[VX Ace]A land of Flowers (v0.1.0) [2/24]

[YSlayer]

Update[3/14] - Real life got in the the way for a bit but I'm back working on this. I haven't made a ton of progress since before but even if its slow going I'm still doing what I can. I've started on the next city. I am awful at making maps. Even for the shitty maps I put out it takes me days to finish a screen. Adding NPCs is much easier for me. I intend for the next city to have 2 screens and I have essentially finished the first screen (no NPCs or interiors yet). I will probably set the next release for when I've done the next city and added 5 or so events to find on the world map. Since real life issues are still getting in the way somewhat its hard to tell exactly how fast I will be able to put this stuff out. If no one shows any interest I will probably go till the end of the island and then just say thats the end of part one. More feedback would be very welcome.
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Hibiscus.jpg (119.78 KiB) Viewed 3086 times

I've played games here and fiddled around with RPG maker for a long time but i finally want to actually try seriously to create something. I feel there is a niche that is currently in need of more content now for a more light-hearted ecchi style harem game with a girl instead of the normal guy at its center. I intend for the majority of sexual content to be pretty light and vanilla and focus more on sexy situations rather than straight up porn right from the start but it will still work its way towards more and more sexual stuff.

The story is about a girl living a quiet life on the edge of a village when all of a sudden a different girl falls from the sky and lands right in front of her. For one reason or another, the two of them end up setting off on a journey to return the girl to where she came from and along the way, figure out why it, as well some other mysterious events, happened in the first place.

Info/fetishes
-Female protagonist
-Lesbian
-Not too serious
-Aiming for a 1-3 hour long game when finished
-No guys
-Not too much weird stuff

Currently the demo ends before you even get in to town and theres no combat. Speaking of combat, i have what i think will be a nice system in mind but it will take a fair bit of work and im not very experienced at programming so i will probly put it off till i have more content. The idea is to have each character choose an interaction before combat (such as kissing a teammate or taunting an enemy or encouraging an ally) and these interactions effect the mood the character is in while the combat itself is automated based on the characters stats and mood. The mood is a stat altering state that effects which abilities the character will use as well as hp/mp recovery and stat multipliers so it will be very important to keep each character in the ideal mood. The effects of the actions you take are largely based on the out of battle relationship the characters have with each other (so one teammate kissing a shy teammate might give them the embarrassed state which will stop them from trying a flashy and more powerful move but might increase their mp regen).

That stuff wont be necessary to how the rest of the game works though so dont expect to see it for a while. Currently all characters and sprites are placeholders.

NEW
I'm adding a character progress system called the bloom system. If it wasn't clear already each character will be named after a flower with the slight exception of Yurika (she is represented by a lily though). As the characters experience personal growth in scenes and side quests, their bloom percent will increase. Certain moves and moods will require a certain bloom% to be reached before unlocking. Upon reaching 100% a new mood is unlocked in battle and entering it will allow your character to do their secret move. I don't know when I will add this. Probly after I finish the Island.

Obviously this game will be free always and i dont intend to do any delayed release patreon stuff. If i ever do have any kind of patreon or donation link, using it wont give you any kind of preferential treatment or early releases or any of that kind of stuff.

Stuff in current version (0.1.0)
-Intro sequence done.
-NPCs for lily village done (some have lots of dialogue. keep talking till you get a repeated line, different dialogue in the village and in the meeting room)
-still can't leave for the next city yet.

Stuff intended in next major version (0.2.0) ETA: Not too sure. Hopefully 1-2 weeks. I beat my ETA for 0.1.0
-path leading to Aquilegia
-Aquilegia map

Stuff intended for later releases
-interaction mood based combat system (far off)
-bloom character progress system
-finishing island (3 cities, 1 dungeon) (hopefully not that far off)
-introduce and add 3rd party member (probly at the end of the island although i might sneak her into a side story for a brief intro)
-introduce 4th character (should mark about 1/3 through the game, wont be till after the island)
-stuff
-Final boss encounter (a year if im lucky, i already have it mostly planned out though)

Version 0.1.0
http://www.mediafire.com/download/demqcfirwe6whoc/A_Land_of_Flowers.exe

PS. Ive never used any upload service so if this link is wrong or broken or something, il try to fix it as soon as possible. Be gentle ;-;

[x3Darkie]

First of all, I haven't tried the game yet (I will later) but what you written here intrigued me, so I'll be writing some of my thoughts/feedback here.

