InvertMouse

Thank you ratboi! Really appreciate the Tayo avatar, too .

Hi everyone ! I want to let you know The Last Birdling has been released:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/


Bimonia is one of the last Birdlings alive on this earth. The Birdlings see humans as sworn enemies, and Bimonia has been taught to kill on sight.
One day, Bimonia meets Tayo, a human child hunting in the forest. Bimonia fails to kill Tayo, and they instead become friends. Mother will be furious if she finds out, or worse, this relationship may cause tension between the two species to erupt.
The Last Birdling explores Bimonia and Tayo’s fight for their friendship as the world threatens to tear them apart.


Follow Bimonia and Tayo’s journeys from alternating perspectives. With 21 decisions and 5 different endings, The Last Birdling is a culmination of all the lessons I have learned since 2012. There is a progress tracker available, which means players can unlock all the conclusions without any guides. I have also added a glossary feature, so those who wish to dive deeper can immerse themselves in the lore.




I hope you can give The Last Birdling a look and spread the word. As always, a review afterward would be much appreciated, since it will help other gamers out.


Thank you for the last five years of support!

Hi everyone ! Thank you for allowing me to post here, not just today, but for the past five years. The Last Birdling will be released next week on September 1st, so I have decided to put my portfolio of games on sale:

http://store.steampowered.com/bundle/2684/InvertMouse_Bundle/
The Last Birdling marks my fifth year not in game development, but at least under the name InvertMouse. I have released five to six titles on Steam now, and they have all taught me valuable lessons. It all started with Unhack 1 on this very forum, so I want to thank those who have been around since 2012. I have grown from five years' worth of mistakes since then, and as you will see below, I cannot bring myself to overhype some of these older titles. They still have all of my heart in them, though. That I will always be able to promise.

First, there was Unhack 1, which has many immature traits in retrospect. I must continue to accept critique even when it is for older titles that no longer reflect my skill level.

Then there is Bermuda, which I admit is a failure. I made plenty of management mistakes, and the results are out there for the world to see. Failure is not as scary once you have suffered through it. Please let me stress all the errors are on me, not anyone else on the team.

Next, we have Without Within 1 and 2. Initially, the first game received negative reviews from people who hated anime and/or visual novels. As the days went by, players who fell in love with Vinty have defended these titles. Vinty is kind, but she can also be a jerk. She is simply real.

There was Cursed Sight, featuring a protagonist who had caused some divided opinions. If I were to rewrite this story, I know I can do a much better job. Maybe I will revisit this one someday.

Then most recently came Unhack 2. This project was once a disaster due to my lack of research on AI. After months of study and rewrites, the game had evolved into my personal favorite. I hope more people may try out this title, because its themes have left me with plenty to think about.
The Last Birdling is a combination of all the lessons I have learned since 2012, and when it drops next week, I am sure I will grow from it yet again. I hope you will give the game a chance on September 1st. If you think the title is worth wishlisting, or if you are up for joining the Steam community, I would really appreciate it:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/
Thank you so much everyone. See you next week !

Hi everyone ! The journey is over, and at last, I can announce The Last Birdling’s release date. Here it is:



September 1st, 2017! The Last Birdling’s Steam page can now be accessed:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/

Recently, I have started to follow upcoming games that I want to keep on my radar. If you are willing to do the same for The Last Birdling, I would be so grateful. The “follow” and “add to your wishlist” buttons are available on the Steam page. I will be active on the community board, so I hope to hang out with you there.

As the release date approaches, I plan to post a new article every week. These articles will be available on the Steam page as well as my Facebook, Tumblr and all the other usual suspects. My social media links can be found here:



http://invertmouse.com

I am thankful to those who messaged in to say they fell in love with Bimonia and Tayo after the demo. After hundreds of development hours, those two have grown lives of their own. Once the game is released, I hope their story can be shared with as many people as possible.

Thank you!

Hi everyone ! I started Persona 5 quite a few weeks ago, and before I even installed the game, I picked up Futaba’s wallpaper from the PSN Store to put myself in that mode. The Persona Mode, I guess.
When both players and creators are in on the hype, that is when we have a great time. For instance, I can’t wait for Umaru season two, so I want to retweet messages from the official account, I want to support them with a bluray purchase, that sort of thing.
I hope to support The Last Birdling in any way I can, so today, I have put together some wallpapers and avatars for gamers to use:

If anyone decides to support me by using these assets, I am the one who is thankful, not the other way around. You are doing me a massive favor, and in the process, I hope it will help build excitement for that September 1st release.
Gamers want flexibility these days. Maybe you want the logo in a different position, or perhaps gone altogether. Depending on where your icons are positioned, you may also prefer the character(s) to shift left or right. To cater for this, I have included separate elements in each wallpaper for you to adjust as needed:

These wallpapers are available in the highest available res. Even if you extracted those assets from the game, they will not be available at this size. Hopefully at least one of them will suit your tastes.
All right, here is the pack:
http://birdling.invertmouse.com/birdlings-media-pack.zip
As usual, I hope you may consider wishlisting and/or joining our Steam community:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/
Thank you!

