Diamon

@Tiago and @Bolverk Thanks a lot for your inputs! And we're very glad that you enjoyed the demo! Yes, we'd L-O-V-E to have other videos from you! And for any other type of promotion, I'll leave it to your own judgement, I think it's better that you agree to promote our VN on your own initiative if you enjoy the demo^^ I'd like to ask you to play through the whole demo, but it might take a while since it has 4 days and your first video hasn't even covered half of the first day yet. The presentation of all the heroines is spread across the fourth day unfortunately (the last heroine is introduced on day 4), so if you want to introduce all the heroines, you'll have to play until that point. Also, concerning your concerns about the rather elaborate words used in narration, as a non-native speaker myself, I have to agree with what you're saying, there are a lot of words that non-native have never seen, and that might even be the case for some native speaker if they are not used to reading a lot. However, there are two factors counterbalancing that fact : - Firstly, it's relatively easy to guess the meaning of the more difficult words through context. It has this: "I don't understand exactly what that word meant, but given the context it is most likely something like..." - Secondly, this advanced vocabulary is often used in descriptions, so as a result it is possible to ignore them if I really can't guess the meaning of the words, and it won't affect the "what is character doing" side of the narration. (even though I agree that I'd lose the "visual" part of the description, but non-native speaker are fairly used to that and mostly not care that much for descriptions imo) Of course, it's no excuse for the fact that some part are relatively hard to read^^ But I believe it wouldn't necessarily harm the reading experience (not too much at least). Anyway, thanks a lot for your let's play, it's really cool that you are helping the projects on Fuwanovel to get more recognition! Keep up the good work!

Nooooo.... *cries tears of blood*

Hey everyone^^ First let me clarify what I mean by side sprite / portrait, it's basically this :

I'm glad that my guide is giving you motivation to start on a new project! What's more you're a composer, so if you manage to handle the writing as well, you'll be able to create great tracks that synergies perfectly with what you're writing!^^ Just looking at Jun Maeda's work, the combination of the music and the writing just make VN from Key some of the best I've ever read!

Okay, that's definitely weird I guess, especially since you're the only person who got that bug so far. I'll try to investigate though^^ (I've also added something in the disclaimer so that it won't happen to someone else^^) Actually, i think the culprit is mostly because of the drafts that were rewritten over and over again (all the more considering that the very first drafts were not written by our current main writer), while keeping bits of the old drafts and adding new narration and such. As a result, it definitely feels less consistent then it should. I believe there shouldn't be such a problem for the later release, since our lead writer pretty much wrote all the rest by herself without basing herself on pre-existing drafts starting from day 5-6. Haha, that's nice then!^^ But yeah, i do understand that some other people might not like VN with a slow start^^ That's funny because the one who shaded the male sprites is actually Dizzy^^ (except for one character on the demo). But I guess she didn't have much time to spend on shading those characters since she has quite the workload. I believe it's probably possible to have Dizzy and Elphaze work more together to get a more polished result and more consistent sprites between males and females, but that would require to spend much more time working on the sprites. Drawn by yuuko, or BG artist :

And the demo 2.0 is now officially out! You can play it here : http://lucid9.weebly.com/play.html Don't hesitate to share your opinions, impressions and comments on this thread! Any feedback is welcome! For those who have the time, here is a list of questions we'd like you to answer : Did you encounter any technical problem with the engine?During your playthrough, what aspect of the VN did you enjoy the most? What do you think could be improved? Which character do you like the most? What do you think of the art? What do you think of the audio? What do you think of the writing? Did you enjoy playing through the demo?

It's coming soon... Very soon... /thehypeisreal

Welp, long time no news! Actually, it's been one year since the whole project! One whole year! *feels old* We've been through many hardships... But we also had a lot of laughs together as a team in Fallen Snow Studios! Anyway, we are all working very hard on the next demo, at the same time most of us were very busy with mid-terms (hence why the lack of news, I apologize for that). The deadline is set to April 3rd! We'll do our best to make it in time! SO YES, NEW DEMO SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 3RD, YOU HEARD THIS RIGHT. Once again, the date is not absolute. We might be able to release it sooner, or later if bad stuff happens. That's how it is :s Have a screenshot in the meanwhile :

Wait, Quebecois aren't french people!! Just kidding! Have fun in the fuwa forums, hopefully you'll enjoy yourself here!

