Lilies & Daruma

Here’s the deal, kiddos. I really wanted to participate in the 2017 Yuri Game Jam like I did last year. I had all of my artwork done by around September 20th, so it was physically possible if only just barely for me to finish on time. 

Which meant that I overworked myself and got sick and couldn’t finish.

So, I’m releasing 2/3 of the game demo now, and I’ll release the last 1/3 before the year is over. This works out, because it gives me time to work on some secret endings and polish a few features before I’m done with Hana’s route.

I’d love for people to try it out, and hopefully get some feedback on the way I’ve shaped the story so far. That said, a lot of the ‘feels good’ moments happen in the last third, so you’ll want to wait if you need conflict resolution right away.

You can try it on itch.io here! Lilies and Daruma: Hana’s Route Demo

Prompt #10: Out to eat (tfw you order the same thing as your girlfriend to look cool, not knowing she ordered the spiciest thing on the menu :/ )

Prompt #12: Mermaids

Prompt #8: In space! (drawing the astronaut suit was so much fun!)

Prompt #2: Kisses!

Prompt #5: Witch Girlfriends (well, sort of). 

Prompt #6: Hiking/camping/outdoors

I’m about halfway through my scene artwork. Above, you can see what exactly I’m talking about when I say I’m drawing a ‘scene’: instead of the characters standing in front of the background like they’re on a stage, the characters are drawn per frame so that they can interact with their background and other characters. The frames would be broken up with text boxes so that the story progresses like usual. It’s one aspect that I feel like is missing in a lot of VNs (cough cough Dream Daddy cough cough) that adds a lot of emotional impact, aside from the usual sex appeal. 

I also made up a GIF that shows my drawing process for each step of each scene. I’ll copy and paste things like the background or body parts that don’t move, but everything else has to get redrawn 6-7 times. I’ve gotten good enough at drawing my characters so that I don’t need a sketch layer with their hair or clothing, which I think is a huge step for me. 

Aaaand we’ve got Hana’s outfits! I felt like I did these a lot faster (probably because I’ve gotten so much more practive in lol). I even did every side character sprite that I’d need in one day! I’m tempted to show them off but they are very tall and I don’t want to make the world’s longest post (yet). 

Whoo, got all of Sayuri’s outfits. And yes, I have each of these outfits for all 36 of her facial expressions. That was hella difficult because her arms move in half of her expressions, so anything with sleeves had to get redrawn multiple times for every outfit. It was a lot of copy-pasting, mostly. I really like the result! Now I’ve just got to do this with Hana, and the rest of the characters.

“There’s something about summer that makes me think of home. It’s funny, though...the days I remember the most are the ones that I spent doing nothing.” -Hana Tanaka in the July chapter of Lilies & Daruma

As I was working on more art for my demo, something occurred to me- it’s a little hard to tell that this is a yuri game! I mean, you’d know once you started playing it, or if you read the description, or if you follow me here, but at a glance it was pretty ambiguous. 

When I chose the name My Sweet Daruma, I was in this really big Cage the Elephant kick and had some song stuck in my head, and just kind of ran with it. It was short and sweet, and left me a lot of room to change things as I went. 

After I realized how much I liked working on this project, I thought about changing it to be more “yuri-like,” but that idea went against most of my ideals at the time. Usually, games that have yuri in the title tend to be all about the sex, and not about actual relationships. I didn’t want the game, “HEY! There’s hot girls here, you should play this :)” like some sort of virus app, you know? 

But as I continue to work on things, and tell people about it, it’s come to my attention that most people don’t think Darumas are sexy at all! So, I don’t think it’s overkill to rebrand to reflect the game’s content a little more accurately. 

Ta-da! I cleaned this up and added some flowers. It’s tasteful, and the lilies give a pretty good hint as to what happens in the game. 

Welp, I drew until my pen broke and got about 1/6 of my way through the backgrounds I’ll need. (I also have about 20 character bases, but you don’t want to see those just yet).

While I wait on a new pen, here’s a sneak peak of my backgrounds! I like how my colors have been working out. I also think that it’s okay that they’re a little wonky, because everything is, and that adds to the *charm*. 

I finished the writing for Hana’s route! It re-wrote a lot of things, and I feel pretty confident with my story. It’s funny, how once you get to the last part, you realize how many things are just wrong.

I’m not going to post a draft here, because it’s 70 some pages and slowly devolves into gibberish, but I’m ready to start a demo.

I’ll need to do a few things for this to happen:

Draw 50 scene artworks, 75 backgrounds, and 25 characters, not including expressions and outfit changes. That sounds like a lot...but last time, I managed to create every asset that I needed in week. (If anyone wants to volunteer to draw some side characters/backgrounds, hit me up. I think it’s funny when art styles don’t quite match, so that would be fine). 

Learn Ren’Py. I looked at some tutorials, and I think I can do that.

Write the dialogue. I decided to do this as I program again, because it saves me a step and isn’t that hard. 

Do music. I feel like I could use LMMS, but I haven’t really tried. If not, I can play the recorder. Does anybody have links to good sites for free indie game music?

Once I do all of that, I’ll have a better, working, non-sketchy demo on my hands! I’ll still be posting regular updates, now with teaser art. I’ll also probably take regular breaks to write the other routes as I go. 

I’m getting close to finishing Hannah’s route, but some side characters needed names. As I was trying to think of good names for them, I realized none of my names made sense because every character had an English name...in Japan.

Now, this isn’t something that I just noticed. From the beginning, I left the names in English because they’re important symbolically and I get confused easily. And changing Japanese names to English for convenience is a bad excuse. It’s 2017, after all, I should be able to research some Japanese names. 

So, almost one year into development, here are the actual names of all of the main characters!

(I included the kanji because the symbols used change the meanings of the names, but I’m not 100% sure I’m right. The kanji will not appear in the final game anywhere. That said, if I’m wrong, and you know it, please correct me).

Last names, the ones that appear first, were chosen from what I understand to be common Japanese names. Here’s what the first names should mean:

Sayuri: Small lily. You know, because she’s the protagonist in a yuri game.

Aoi: A shade of blue-green that I’d like to compare to ocean green, to show her love of the ocean. 

Hana: Flower. Her last name means in the middle of rice field. That’s the part that will matter in the story. 

Yuki: Snow. Showcases both her beauty and her cold nature. 

Tomomi: Tomo for friend and mi for beautiful. Because she’s the alternate protagonist and the protagonist’s friend. 

Ai: Lavender? Don’t know if that means the color or the flower, but I wanted the triplets to have a simple A name theme. 

Natsuki: Natsu for summer and ki for hope. Contrasts nicely with her ex-girlfriend Yuki. 

Aya: Color? Matches the name theme. 

I’m excited to have that sorted out. On another note, I feel like my art is getting close to where I want it to be. I know that it’ll never be perfect, but I like it.

Last time I felt confident about my art, it looked like this:

Wow, that’s a change. When did that happen?

I made myself an icon. It’s so misshapen and obvious, and I’m very proud.

Seriously, I’m so so so so sooo close to being done with Hannah’s route. After that, I’m going to be ready to work on the next demo, which is going to need more of the little things that were missing from the October demo. Because I don’t have any time limits this time around, I’m raising my standards way high so that future me will meet current me somewhere in the middle. 

I found it

The solution for writer’s block