The Final Weekend + No Wrong Answers
about 3 years ago – Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 04:43:07 AM

It's the Final Weekend!

What a month it's been!  In just a few days, our Kickstarter will be successfully completed and we're quite close to $40,000 CAD.  Thanks to all of you who have been retweeting, sharing posts, telling your friends, etc.  We've had excellent growth throughout the campaign and I never would have dreamed we'd be well over 2x funded!  We'll be putting those funds to good use in developing the game.

There are No Wrong Answers - Well, Only Some

I thought I'd take a minute to discuss a particular feature of our game that is different from many other romance visual novels: our role-playing choices.

Most romance games use an affection meter that's attached to their choices. When you make a choice in the game, you either make the right choice and your love interest's affection goes up, or you make the wrong one and it goes down. Fail to gain enough affection by the end of the route and you get a bad (or less than ideal) ending.

Made Marion works differently. For most of our choices, there is no wrong answer. You can freely pick the kinds of choices that you want Marion to make. Every route has a different general theme for its choices. For instance, for Geoffrey and Gui's route, Marion's choices lean toward being idealistic or pragmatic.

The types of role-playing choices you make will shape the way your romance with your love interest develops. About 3/4ths of the way through each route, you will come upon a final RP choice. If you've strongly chosen one type of choice or the other, this choice will already be locked and you'll proceed to your chosen ending. If your choices have been about even, this final choice will lock you to one of the two possible good ending segments.

Thus, both idealistic and pragmatic Marion can successfully romance Geoffrey and achieve a good ending to his route. An idealistic Marion may clash more often with Geoffrey's opinions, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (it's super fun - and perhaps he even likes it?). A pragmatic Marion will have a smoother relationship with Geoffrey, but will find herself targeted by some of the same forces that oppose him. This changes how your romance develops and the obstacles that Geoffrey and Marion face during the game's climax.

As for bad endings - we still have them! Some of you may have even run into a bad ending in the Nottingham demo and a neutral-ish early ending in the Sherwood demo. These endings will be one-shot choices rather than based on a meter, so you can read them and then go straight back and make another choice.

I hope this makes for a unique experience that allows players to feel free to express themselves or role-play as Marion while the read through the game. Plus, it gives us even more re-playability since there are two different ending segments for each route (and a slightly crazy maze of endings in Geoffrey and Gui's shared route).

The Made Marion Calendar

One of the biggest challenges for me in writing Made Marion will be making sure that the timing of major and minor events works out within routes and between routes. And some of our longer-term fans know that despite being a big computer nerd, I'm also kind of an analog person. 

An electronic solution for this kind of tracking just isn't working for me. Thus, I've purchased a big flip board pad to use for the game's calendar. I'll be using Post-it notes to track the events from different routes and make sure everything lines up properly.

For instance, very early in the game, Robin steals a shipment of bread that was destined for a noble's fancy banquet and distributes it to Nottingham's poor. If you're on Robin's route, Marion goes along on the heist. If you're on a Nottingham Hold route, Marion overhears Geoffrey discussing the heist with a retainer of his. And if you're on Meissa's route, you help Much the miller's son, who is dealing with the consequences of the shipment having been stolen. I'll be using my calendar to make sure that all these things happen within the correct time frame in all associated routes.

Here's the front page. It shows the Avalon calendar, which I cribbed from the Celtic Tree Calendar. It's a popular lunar-based calendar that's not historically accurate, but it works quite well for my purposes! The blue segment is early spring, during which the prologue is set. The green segment is summer through early fall, in which the main story is set.

Yes, I am not one of the team's artists.  There are good reasons for this!

This will be our last update before the end of the Kickstarter, so I'll see you all on the other side!

It's our final week! Peek in here for a few more Q&As.
about 3 years ago – Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 04:35:02 PM

There's seven days left on the Made Marion Kickstarter, and we're sitting pretty at $36,500.  There's an excellent chance we'll hit $40,000, which is ideal for me being able to allocate as much funding as possible to our stretch goals (I can use the entire stretch goal amount on them instead of taking out 1/4th of that amount for taxes and fees) and hopefully having a bit left over for some goodies like an improved glossary and some cool maps.