I'd advice you to either try your luck on : http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/index.php or http://www.deviantart.com/ It's quite unlikely that you'll find artists on Fuwanovel (well, there might be some lurking in the shadows for all I know ^^)

That's way too much honor haha! XD But I really really appreciate it! I think it's just our way to give back to the community and to the VN genre in general since it is such an awesome medium, and since Fuwa is also an awesome community!

W-What did I just watch...?

Whoa, such a nice guide! I can only say GJ Helvetica! It feels even more impressive by knowing it's only the first part out of 5 remaining!

Hey, welcome to the forums! It's nice to see fellow VN developers sign up on Fuwa! Hope you'll enjoy your stay here!

I am honestly not able to tell you (because of the issue I mentioned on the previous post). At the same time, I don't want to give people false hope by giving a date when I have no idea if something will be released or not.

Hello everyone! After nearly a month, I believed it would be good to give some news about the project^^ So : - First, the main page was updated with the new character profiles (+ some extras). The presentation style is different than what we had before and more generally the rest of the thread, it kinda hints at what type of UI we are planning to have for the game (You won't likely find that in the next demo though). - Second, project is still running well. I have to say plenty of assets have been created over winter break (I won't be putting everything on the thread though of course, because I don't want to spoil people! ). Writing word count so far is around 140k words which is quite an achievement in itself! The writing for the next demo is nearly ready (part of it still has to go through some editing), it is supposed to have around 80k words, but it might change depending on some factors. To compare, the current day 1 demo has ~7k words. - Concerning art, most of the sprites are ready (except a few ones that are being worked on). All heroines have now 2 poses! (Yay! ). It is not very likely that we'll find the time to create more than one or two CG for the next demo. I really wanted to have one intro CG for each heroine, but I guess it will have to wait for later x) Backgrounds are a tedious things to work on (especially since we decided to change BG style, we ended up having to redo all the previous backgrounds), but they are looking really awesome thanks to Yuuko, here, take a sneak peek We are still looking for people to help with backgrounds by the way, you don't have to be an artist for that (even though some experience in drawing might help), we just need people with decent-good photoshop skills! (More info on this thread : https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/7998-recruiting-for-the-lucid9-project/) - Music is ready as well, except for two tracks that are being worked on. - Main menu, logo and GUI are being overhauled. Even though probably none of them will be final (=used for the final release), it should be more representing of the general theme of Lucid9, and (hopefully) prettier! So as you can see, we're getting close to a new demo release. However, I haven't announced anything yet, and there's a reason for that. It's mainly that Greg, our programmer has personal issues (life happens, it sometimes can't be helped), and it forced us to delay the release date of the 2nd demo since we believe the engine is still not good enough from a reader's perspective. (Basically, you'd play under the same conditions of the current demo, with very minimalist options, and since the duration of the 2nd demo will probably be much longer, it would be very uncomfortable to play the demo). I'm deeply sorry for those who might be awaiting the next demo impatiently, I will have to ask them to wait a little more! While we are waiting for our programmer's situation to improve enough so he can resume working with us, we are also working on alternatives for the worst case scenario (aka if he has to definitely leave the project), so rest assured, a second demo will be released eventually, that I can promise! Finally, I have some questions for the people reading this post and interested in the project. 1. Do you believe the description of the synopsis is fine? Would you like it to be more detailed? 2. For those who might have visited the blog, or for those who frequent it regularly, what kind of blog posts would you like to see? 3. Do you want the Lucid9 project to be more "interactive" with the Fuwanovel community (AMA, polls, events, backstage secrets revealed...)? If you'd like to see a specific type of event created by us on Fuwanovel, don't hesitate to say so! 4. Besides update posts, what kind of posts would you like to read in this thread? 5. Would you be interested in having us trying to take Fuwanovel's people opinion concerning ideas we had, have, or might have considering the development of Lucid9? (Doesn't mean it will necessarily be about writing and plot) Keep in mind that even though I'm asking that, it doesn't mean that it will happen for sure in the future. Thanks in advance for the people willing to take some time answering those questions! And thanks for all the people supporting us with messages in this thread! It really, really means a lot for us.

