on the small icons for it, so maybe after I look into more tutorials, I can figure out the issue, but wherever I search, I can't find much good stuff to help me with Dialogic. I asked the Godot forums before about how to get started with something like this, and I got pointed in the right direction, so I suppose I will just have to keep at it and see where it will lead me. For now, progress is slowed due to some coding issues that need to be scrubbed up and college kicking my sorry rear. Plus, my 20th birthday is in like eight days, and I am taking it as a proper break so I can celebrate. That's all for now, and hopefully, I can stop hitting such awkward dead ends soon!

Stay Bright !      - - Neon (˙∀˙)🎮

Devlog #4

Start of Customized Backgrounds and Updated Sprites

Finally took the time to start making backgrounds for the game so I could get a proper small demo out soon! Of course, there is still a lot to do, but right now, I am working on the starting area and reworking some of the dialogic events within it so you can inspect things like missing posters, graffiti, and even ask a few questions to Seilrin. More backgrounds will be made in the coming days, but I am taking it slow since I wanna give every location character and make it look lived in if that makes sense. Plus, backgrounds are not my strong suit, but I am gonna have to pull it together for this project and use what I know to the best of my abilities cause I may love making characters and designs, but they pretty much can't just stand in a literal photo for a BG forever. Besides, it just looks awkward having my simplistic-looking placeholder sprites standing around in a realistic-looking setting... I may update this street BG way later, but right now, my focus is on the two other locations and coding interactions.

With sprites, I had to quickly implement a highlighting feature by just dimming down the character sprites, so it would make it easier to tell who is talking and such. I am gonna have to find a way to make it look better when I  make the redone sprites, but this is what I have for now as an example of what I mean.

I also took the liberty of having to scale up the sprites because they just felt way too far back to me, but this is subject to change, especially in terms of scaling things for my future backgrounds...

Giving a face to Josiah "Infin" Wells

If you take a closer look, you can see that I added missing posters of Infin and promptly gave him a face, which will be used for a cutscene that will be made once backgrounds and story tweaking are done. Adding missing posters is not only an environmental storytelling bit, but it just makes sense, considering this is a missing person who needs to come home immediately. It's pretty much a no-brainer. Below is a sketch of Infin as a cooldown sketch from the background, and just cause I like randomly sketching stuff.

Infin was an Aotu World oc who I repurposed after I just fell out of the series and fandom, so I redesigned him properly and decided to have him as the person you are searching for. More things about him will be revealed through questioning, so you aren't just looking for info about potential suspects but about the victim himself.


Slow and Steady

Developing right now is rewarding knowing that things right now are working as intended, but sometimes I can't help but feel like Patrick from Spongebob with that board nailed on his head. I am doing something, even if it is a little progress, and the little wins count for me because I don't want to feel discouraged when a concept or gameplay tactic just doesn't wanna work. As I said, I will work on backgrounds and proper interactions between characters. Cleaning up dialogue to make it more natural is hard, but it's worth the effort if it means that my characters will sound distinct.

I also have been taking regular breaks, which has helped ALOT  in keeping my mind fresh on some ideas and coding trickery I could pull with Dialogic and Godot, so I am happy that I am scheduling myself rather than spending hours having to stress about my dev work. This is for the best, considering I have more classes coming up that involve math, which will probably make me cry more than coding ever could. I hate numbers, yet I supposedly am good at them, according to my family. Either way, I recently bumped the topic of my game to 30% thanks to the steps I've been taking, so yippeee!

Stay Bright !      - - Neon (˙∀˙)🎮