Look at Cheddar's cool art! I'm mostly showing off her work because I haven't done any.

Hello all. Cider here, of the dev team Couplet games. Cheddar and I have wanted to seriously get into visual novel development for a long time now, but mostly I've been dragging my feet on learning Ren'Py. I'm hoping to use Otome Jam as a way to kickstart me into motivation, using an old script we've had lying around for awhile--this will become our first game, "Late Bloomers".  For some reason I picked a script with a 25k word count which is... a lot. So, Cheddar is currently working on character art while I crack open this engine. weep for me!

I'm using this community post to keep track of our progress, which I will later import into the project page's devlog. So far, we've only got a nice-looking project page up, but work begins tomorrow! Best of luck to everyone putting together a visual novel. Can't wait to see everyone's stuff.

Hi Hi! This is an art update! (This is Chedder btw)

The first thing I do before I make any art (including our project page) is grab a reference image that captures the colors and vibes I'm trying to replicate. This makes it easy to keep each game (I hope) super distinct. I got these from Pinterest, which means I have no idea where they actually came from, but as you can see we're trying to get a nice spring green theme going here.

I hate making backgrounds. hate hate hate hate it. I am probably going to put off making backgrounds until Cider forgets that I was supposed to make them. But whipping up placeholder backgrounds, on the other hand, is very easy, thanks to this handy dandy tool that I learned about right here on the OtomeJam Forums--FotoSketcher! Oh my god! I cannot believe I never heard of this before now. You just put in a photograph--I got all mine from Pexels (which has a slightly better library than Unplash imo), and run it through the "Painting 10" filter--a cool trick I learned with Fotosketcher is that you can PAUSE the generation of the painting by hitting "ESC", which leaves the image rendered in these rough, broad, paintstrokes. Amazing results! I had to color grade some of the photos to get them to match our color palette, but I was able to get all the backgrounds we need for the project in one day.  This example below is like, SO pretty??? The photo is by Ksenia Chernaya, and the generated "painting" actually looks like a piece of art I would hang on my wall.

Okay, on to the good stuff, CHARACTERS!!! So far, I have only made sketches for Ivy, the main character. She has 20+ character poses, because the story jumps back and forth in time, so her outfits and mood changes a lot. I may have to end up cutting some poses, though. This is a lot of work!

The setting of the story is loosely based on Gilded Age America, but in a more country setting. There are a lot of fashion things I like about this period, but one thing I've never been on board with is the weirdly dropped, bulging waistline, so I stuck with a more contemporary silhouette.

I always base my protagonists' features  off of a photograph, otherwise I end up doing same-faced syndrome too much. I based Ivy's face on a drawing by one of my favorite artists, Charles Dana Gibson. He did AMAZING pen-rendered illustrations for TIME Magazine, and if you ever heard of the term "Gibson Girl", that is from the women that he used to draw. This reference pic is called "Not Worrying About Her Rights".  She is supposed to look carefree, but I think the girl has this sort of melancholy, reserved quality, which is just what Ivy's character is in the story. I borrowed the slope of her nose and the little point of her chin and gave Ivy this sort of heart-shaped face, which I don't normally use!

Ugh, just Look at how Gibson uses penwork to create dimension, yo. His work is very influential to me--you'll probably see that more when I do the linework. Anyway that's it for meeee! I am going to do sketches of all the characters so Cider has placeholder artwork to start programming with.

I have just finished Marshall's character sketches, the main love interest of our story!

As always, I am using Edwardian fashion to influence Marshall's coat and hat. Edwardian hats were a little more short, which thankfully made them a little easer for me to draw, and the silhouettes for men were nice and elongated. The Edwardian period has the best pointy collars in all of history, in my opinion; obviously I put Marshall in some that peek through his scarf. I pulled Marshall's duster design with the flaps from "Edwardian Costumes" by Tom Tierney, a book I found at a thrift store! Really cute illustrations in this one.

I based Marshall's facial features from this young man I saw in the "Historic Hotties" tumblr. Have you guys seen that tumblr? It's so fun to just scroll through. Lots of GREAT inspiration, too! We don't know the person in the photograph's name. Something about that makes me kind of sad...he is only remembered by those wide, down-sloping eyes, the small blunted nose, and that CRAZY hairdo! (I gave Marshall one with a more contemporary anime style) I'm honestly regretting dressing Marshall in a hat because I like his hair so much; but he does take it off in later scenes.

That's all for today! Cheddar signing out! Please give us a follow on itch.io if you want to hear updates about our game, "Late Bloomers", after the jam ends!

Hello all, Cider is back with FINALLY some progress.

Yes, after about 5 days of careful study of ren'py documentation and--let's be honest, mostly procrastination, I have at long last created something playable.

 Of course it was not as hard as I imagined it to be. Yes, with the above simple lines of code, I have enough setup to actually start importing the script. I'm glad I didn't wait until Cheddar finished all her art. Doing this was enormously helpful in informing what Cheddar should put her focus on going forward, as I need to test manipulating the UI with new images instead of the default Ren'Py ones. She has already completed most of the character sketches, and I'm going to make her whip up some fancy boxes.

Already, I am so happy we joined Otome Jam. It really was the impetus to get me to start learning this new engine, and I no longer feel like I am dragging my feet, but am rather excited to see what I can learn before the deadline is up. I hope you are all seeing good progress in your own projects.