Hey, a Key fan! Nice to see you on the forums, hope you'll enjoy your time here!

I think one thing that is needed to be taken into account as well when recruiting people (And I believe it's true for any role on any type of projects) is the ratio "offer / demand". Typically, if I need to recruit someone that I know I will find very few, generally because the skill wanted is something rare, (An artist for an EVN project, or a translator for a fan trad project), I will automatically be less picky when a person is interested. However if I need to recruit someone I know I will find many applicants (a writer for an EVN project, or QC for a fantrad), I will definitely be much more picky and make harder tests, because if I have the choice, why wouldn't I pick the best applicant? You could argue by saying that then, if I have many applicants, recruiting several people less skilled but motivated is better than recruiting only one very skilled person. However, as a project lead myself, I can say it's actually more work for the leader, and that the time you might gain by having more people working on it, you will lose it in organization issues and while trying to harmonize the different style differences and skill difference between the applicants you recruited.

I just played the demo. I have to say I had mixed feelings by the end of it. I'll try to be as objective as possible, but still take my opinion with a grain of salt as I hold any universal truth. Pros : - The UI and menu are very pretty. It's very refreshing, and gives a good idea about the orientation of the VN (fantasy oriented I believe). - A good number of options, even though some of them were not completely functional it seemed (the text speed didn't seem to work), but I realize it's a beta and that those issues will be addressed eventually. - The voice acting is pretty good, except for the fact that I could slightly hear mic blow from time to time. Nothing very bad though. - Art overall is pretty, it's colorful, I like it, however I can't help but notice some irregularities in the sprites (the shading for example as some people mentioned). - The backgrounds are really nice, but it seemed to me that all of them didn't have the same resolution (the exterior of the hospital seemed to be of lower quality compared to the rest, the library BG seemed to have a different style than the others) - HD res is really, really nice. Props to you for proposing that. Cons : - First, I'll start by saying I won't talk about technical issues such as voices sometimes not playing, or text being too slow, since it's a beta I believe those issues will be fixed at some point. - However, there is one big thing that really annoyed me a lot through the whole read : THE (lack of) TRANSITIONS. There are nearly 0 animations concerning that in the whole demo, and it really set me off. I mean, there is no fade-in or fade-out for the sprites, music and backgrounds transition. Even when changing scenes, suddenly the music and backgrounds instantly change without a black screen between them to "warn" the reader, it's really disturbing. All the more since most of the scenes are really short. It becomes even more ridiculous with the music that pops for like 10 seconds, and then suddenly stops without a fade-in to change directly onto another track. So yeah, a lot of work to do here. - There are very too few face expressions. It feels really awkward when I read a dialog line where the character is supposed to be serious (what's more I can't even be misinterpreting the tone since I have voice acting), and the character is still smiling. - More sound effects would be nice. It's a Visual Novel, when the text says "I receive a punch", I'm expecting to hear a punch sound, no matter how bad or unrealistic it might sound. - The writing stule is passable. What I mean by that is that I could understand what was written, and it wasn't suffering from blatant and obvious grammar or syntax problem, but I definitely felt the writing style could use some improvement, what exactly, I'm not really sure. However, I'm saying that as a non-native english speaker, so I'm pretty sure English native will be much less tolerant than me on that side. I'd really suggest you to recruit an editor on your team, as it seems that you don't have one currently. - Now, the story and the content. This part will be totally subjective, so I'll put it in spoiler : And for the conclusion : Anyway, best of luck on your project! It's really nice to see people trying to develop VN, and props for you and your team for being able to release a concrete playable demo, it is not something that every project manage to do!

