Miasma Override

Game design:

There's also a few mechanics I was writing into the game, and adding new and... interesting choices throughout. For example, I decided to add a system where depending on if you are a little more assertive, or if you let the love interest take the lead, different events happen and you get varying CGs.

In addition to an assertive/passive MC, I also added in another element where each route has a secondary love interest who is also interested in MC, and if your affection is low for the main love interest character's route, the secondary love interest will also show an interest, and you may end up on the secondary love interest's route. There are alternative CGs that occur if you do end up going on the secondary love interest route.

There's also a few choices sprinkled throughout the beginning that decide various things, like MC's favourite food, what kind of pet her housemate has (hedgehog or dog), or... I'll let the screenshot above do the talking : v )

Some characters are receiving multiple character sprites. Currently, each love interest has two or three alternative sprites, where at least one sprite for each love interest has multiple arm poses. The main sprite for each love interest also has around four interchangeable outfits.

CG Pictures:

I ordered a new tablet a while ago that has a screen, and lining CGs was occurring much faster when working on that tablet for me. There are also some CGs I worked on since the last update too:

Writing Progress:

Writing has been coming along well. I've been spending a lot of time working with plot holes that have come up and fixed up some scenes for continuity. I'm also continuing to add character portraits/sprites to scenes and background changes. One of the love interests has most of his scenes already coded, with just a few fight scenes left. The other two love interests are going to be a lot more work, but I anticipate working on them a lot more during the Fall of 2021.

For anyone who is curious about the project:

I posted a brief summary and character descriptions here.

The demo will be pending for a while, but I will post the demo on Itch.io, and I also post will be resuming updates on Twitter.

Thank you for reading!

Aqua (Protagonist) "I think they're... Mabel and Aubrey? I had no idea that other people would be taking part in these missions."

Mabel "You're correct. There aren't too many people doing them. We're one of the lucky few."

Leo "Wait, but how do you two know my name??"

Mabel "I think most people at Sylmont know you by now. You're constantly running from building to building in the hallways."

Mabel "Plus, you're not ugly."

Aubrey "Er... Mabel can be kind of blunt sometimes. To put it better, your face is fairly easy on the eyes."

His face went from pale to red in seconds as these two girls were talking about him. It was kind of amusing to watch. I looked at Aubrey, probably with a blank stare.

Aubrey "Sorry, I shouldn't be saying such things so openly! I mean, you two must be boyfriend and girlfriend, so--"

Aqua (Protagonist) "Don't worry. I'm actually single, for now."

Leo "Y-Yeah, so am I!"

Aubrey "Well, Aqua, make your move already! Not often do you have a fine guy just waiting for you to sweep him off of his feet."

Aqua (Protagonist) "Erm..."

Leo "Well, Aqua? I'm yours for the taking."

If you accumulated enough points with Leo at this point:

Aqua "Ermm..."

Leo "Oof, the cold shoulder..."

Otherwise...

Aqua "Denied." Leo "Well, can't say I didn't try."

Mabel "We should probably get going then. We still need to get some more work done. Excuse us."

Aubrey "See you later!"

Aubrey gave us a quick wave and both of them walked off. Mabel seemed to have been walking fairly quick, so Aubrey had to catch up to her. I looked back at Leo, who appeared to have been lost in thought. His arms were crossed, and he was tapping his index finger on his arm. He was staring at the ground so intensely, I just had to break his gaze with my hand.

Aqua "Hey, uhh.. That was really weird, wasn't it?"

Masked Man: "You alright?"

Aqua: "Huh...?"

Masked Man: "I've seen you pacing back and forth around here. Are you lost?"

Aqua: "Same could be said for you. You've been standing around, are you looking for someone?"

Masked Man: "..."

Masked Man: "It seems like all my friends have ditched me."

Aqua: "Some friends they are."

Masked Man: "Yeah."

Aqua: "Then again, the person I came with also decided to run off on his own."

Masked Man: "Oh, that's horrible."

Aqua: "I don't think he left purposely. We just happened to get separated."

Masked Man: "That would make sense. It sure is crowded tonight."

Aqua: "Mhm."

Masked Man: "Hm, maybe we can keep each other company while we look for each other's groups."

Aqua: "We can do that."

Masked Man: "I think I'm going to buy a drink, do you want anything?"

Aqua: "Sure, could I get maybe some grape soda?"

Masked Man: "Oh, you like grape soda too? Everybody seems to make fun of me for it, saying it tastes like medicine."

Aqua: "You have good taste, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Their taste buds don’t work. Ours are just fine."

Masked Man: "I like the way you think."

Masked Man: "Anyway, just stay right there. I'll bring you a soda then."

Aqua: "Thank you!"

He walked off, merging with the crowd. I patiently waited in the spot that we were talking in.

I waited...

... And waited...

And waited some more.

Aqua: “(I've been waiting forever for this guy to come back with the soda. My phone battery is dead now too. From the look of the sky, it's already been a while.)"

???: "There you are!"

Aqua: "Huh...?" Jasper: "I was looking all over for you! Where did you run off? Stay close to me. I don't want to lose you."