I like it when in between there are random interviews with the staff talking about baseball or some other topic completely unrelated to the game.

Like @Chronopolis already mentioned, what's really interesting is usually artist's own vision; most of them are usually tasked with specific workload and they are rarely given complete freedom over the project (although it happens, this is when we usually get really great art that feels like an extension of the game). That said, anything from additional information about particular elements, from characters to backgrounds (aka locations) is worth having, especially if we're dealing with creative people. What I love the most are typically works in progress, showing the drawing's evolution - from design and early roughs to complete artwork.

I like having the original sketches, and the in-progress or concept art. Like you guys said, the original cg isn't that hard to get.
Anything setting related is nice too. I imagine the artist has their own ideas of the setting and characters, esp. if they were the ones who did the char. design.

Hi everyone . Once again, I want to share a Last Birdling related post, but to make things fairer, we can turn this more into a general VN discussion.

When I love a VN (999, Narcissu, Ever17 etc), I want to also pick up its artbook, though truth be told, this has become less of a necessity over the years. CGs of popular games are readily available online, and while it is nice to have those illustrations in print, physical space is limited. There are, however, still plenty of things that will draw my interest, as I have seen in several artbooks I own:
- Interviews with developers (admittedly a struggle since they are usually in Japanese)
- Fanart
- Results for character popularity polls etc
- 4koma (common with Narcissu related books)
- Production sketches
I am not too interested in character summaries or in-game walkthroughs. By the time I pick up the book, I have already completed the game anyway. At any rate, is there anything else you can think of? I would love to know. In particular, maybe things that you have never seen in a VN artbook, and you think, "Why don't they ever do this?"
Here is my artbook preview post on The Last Birdling. It contains all the history, mistakes and lessons I have learned through the past five years:
 
Thank you !

I'd love to see more art books go in-depth about character costumes. I want head-to-toe shots, plus close-ups of important details, for every costume. Basically, give me the originally character design sheets.

Awesome timing !

Hi everyone ! The journey is over, and at last, I can announce The Last Birdling’s release date. Here it is:



September 1st, 2017! The Last Birdling’s Steam page can now be accessed:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/

Recently, I have started to follow upcoming games that I want to keep on my radar. If you are willing to do the same for The Last Birdling, I would be so grateful. The “follow” and “add to your wishlist” buttons are available on the Steam page. I will be active on the community board, so I hope to hang out with you there.

As the release date approaches, I plan to post a new article every week. These articles will be available on the Steam page as well as my Facebook, Tumblr and all the other usual suspects. My social media links can be found here:



http://invertmouse.com

I am thankful to those who messaged in to say they fell in love with Bimonia and Tayo after the demo. After hundreds of development hours, those two have grown lives of their own. Once the game is released, I hope their story can be shared with as many people as possible.

Thank you!

Hi everyone ! The journey is over, and at last, I can announce The Last Birdling’s release date. Here it is:



September 1st, 2017! The Last Birdling’s Steam page can now be accessed:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/

Recently, I have started to follow upcoming games that I want to keep on my radar. If you are willing to do the same for The Last Birdling, I would be so grateful. The “follow” and “add to your wishlist” buttons are available on the Steam page. I will be active on the community board, so I hope to hang out with you there.

As the release date approaches, I plan to post a new article every week. These articles will be available on the Steam page as well as my Facebook, Tumblr and all the other usual suspects. My social media links can be found here:



http://invertmouse.com

I am thankful to those who messaged in to say they fell in love with Bimonia and Tayo after the demo. After hundreds of development hours, those two have grown lives of their own. Once the game is released, I hope their story can be shared with as many people as possible.

Thank you!

Bimonia is one of the last Birdlings alive on this earth. The Birdlings see humans as sworn enemies, and Bimonia has been taught to kill on sight.

One day, Bimonia meets Tayo, a human child hunting in the forest. Bimonia fails to kill Tayo, and they instead become friends. Mother will be furious if she finds out, or worse, this relationship may cause tension between the two races to erupt.

The Last Birdling explores Bimonia and Tayo's fight for their friendship as the world threatens to tear them apart.

* * *

Hi everyone ! I want to share with you my next project, The Last Birdling:

http://birdling.invertmouse.com

The site contains links to a demo, so I hope you can check it out! All feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Here is a link to the trailer:
 
There is always a special touch to announcing projects on Fuwa. I started this VN journey with Unhack, which I like to think grew up alongside this forum. When I look back, I realize it has been five years since this all began. Maybe a random like me has no right to boast about a five year anniversary project, but The Last Birdling is exactly that. Thank you for sticking with me through the years.



This project originated from a short story I wrote in around 2006 named The Last Dragon. Back then, a common feedback was my narrative contained too much dialogue. As a form of training, I wrote The Last Dragon to see how it would feel to write a story with no dialogue at all. This rule has been abolished in The Last Birdling, plus I have deepened the plot, and now here we are.



