A Night at the Office #5

I'm no stranger to having second thoughts about things, but even I am becoming a little exasperated by a stream of posts in r/RenPy lately, all along the lines of "would you play a VN that looked like this?"

There's certainly a school of thought that says VNs must be in the anime/manga style of the earliest Japanese examples, and I'd certainly agree that doing a bit of market research can be beneficial to one's final product but, when the same person spends several days in a row testing the waters with hand-drawn sprites vs. CGI, background images, UI assets, etc., without even dropping any hints as to the subject matter or tone of the story, one has to wonder what progress, if any, they're making in turning their project into a finished product rather than a constantly-in-progress pipe dream.

Time will tell, I suppose...

In the meantime, here's the latest on my own constantly-in-progress pipe dream!

My first intern sprite, Kristine, was completed by the artist around mid-October and, as I write, work is in progress on the second, Karl. When I contacted the artist about these two sprites, I said that I wanted them face-on rather than at a three-quarter angle, like Abigail. My thought process was that, while Abigail is on-screen (as a permanent, animated sprite, not a side image), she's actually present via a separate 'camera', which always focused on her, rather than being presented in a way that shows her wholly within the 'world', while the player is more-or-less seeing through her eyes. Thus, the two interns are seen face-on because we, the player, are looking directly at them and communicating directly with them, through Abigail's eyes. It was a conscious, stylistic choice with, I feel, well-considered, valid reasons behind it...

However, I'm beginning to think this was a mistake, as certain aspects of the art style don't come across so well in this form, since they rely on elements of lighting/shading that are more apparent when a character is viewed at an angle, giving them a greater sense of depth. This is particularly apparent in their faces, and there are going to be some visual discrepancies and inconsistencies between the interns and Abigail as a result.

Now, I'm not saying I don't like the work the artist has done - far from it: it's absolutely fantastic. Nor am I saying that I'm going to get both characters re-done with the poses altered. First and foremost, the opportunity to do that has long since passed. As I said, one sprite is complete, and the other is in progress, with its outline sketch approved just a couple of days ago. If I was going to alter the pose, I needed to do that after I received the first sketch of Karl, inevitably incurring additional cost due to the artist having to start from scratch... And, at the end of the day, I'd then have three sprites: the face-on Kristine, then the angled versions of Kristine and Karl.

Naturally, I am anxious to avoid additional cost, above and beyond what I'll need to pay for the other artwork I want for the project, but that's not my sole reason for ploughing on when I already have doubts about my sprites. My vibe on development is that ANatO is my project. Not only that, but it's been a work-in-progress for four years already. Most importantly, though, ANatO was intended to be my first published Ren'Py project, and so I want it to be as much of a learning experience as possible. If that involved intentionally leaving things in the demo that I consider potential 'mistakes', so much the better, because making mistakes will not only help me to complete ANatO, but to make it the best version it can possibly be before the full, finished version is published. It will also help shape future projects, beginning with Embracing Christmas and (working title) The Masquerade Benefit.

Finally, and to be perfectly frank, ANatO is something I started purely to amuse my girlfriend: a story using - and focused on - her character from an RPG.

The bottom line is that, sooner or later, I would need to make the choice to publish what I have, or it'd forever remain a work-in-progress on which I continue to perform minor tweaks ad infinitum.

The decision I've made, therefore,  is to publish the cut-down demo - a shorter read with variations on the Intern ending - as soon as possible after the Karl sprite is complete... and once I stop procrastinating about storyboarding the endings. With the endings storyboarded, I have something to present the artist for reference when I'm ready and in a position to proceed with more artwork, but I may well leave the final artwork for the demo's endings for the final VN... even though, by that point, this specific ending will be just one of ten, and so less likely to be experienced by the player.

Along the way, I might also consider getting the intern sprites re-created at a three-quarter angle or, by then, I may have decided to leave them as-is.

But at least I'll have published something... However long it takes to actually finish ANatO, the demo will be out there... and, with any luck, I'll start getting a bit of feedback that can help me plan the next game.

And, hopefully, that means that my next DevLog will be accompanied by the demo.