Made Marion

Will's Beta: Phase 1 is Live!
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 21, 2024 at 01:36:06 PM

Attention All Beta Backers!

Phase 1 of Will's beta test is now live on Steam (Made Marion Playtest App) and Itch.io (Made Marion Beta Centre)!  Everything is looking stable on my end, so please ping me on Kickstarter or Discord if you have any trouble downloading or running the clients.

Note that Mac users may have issues with the Itch client as it is unsigned (we as a company cannot afford to pay the Apple bribe, I fear). I believe most of our Mac players know how to get around this but I can try to help if you're having trouble.

Here are our patch notes for Beta Phase 1:

Will's Beta Phase 1 includes the first two of four chapters in Will's story.

Additions:
Will's common route CG (start of Sherwood Chapter 1)
Notification when a new Love Interest PoV scene is unlocked
Will Chapters 1 & 2
1 new achievement possible in Will Chapter 2. Can you find it?

Missing (to be added before route launch):
CG 2 (Chapter 2)
Marion peasant disguise for tavern scene in Chapter 2
Sprites: Edith, Hugh
Cut in: Will traversing the rope (Chapter 1)
Will Chapters 3 & 4
Carriage background in Will Chap 2 needs alternative, non-Glastonbury version

Missing (not to be added before route launch):
No new additions to Lore Intro yet.
Unfinished common route CGs besides Will
John, Meissa, Alanna, Geoff/Gui routes

Please feel free to join us on the Made Marion Discord to provide Beta feedback!

Phase 2 will go live once Chapter 3 is fully coded.

Made Marion Development Update, September 2024
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 18, 2024 at 06:21:33 PM

Will's Beta Starts This Weekend!

Heya, Beta Backers!  We're starting a 3ish-week beta for Will this weekend! It will start off with Chapters 1-2, with Chapters 3-4 added when complete. I recommend that those of you who enjoy giving in-depth feedback (we love you!) start off with this weekend's release because as you know, our routes are pretty long! Release date should be Saturday unless something catastrophic happens (like Steam's back-end going down or my hard drive eating the Ren'py client again).

Quick Beta reminders/FAQ:

1. Not all backers are beta backers!  Beta was an add-on in our KS campaign.
2. If you've previously participated in Beta, you should have the Made Marion Playtest in your Steam library and/or have access to the Made Marion Beta Center on Itch.io. If you have not yet participated in Beta, you can find your beta key in your Backerkit download section.
3. If you can't find/access your Backerkit download section, please send me a message on Kickstarter or contact me via Discord. If you contact me via Discord, please provide the email that you used to back Made Marion so I can locate your Backerkit link.
4. The best way to give us beta feedback is by joining our Discord and posting in the i-need-beta-access topic so I can give you access to the Beta Chat. Those of you who are already in Beta Chat will be getting notified about Beta soon.
5. There is also a discussion forum on itch.io in the Beta Center, but so far not a single person has posted there.  Feel free to start it off if you're allergic to Discord!
6. As always, Beta is feature- and story-complete but may be missing a few minor character sprites and CGs. As of this writing, we have 3/5 complete CGs for Will's route and there are three minor character sprites that are close to completion but are not yet available in the game.
7. I will send out another Kickstarter message as soon as the beta clients are available, so keep an eye on your inboxes!

Talk to you all soon!

Made Marion Development Update, August 2024
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Aug 16, 2024 at 06:15:01 PM

Official Will Route Release Window

I've checked in with the team and we aren't quite ready to release Will's route in (what remains of) the summer, but we're far enough that I have team buy-in on an official release window of the first half of October.

I'll have a more specific date once we begin our beta test in September, which usually lasts two weeks. I may release the first three chapters early for testers while I finish coding the chapters 4.

Will Chapter 3 will be fully written within a week from now. It turned out to be quite a beast. That means that Will's chapter 4s may be a bit shorter each than Robin's were, however, they will also be more different from each other than Robin's were. In fact, the love scenes and the climactic Chapter 4 action scenes are in completely different locations.

