Et le grain mourut Devlog #2

Me in the first devlog: "maybe this will be a monthly thing"

Me two months and a week later: h

OKAY I'M SORRY LOL. I said "maybe not" after all... So. I have good news don't worry noo come back!! I made some interesting progress on the game during all that time B) "Why haven't you written a devlog a month ago then" I was afraid it wouldn't be interesting lol. Let me explain.

Regarding the NOVEL part of the visual novel.

In the previous post, I said that I was revising the script before I could insert it into the game. Well, I'm happy to say (finally) I'm done with both steps! Finishing the revision basically took me the whole month of January, and putting the text into the actual engine took me the first half of February.

That's precisely why I didn't make any post, I thought that "yeah trust me I'm done with revising/inserting text" and nothing else wasn't super interesting to tell lol. But now I'm able to say it's all done! Final stats according to Ren'Py: around 70,000 words. Phew. The full story is technically playable! Well, at the moment, it's probably not the best experience ever, because a lot of stuff that make it an actual game with sounds and images and stuff is still missing, but I'm working on it...

Regarding the VISUAL part of the visual novel.

I was also finally able to find the time to make all the backgrounds for the game! I'm pretty happy with how they look, so here are some samples :]

if you recognise all these locations congrats you're a real #parishead

Most of the images I use for these bgs come from Wikimedia Commons; originally I was using royalty-free photo websites like Unsplash or Pexels, only resorting to Wikimedia Commons when I needed super specific places I didn't find elsewhere. But the more used Commons, the more I realized how much better it was (for my needs at least)! Not only it has a lot more choices than the other sites when you need a specific location, but what really is the cherry on top is that they have historical photos! Public domain stuff from the 1920s and close decades! It feels so good to be able to use pics of Parisian streets and the like without worrying about cars and signs and shops and everything being too modern lmao. In the end I'd say that maybe 90% of the pics I use are from Commons and half of those are historical photos.

I also juust started working on sprites. I'll keep those as sketches for a moment but it's so fun to basically play with dolls and create scenes lol. I'm still missing like two thirds of the characters and a lot of expressions, but in the meantime I enjoy making these silly group scenes.

why did I even bother making backgrounds

What's with the ugly little bag in the top left?

Placeholder button for the inventory system. I'll talk about it later... This post is getting long OTL

Why is it in French?

As I said in the previous devlog, ELGM will be released in both English and French, don't worry! Translating it will likely only be a matter of a few months... clearly not years as opposed to the writing of the og script hahaha. I don't know how many people will play the game in French save for my irl friends, but it was important for me to originally write this story in the native language of my characters (and myself) rather than adapting it into English from the get-go.

What's next?

In the next devlogs, I'd like to talk about the inventory and the gallery systems I've added into the game! Also if you speak French... Maybe something interesting will come your way around April/May...