Want to help?  Here are a couple things you can do:

• Re-tweet/reblog us on social media! I've made a lot of Kickstarter-related posts on Twitter and Tumblr. I'll be making some about our final week soon after posting this update.
• Wishlist us on Steam!  If you haven't yet, maybe we can get a little visibility for the demo with a bump in wishlists this week. That'd be awesome!
• Comment on or like our post on the otome reddit. It has thousands of readers, but it's not always easy to get visibility there because of how reddit works.

Come Visit Us on Discord

This week I'm doing a major writing marathon with the aim to complete the first draft of the prologue. I'm doing mini-polls about which choice you'd make at various points in the prologue (it's not super spoilery for anybody who has played the demo, and I don't disclose what the consequences of the choices will be).  Head on over to made-marion-chat and jump to the top pinned tweet if you want to participate!

If you haven't joined the Made Marion Discord yet, find our invite (currently for backers only) in Update 7. Stop on by, drop an introduction, and hit the role-assignment channel to rep your favorite love interest!

More Q&A

Most of the common questions about our Kickstarter were answered in our first Q&A, so this time I'm answering some common questions about the game. You can find even more information about Made Marion in our newly-updated FAQ on Tumblr!

Q: How unique is each route in Made Marion?

We have two fully unique common routes, as you can see in the demo. After you make your love interest route choice at the end of the common route, those will also be almost completely unique. I have a basic timeline of major events that happen over the course of the summer during which the game is set. However, you'll have a different role during these events in every route. Sometimes you'll be an active participant in a major event, and sometimes you'll hear about it from afar or deal with its aftermath instead.

As I've mentioned, every route has two good endings that branch off from the major role-playing choice 

There may be a few small repeated scenes across routes, particularly in Sherwood, but they'll mostly be for important information that you need on all routes and they won't be very long.

There are a lot of secrets and revelations in Made Marion's plot, and I've tried to hide a few in every route, so my fellow completionists (heya!) will have a reason to check them all out!

Q: Can I skip the sex scenes?

Yes, you can! We know that not all readers want to experience the sex scenes, or perhaps are more interested in the overarching plot than the romance on certain routes. If you go into the Preferences screen in the demo, you can already see the groundwork we've laid for this. There's an "Explicit Text" option. It is on by default, but if you turn it off, you will get a fade-to-black instead of a sex scene.

The explicit text option button does nothing in the demo, but we did test it on one memorable day in which I made Robin say "bosoms" when explicit text is off and "boobies" when it's on... so it works!

Q: Can I roll back choices and save at choice points in the game?

Yes! I have not limited rollback, so you can go back as far as Ren'py's cache will allow, which is pretty darn far. I don't think I'll be writing any bad endings that are so long that you can't roll back out of them. I also haven't limited saving, so you don't have to worry about getting to a tough choice and not being able to save.

Keep in mind that we don't have an affection meter, so much of the time there is no "wrong" choice. Our choices are about expressing yourself or role-playing as Marion. Some of them, such as whether you would like to reconcile with Marion's father or whether she objects to Will calling her "Princess," are there for the sole purpose of self-expression and don't affect which ending you get (but do affect some smaller story bits down the line).

Q: If my credit card is rejected at the end of the Kickstarter, is there another way for me to pledge?

I will have a Backerkit store available, but it also only accepts credit cards and it does not give access to Kickstarter-exclusive content.  We'll be opening pre-orders for the game later on (probably around January 2022) on itch.io and Steam, both of which allow Paypal and other forms of payment.

I do know that some of you who have credit card issues with Kickstarter would like to access some of the exclusive backer rewards like the Erotic Adventures, the wallpaper set, and the free DLC.  If your card doesn't go through and this is a concern for you, please send me a message and I'll see what I can do for you. Please note that this offer is only for people who legitimately attempted to back the Kickstarter and were unable to do so. I'd like to reward our backers by keeping our Kickstarter exclusives, well, exclusive, so I won't be providing any of those three items otherwise.

