itch.io

Glad to hear that you want to start over and do it again! I'm currently working on a guide that'll be available on Steam that avoids spoilers while giving out some relationship advice with the various characters. Hopefully out with the first patch sometime next week.

Thank you so much!!!! We're launching today~~~~! (I desperately need a "squee" key on my keyboard.)

I hear you on the big business - and it's a possibility we can't rule out. They long since went that way with copywriters (the previous field of my business, which was harmed by the advent of ChatGPT). 

BUT... I have a theory (and a mission to help make sure I'm right, lol). AI is tricky for big businesses, particularly in the game space. Since you can't copyright most AI art*, it makes using those assets tricky for a big company in a commercial release. Can you imagine a world where Geralt is a public domain character because he was AI art generated? You can see the problem.

* = You can copyright some AI art if you put a bunch of post-work into it. It's a case by case basis. Buuuut... I think that's crap. I think you shouldn't be able to because once an AI creates it, that piece of art is the product of humanity writ large, not you. Even if you do a lot of work on the image. I'm hoping to put my money where my mouth is and I've promised not to try and copyright any assets I create, even the ones that I did more work than the AI. I just don't think it's ethical to try.

AND - I think that's also the legislative solution in the long run. I think we need to push for laws that clarify that no matter how much effort you put into something, if it started life as an AI prompt it isn't yours. I'd love a future where you can use AI for anything you want... you just can't OWN what it creates. Therefore, if you want to use it in some meaningful way, you're going to have to bring your own creativity and talent, something you CAN own, to profit off of it. (I make a joke about this in the credits of "Blew It!". You should be able to see it in the free demo so you don't have to buy the full version if you wanna' see the snark for yourself, hehe).

I've been deciding whether or not to wade into this discussion since my projects are (currently) reliant on AI art assets. I very much want to applaud OP for trying out themselves to form an opinion. Far too many people don't do that and they're working with conjecture.

I don't want AI to replace human artists. If I could afford an artist (really, the several artists necessary to keep up with my pace of production) then I would go right to a human every time. It's so much easier to tell an artist "Hey, this picture is BEAUTIFUL but you forgot she needs a belt...". If the AI misses the belt but you like the rest of the image, you may never actually get your vision because it might not be possible to add the belt without ruining the rest of the image.

Humans are superior as artists in almost every measurable way... even the mediocre ones. And I'm in awe of them, because while I have a music & writing background, I'm terrible with visual arts.

A lot of people see the pretty art in my project and say "AI did it all." Well.. it did a lot of the drawing, I'll admit that. But what it didn't do is go into DAZ and create the perfect pose to base the drawing on. It didn't create the stories that bring the characters to life as more than just images. Like I say on the project page for Blew It - the internet has no shortage of beautiful manga babes. You came for the story.

So I have to take several "close enough" sprites and photoshop them for hours, and hours, and hours. Blew It used AI art and it STILL took me 350 hours of development.

Mega corporations aren't all that interested in AI art for games and big projects because they may not end up owning the images produced. They can afford the expense of real artists, anyway. But a tiny little brand new game studio like mine?

Simply put, there is no artist being put out of work because I'm producing this game with AI art. I could never afford the artists in the first place, so these projects would just not get made. Either way, no human got a job from it. In fact, because of Blew It, I WAS able to hire a musician for my second VN (Wings of Angels), hence creating more growth in the art space... if not the same one.

It's my sincerest hope that if my VNs are (against all odds) super successful or something, I'll have the privilege to hire real people and share their talent. Until then, I view AI as the tool to help me get there. AI art is good... AI art can never be great.

Sorry this is off topic from what you two are talking about, but also not - I'm having trouble with Discord, but I got to listen to some samples you had on artist.io and I think I'd like to work with you :-) I also don't expect you to work for free, you're far too good for that!

You'd mentioned being able to use FB to contact me, would you be able to send me a message through FB messenger? Just look up ERODH C and C Visual Novels, it's a public page.

It should be possible!

You'll be happy to hear that I JUST completed a re-do of Sparrow's sprites this morning and they're SO MUCH BETTER NOW!!!!

And your message is definitely received on the music volume. It seems to be a weird engine thing where the volume is too quiet from 0-25%, and then just "loud" after that. We'll get it fixed by the beta!!!

But actually, what I wanted to say was that I REALLY needed this comment today. I ran into an issue with Blew It's distribution elsewhere and it hurt right down to the soul on what was, at the end of the day, a labor of love. I had been working on Wings since 5:15AM, and it's about 4:50PM as I'm writing this now and I'm still at it. I pour a lot of heart into the projects, and getting a gut punch with Blew It definitely made me want to throw my hands up and think about going back to copywriting.

I opened my itch.io dashboard and saw your comment and you legit made want to go back to work.

Maybe after some coffee.

Wings of Angels will thankfully have none of the same issues as it's much more akin to a sci-epic with some sexy romances, rather than Blew It being a straight-ahead ecchi game.

COME CHECK OUT THE -FREE- DEMO OF WINGS OF ANGELS AND GET A TASTE OF THIS UPCOMING, SEXY SCI-FI EPIC!

https://erodhcandc.itch.io/wings-of-angels

Okay, technically I'm GIMPing. But that sounds... well, like I write ecchi VNs.

Anyway.