"The story is about a girl living a quiet life on the edge of a village when all of a sudden a different girl falls from the sky and lands right in front of her."
This part sounds like Heaven's Lost Property. Except that in your case the protagonist is female. Now this isn't a criticism. I'm not against it or anything, it's just an observation.

When you mean "No guys," do you mean there will be no males in the game at all or that males will not be featured in h-scenes?

The combat system you have in mind is absolutely doable without external scripts or plugins (like I mentioned earlier, I haven't tried it yet, is your game in VX/Ace or MV?). I know you said you're putting it off until you have more content in game, but if you want to get started, I suggest looking up tutorials on how to utilize common events, variables, switches in battles and general eventing stuff.

I am willing to offer my services as an artist provided that you like my style (and some other stuffs but this is just an early proposition). I feel like I met pretty much all of your requirements. If you want to take a look at my art style head over to my thread. But basically my style resembles manga much more than anime. Most manga have bold line work with varying thickness to contrast the backdrop whilst anime for the most part uses thin line work since it has colors to do the contrasting.

As for file hosting services, I recommend Mega. While it doesn't give you the statistics, it's still in my opinion one of the best hosts out there. But you could also consider hosting on multiple hosts. ...I should follow my own advice. Shh.

[YSlayer]

Ah, thanks for your response. It will become clear in the next update so i guess a spoiler wont really matter but all the guys in the world vanished at the same time Hibi and the other main characters came to the world. Essentially the world has become devoid of men and then compensated in numbers somewhat by having a bunch of women appear. Who or what is behind this will remain a mystery for quite a while. I actually have the answer to that in mind but i need to come up with some mid point hints that wont give everything away but will still let the player feel like they are making progress. I also essentially got the name down today. Its going to be something to the effect of "a land of flowers". Im still not sure if im gonna stick with a land or the land or the world or something but the main point of the title is there and i feel like it informs the viewer fairly early about the point of the game as well as being a play on yuri (meaning lily literally). Essentially a land of flowers in this sense is a land of pretty girls which is what the events have transformed this world into.

Today i started on the village stuff. I had some stuff to do today so i didnt get a ton of work done but the eventing is coming along nicely. I actually know a fair bit of programming with ruby, its just the base system in vx ace is somewhat confusing. Most of my experience comes from xp and vx ace handles things very differently. As far as actions and states go, i understand how to do that, but queuing up character actions in battle for the auto battle part will take a bit of thinking. Its certainly not beyond my abilities but at the same time, programming is really draining for me and often times its what saps my motivation to work on a project. My goal on putting it off was to have enough of a game and hopefully a small following that i could sustain that motivational hit much easier. In truth, making a game isnt hard at most specific points, its maintaining motivation that is the hard part. At least for me.

Well and the artwork lol. Just met someone today that i absolutely cant tell about this game that has amazing artwork at a pretty young age and it still amazes and depresses me how people can so clearly express an idea in their head visually. Anyway i will look up your artwork after i post this but a manga style is fine. Specifically i just wanted a japanese style of character drawing. This game espouses the harem genre (hopefully) and simply makes it a lesbian harem and i really want to keep as much of what makes ecchi harem anime in this game as possible. There will be some common tropes with their own unique twists. There will be banter, there will be sexy silly scenes, there will be romantic scenes, there will be sex scenes. All of these scenes are in service to what makes ecchi interesting rather than straight up porn. It has teasing, it has comedy, it has twinges of romance, but at the heart of it all is a fantasy. A fictional setting that you (the viewer or in this case player) wishes were real. Thats the ultimate goal of my game.

As for mega or mediafire, i always find the mediafire links work faster than mega so i decided to start with that. From a hosts point of view i dont even know whats important but hopefully mediafire is fine. Maybe with my next release i will check out mega and maybe upload on both of them.

[x3Darkie]

I've just took some time off and tried it. It's a good start. I'm going to offer a little bit of actual critique now. Of course, I know it's still very early in development, so if anything I said you've already changed, planned to change, planned to absolutely not change or is just currently a placeholder, feel free to ignore it and hopefully my criticism doesn't demotivates you. It's easy for others (and in this case, me) to evaluate others' work. When you've been working on the project for so long, it's inevitable that you'll eventually grew bias to it and miss stuff. So don't let it demotivates you. Also, spoilers for those who haven't tried it yet.

The part where the girl falls into the pond needs a bit more "oomph." Specifically, try making Yurika pause for second or two when she lands and maybe have her say something. A sound effect and possibly a slight vertical screen shake is also recommended when she lands to provide more of an impact. Instead of "No response," I think a simple "..." would work better. If you wanted it to be more narrative (which seems to be what you're trying to go for), make it longer and provide more context. But I can't exactly tell you HOW to make it more narrative since I lack context in terms of game lore and such. Oh and, Hibi isn't facing Yurika when they are talking. "Hibi renews her confident grin." window style isn't in dim or whatever VX's equivalent is. Using the transparent window style for internal thoughts is REALLY odd and throws me off. I suggest using brackets to substitute the transparent window style. And I suppose the game currently ends at the village.

This is just a pet peeve of mine and I don't want to sound like "that one grammar Nazi" but I still highly consider polishing up the grammar. Specifically not capitalizing Is and the lack of punctuation for words like that's. And for the most part the dialogues need better pacing. Like for example, have the sudden screaming part in the next window so it doesn't feel abrupt and inconsistent to read. But don't split the dialogue up too much or it'll just feel like a chore to read.

You're on the right track with the mapping. But it still feels like it's much too consistent and that there are too much empty spaces. My advice is to think asymmetrically when mapping. As a rule of thumb, avoid straight lines. It IS context sensitive though. Like you'd want a much more consistent and straight look when the structure in question is man made or something to that effect. Of course, it's completely understandable if you want to spend more time in other areas instead. In that case, once again, feel free to ignore it and don't let me demotivate you.

As for things that would motivate you... there's really not much for me to say since it's still lacking in content. I do enjoy the silly banter though. And I feel like this has a lot of potential. How many games are there that solely focuses on yuri? And that it's a harem at that?

Let me know what you think about my art style. Feel free to reject it though. I understand that people have different tastes and opinions. As for the young talented people part, I eventually grew out of it and stop it from depressing me. It did turn me somewhat pessimistic though. I like call it realistic. Shut up. Whatever you do and however talented you are there WILL always be that one guy who's better than you at everything you do. It's inevitable. So instead of having it depress me, I just stop letting it get to me and just continue on with doing what I enjoy doing. That doesn't mean I'm not envious, I am envious, even to this day. But the only thing I could do is just better myself. So once again, don't let stuff like these depresses and demotivates you. I see a lot of potential in this and hate to see it become abandonware.

[YSlayer]

Ah, thanks for opinions. Some of it i was already fully aware of but some stuff i didnt really think of. I actually spent a while deciding between no response and ... To me the ... is a little vague but you are still probly right that its the best choice for that situation. I changed my style about halfway through the first scene and then again probly after the first scene. I tried to go back and edit it to be consistent but some of it hasnt made the transition well. My plan was to finish the whole intro and then go back over it. For me, i dont really have a full grasp of any characters i write till ive written them in a few different scenarios. I think that style really lends itself to just writing as much as possible then going back over what you have and polishing it up/changing it drastically if needed. Criticism like this wont demotivate me at all (probly the opposite).

As for grammar stuff i also intend to go back and fix that. I havent written anything besides forum posts for 7 or so years so its really hard to use correct spelling and grammar. I actually used to be really good at that stuff so hopefully i get back in to the swing of things pretty quickly as far as thats concerned. For the falling part you are definitely right that it didnt have enough impact. I for some reason didn't even consider a screen shake. I will definitely add that. I think i do have a splash sound that plays when she lands and when Yurika jumps in the water after her but perhaps a different sound would be better for the fall specifically. The lack of pause was intentional but not something i feel i expressed well. I wanted it to be where she jumped in without thinking or even considering the situation. Someone who just reacts to save others immediately (pretty common harem trope for a main). To be honest, i have no idea how to the convey this with text that moves at the players pace. Maybe a thought bubble after she gets out of the water about it or something.

Map making is something im very new at so i can use all the feedback i can get. The map with the two rocks in the center is definitely bland and odd looking at the same time. The village layout feels odd to me too but i dont really know how to fix it. Ive been trying to specifically pay attention to maps in other games while i play them but i still have a long way to go in that department. The only map im really satisfied with is possibly the garden. Im sure it could be improved to be even better but, to me at least, it feels like its making use of just about all the available space visually. The other maps feel boring to me but not necessarily bad either. I really wish VX Ace had more tree types and sizes so i could vary that up more.