That's it for now, I'm buzzing with excitement to see how our last week goes!

Update on Backerkit and Add-Ons
about 3 years ago – Sat, Mar 06, 2021 at 11:23:01 PM

Happy Friday, everyone!

We've had some nice, steady growth over Week 3 so far, and are close to $33,000 CAD.  I'd love for us to reach $40,000 CAD by the end of the campaign, which will allow me to allocate more funds to our stretch goals and Beyond Stretch: Art and Sound as well as afford a couple goodies for the game. Tell your friends!

I'm happy to announce that we've signed on with Backerkit to handle backer surveys and reward fulfilment. This will allow our backers to purchase add-ons after the end of our campaign, so those of you who are Early Birds and have asked about getting the chance to purchase the Mega-Guide and Erotic Adventures, you'll be able to do that!

We're also going to allow for late backers to pledge for a few months after the end of the campaign, but they won't be able to get our two Kickstarter-exclusive rewards. Here's exactly how it will pan out:

Wallpaper Set: Given to all campaign backers. Not available to post-campaign backers. Not sold to the general public.

Copy of the Game: You'll choose whether you want a Steam key or an Itch.io key. Available as an add-on to campaign backers and late backers who wish to purchase an extra copy at the campaign price for a friend or two (limited to 2 add-on purchases per backer). Sold at a higher price after launch, since it's the game and all.

Made Marion Mega-Guide: Available as an add-on to campaign backers who did not pledge to a Mega-Guide Tier. Available to post-campaign backers, and will be sold at a higher price after launch. One copy per backer.

Erotic Adventures: Available as an add-on to campaign backers who did not pledge to an Erotic Adventures tier.  Not available to post-campaign backers and will not be sold to the general public.

Beta Access: Available as an add-on to those who didn't add $20 to their pledge during the campaign. Please do not add this if you already pledged the $20! Available to late backers, but not available after the late backer period is over.

Hopefully that's clear!  Basically, the wallpaper set and Erotic Adventures are Kickstarter exclusives, while the game and Mega-Guide will be available to everyone. Once the late backer period is over and our official pre-orders begin, the game and guide will be more expensive (in CAD - we have no control over fluctuations in global currency exchange).

We will open our Backerkit survey and add-on shop after the end of the Kickstarter campaign.

What's the Team Up to?

Becky: I've been spending a lot of time running and promoting our Kickstarter, but I'm also working on the script for the game's prologue. I hope to have the prologue script and the rest of the Sherwood common route script complete by April.

Anna: Anna is working on our common route CGs. Every love interest has one CG (full-screen illustration) in the common route and will have several more (final number not yet decided) in their own route. Yes, everyone will get at least one kiss CG.

Sandra: Sandra is working on our prologue backgrounds, as you can see above.

Alexander: He's primed and ready to start composing for us once our campaign funds are in!

We'll be adding another person or two to our core team to create animations and cut-in graphics - we already have some good candidates in mind and I'll probably be making an official announcement in April.

VC Games Recommends: Kinder World

We've had a lovely conversation with the devs of Kinder World, who are friends of the visual novel genre. Their game looks quite lovely!  It's a laid-back life sim where you care for house plants and practice kindness toward yourself and others. Feels to me like a perfect antidote to these pandemic times. Check out their Kickstarter! There's even a tier that lets you add a fuzzy pet friend to your room.

$30,000 CAD at the Halfway Mark
about 3 years ago – Tue, Mar 02, 2021 at 11:52:01 PM

Happy Week 3!

We're halfway through our Kickstarter and we've just hit $30,000 CAD!

That means we've moved into the Beyond Stretch: Goodies phase.  Depending on how far we go above $30,000, there are a couple things I'll be doing with the funds.

1. Taking fees, taxes, and ad spend "off the top."  Right now I have our KS funds allocated into separate buckets - core funding, each stretch goal, and the art and sound phase of Beyond Stretch.  Each bucket loses about 25% to fees and taxes.  But with enough funds over $30,000 I could re-allocate that loss and, say, make a full $2000 available for commissioning original music instead of $1500.