I knew absolutely NOTHING about photo editing before my first one and now I know exactly, um, something. Not a lot, mind you, but something! :-D

This is honestly my least favorite part of putting together a VN. Character creation and the writing are a lot of fun, but it's this work right here that separates completed projects from the cutting room floor. And I'm going to keep telling myself that as I drink this coffee. Cheers and good morning!

I've talked about the fact that I used to be a copywriter in some of my other posts, so I like to think that I know a thing or two about advertising. I have a BIG recommendation for smaller, one-person operations:

You CANNOT go wrong building a community. It's like the best kind of advertisement. Make your project's FB page a source of fun memes featuring your characters, engage in the discussions there, make a Discord, etc. The trick though is that you need to be genuine. It's 2023 and the Internet can smell a suit a mile away (I still smell slightly of mine, I know...). But if you engage in good faith with other creators, try to share your knowledge as much as you soak up from others, and keep a sense of humor about you, you'll have a loyal audience that'll eat up even your worst work.

But it's gotta be YOU. Unless you're a jerk... then consider being someone else.

Sure, I'd love to answer your questions where I can.

So, while this was a solo project, I did get assistance here and there from industry contacts from my time as a copywriter ("ERODH Copy and Content" is my copywriting company, very small and niche market stuff, but enough for my needs.) A lot of those skills they had ranged from artistic, designer, to Unity programmers, and even people in the adult industry!  I put my VN in front of them VERY EARLY in the development process, and I feel like this was a big part of improving the end product. I know it's nerve-wracking to share unfinished work or work that you're not yet proud of, but the feedback from experienced people can help you scrap good/bad ideas very quickly.

If you check out the product page, you'll see that our art was AI generated. Now, that's not as easy as it sounds, but as someone (a former copywriter) who started having trouble finding clients because of the advent of ChatGPT, I think I'm VERY sensitive to this issue so I've done my best to integrate the art in the most ethical way possible. At least, what I think is ethical - and I'll try to be transparent about it here. I have promised to make no attempt to copyright the visuals in this game now and forever. I consider AI art to the product of humanity writ large, I believe that no amount of post-work or touch-up work, or even visual prompts (which I did use Daz3D to model some poses that I couldn't just get from AI, and then feed those in as references) entitles anyone to copyright the end results of AI. When you purchase Blew-It, you're purchasing the story I wrote and the overall experience. In fact, if you want to rip open the game and take every single art asset for your project - you can! That is both the beauty (and the corporate Achilles Heel) to AI art, in my humble opinion. I even provided AI prompts to generate the three main love interests and the one VERY persuasive sociopath in NovelAI so you can enjoy the ladies, uh..... however you like.

Now, while the AI gave me a lot of basis for the art, I had to learn a lot myself, too. I had to learn to use DAZ for more complex poses, I had to learn to REALLY use the AI, and pony up the cash to use it properly with all its features, and then I also had to learn GIMP. Photoshop is even better, but for my purposes isn't necessary.

The AI is also quite good at generating environmental art! (Just uh..... don't look at some of my backgrounds too closely, okay ;-) )

It's not perfect, and every once in a while I'll be bug-checking and notice a warp in the space time continuum in the corner of someone's living room!!!

For this project, I used TyranoBuilder, which has improved a lot recently. But if you're comfortable with Renpy, ABSOLUTELY learn it the most you can. I still believe it's the superior engine in the end, but I will vouch for TyranoBuilder as being the easiest to learn AND still put out a quality product if you're willing to take a little time to learn about its features.

Alright I'll try to make sure to sign on to Discord later and add you!

Hey everyone! Yesterday I got to announce the release of "Blew It!", and I just finished providing my business's information to Steam so we can launch there in the coming weeks as well. (Check it out at ---> https://erodhcandc.itch.io/blew-it if you're curious)

I / we learned a *a lot* putting this Ecchi VN (non-explicit, no nudity... not hentai, but ecchi. ;-) ) together and I'd be very happy to share tips and tricks I learned along the way for those people still trying to get their project over the finish line. The visuals on this game were pretty good, but if I had one piece of advice right off the bat, it would be this:

Get comfortable with photo editing software NOW. You don't need to know everything or even be very good, but it's best to learn the keyboard shortcuts for those things you most commonly need to do. Like greenscreening and cutting out sprites for the VN, touching up CGs, etc. While this project is complete, we do still have some small updates planned (like fixing the borked config screen).

I'd be interested in getting a look at your portfolio - do you have a site with some of your work available to browse? I'm a retired musician myself that moved into (with a stop-off in copywriting) writing/producing VNs, so I appreciate what goes in to a good soundtrack, and royalty-free options are... lacking.

Blew It!
https://erodhcandc.itch.io/blew-it

"Blew It!" is an Ecchi RomCom featuring bountiful babes making you blush around every corner. Or in Osamu's case... literally.

We've chosen to stay true to the "Ecchi" genre and make this a funny, sexy, and endearing visual novel about the wildest week in Osamu's life, right after his 18th birthday. Your time from start to finish with each busty beauty takes around an hour for a generally fast reader. But not to worry - there are over a DOZEN endings and each of this lovely ladies has at least 40 minutes or more of her very own content with minimal overlap! And of course, an unlockable CG gallery. Because you definitely want to remember that date with Luna...

Check it out with the direct link to our itch.io store page right here!
https://erodhcandc.itch.io/blew-it