There's definitely been radio silence on this blog, which has not been intentional, but definitely was expected.
2020 and part of 2021 have definitely made my life complicated in several ways, which I'd imagine is true for most people reading this devblog. However, while I've managed less work on the game for the last 1-2 years than I would like to admit, not in the least due to some mental health issues, I'm still working on this game and it has never left my heart or mind. Progress has been slow, but I do believe that it is coming along, even if I wish I could get things done faster.
One of the things that has definitely made development slower for me is that I've been making my own tiles and sprites, along with applying lighting effects to every map. While I definitely love the way it looks and I've made some maps that I'm quite proud of, it does mean longer development time.
Hopefully none of you who are following the game's development have been worried or have given up on it altogether by now, though I more than understand if you have.
Right now I'm mainly focusing on the first chapter of the game that is past the small introduction area and am working on lots of things at once for it; mainly maps and spriting tiles for them, planning the flow of the chapter's gameplay and planning out cutscenes. A lot of this is mainly fleshing out what I had before, but there's some newer additions I hadn't worked on as well.
Please look forward to some updates now and then of what I've been working on!
Not yet! If I can keep up a good development pace and donāt have any big life events getting in the way, Iām hoping to make a demo of some sorts in 2021. This is not a promise as my mental health is not super stable and thus quite the wild card, but I am determined to make the game happen. Itās just not easy to say when.
Hello! I recently binged all Clockwork Prince's game, and I'm in LOVE! Do you have a twitter or instagram for other updates or content (even not game related)?
Thank you so much!
I actually do not use social media that much, to be honest. I have a Twitter account set up, but do not actively use it right now.
Iāve noticed that if I spend too much time on social media, I donāt get much else done during the day, which is why I donāt tend to use it much. (I try not to spend too much time on Tumblrās dashboard either for this reason, but find the format of Tumblr the most pleasant for keeping a devblog, hence why I still use it.)
Lucilleās new dialogue art! I kept the same pose idea as the original, but tried changing up the art style. I feel more confident about it now, as I think it looks less stiff.
Whew. 2019 ended up being a busy year and 2020 threw yet more curveballs my way.
Iām working on Project Rosewood again, but I canāt promise regular blog updates at the moment. Iāve done some light on and off work over the past 1.5 years, but I wonāt lie; I didnāt get super far. As a result, I cannot yet predict when I will be able to put out a demo, never mind a full release. I am hoping to increase development pace, though. Fingers crossed it works out!
One of the things that is definitely slowing me down compared to other game projects I have worked on is my desire to make the game look as good as I can manage, which means itās not even remotely as quick and easy to develop as Lavender was. (I ended up redrawing Lucilleās dialogue art, for example, and am drawing multiple poses per character instead of just sticking a different facial expression on the same art.) The upside, however, is that my investment in this project is strong enough to pull me back into working on it after a break, even if life gets in the way or I admittedly get distracted by other hobbies of mine sometimes. This has not at all been the case with most of my previous game projects.
At the moment, I am working on the introduction area and first big area of the game. The plan is one (short) introduction area, three main game areas and one late-game area. This might change for the full release, but I would have to restructure the game entirely if I go that route, so it is very unlikely. Iāve also been drawing portraits for another major character, whom I might show a sneak peek of once the first main game area is done. In other words, stay tuned!
Thank you to everyone who has stuck around and is still interested in this game. It means a lot to me!
Also, for those interested, surgery-related updates are below the cut. (No gory details, for those worried.)
My surgery in 2019 went well, though not without delay. There was a surgery scheduled before mine that ended up taking way longer than expected, meaning that because my surgery was seen as non-emergency, it got postponed to about a month later.
This was frustrating as it meant I would have to deal with the stress and preparations to get to the hospital all over again. Since said hospital is a 2 hour drive from my home in a big busy city, travelling there was not easy for me. (The country I live in is pretty small, but itās jam-packed with inhabited areas and not always easy to navigate because of that.)
In the end, the surgery itself went smoothly and there were no complications. There were some physical actions I wasnāt allowed to do for months and I still have some slight after-effects that Iām dealing with, but none of it is serious and Iām basically back to normal health.
I might get some follow-up surgery for cosmetic reasons, but that is unlikely to throw me out of the loop completely like this one has. This is for a later time, however, as I do not want to take resources that are best allocated to the pandemic right now.
December 2018 and onwards: What happened? (Hiatus)
The month of December usually has me quite busy, as I celebrate the holidays with friends and family. But more things than that have happened at the tail end of last year, making it even busier than usual.Ā
Suffice to say, progress has been put to a halt for now, as Iām still working out some things in my personal life. Iām putting the game on hiatus for the time being so I can return to it with fresh eyes once things have calmed down for me.
I have also not been pleased with Tumblrās new rules that got rolled out last year, so I havenāt been on the site as much as I used to either. If I end up moving my dev progress updates to a different platform I will let you know, though for the moment I will stick to Tumblr.
What this all comes down to is basically: I donāt expect to work on Rosewood as much as before and monthly dev progress posts will likely halt for the time being. I will let you all know if anything changes, but since progress will be at a snailās pace (if any happens at all) it only seems fair for me to not keep people who follow the game in the dark about that. Iām still very passionate about making Rosewood a reality, but itās currently not possible for me to work on it at the same pace Iāve had going before December.
Thank you all for your support so far and I hope 2019 will be a great year for you all! ā¤
(More details under the cut, for those who are interested.)
More details:
I am currently on a waiting list for surgery and the expectation was that Iād be called around the end of 2018 to hear about when the surgery would be scheduled, except said call hasnāt happened yet. When I contacted the hospital for more information, I then got the news that I would be called in March at the earliest, meaning it will likely be during spring or even summer that Iāll finally be able to get my surgery done. I will likely need 6+ weeks for recovery too, which means dev progress will be minimal at best during that time.
The stress and uncertainty that comes with the waiting period before the surgery, especially when delays like these happen, have been quite taxing on me and have unfortunately made it harder to focus on making games.
I hope this extra information makes everything clearer. If you have any questions, please feel free to message me, though very personal ones might not get answered.
Itās time for the monthly development summary again!
To make total progress easier to follow, Iāve added the total of all the work done together. If anyone is interested in having me add the numbers of what Iāve completed per month separately, please let me know!
NOTE: Everything under "other progressā is either progress on aspects of the game that are not bound to specific areas or progress on areas that are not being focused on at this point in development. Work in progress will not be counted towards the total of a bullet point.
ā Introduction Area
Maps: 3/?
Cutscenes: 2/?
CGs: 4/?
CG variations: 2/?
Puzzles: 0/?
Items: 1/?
ā Other progress
Maps: 2/?
Character sprites: 21/? (includes poses and alternative outfits)
Dialogue portraits: 4/?
ā Unfinished progress
N/A
Thank you all so much for your support so far! ā¤
Hey the art for your game looks great! I was just wondering what size you make your character sprites?
Thank you so much!
I make the character sprite frames fit within 32x64 pixel confinements so I always know where their collision detection square is and how to adjust for overlapping tiles and such. I donāt really like the 1-tile tall, highly compressed chibi character look that RPG Maker VX Ace has by default, so I make my characters two tiles tall instead.
Tutorial: Backing up files locally made easy (on Windows)
Why back up files? There are quite a few reasons: your hard drive might stop working, your files might corrupt, you might accidentally delete your files, etc. Personally, Iāve been manually backing up Rosewoodās files onto an external hard drive for a while now, even if itās not an entirely painless process.
Recently, I talked to a friend of mine about how I accidentally overwrote my work files with backup files instead of the other way around and wished there was a way to automate the process. Luckily, said friend had an answer...
Batch files.
To easily make your own batch file that runs commands, just open up Notepad and put in the following command line:
The first quotation marks segment ("C:\path\to\files") is where you should put the path of the folder you wish to back up. The second one ("Drive:\path\to\backup") is where you put the target folder. Make sure you donāt erase the quotation marks, otherwise paths containing spaces might break!
You can add as many Robocopy command lines as you wish to your file, as long as they are not all crammed onto the same line. Handy if you want to back up digital notes or concept art in different folders!
Lastly, though this is optional, you can add the following to a new line:
PAUSE
This will tell the batch file to wait for key input, meaning the window will stay open if you want to take a look at what has been copied and whether there have been any issues. I highly recommend adding this to see if there are any errors when you first run the file.
After youāre done putting in all the lines you need, save the file with a .bat extension. Whenever you launch the file, it should now automatically make your backups for you!
Itās time for the monthly development summary again!
To make total progress easier to follow, Iāve added the total of all the work done together. If anyone is interested in having me add the numbers of what Iāve completed per month separately, please let me know!
NOTE: Everything under "other progressā is either progress on aspects of the game that are not bound to specific areas or progress on areas that are not being focused on at this point in development. Work in progress will not be counted towards the total of a bullet point.
ā Introduction Area
Maps: 2/?
Cutscenes: 1/?
CGs: 4/?
CG variations: 2/?
Puzzles: 0/?
Items: 0/?
ā Other progress
Maps: 2/?
Character sprites: 8/?
Dialogue portraits: 4/?
ā Unfinished progress
Iām working on making the first in-game items at the moment and have made the pop-up window that shows you which items you picked up.
Thank you all so much for your support so far! ā¤
Finally, Iāve finished one of the bigger and more time-intensive maps; Rosewood Academyās foyer!
Since I made all the assets from scratch, it ended up taking about 3 months to sketch it out, fit in existing assets, create some new assets (some of the more time-intensive ones are unique to this map, such as the fountain you see here), apply lighting and shadows, etc.
Thereās still a chance I might end up adjusting some details, but for now, I am satisfied with what I have!
Project Rosewood is now on Twitter, too! Iāll be tweeting about it on my general account, @cwpgames and Iāll keep an eye on #projectrosewood, in case anyone tweets about the game!
This postās lovely art is made by @pattiko; I highly recommend giving her work a look! ā¤
I made a few corrections to the recent Development Summary post, as I forgot to include some of the things Iāve completed to their appropriate aspects counters and a bullet point was missing from the Unfinished Progress section.
Itās time for the monthly development summary again!
To make total progress easier to follow, Iāve added the total of all the work done together. If anyone is interested in having me add the numbers of what Iāve completed per month separately, please let me know!
NOTE: Everything under "other progressā is either progress on aspects of the game that are not bound to specific areas or progress on areas that are not being focused on at this point in development. Work in progress will not be counted towards the total of a bullet point.
ā Introduction Area
Maps: 0/?
Cutscenes: 1/?
CGs: 2/?
CG variations: 1/?
Puzzles: 0/?
Items: 0/?
ā Other progress
Maps: 2/?
Character sprites: 8/?
Dialogue portraits: 4/?
ā Unfinished progress
I worked on one of the huge maps that I also worked on in August.
Worked on a CG thatās seen early on in the game.Ā
Partially implemented one of the early cutscenes.
I was still dealing with the remnants of the cold I caught in August at the start of September, though thankfully it didnāt impede my work all that much.
Thank you all so much for your support so far! ā¤
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