The Last Birdling has been in the works for over a year alongside Unhack 2. Today, I finally get to show it to you. Thanks to your years of support, I am able to fund this game without Kickstarter. While a funding campaign can be used as another source of promotion, I want to show what a difference you have made to my life. Thank you so much.



That said, the journey can be rough. Recently, I have been tempted to take options that may lead to people calling me a sellout. I love money as much as anyone else. That, plus all the hate against western projects, too. Truth be told, I almost have nothing left to give. I wanted to get all dramatic and claim the "last" in The Last Birdling means this is my final project. That was the original meaning, but I have changed my mind since then, as the love is too deep. Let's see how much longer I can be me.

To finish off, I would like to leave you with this:



Thank you everyone !

 

Hi everyone ! The journey is over, and at last, I can announce The Last Birdling’s release date. Here it is:



September 1st, 2017! The Last Birdling’s Steam page can now be accessed:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/

Recently, I have started to follow upcoming games that I want to keep on my radar. If you are willing to do the same for The Last Birdling, I would be so grateful. The “follow” and “add to your wishlist” buttons are available on the Steam page. I will be active on the community board, so I hope to hang out with you there.

As the release date approaches, I plan to post a new article every week. These articles will be available on the Steam page as well as my Facebook, Tumblr and all the other usual suspects. My social media links can be found here:



http://invertmouse.com

I am thankful to those who messaged in to say they fell in love with Bimonia and Tayo after the demo. After hundreds of development hours, those two have grown lives of their own. Once the game is released, I hope their story can be shared with as many people as possible.

Thank you!

free copies for all upcoming games for like 20$ a month. 
artwork  
a weekly/monthly newsletter with progress etc. 

Games to be released in a timely manner.

It took us long enough to get through Valve's validation process but at last, Ambre will be coming on Steam the 9th June!



Don't hesitate to share the news with people who played the old version, I think they're going to like the overhaul and the achievements 

Hey Silvz! Long time no talk 😎. The blur is up to personal preference and is on purpose. Players will get to see each background on its own during the game, of course. The characters and CGs are done by the same artist.

Hi everyone . Thank you again for giving me permission to share my blog posts here (after our discussion about my struggles with Unhack 2). I recently posted an article about my background development process in The Last Birdling:


I hate promos, so I would like to make this thread about visual novels in general. These days, in professional works, beautiful background art is more or less assumed. That said, are there any VNs with backdrops that stand out to you? As mentioned in the post, I found the city nightscape in the Starcraft VN to be particularly memorable. I am always on the search for inspiration, so happy to hear about any games you have played that come to mind.
Thank you !
 

I'm going against your purpose here, but I have to comment your BGs specifically and by yours, I mean the teams'.
I love how the ones you posted have at the same time a professional and an amateurish flavors to them. I mean, I can see that this is not from a huge company with lots of money to spare, but at the same time I can see the quality I'd expect from them, you know?
There seems to have a lot of details, but, and here's my first complaint, the pictures with sprites show blurry backgrounds. Is this on purpose? Why not show all their potention during the reading? Also, still on that, I usually dislike when games zoom in their BGs and make them all stretchy just for who knows why? I'd rather see a static BG during action scenes than a low quality moving one.
A question: why do the sprites differ so much from the characters on CGs? Personally, I prefer them like in the latter, but still loved both. The question is really about the subtle change.

I can never forget the backgrounds in Symphonic Rain. I think that VN had some of my absolute favorite backgrounds:

Voko is going to have my head for this, but I still stand by my stance that Umineko's original backgrounds are wonderful.
 


I can't find clean background images (they're always with sprites) but I love, love, love, love this abstract style. Too bad it's 4:3.
The House In Fata Morgana is similar, and also gorgeous:


I just love this style (of heavily editing photos to the point they evoke more than they show)

Hi everyone . Thank you again for giving me permission to share my blog posts here (after our discussion about my struggles with Unhack 2). I recently posted an article about my background development process in The Last Birdling:


I hate promos, so I would like to make this thread about visual novels in general. These days, in professional works, beautiful background art is more or less assumed. That said, are there any VNs with backdrops that stand out to you? As mentioned in the post, I found the city nightscape in the Starcraft VN to be particularly memorable. I am always on the search for inspiration, so happy to hear about any games you have played that come to mind.
Thank you !
 

Hi everyone . Thank you again for giving me permission to share my blog posts here (after our discussion about my struggles with Unhack 2). I recently posted an article about my background development process in The Last Birdling:


I hate promos, so I would like to make this thread about visual novels in general. These days, in professional works, beautiful background art is more or less assumed. That said, are there any VNs with backdrops that stand out to you? As mentioned in the post, I found the city nightscape in the Starcraft VN to be particularly memorable. I am always on the search for inspiration, so happy to hear about any games you have played that come to mind.
Thank you !