Development Update, August 2021
over 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 02:05:59 AM

I've left out our logo this month because Warrior Marion deserves to head up everything. That's right, our new Marion sprite is ready to go.  I'm currently setting up some code so that I can more easily code in her many outfits and expressions, but this means that our pilot beta test, which features the prologue, will be coming soon! If you're a beta backer, you should be getting an e-mail about how to join in the next few weeks.

The Writing and Coding Department

The second part of the Sherwood Common Route is complete, and I am now writing Robin's route.  I'm being careful with it because the basic timeline of the game's largest events will be nailed down with this first route.

Every character route in Made Marion is different, but some major events will always happen. You will experience them differently (or even just hear about them from afar) depending on your chosen love interest and Marion's situation in that route. 

Because you're with Robin's Rebels on all three Sherwood routes, they are more similar to each other than the Nottingham routes are, but there are still plenty of unique experiences to have in each route. For instance, each of the three Sherwood love interests is in charge of a different branch of the rebellion, giving Marion a unique "mission" in every Sherwood route.

In coding land, Shawna is helping us implement our accessibility options. More on that when it's complete and I can show screenshots, but for now, you can get an idea of the three different fonts that will be available. I've tested with our longest lines, and simply changing the font will not cause the text to overflow the text box. Huzzah!

The Art Department

Here's a bit more of Marion's new sprite. As you can see, she now has two main poses along with her combat pose. The olive dress she's wearing is her prologue dress, so I'll also show off her signature green velvet dress. Keep an eye out for even more Marion outfits in future updates or on our Discord Server.

We've also had a chance to meet our first round of creature sprites, being designed by our background artist, Sandra. 

Here's one of our loveable greatstags. They come in three colours, with white largely reserved for Marion and black for Geoffrey.

Also, this might have happened thanks to Discord. ;)

The Sound Department

Thanks to early music multi-instrumentalist Mathieu Lavoie, we now have backing tracks for Alanna's bardic tunes that sound period-appropriate! I'll be recording the vocals for them in-studio in September or October. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to practice them much yet thanks to a generous blanketing of wildfire smoke over my area.

Next up in the Sound Department: the audio for our animated lore intro!

See you all in September!

Made Marion July Development Update
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 03:50:01 AM

Mid-July already? Where did the time go?

I lost about a week of productivity to a record-breaking heat wave and recovering from my second Covid vaccine dose, but we still have some nice updates to share with you all!

The Writing/Coding Department

This month I edited the Sherwood common route. It now has ambient sound and I removed text that was no longer needed because it contained information given in the prologue. I added a short scene in which the Sherwood Rebels declare their dedication to King Richard's return, as well. 

As is common in modern Robin Hood re-tellings, war hero King Richard the Lionheart's current status is missing, presumed dead. His younger brother John is now Prince Regent, but isn't very popular and hasn't managed to be declared king quite yet. Robin, who has met and idolizes King Richard, still believes that his beloved monarch is out there.

I was also able to finish prologue programming with the completion of the prologue sprites and their facial expressions.

I'm currently finishing up the script for the rest of the Sherwood common route, and have also been writing scenes from Robin's route. I'll be writing Robin's route full-time in the coming month.

The Art Department

Our prologue sprites are finished! This means I can introduce you all to Alvin, Marion's sword instructor and former lover. His father may be a wealthy merchant, but his family are still commoners, which means he can't fulfil his lifelong dream of being a knight. Marion has to make some tough decisions regarding Alvin in the prologue. Will they come back to haunt her later?

We can also show off our first backer-design character, Theo!  You've met him if you've played our demo (though quite briefly on the Sherwood side). Thanks to backer ShadowEgg for his design concept - I love it!  Here you see him in "guard" mode, but he has another outfit when he's more at-ease. Theo is a complicated secondary character who plays an important role on both the Sherwood and Nottingham sides.

Finally, lead artist Anna is busy completing Marion's new sprite design. It's a big job because Marion has a lot of outfits, hairstyles, and expressions, but here are some previews of the sprite in progress (NOT FINAL).

The Sound Department

I'm continuing my work in adding ambient tracks to the game. The first scene in the Sherwood common route is really enhanced with the sounds of Marion's horse and carriage and muffled hints of combat happening outside while she's becoming acquainted with Will.

Thanks to a hookup from our cut-in artist Lawrichai, I've been able to hire a medieval instrument specialist to record backing tracks for Alanna's bardic tunes. Greensleeves is going to sound much better backed by a lute than by a free karaoke track I found on the internet! I'll also be recording the vocals at an actual studio instead of on my desk mic. These lovely extras are all thanks to the above-and-beyond support you gave to our Kickstarter!

See you next month!

Development Update, June 2021
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 01:55:45 AM

Hi everyone!  Here's the news from Made Marion.

Fresh New Glossary

Thanks to our Beyond Stretch: Goodies funds, I've been able to hire an expert Ren'py programmer to add some things that I don't have the time or talent to add myself. Shawna is a joy to work with, and has given us a lovely enhanced glossary.

We now have automatic cross-referencing within glossary entries and sections for name pronunciation and maps!  The above map is temporary, of course.

Ambient Sound

I've also begun implementing ambient sound into the game. Three cheers to the folks who make ambience files for Dungeons & Dragons players!  They've incidentally created some perfect ambient soundtracks for a medieval fantasy game, and several of them have been kind enough to allow licensing for commercial video games.  By the way, you'll be able to adjust the volume level of the ambient sound to your liking, separate from music and sound effects.

Programming the Prologue

After consultation with Anna, we did a small development pivot. I decided to code in the Prologue and do the necessary related edits to our common routes before embarking on our character routes.  I've just finished the first prologue coding pass (story, backgrounds, sprite positions/animations, music, and sound) and everything looks great!  It feels lovely to hear the birds chirping in the background when Marion is out in Glastonbury's fields and forests.

Marion's father and stepmother in the new sprite style. Marion's new sprite is currently in progress, and she'll be wearing a slightly different dress in the prologue.

Sepia-tone for memories!  Ren'py has a new function that makes it very easy to tint backgrounds and sprites. By the way, Theo's design by one of our Character Designer backers is complete, and his sprite is at the sketch level. He's rather handsome, so we're sorry to report that he is both gay and taken.

Marion and her father have a lot of conflict in this chapter. It's only natural for two people who haven't seen each other in years and have similar personalities but very different outlooks on life. If only they'd had the time to get to know each other anew. Alas, I had to get the game's plot going!

I'm super excited about the prologue. I think it turned out very well, and it'll give everyone a chance to get to know Marion better before she's plunged into the deep end of her adventure. 

Mini Beta Upcoming

With this programming pass, we don't have a ton more work to do on the prologue. I just need to implement a few final sprites and their expressions (Marion's expressions are in already, because the new file names will be the same as the old) and link glossary terms. I'm going to get started on our animated lore introduction as well.  Once this is done, I'm going to hold an early mini Beta to test the prologue and get our beta backers used to our system.

If you backed at the beta level, you'll be getting a notice in your inbox in late summer or early fall with the beta NDA and instructions. In the meantime, please do join our Discord server if you haven't yet. If you have already joined, check your profile and make sure you have the Beta Tester status. I added as many people as I could, but there were a lot of folks I couldn't find (Discord search is imperfect). We have a channel for you to use if you should have beta tester status but do not.

See y'all next month!

May 13 Development Update
almost 3 years ago – Fri, May 14, 2021 at 01:48:09 AM

Hey all!  We've got tons to share with you this month.

The Writing Department

The prologue script is complete and will be edited later this month. I'm currently finishing up the second half of Sherwood Common, Chapter 2, and next week I'm moving on to Robin's route.