I'm going half-tilt on coding while I finish the script, and should have Chapter 1 fully coded soon, as well.

World Name Thoughts

Although the world in which Made Marion is set has three named countries: Avalon, Sunjata, and Nibiru, the world as a whole does not yet have a name.

I probably won't give it an in-universe name because its inhabitants primarily identify with their country of birth and don't really have a view of themselves as being on a planet in a system full of other planets. But still, since I'm planning to create multiple tales in this world (one for each country), I could use a name to call it for marketing purposes.

I've been putting this off for a while, but I'd like something with a historical/folkloric connection that deals with the number three OR that has something to say about the kingdom's themes - Sunjata, the Sun Lands; Avalon, the Middle Kingdom (light and shadow); and Nibiru, the Twilight Realm.

Right now I'm thinking perhaps "Triskelion," named after the Celtic triple spiral pattern. But I'm not 100% satisfied with that since I have two other countries that do not have Celtic inspiration (Sunjata is inspired by Medieval North and West Africa, while Nibiru is very loosely inspired by Ancient Babylon and the Indus Valley Civilization). It's probably not a big deal since it'd be difficult to encompass all three and this entire world began with my desire to thread Celtic elements into the Robin Hood tales, but still. Any thoughts or ideas?

Here's a reward for everyone who made it to the end. Arrapso didn't make those shirtless combat sprites for nothing!

Made Marion Development Update - July 2024
about 2 years ago – Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 02:59:43 PM

Hello everyone!  Hope you're enjoying the summer, and my best wishes to all of you on the eastern half of North America who have been dealing with hurricanes.

Project Status

Unfortunately, my fatigue and other medical stuff prevented me from finishing Will Chap 3 this month. To give you an overview of where we are on the route as a whole:

Writing: Will Chapter 3/4, close to 50k words out of about 80k
Coding: Half of Chapter 1, waiting on editorial
Editing: Writer edits complete on Chapters 1-2, waiting on reader edits.
Backgrounds: 100% complete.
Sprites: 3 NPC sprites needed (can launch without but hope to have).
CGs: 2/5 complete.
Cut-Ins: 1 of 3 nearly complete (the most complex one).

So we still have a ways to go, unfortunately. After many many tests, I'm officially being referred to an internal medicine specialist to see if we can improve my fatigue. I don't know how long it will take me to get in to see them, but hopefully not too long!

Thanks as always for all of your patience as our team navigates the challenges of complex illness!

Here's Will's intro CG that will show near the beginning of Sherwood Common:

And a set of new facial expressions made specifically for this route (though I will add some rolling eye Will to the other routes as well).

And finally, a silly "Happy Canada Day" pic I did for the first of July. The background is an alpine meadow in Manning Park, BC, taken by me.

See you next month!

Made Marion Development Update, June 2024
about 2 years ago – Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 03:40:13 PM

Just a quick one this month!

My goal is to finish writing Will Chapter 3 by the end of the month. I'm just getting into an exciting scene that has been one of the central parts of Will's plot since very early in development. One version of Marion will execute the mission far more smoothly than the other version, but there's a special achievement in it for the less-smooth version, so it's worthwhile to try both!

We have a sketch of the Temple of Shadow. As I've tried to underline, the concept of shadow isn't evil, it's more chaos-aligned, and traditionally Avalons value a balance between order and chaos. Thus the Temple of Shadow isn't sinister, but a cool, woodsy, forested place that welcomes a variety of woodland creatures (thanks to the Beast Druids).

There is also a library in the temple. Shadow Temple libraries collect forbidden, secret, and politically "inconvenient" knowledge and allow access to locals who they have determined walk sufficiently in shadow. Marion has always wanted to peruse a Shadow Temple library but has never been given permission before. Hmm, does she know any shadow-walkers in this route? ;)

Excited to see the final version; I love Sandra's background work so much!

See y'all in July!