2. Funding "Goodies," things I'd love to add to the game but don't have the time or talent to do myself.  This includes stuff like creating maps for the game world and hiring a programmer to give us a more fully-featured glossary. We'll talk more about these over the next couple weeks.

Beyond Stretch: Art and Sound Priorities

I've tallied up our feedback, both in the comments section of the last update and from our Discord server. An animated lore intro for the game was the most popular priority by a solid margin, so I'll be making sure that happens!  The overall order was:

1. Lore Intro

2. Ambient Sound

3. Improved Vocals for Alanna's Songs

4. Improved FX

Here's my tentative plan for the intro segment: It'll have a similar style to our cut-in graphics (ink and watercolor style on parchment), but the art will be a bit more abstract. The animations will be very simple, but effective.  I'll record a voice-over for it and allocate one of our original music pieces to accompany it. This will let us time out the segment so that Alexander can create music that ebbs and flows at appropriate times. I think he'll enjoy the idea of composing along to a narration.

I should have enough money left over to purchase some ambient sound packs as well.

VC Games Recommends: Roots of Pacha

I'm an absolute farming/life sim fanatic, but I even I have trouble keeping up with all the releases in the genre. These days, I've gotten pickier. I look for a game with a unique twist that keeps things interesting.

Roots of Pacha is just such a game, starting with its unique Stone Age setting. This adds to several interesting elements - since you can't go to the store to buy seeds, you'll have to explore and discover them. And since modern livestock doesn't exist yet, you'll have to tame their wild ancestors and evolve them into more domesticated species.

There are just a ton of cool ideas in this game. If you enjoy farming and life sims, go check it out!

Beyond Stretch: Art and Sound - Have Your Say!
about 3 years ago – Mon, Mar 01, 2021 at 12:02:46 AM

Over 600 Backers, Nearly at $30,000 CAD!

As usual for Kickstarter campaigns, our growth has slowed down during Week 2. However, we've still risen to $29,500+ as of this writing!  We're nearly through our Beyond Stretch: Art and Sound phase and into Beyond Stretch: Goodies.

This is a great time to ask everyone what they'd most like to see from art and sound improvements in Made Marion. To start:

1. The Original Music and Animation + Cut-In Graphics Stretch Goals are already in and 100% guaranteed.

2. I'll be using some of our Beyond Stretch money for even more animations and cut-in graphics. We have some great possibilities for artists in these areas already, and I'll introduce them to you all once our funds are in and we've officially added to our team.

Beyond that, what would you most like to see added to the game?  Here are some possibilities:

• Higher quality sound FX - I would purchase some professionally created libraries and rely less on free internet resources.
• Ambient sound - Birdsong in the forest, crowd sounds in the marketplace, battle sounds during fight scenes. I already have a source for this identified.
• Improved vocals for Alanna's songs - I have three songs with planned for Alanna's route, and could look into recording the vocals in an actual studio instead of with my home mic.
• An illustrated/animated lore sequence before or during the prologue that gives a quick rundown of Avalon's founding and the Pact between humans and fae.

Please leave a comment about which of these things you'd most like to see!

VC Games Recommends: PRIM

In our next few updates, we'll be taking a few moments to recommend some fellow Kickstarters that we think might be of interest to our backers.  The first is PRIM, a charming 2D point-and-click adventure game from developer Common Colors.

The developers say: "Being a teenager is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re the daughter of Thanatos, the Angel of Death. Prim’s father has forbidden her from entering the Land of the Living, but a recurring dream about a strangely familiar human boy crying out for help might just force her to break that rule – and discover whether Thanatos’ warnings were right all along."

Hey, a plucky female protagonist defies her father's rules in order to make her own discoveries about the world? Sounds good (and delightfully familiar) to us! The art style is super-cool, too.

PRIM has a playable demo and has done quite well so far on Kickstarter. It has two more stretch goals to go. Take a look and see if you'd like to help unlock them!