Ursine Vision Atelier

An interactive fiction development blog. I hope to bring you excellent stories with a dash of romance! I respond from @haliora.

[atelierursine]

Time for a Ursine Vision Atelier masterpost!

MEET THE DEV

COMPLETED GAMES

Penetrate the Veil 1 Summary

You were the scion of a powerful sorcerer family…and now, you’re the only survivor. For the past few years, you’ve been traveling across the god planets in search of the power you need for revenge. The most recent lead has led you to a name floating on everyone’s lips: The Eternal.

A being that has been described as to never known defeat. Most importantly, he’s a mage, just like you.

With the intention of asking him to be your mentor in magic, you chase him across the planes. The moment of confrontation is here.

As you’ve suspected, he’s your (former) brother-in-law, and there’s a lot to be said after the 17 years since you last saw each other.

Penetrate the Veil 2 Summary

With the power of The Eternal, a mage who has never known defeat (and also your (ex) brother-in-law!) at your side, your plans of revenge for your dead family are looking up. 

However, the consequence of vengeance means never knowing peace, and you’re prepared to lay down your life for your cause.

The only problem? You’ve neglected to tell Ekam this detail, and he’s no longer willing to let you play hero and martyr. 

You and he are meant to be the strongest together. No one will foil this plan. Not even you.

 How will you proceed from here?

Ice Cream For Love Gone Phishing Summary

You play as a member of a race of spirit-like beings that eat the emotions of living beings through dreams. You are drawn across the planes toward a fresh new prey: Malakai, a young human who’s only recently coming to terms with his budding feelings. It should be straightforward enough to milk him for all his emotions when you appear as the beloved bearfolk of his heart.

But with high rewards come high risks. Will you be able to play a convincing role and eat your fill, or will you flub and be smited within the realm of his dreamscape when he discovers that you’re an imposter?

GAMES UNDER ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT

Ice Cream For Love Summary

You are a bearfolk ice cream maker living in the mostly human stronghold of Gimposi. Unfortunately for you, when the newest dietitian-in-training views your products as sacrilegious itself to the field of medicine and nutrition, his presence threatens to uproot everything you’ve built.

Now, you have not-so-little dreams of spreading your ice cream across the god planets, so this little setback isn’t going to stop you. Using every bit of charm, craft, and cunning at your disposal, you’re going to save your business, and definitely have a little fun in the process.

After all, the new guy is just so fun to mess with.

Will you and the fledgling dietitian find common ground or maybe even love at the end of it all? 

Steeped in You Summary

For Velika, life is perfect. She runs a successful bakery business in a small town on the outskirts of a major city with her loving boyfriend. Her biggest concern is planning an anniversary surprise without Arik finding out.

Little does she know, her humble and happy life as she knows it will be upheaved when she discovers a hidden room within her own sweet home. With these unearthed secrets, Velika has no choice but to confront not only the truths about her beloved, but herself head on.

With ramifications too painful to bear, will their relationship last in the light of this new discovery?

Soul Shattering Star Summary

Yadira “Yaya” Asante Korang once understands her purpose in life. As an esteemed member of the warrior caste, she's expected to carry out orders without question. Despite her misgivings, under The Head's directive, she destroys the peace with their shapeshifter allies by invading their city of Uy-Perapren, before defeating their leader and her dearest best friend Taufik Ikhsan Mwaura, and taking his eye as a trophy.

Shortly after the fallout, she is exiled from her sphere due to a failed implant. Now, she lives a quiet life in the Realm of Lake on the outskirts of a lizardfolk village.

However, Yaya knows that her past will eventually catch up with her. Sure enough, Taufik washes up on the shore of her lake home, seeking revenge. In a twist neither of them saw coming, a snakefolk demigod shows up and binds Yadira’s and Taufik’s soul together. 

Our duo is then transported to the deity's realm above the clouds. Now, they both will have to work together to escape Himanshoo’s maze and figure out how to undo this soulforged thing.  

[atelierursine]

Here at Ursine Vision Atelier, we appreciate all bears year round.

Today during World Bear Day, this is our contribution to the bear propaganda, featuring expressive bear faces from all 8 extant species.

We'll go from the oldest to the youngest bear in evolutionary history.

Panda bear (left), spectacled bear (right).

Sloth bear (left), sun bear (right).

Asiatic black bear aka moon bear (left), American black bear (right).

Brown bear (left), polar bear (right).

But this wouldn't be a UVA post without talking about our (fictional) bears. Did you know that the protagonist from Ice Cream For Love (default name: Ranni) is based off the sun bear, and her big bro Dian is based off the moon bear?

Researchers seem to think highly of the sun bear's ability to rapidly mimic faces of other sun bears, so that's the main reason why Ranni have such expressive faces compared to Dian who has a more limited range.

In-game though, Ranni is accommodating for the fact that she lives among humanfolks now, who has no appreciation or capability to interpret normal bearfolk cues. As one of my friends' bearfolks put it, "human noses are just for decoration." Dian does not see the need to fit in as nothing he does will change the fact that he is a whole bear...unlike Ranni who thinks she's blending in with the humans so well.

[atelierursine]

Progress Update #50

The end of Q1 2026 approaches, so let's talk about dates.

Last year, I wanted to release an unnamed Otome Jam project at the end of June. ...That did not happen. I also said that I want to release the full version of Ice Cream For Love by the end of June 2026. ...That is also looking like it's not going to happen -- even if I work on it full-time.

That said, my goal is to publish at least two games before 2026 is over, and it's looking like it will be the unnamed Otome Jam project, which I will now refer to as VCB, and Ice Cream For Love.

I spent too much of last year in a writing slump, so this year, I've taken to doing something different: adding outlines back into my writer's tool kit.

Despite being a very organized and methodical person overall, I'm a rather chaotic writer. I have a clear vision of how the story will go and what themes I am communicating, but I write out of order, and often end up with disparate scenes that I have to slot together. At this point, the script has a whole lot of words and little coherency. My colander brain barely remembers what I've already written, and so any momentum I had evaporates because it feels like I should be done, but I am not done.

In the past, I've chalked it up to 'forgetting' how to hyperfixate and being locked out of the flow state, so I go back to read my script to get inspiration...except by this point, I've written so much that it becomes an overwhelming nightmare to sort everything. I don't want to sit at my desk any longer, so I take to forcing myself to write bits of dialogue or descriptions or record any stray thoughts on my Notes app in bed in some misguided attempt at productivity. I think I will resolve my story knots, but I never do. Instead, the amount of content I have to sort grows, and I'm no closer to sorting out the actual flow of the narrative.

To illustrate my point, my current script for Ice Cream For Love has 85k words. The notes document has 55k words. ...Like I said, definitely not lacking in words or productivity.

And so, that's why I'm going to start using outlines to track the order of events. I've mentioned a while back that I'm actively using the "but then/therefore" method of story beats writing, and this is how I will justify the existence of certain scenes in the script.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the creators of South Park basically said this about story beats writing: “If the words ‘and then’ belong between those beats … you’ve got something pretty boring. What should happen, between every beat that you’ve written down, is either the word ‘therefore’ or ‘but’ … that gives you your causation.”

A lot of my problems could be solved if I could outline from the start, but I'm the kind of writer that knows the general path A->F, but what B, C, D, E look like is a mystery until I kick the ball further along enough.

VCB is closer to completion than ICFL, but they basically have similar problems since they're relatively slice-of-life compared to my other projects...to me anyways. My friends said VCB's premise is more like psychological horror, and nothing about ICFL's events is mundane or relatable. Point is, it's easy to end up with a bunch of scenes, so the 'plot' feels aimless to me.

I have 42k words for the VCB script so far, and have recently completed the detailed outline. I'm waiting for feedback from my proofreader/editor since I feel like the present narrative being interspersed with scenes of the past might be confusing or even worse -- boring and completely irrelevant! There's also the fact that I worry that the love interest isn't yandere enough for yandere fans, but he still needs to be gentle and covert because his whole thing is NOT being caught by the protagonist so blatantly.

As for ICFL, I'm working on the outline. The plan is to finalize the script by June 2026, so I can begin coding in earnest by July.

Unlike VCB, which will be released for free, I have decided to make ICFL a commercial game. This means the current sprite I have for Malakai will be replaced with an original concept, so I can have the actual pretty boy tsundere-yandere he was always meant to be!

Naturally, I will also update the demo so that it's more reflective of the full game when the time comes. This also means replacing the sprites in Ice Cream For Love: Gone Phishing. That game was significantly nerfed without Bear MC/Ranni's expressive faces.

That's it from me. Bye for now!

[atelierursine]

Happy Tuesday!

I got an idea as I was looking at Ranni's expressive faces, and here's my take on this meme. How are you feeling today?

[atelierursine]

hey Ursine, how are you? just wanted to check in since you mentioned you were creating a game for OtomeJam, I haven't seen any posts about that from you so I figured I'd send this in! I did see the sprites for the bearfolk mc though, she's very cute!!

Hi there! I appreciate your eagerness for my games, though the short of it is that I wasn't able to complete the game on time for Otome Jam, and didn't want to release only a demo, so I'm aiming for a SuNoFes release now.

I'm glad you think Bear MC is cute, that was the entire goal!

[atelierursine]

One of the major changes that will come to the eventual full release of Ice Cream For Love is the fact that Bear MC will finally have a visible sprite! Now you can see all of her emotions in all their glory. She has 37 unique faces, and here's a small sample of them.

She has some expressions that matches with her big bro Dian. I wonder what has them in such awe and sparkles.

She's a little bearfolk who's very convinced she's doing a good job of blending in with the rest of the human gals. Do you think she's succeeding?

I asked Bear MC if she has any words of wisdom for us, and this is what she has to say.

If you haven't checked it out already, Ice Cream For Love is a game about having goofy romcom fun with a yandere love interest.

[atelierursine]

hi, is Ice Scream for Love releasing june 30, 2025, or is that date for something else?

Hi there, the June 30 2025 date is for a currently unnamed Otome Jam entry. As for Ice Cream For Love, current schedule is looking like end of 2025, or by June 2026 at the latest. 

If you've played the demo, may I interest you in its short spin-off Gone Phishing featuring a fake dating scenario if you haven't played already? It's no substitute for the actual game, but I like to think it's still a good small dose of the feral and unhingery in the main game.

[atelierursine]

Progress Update #49

It’s about time for a formal devlog, wouldn’t you say?

Most large game companies do quarterly updates, so I think I’m gonna stick to a similar structure. Let’s go for a twice yearly, maybe even thrice yearly if I’m feeling particularly daring, or if there’s a new major development.

I've been looking back on my old works and inwardly cringing at all the stuff that a past and more inexperienced me put out as I was learning the game dev craft. It's tempting to hit delete, but I created this blog to keep a record of my progress, so everything shall remain, imperfections and all. At least until they nuke Tumblr off the face of the earth.

Self-Reflection

Haaah. Can you believe I've been at this since 2020?

I'm making pretty good progress on my goal to release at least one or two projects each year, though I imagine that the pacing will slow down again as I delve into longer and more complex projects.

Although story formats like Penetrate the Veil work great, I'm not content with leaving it at that, and I want to continue experimenting with story styles and visual presentation.

I have written so much in the past couple of years and have outlines for all sorts of different stories of varying completions in my backlog. Though I've gone from writing in first-person to second-person, I find that I still love to write about obsessive and devoted love interests who cares about you so much that the affection drive them crazy. I wonder how many people would enjoy my games, only to be scared away by the yandere tag. But there's not much I can do about that.

What writing in shorter, second-person games has made me realized is that I miss writing descriptions and I need to return to that.

Current Plans and Work Scope

It’s already established that I'm not good at making short games, or producing games on short notice, but it’s becoming some sort of a skill. As of literally a month ago, I’ve learned to actually start organizing scenes when I start word vomiting ideas too, so the process doesn’t become an unmanageable, executive dysfunction hell when I have to move the sequence of events around and try to distinguish between unsorted ideas and written material.

So with that said, I'm going to try for a complete release entry to the 2025 Otome Jam. The attention that I could garner for my works from a big event is too much to turn down. Normally, I'm not interested in marketing, but I'm starting to think seriously about making commercial projects.

I’m not looking to make a profit as game dev was always meant to be a hobby. However, I would like to at least break even. For me, game dev is my way of reminding myself that I am a person outside of the 9-5 work hours, that I can create things for my enrichment and for fun. Treating game dev as a second job wouldn't be right.

My goal with this Otome Jam entry are to incorporate more overtly fantastical worldbuilding, and add more community dynamics. Silkpunk is such an unexplored genre, and there's still so much I have to say. Silkpunk can’t be silkpunk either without having the actual punks stand out from the average people.

For this end, I've been revisiting my lore material so I don't create accidental retcons. I've already had to adjust the original timeline between each games significantly, and rewrite the overall unrevealed lore to match the now-established public lore.

I'm basically doing this with Ice Cream For Love as well, though the story is on the more mundane side, or as mundane gets for people living on the god planets. But when the stakes are scheming and plotting to stay in a stronghold vs some world-ending nonsense, is there really any comparison?

Moving On To A New Engine

My games are currently made in Godot 3.5.2. The goal is to move to Godot 4.X when they've polished the engine some more. By then, there will be more tutorials available for me to follow. I can learn all sorts of skills, but I have my limits, and coding is one of them.

When I transition to Godot 4, I will effectively be starting over from scratch, but ultimately, this is for the longevity of my games. I want to create 3D games and pixel RPGs in the future, and my understanding is that Godot 4 has better features than Godot 3.5.2.

Creating a new game template will allow me to add features that should be standardized across my games too, such as the very mundane adding a visible version number or some sort of notice that you've been scammed if you've paid for my games outside of certain vendors. However, the most important improvement would be making my games playable on Joiplay or Android. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll have the bandwidth to support Apple even in the future, but there's always Wine and virtual machines.

In theory, I can work on porting my games to Android now, but I'm choosing to focus on making more games instead. I've spent so long squirreling away on making load/save system work that I feel like it would demoralize me to use what little free time I have to do something that won't bring me joy anyways. When it's time to upgrade, I can think about bring all my existing games into 4.X as well.

So with that said, let's talk about the timeline of Phase 1 (games to be made in Godot 3.5) and Phase 2 (games to be made in Godot 4.X).

A Loose Timeline of Releases - Phase 1

Life willing, I want to release a complete version by June 30 2025. It's not meant to be a big project, so I don't want to still be working on this into 2026.

I have a deep fondness for Ice Cream For Love. The reason is incredibly shallow -- a gremlin bearfolk protagonist is all it takes. This is also why the scope has ballooned to be what it is.

I want to release it by the end of this year, or by June next year at the latest. My current demon right now is structuring the scenes coherently so that events happen in the "x occurred so therefore y" instead of the "x happened and y happened" format.

I did so much research for this game, and yet there's still more books to go. How many engineering books about ice cream production can one person delve into? Someone praise me.

Aiming for a 2026 release. I'm waiting on some more CGs from the artist, and I still need to finish writing and editing. I also have to transfer the code from the old file to the new one. This was from a time when I was struggling to create a load/save system. I think it's appropriate to call this project about 50% done?

Also aiming for a 2026 release. BGs will be completed by the end of this year. Sprites are already completed. I will have to start writing the script -- currently got 10% right now.

I will be blessed if this game can be released in 2027. Realistically, it's probably going to be 2028.

I still don't have the backgrounds for SSS, and the sprites need some touch-ups.

As for the writing front, I want to say it's about 60% done? There's a lot of clean-up and organizing that I need to do, but the main problem is figuring out the proper sequence of events. Writing enemies to friends to enemies to lovers is rough when the enemies to friends part spans literal decades. And you need all the context from those years or it's not going to make much sense why these characters are so codependent on one another.

I don't want to have to use flashbacks or dream sequences because they feel cheap. And there's only so many times I can have characters reminiscing about the past. So that's a puzzle I have to solve.

I will start working on this whenever the mood strikes. It's supposed to be a short game, so it's probably going to be released between all other bigger releases, or some time in 2028-2029.

Same deal as RR. This game is when I plan to release each LI route in an episodic-style format, so my plan is to finish writing everything, and release each episode as I finish coding each LI's route. There are currently 3 planned routes.

A Loose Timeline of Releases - Phase 2

Phase 2 is nowhere near to becoming a reality, so all release dates are nebulous. I'll be lucky to start working on any of these in 2030. All these projects stem from a "I’ve been a writer my entire life, might as well get into environmental storytelling on a grand level besides 2D backgrounds" mentality. I also want to experiment more with episodic formats.

This title is going to be my foray into pixel RPGs. It's planned as a short, cute modern Earth oneshot with multiple LIs.

I love the characters of Ice Cream For Love so much that it has born another AU. This is an episodic pixel RPG with a 'Villain of the Week' format where the cast deals with problems as they appear, with an overarching romance arc.

For everyone who originally followed me for Lotus of the Junk Heap, I haven’t forgotten about it.

I will return to this one day after I decide if this should have any RPG elements or if LotJH will be a straight visual novel with some stat-raising.

Though this is supposed to be a horror game, there will still be an otome component. That's all I got.

Like Ice Cream For Love, I love Soul Shattering Star so much that it will get its own AU. It's going to my most ambitious project yet with a 3D roaming map, live action battle mechanics, and relationship management sim system. For all I know, it might remain in the drafts as a pipe dream.

Closing

I think that's all the news I got. Until next time!

[atelierursine]

You guessed it: It’s time for another spontaneous release. Introducing Ice Cream For Love: Gone Phishing.

This is a short spin-off of the Ice Cream For Love storyline for the 2025 Dialogue Jam.

At the time of this posting, Ice Cream For Love is still a demo, but in active development. You don’t need any prior knowledge to play this game. Check it out if you enjoy reading unhinged dialogue and fake dating scenarios.

Play here! https://atelierursine.itch.io/ice-cream-for-love-gone-phishing

[atelierursine]

Bear MC continues to notice things that are oddly violent. First food, and now love?!

[atelierursine]

I was pondering how to share my writing in an aesthetic way, and came to this solution. Ice Cream For Love is still slated for a Q1 2025 release, and I've been steadily working on the draft, so it shall grace the stage soon.

[atelierursine]

Ice Cream for Love is a very chaotic project, so I'm having lots of fun writing and creating assets for the game. I was designing some stickers for Bear MC's business, and then that was when I realized I had far too much power. Now Bear MC has stickers for every occasion, no matter how niche.

This is a small sample of my total count, but these stickers are better for more general uses.

Would you be interested in purchasing these stickers if I were to have a sticker shop someday?

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

What I love the most is when a story is told and there aren't any sequels, the story is over, but there are other stories set in the same world which occasionally mention the characters from the first story like oh! They're happy! They're living quiet unassuming lives!!! They have no more story to tell except the story of living peacefully!

[atelierursine]

I'm back with another meme, this time with Soul Shattering Star love interests x Orange Peel Test.

[atelierursine]

No formal devlog this week, but I bring you another screenshot of Ice Cream For Love. My friend was editing some photos to create the BGs for me, and when I saw that she had put a human skull on the shelf, I started mad cackling.

My man, you are not escaping the yandere allegations!

To commemorate the discussion we had, there's now this line of dialogue in the game.

[atelierursine]

Progress Update #48

With the release of Penetrate the Veil: Spoken Hearts, that marks my third published game! My analytics were depressing (but expected) when I first released Soul Shattering Star: Starset Prism, but Ursine Vision Atelier has been steadily accumulating followers and reviews/ratings with each newly completed project. It's been very heartening to see this upward trend.

Thank you to everyone who's been with me throughout this entire dev journey. I hope you will continue to accompany me as I release more games. I'd also like to extend an additional thank you to everyone who's played my creations thus far. If you've ever enjoyed anything I created, please remember to rate/review.

As is with any growing game studio, I've had some very funny things happen to me. The most notable one is where one account left a 5-star on Penetrate the Veil: Unspoken Hearts (Part 1), but a 1-star on Penetrate the Veil: Spoken Hearts (Part 2).

My goodness, what happened there? I turned it over and over in my head, but I can't fathom the drop in rating between games. To my knowledge, neither titles are buggy. Nor have I obfuscated what my game is in any way.

Oh well. Forever a mystery.

Let's talk about my future plans. The goal is to release as many completed games as I can in 2024. I've made no attempt to market my games thus far, so this needs to change. As my analytics showed, there's no better way than having completed products for everyone to talk about.

I plan to continue adding to a collection of games that I called "Undying Devotion". They are meant to be short narrative games written in the 2nd person with yandere LI(s). In addition to Ice Cream For Love, there are two titles slated for release by the end of 2024. I'll call them DS and RR for now because I haven't decided on a permanent name. Unlike Penetrate the Veil, both DS and RR are more of the horroromantic genre than dark fantasy, so if that's up your alley, please look forward to them!

I also intend to experiment with an episodic-style release for DS. There are 3 LIs so far, and I'm intending to release a route with each update. I don't know if I'll add more than that, but we'll see how the writing rolls out.

Now, let's talk about Ice Cream for Love.

Ice Cream For Love is my next planned release. The LI was intended to be tsundere, but my hand knocked over the yandere vial into the pot while I was cooking and that's just that. I'm never escaping the allegations of writing dark romance.

Though it features a yandere LI, this title is very much intended to be a comedic and unserious experience compared to the 'edgier' Penetrate the Veil and Soul Shattering Star lineup of games.

Like look at this interaction between bearfolk MC and the LI.

As of this blog post, Ice Cream For Love is at 10k words. It's about two weeks before the 2024 SuNoFes deadline, but I found out that if I want to add NSFW content, that would disqualify me from submitting it.

So...that leaves 2024 Josei After Dark Jam and 2024 Monstrous Desires Jam on my jam schedule.

See y'all at the next release!

[atelierursine]

Ahaha, remember back when I said that Ice Cream For Love was going to be my entry for 2024 One Single Choice Jam?

Change of plans. I can't tell that story under 30 minutes. However, this does not mean I'm abandoning it! Rather, it's an opportunity to give that project the flavor choices it sorely deserves, and release it for the 2024 Summer Novel Festival (SuNoFes).

As for the OSCJ submission, with the encouragement of my friends, I decided to do a continuation of Penetrate the Veil: Unspoken Hearts.

So today, I am releasing Penetrate the Veil: Spoken Hearts.

This game picks up several months after you recruited the aid of your (ex) brother-in-law. Things are looking up for your goal of vengeance. However, you've neglected to tell him the entirety of your plans, and he refuses to let you sacrifice yourself. How your Happily Ever After unfolds with your yandere LI is your choice from here.

Play here! https://atelierursine.itch.io/penetrate-the-veil-spoken-hearts