In the first scene, Hibi is supposed to be on the ground looking up at Yurika leaning over her, i definitely should have used one of the damage versions of her sprite to convey that better. The transparent window for thoughts is certainly awful. For now its just a placeholder till i figure out a better solution. I have reasons for wanting there to be a different window for thinking, acting, and talking (thats how the battle actions will be divided and i want the theme to be consistent). I can probly just change the text box color pretty easily and then change it back before any new dialogue is spoken. I will keep it how it is now until i finish the intro and then try to figure out the best solution.

Also i had totally missed the part at the bottom of your post where you were the person making captivity. I had already seen your artwork in that game and it looks great and would be perfect for my game i think. The game is really interesting too. I love the theme and the dialogue is pretty nice as well. The awkwardness of whats her name in the groping situation was conveyed really well as was the scene in the house. The title is really nice too and it seems like it lends itself to multiple meanings in the context of your game depending on which direction you take it from there.

To be honest i feel pretty surprised that i got a response from an artist when i had so little right off the bat. Makes me feel kinda dumb for not posting other stuff i had been working on and since abandoned. O well, at least the random dungeon generator i made is still reusable for this project. Anyway, if you are willing to provide art, i have lots of scenes in mind that would be improved by that. Im thinking i would really be able to use custom faces because its impossible to make any in the vx ace face editor that dont make girls look like vampires. I guess i should hurry up decide what i want my characters to look like. So much to be done but im excited. I wish i had 10 posts so i could private message. Time to go comment on some other peoples work i guess.

[x3Darkie]

Heh, like I said, I see a lot of potential in this. A harem game focuses solely on lesbian/yuri? Yes please! As a creator myself, I know how easy it is to just abandon your own work for different reasons. But at the very least, you have a working and playable demo here. That shows at least you're committed to it. How committed you are to it I can't tell. But I can tell you that I want to see this game being developed more. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but setting up a Patreon is also a good way to show how committed you are. You are more inclined to work when you are being paid and most people know this.

For the "no response" part, one way I would go about it is to describe the situation in third person. Something like "The girl isn't responding, even though you've been trying to wake her for the past minute or so." Once again, I don't have the context, so you'll have to figure it out on your own. As for writing style, I suggest settling in on a style as soon as you can. This sets the bar and consistency for the rest of the game. This isn't going to be the last time I'll be referring to my own game, but very early in development (actually it's just when I'm writing the first scene) I decided to have a 3rd person narrative for areas where I can't/don't want to express things visually or through dialogue. So yeah, settle on a style as soon as possible. It means less pain in the ass in the future since you don't have to go back and revisit older scenes and rewrite them. I've also neglected to mentioned this in my previous posts, but the game needs music. Right now it just feels weird when a sound effect plays without music playing in the background.

As far as mapping goes, another rule of thumb is variety. For example, in the garden, place some empty pots, potted plants and maybe a watering can somewhere close to a body of water. For the village, I'd say make some houses larger, some smaller, add some shapes (in my game, the abandoned house is essentially just a cube connected to another cube), a shack or outhouse in some quiet corners and make the roads somewhat more jagged. Basically, you'd want variety. The multiple dialogue windows thing isn't hard to achieve. Just make a window png file, keep the dialogue transparent, and use the show picture command during said dialogue window. As for artworks, right now, I'm willing to draw a portrait or two for you provided you have a design for them. Just don't ask me to draw busts right now. Busts are currently sucking the life out of me.

But yeah, thanks for trying out my game and glad you enjoyed it. My personal rule of thumb for naming things is to keep it short and make sure it have something to do with the context of the product in question. Oreimo/Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai for example is pretty fucking long and annoying to say. It's not much of a problem for me since I do study Japanese. No, I'm not bragging. But it's annoying nonetheless. So hopefully you won't name it something like that. Seriously, please don't.

[YSlayer]

I think its gonna be "A Land of Flowers" (Hana no Tochi in japanese presumably, my japanese is pretty bad though so thats probly wrong). Also holy shit i had no idea the music was gone. I usually listen to other songs and stuff when i program so i turn off the music and ME in the game window. I thought it put in some music by default like it does on the menu but i guess not. I will fix that soon.

