Due to various delays the production time of the Daemon in the Mist visual novel is taking a bit longer than expected.
Books bring worlds to life through word but translating that world into a visual medium is a whole different thing entirely. When I wrote Daemons in the Mist I never imagined that I would then have to visually create the world of The Marked Ones. It’s no easy task but I hope in the end that you will be able to enjoy a game that is just as carefully crafted as everything else you have come to expect from KatGirl Studio.
Defining a Style
Nualla
Here is an early concept design for Nualla. I captured her other-earthly quality but she looked a bit too soft. Also the production team decided this anime style looked a little outdated. So I went back to the drawing board for a second go.
This was the next concept design for Nualla which got the green light.
But after a few more meetings we decided to go with this more refined design. It’s a bit more work but we only want the best for this visual novel.
Patrick
With Patrick it was all about the eyes, let me tell you black brown eyes are really hard to translate into anime form.
Coming up next time
A look at defining a world, the backgrounds for the visual novel
Design: main character designs complete
Game Art: currently working on Chapter 1 art
By: admin,
on 4/9/2011
Blog: KatGirl Studio » Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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We started production on the Daemons in the Mist Visual Novel this past week. The novel engine was designed by the fantastic team at CWS Software and with their help I will be creating the vast majority of the Visual Novel myself.
Yes you heard that right, I will be the writer, artist and coder for the visual novel version of Daemons in the Mist. This means I had to learn the game engine that CWS uses for their games. So I spent the better part of two days reading the manual and working with one of the lead programers. I was able to walk away with a least an understanding of how to code the visual novel. I’m not saying I’m an expert or anything, and I’m sure that once I actually start coding the VN I may run into some problems. But that’s true of learning any new computer language or engine (trust me I know four already).
Aside from learning the needed coding I also started breaking down the book similarly to how one would break down a book that is being translated into an animated film. Because other than movement visual novels and animated Features are pretty much the same. Good thing I have all those “art of” books right? The text all has to be broken down into script form since the text will be similar to close captioned shows and movies. And just like an animated show or movie I have to figure out how many backgrounds will be needed, how many expressions for each character is needed and how many outfits they all wear during the course of the story.
On a side note, because Daemons in the Mist is a long YA novel (over 90k words) we have decided to release the visual novel in serialized sections. We are still discussing whether to release the 55 chapters individually or in chapter bundles.
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