I think Little Busters has a lot of choices, but except for choosing the routes, they aren't really important to the story... What would be the closest to what you're seeking would be Fate/Stay night, as there are a lot of choices in the VN that all matters (a good chunk of them being life or death matters), but unfortunately there aren't many routes, which is compensated by the fact the routes in fate are really long (I am not taking into account the 30 different bad endings, some of them are very short though)

I've been wanting to say it for a while now, but why do you actually always feel the need to show your worth by belittling literally the whole EVN scene? I mean, of course you can boast about how your art looks nice, because it does, but at the same time if you're really confident in the quality of the art, can't you just say so without insulting every OELVN artist at the same time? What's more, taste in art is a very subjective topic. You say that japanese artists have a better approach of anatomy : Surely you've read KEY works right? Not sure I can say that the body proportions are "professionals" (I mean, dem eyes that take half of the face...), even though I do love Key art style. Believe it or not, Western people (and not necessarily us, since we are people who are accustomed to japanese animation) might actually prefer games where girls actually don't seem to all have breast implants, or have ridiculous body proportion that I doubt it's actually possible to attain in reality, or faces where the nose is nearly non existent and where eyes take half of the space? I just find it really rude, especially since you're partially also criticizing people that, them at least, managed to release a completed project. Also, from time to time, some humility wouldn't hurt. Hopefully you know this word if you're a writer. Maybe instead of going "I shall bestow upon thee the privilege of participating to what will become the most awesome project that you'll ever see!" , something like "I'd like to have some help brainstorming potential idea for the scenario!" would be a good change of pace. Well, I might be asking too much I guess. Anyway, still, best of luck on your future endeavors. Hopefully this time you'll manage to reach the kickstarter phase. I saw what you did there...

It seems that most people prefer to have precise roles, so I guess I will list what are the different job required if you want to participate. Don't worry, there is no skill requirement^^ - Asset finder : First, you need assets, so you need someone who can find assets on the web, or create them yourself. It can be photoshopped pictures, or filtered backgrounds, creating sprites from a sprite maker... That's what an asset finder is here for. - Writer : I don't really have to explain I believe^^ - VN creator : Basically, the editor is the one that will put all the assets together with the writing in order to create the VN. he is the one responsible for creating the animations of the different sprites, put the sound effects, or the text effects... It's very similar to video editing. Of course, you can accumulate several roles, or even all of them at once. If you'd like to participate, please state which role you'd like to take on! I'll try to list everyone here!

I've sent PM to the people interested. People should be able to work on separate projects at the same time even on the same account, but I'm not sure what is going to happen if two people work on the same project at the same time and both save their work, so in doubt I'd advice to try to communicate wwith the other person if you're willing to work on an existing project. I've created a test project where I'll input some assets so that people can try to mess a bit with the editor! Actually, I don't exactly want people to consider "roles" like for a regular Visual Novel project, I mean by no mean I'm expecting to form any real and concrete project like that (it might, but that's not my goal), technically anyone can create a little something, more or less serious, depending on how much time you're willing to spend. It's like creating an AMV, you just need to choose the video (here the sprites and BG) from what you can find on the web, same for the music. The only real "creative" part is the writing, but then again anyone can write to some extent (I mean if it's for a somehow trollish project, you don't exactly need to write like Shakespeare^^) Yeah, actually at some point we talked to greg about and he did say that he wanted to allow custom code at some point, but obviously that it would be something to work on on the later phases of development.^^

(This post will be reserved for various tutorials and explanations about how to use Cloudnovel, if people are interested that is) I'll start with an introduction video to Cloudnovel that I made quite some time ago (sorry for the accent^^). it should give you the basics about how to use the editor. If people don't like videos, I can try to make a written tutorial with screenshots as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjAsknQIZXE