#norvale

[alchemil-studio]

Devlog #4 - October 2023

Hello~

Time flies doesn't it? It's already the end of October! Before we start on the updates we've made since the last devlog, we would just like to mention that last August marked the one year release of the Norvale demo!

Time really does fly…

Anyway, on to the updates

GUI DESIGN

As mentioned in a previous devlog, we have decided to redesign the GUI design. So we have changed the visual aspect of the GUI, though the theme technically stays the same.

*for now, Music Volume & Mute All is disabled

In addition to this, we revamped the quick menu and MC name input! 

We had an idea to create a quick menu that appears on hover, and through trial and error, we got it to work. 

And with the MC name input, based on feedback, we added a "Confirm" button for better user experience and interaction.

DEMO FEEDBACK 

Based on feedback we got during the first release of the demo, we have adjusted and changed the font as well, and the text size of the dialogue in-game. We've also adjusted other functionality like adding a "Test Sound" option on the settings screen, adjusting the Auto Save (currently, we removed the Quick Save and Quick Load options), and as mentioned above, the MC name input. 

We've also fixed a few UI bugs like how the dialogue textbox would be bigger when the MC speaks. 

And for story script understanding, we added parenthesis to when MC has inner thoughts, instead of leaving it italicized and removing the confusion that it may be a narration or an actual dialogue.

DEMO V2 + MOVING FORWARD

With this, moving forward, we plan on asking a few of our friends to test the new GUI design. This will be using the same story as the previous demo gameplay (candy wrapper route), and depending on that we'll discuss whether to upload it to our itch.io page or not for more feedback/participants. 

We still don't have BGM, as we are focusing on the story, art sprites and GUI, but once we're done we hope to spend more time fixing the sounds/music for Norvale.

In the demo feedback, we received feedback about the text size. Currently, we just made it so that the text is large enough to read and the font to be readable/understandable. However, we do plan on making the dialogue text adjustable and hopefully will be implemented by the full version or in future versions of the full version. There are also a few other issues we have yet to fix in this version, but we'll tackle them one by one.

And that is all~ We've made a lot of progress this year and we are grateful to those who continue to support us.

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Links

Carrd: Alchemilla Studios Carrd

Twitter: @Alchemil_Studio

Instagram: @Alchemil_Studio

Itch.io: Alchemilla Studios Itch.io Page

[nana-egaki]

【OC | Norvale】

Morgan

The player character for a visual novel I'm currently working on~! You can find the demo and where you can keep up with updates regarding the game over here:

Alchemilla Studios

An indie visual novel group

I really hope you'll give the demo a try and take the survey at the end to let us know what you think! I'd really appreciate it ♡⁠(⁠Ӧ⁠ｖ⁠Ӧ⁠｡⁠)

[alchemil-studio]

Devlog #3 - June 2023

Hello~!

June has ended and with it we have some more updates regarding the progress of Norvale!

As we mentioned in the previous devlog, we’ve finished the initial story draft for the Craft Store route. In this route, Morgan decides to visit the local craft store in search of something that they can pick up as a new hobby. But once they arrive, they find two men arguing in the middle of the street…

NEW CHARACTERS

The designs for the two men, Frank and Kushal, have been completed and we’ve uploaded their character introductions yesterday.

Frank is the father of Louis, one of Morgan’s childhood friends, and the owner of the local toy store that sits across the street from the craft store. He’s someone that comes across rough at first but once you get to know him, he’s a pretty friendly guy. Despite being on good terms with Kushal’s wife Lathika & his daughter Sara, he never seems to get along with Kushal himself and is prone to starting arguments with him over pointless things…

Compared to the initial sketches, his face became a bit more oval compared to the rounder face of the pencil sketches. While making rough designs for his clothes, they were simple like a plain t-shirt and sandals or a sloppily tucked in shirt to go with his rough but friendly personality. But we decided to make him dress a bit neater and added a jacket to his outfit as well to fit the late spring season the story takes place in.

“He decided to head outside for a bit and threw on a jacket, just in case it gets chilly.” is the basic idea behind his final outfit.

Kushal’s design was pretty straightforward. Although looking back, he might’ve lost a bit of the aloofness of the pencil sketch since his features turned softer in the final design.

Kushal is the father of Sara, another one of Morgan’s childhood friends, and the owner of the local craft store. A man of few words and even fewer expressions, his stoicism and blunt words sometimes tend to rub people the wrong way. While he usually prefers to stay out of trouble, he’s always ready to throw words with Frank.

I drew the first outfit, the red Kurta with black pants to draw out a more traditional Indian feel, while designs 2 through 4 were mostly inspired by things dads usually wear haha

We ended up going with the outfit in design 2 since we felt it was a good casual but still somewhat formal outfit someone like Kushal would wear, while keeping the skin color of the first design.

The blue looks a little striking at first glance but I think the white accents bring some balance.

There’s still a little bit more sprite related work to go before I finish the character art for this route. After that, the plan is to move onto character designs for the third route and once those are done, the focus will be shifted to drawing backgrounds. There’s still a lot of artwork to go but I’ll do my best! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

DEVELOPMENT

Not much to update for the development side, aside from how we’ve started working on applying the new GUI to ren’py and experimenting on some GUI features we’ve thought about before and while conceptualizing the newer GUI. We’ll continue to finish implementing the GUI to the ren’py script before fixing some kinks/feature fixes then the story script itself unto the game. 

tl;dr: we’ve made quite a lot of progress for the 2nd part of the story in terms of assets. We’ll slowly but surely continue to develop and flesh out the full version of the game, so please continue to support us!

In summary, we’re making progress! Although small, we are making progress and a positive one at that! Please look forward to the full release of Norvale!

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Links

Carrd: Alchemilla Studios

Twitter: @Alchemil_Studio

Instagram: @Alchemil_Studio

Itch.io: Alchemilla Studios

[alchemil-studio]

"Happy Valentine's Day!💕

Whether it's for yourself, your loved ones or your significant other, J&J's has got you covered!🍫✨"

drawn by our Illustrator @nana-egaki

[alchemil-studio]

Here's a look on our first visual novel, Norvale!

Get to know the story and the demo characters below!

You can check out the demo at itch.io!

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📖 Story

Burdened by the stress of life in the big city, Morgan takes a short trip to Norvale, a town they lived in as a child. Spurred by the memories of an old ruined photograph, Morgan wanders the small town, hoping to run into some old childhood friends along the way.

👥 Characters

🖼️ Morgan

“I came all the way here but what should I do?”

An office worker overwhelmed by the pressures of the adult world. In need of a break, they went on a trip to their childhood home.

🍬 Julie

“What’s with that look? Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me?!”

One of Morgan's childhood friends. She helps out at her late grandfathers' candy store whenever she comes back home from university.

To check out the story more, get the demo game from itch.io!

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Check out our other socials for other news and updates!

Twitter: @Alchemil_Studio

Instagram: @Alchemil_Studio

[alchemil-studio]

Devlog #5 – August 2024

Hello! It’s been a while but we’re still alive! And we’re still working on Norvale!!

Life kind of got the better of us this year but we’ve still been working towards the full version of Norvale!

We’ve been taking into account the feedback we received from our updated demo’s player survey and have been fixing and improving the game accordingly, such as players encountering some issues in regards to the audio which has now been fixed.

We’re always looking for feedback and ways to improve so please do try out the new demo and fill out the survey if you haven’t already!

Now onto the updates:

STORY

We’re happy to announce that writing for the story is done~! The story for Norvale is roughly a little over ~16,000 words. It’s a nice, short story for when you want to just play a quick visual novel to relax. We’re still doing a bit of fine tuning here and there, mainly just double-checking things like continuity and typos and the like but the overall story is finished!

The candy store route has also gone through some reworking so it’ll be a slightly different experience compared to the demo version!

ART

Over the past couple of months, we’ve been working on designing and finalizing the remaining cast of Norvale!  Sprite work is finished for all characters so it’s only a matter of adding them into the game.

Here’s a peek at the characters you’ll meet in the third route, Louis, Sara & Lathika!

(We will do a proper introduction for them on our social media at a later date.)

Now that character related artwork is finished, we’ll be moving to designing backgrounds. The current plan to overhaul all the backgrounds from the demo and try to start from scratch again since we’re not too happy with how they turned out haha ;;

It’s a short update but we thank you for your patience and continued support!

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Links

Carrd: Alchemilla Studios Carrd

Twitter: @Alchemil_Studio

Instagram: @Alchemil_Studio

Itch.io: Alchemilla Studios Itch.io Page

[alchemil-studio]

Louis: It’s from that one time we tried to make a gingerbread house for Christmas, do you remember?

Sara: Yeah! While we were setting it up, you noticed that some candy pieces were missing. Mr. Frank took them and he and mom gave it to the others…

Louis: Ahaha…sorry about him

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✨🎄✨

A few days late, but... Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you all have a great holiday this year with your loved ones!

✨🎄✨

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[alchemil-studio]

Norvale Demo update!

Hello~! As we've stated in our previous devlog, we released an updated version of our Demo with a new UI & a change to a sprite 🎉 We hope old and new players can enjoy this demo (and answer the survey 😆)

Norvale (DEMO) by Alchemilla Studios

A slice of life visual novel of a trip to a childhood hometown

Survey link: https://forms.gle/oMTyY21Edb8Rn2pTA