I know settling on a writing style early on is ideal. I think ive largely got it down. Also i dont think i need to make a separate image for other window colors, im pretty sure somewhere in the game exists the code to change them (its used in the gradient health bar code as well) so setting up a quick method shouldnt be too hard. I can probly put it in the message interpreter part of the code or possibly in the game message part. My last project i was working on had squares that would rotate and shrink and change color that i accomplished with the in game engine (i was making legend of dragoon combat) and i only needed the one image of the target indicator. I guess i should go back and look at that code but the other parts got so complicated that it just became too draining to work on. There are a lot of difficult to find wait timers in the vx ace combat engine.

I went through the probly outdated build 3 of your game btw cause i still need to make more posts to unlock PMs. Mostly just looking for grammar stuff. I only went up to the part when you get to walk around though.

EDIT: Dang, just throwing in some of the default music makes the game feel much better. Im also pretty happy with how the village scenes are coming along. I feel kinda lame laughing at the jokes in my own game. I've run into a slight issue with the writing style and its part of what made things complicated to begin with. I do a lot of describing facial expressions and reactions. I guess im used to writing in a more book style where i could write something like: "i really love the way you look in that" she said with obvious lust burning in her eyes. You cant really do that kind of thing in rpg maker as cleanly. What i feel is the best solution is also a bit of an imposition on any artist helping me and thats to have several faces that can convey much of that information for me. For instance a Yurika (happy) face and a Yurika (blush) face and a Yurika (cry) face and so on like that. I can easily make things in such a way that i can add the faces in later when i get them without having to recode or redo events by just saving multiple copies of the same face as those different emotion faces and then just replacing the file with the correct face when i get it but in the mean time the dialogue will lose much of its context. I suppose i could also just draw some vague smiley and frowny faces and use those till i get real art for it. Actually after thinking about it, thats what i will do. Im also going to try and come up with descriptions for Hibi and Yurika by tmrw so you can draw them when you get time.

[x3Darkie]

I'm not sure if the Japanese for that is Hana no Tochi. I have a good grasp of Japanese grammar, but I don't have the vocabulary to back it up. Hence why I said I study Japanese, not that I know Japanese.

I'll be posting this here to gather some attention since this thread is pretty quiet. This is a mugshot / front view of Hibiscus. I'll probably be drawing a 3rd quarter view version for in game use. This is essentially just a concept art of sorts. Since YSlayer didn't give me much detail to go on illustrating her, much of it is my personal interpretation of Hibi's character. It may not be how YSlayer envisioned her, but meh, I like how she came out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

YSlayer said Hibi's character is somewhat inspired by Shirai Kuroko from Toaru Majutsu no Index / Railgun. So she's supposed to be a cheeky, perverted and very energetic girl. The ahoge (stupid hair/cowlick) is supposed to be the fruit thingy Hibisci have. Latin FTW. You can't have a cheeky character without ahoge. He also told me Hibi has red hair, but he didn't tell me what the eye color is supposed to be, so I just made it red. The Japanese character is there because this game seemingly uses a lot of Japanese names and simply because I wanted to write some Japanese for the lulz. The characters I wrote there essentially just mean Hibiscus, you're not missing anything, don't worry. Also, my sig is there in case it ended up somewhere else and someone wanted to know where it came from. That's the reason why artists have signatures on their work in case anyone's curious.

This is a good break from my own project. But now that this is done, time to go draw more busts.

[YSlayer]

Dang that looks good. I was pretty lucky you stumbled upon this so soon. Hibi looks great, now I just need to make a scaled down version for the games face image and I can put it in. I forget what size those are but it shouldn't be hard to find (might be 64x64 pixels). I was thinking perhaps yellow eyes since the Hibiscus flowers generally have that yellow part (or so google image tells me, I don't actually know anything about flowers) but it doesn't really matter too much as long as it looks good which it already does. Good luck on those captivity busts.

[Bremen Mask]

Been meaning to try this demo for a while and I finally managed to play it. It's a pretty good start.

Lesbian harem rpgmaker games are kind of rare. I fully approve of this yuri.

The writing is pretty nice, the characters are pretty cute, and the premise is cool. Don't have much to critique quite yet, but I am excited to follow this game's progression. Keep up the good work.