I'm sure everyone will enjoy seeing what happens after the end of the current Sherwood demo. Marion gets to know Tuck a little better, but she may not like what she learns. She's able to prove herself to the rebel leaders through some fun sparring matches (can she beat Will?  Prooooobably not.) And she even gets to meet a changeling (one of our backer-designed NPCs!) and acquire a new... pet?

Of course, at the end of the Sherwood Common Route, Marion will have to decide with whom she wishes to work most closely in the Rebellion. Will it be Leader Robin, who can teach her to up her archery game and acquaint her with the needs of Nottingham's commoners? Second John, who can teach self-defense and is investigating the corruption in Nottingham's guard? Or Scarlet Blade Will, who will help her improve her swordsmanship and is getting to the bottom of the Sheriff's program of indentures servitude? OK, fine, I know a lot of you will be choosing based on whom you most wish to smooch (absolutely nothin' wrong with that!), but perhaps Marion has more practical considerations - at first.

The Art Department

We have a big art announcement, which those of you on our Discord channel have already heard. Our existing sprites were created with a lovely shading style that is, unfortunately, extremely time-consuming. While working on our CGs, our lead artist Anna found a style that is still gorgeous but will allow her the time to create more poses and more NPC sprites for the project.

Here's our friend Alanna demonstrating the new style:

If it looks a bit blurry, that's a relic of Kickstarter image processing, not the art itself. Anyway, I think it matches our backgrounds even better than the previous style!  This will be our final sprite redo, and it's going to be really exciting to see the new poses we get out of it (Alanna is getting a lute-playing pose, for instance, and Will is now able to un-cross his arms when needed).

Many of the prologue art assets are complete. Here are some backgrounds that show the look of Marion's hometown of Glastonbury during the spring:

And here's a sneak peek at Lord Glastonbury.  Marion got her mother's eyes, but most everything else, including her character, comes from dear old dad.

Of course, this means they get along perfectly, and there's absolutely no conflict in the prologue that causes Marion to end up in a carriage hurtling through Sherwood Forest, right?

The Sound Department

I've purchased several ambient sound packs thanks to our Beyond Stretch: Art and Sound budget. They should give our scenes a nice added dimension. Ambience will also have its own volume slider separate from music and sound effects, so you can turn it up or down at will.

And our Original Music stretch goal is complete!  I was able to commission three original pieces from our main composer, Alexander Nakarada, and fill some important holes in our soundtrack. I'm attaching two of them here, and the third is one of Alanna's songs, so it'll be complete this fall when I record our vocals. I've found a highly-rated local studio with very reasonable prices, so I'll be able to fit that into our budget and get a more professional sound to Alanna's lyrics.

Anyway, here are John's theme and a song for romantic moments called Heartbeat:

That's what we've got to share this month! I'm super excited to dig into our first full route. Robin Hood, the Prince of Thieves, seems instantly smitten by Marion, but she's not sure she trusts his motives. They enter into a bet that seems like a sure win for our heroine, unless, of course, she falls helplessly in love with the man by the end of the summer. It's all teasing fun, daring heists, and a thrilling game of hide and seek with the Sheriff of Nottingham until the man behind the clownish masks begins to show through and Marion's heart starts to disagree with her head...

Wallpaper Set = Masquerade!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, May 02, 2021 at 03:48:57 PM

After a week and with close to half of our backers casting their vote, the winning wallpaper set is Masquerade!  Anna loves drawing fancy Renaissance-style clothing, so I'm very excited to see what she cooks up later this year.

Thanks to everyone who made wallpaper theme suggestions on Discord! Masquerade was in fact suggested by one of our backers!  The final count was very close, but Masquerade had been ahead of Wet and Wild by .5-3% throughout the vote count (it wasn't a last-second upset or anything), so I feel confident that it's the overall winner.

We'll have a more comprehensive development update in the next few weeks, but until then, enjoy these backgrounds from Marion's home holding of Glastonbury. You'll see them in the prologue. I love the difference in tone between the homey Glastonbury study and Lord Geoffrey's more forbidding room.