Aqua: "Where did you go?"

Jasper: "Ta-da!"

He pulled out a plastic container with some sushi rolls.

Jasper: "I wanted to get you some salmon sushi. It was almost sold out. I just happened to get the final pack for you."

Aqua: "Jasper...”

Aqua: "(He really does remember my preferences, even though it's been a while since we lived together.)"

Jasper: "Amazed? Falling for me now?"

Jasper: "Be careful now, watch your step~"

Aqua: "I'm not going to fall or any--"

And on cue, I just happened to nearly trip, but fortunately, Jasper pulled me into his embrace. While it was loud from the festival music, I felt the beating of a heart that started to beat faster and faster. It was almost as loud as the drums in the background. Jasper soon positioned me back to where I was.

Jasper: "Sorry, you were about to fall. You would've tripped otherwise."

Aqua: "N-No, thank you for that."

He had a warm smile on his face.

Jasper: “This festival is so nostalgic in the best way possible. I'm so happy that I got to spend tonight with you.”

The both of us walked into the festival, enjoying our last days of summer.

(He’s asking too many questions at once!)

(I wonder what he could be so surprised about?)

Aside from that, I started drawing some sub-characters as well, and finished drawing a few of them. I am excited to share how they will look like in the future demo.

Demo: Speaking of the future demo, I’m finally at the point where I can almost release a demo right up before protagonist and crew enter the “other world”, a section of the game that is about 30,000 words or so. About 90% of the programming, including the sprites, music and backgrounds are inside the demo portion. Now, it is a matter of cleaning up the script a little as well as removing any images, script and music from the main game to make the demo as small in file size as possible. I also need to fix up the formatting for the dates, like the one in the screenshot above.

Coding: Over the past month, I did a sizable number of programming-related tasks in Ren’Py. A few fighting scenes and group scenes are now coded in. One of the CGs I made also uses dynamic movement, so it’ll be interesting when people actually get to see them.

Writing: Unfortunately, not much writing was done recently. Since May 5th, there are 2,000 more words inside the Ren’Py program. However, I did map out one of the endings over in Twine, so I have a relatively clear view of how one of the love interest’s routes ends.

That’s it for now. I hope you’re all staying well during these unprecedented times.

- Anise

P.S., I thought I might drop this scene in here somewhere...

I can’t believe it’s been so long, it still feels like it didn’t happen too long ago. This character was actually born out of me and my high school friend wanting to write complimentary stories about two delinquent but “kingly” high school boys who just like to mess around (i.e. power rangers, skunk pranks, and pretending to be anime lawyers... or something). Here are a few pictures I retained from my high school days.

While this picture wasn’t the original concept art, I think it really portrays many facets of his younger personality. At some point, he used to have his hair parted on the left-hand side of his face.

Anyway, so this guy went through a lot of different names. His first name was Ryouji because my friend thought it would be fun to write a Japanese high school anime story, and she really wanted our characters to follow a royalty theme. Apparently, “Ryouji” means “good reign” according to some baby name websites. Then for the longest while, his name became Riley because I wanted to choose an anglicized name for the story I was writing, and it still partially kept the meaning. I still wanted the name to have the y closer to the R, so somehow it later became Ryan, which still retains the ‘king’ theme. His current name is now Leon since the character is left handed and L’s are pronounced as R’s in Japanese anyway. Right now, I think I’ll leave it as Leon or Leo since Leon means lion and lions typically are a symbol associated with kings.

Aside from his name, Leon’s appearance has gone through a lot. Here’s a picture of him as a college student for something that I wanted to write, but this concept didn’t go too far. He becomes a little more serious since the high school version of what you see above. Leon also originally wore a red jacket to pay tribute to the original name Ryouji. You’ll have to imagine the red on the jacket here, sorry...

So that picture was actually drawn right before my first or second term test in university. I was getting really anxious like many students right before a midterm, and that just... happened.

I decided to write an otome game with the college form of Leon’s character in mid-2018. That’s also where his design started to change some more. I thought blue or green suited Leon much better than red, so that’s why his outfits reflect that in the screenshot below. Leon’s hair parting has changed to the right, and his hair becomes a little more more unkempt.

You might also get a feel for his personality changes, where he becomes a lot more serious over time.

Anyway, that’ll be all for this topic for now! I also wanted to share some work I’ve been doing on a replay screen page:

I’m mostly doing the screen replay page for myself to see which scenes have music and sprites added, and which ones don’t. I thought it might be helpful to just leave it in the game when people want to re-watch a particular scene from the game, but they don’t want to go through the entire game looking for it. I also wanted to add in ‘random’ scenes that happen throughout the game, but you wouldn’t be required to replay the scenes again - you would be able to play them here.

Currently it only shows 2 chapters on the replay scene screen, but there are 5 completed chapters for Leon actually (Chapters 2-6), I just haven’t gotten around to programming them in as scene replays. His story is pretty much complete, and I don’t have any plans on actually expanding it. I look forward to when people get to read his route, along with the other love interests!