I adore Veynn’s Noël so very much and had been planning to draw this for quite some time, asked for her permission to create this crossover of Esme and Noël in costumes! I kept to their colour themes and replicated idea of a seasonal postcard, after a comment Veynn made mid-creation.
It was a ton of fun drawing them together, as always, and look forward to drawing more often.
| Links: | Textures | Font | Traumerei |
In terms of the game, progress is being made - the majority of the characters are designed in sprite form B&W.
Personal life has slowed things down, but both of us are still working very hard where time allows. We’re always learning something new and fun!
DEVELOPER(S): Veynn
ENGINE: RPGMaker VX Ace
GENRE: Horror, Exploration
WARNINGS: Suicide
SUMMARY: One day, a young boy wanders into the woods with only the twisted, mangled remnants of dreary branches obscuring the bleak horizon. As the sun starts to set beneath ruby-red clouds, the boy, Noël, happens upon a desolate cross-bridge atop a river of blood. Upon crossing over it, he finds himself standing by a gate wrought from stone.
Confronted by the fantasies his beloved grandmother read to him as a child, the boy finds himself lost in a dark 'Wonderland.' However, all is not that it seems.
While exploring, Noël must gather the memories of those forsaken souls who roam lest their hearts shatter.
Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!
Introduce yourself!
*Hiya everyone! I'm Veynn; the developer of Träumerei and Kinderszenen. I've been in the RPG Maker fandom for about two years now. I absolutely love the horror genre and wanted to try creating something immersive!
What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially?
*Veynn: Essentially, Träumerei is a horror game with dark fairytale elements that starts off with the protagonist, Noël, 'wandering' off into the woods one dreary day. In-order to save himself, he must continues to explore the twisted world he stumbles upon....
I was inspired to create my game after my dreams and nightmares. I thought they were interesting so I felt like putting them to paper. Also, when I first started working on this game I wanted it to be much shorter and have a creepy, whimsical 'woodland' atmosphere like that of Little Red Riding Hood. Though in the end it wound up much differently.
How long have you been working on your project?
*Veynn: I started working on this project around June 2015, but after the demo I ended up revamping everything. So, all-in-all I've been working on this for about a year and a half.
Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project?
*Veynn: Yes; I was influenced by Little Red Riding Hood, folklores, and myths in terms of atmosphere!
Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them?
*Veynn: Progress has been going quite swell but I'd say my biggest challenges occurred right when I first started working on this project. Since I was new to RPG Maker it took me a bit of time to figure out how to use it and exactly what style I should use. I kept switching between pixel-based art and alternative styles before settling on a 'painted' 2D sidescroller.
Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept?
*Veynn: Minus the style change, not much has changed over time. Though, I'd say it was originally going to be slightly shorter and less detailed in terms of character backstory.
What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team?
*Veynn: I've always been the only developer of the game, but I recruited voice actors for the primary characters.
What was the best part of developing the game?
*Veynn: Could I say...everything? Hahahaha, it's been such a fun experience. But if I had to choose I'd say I enjoy character and background designing the most!
Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently?
*Veynn: I regret making the demo so short, but as it's not actually 'canon' I don't find this to be too big a problem. If anything, I wish I had settled on a particular style much sooner--there are a lot of old maps that I did like but I can't quite use them in the game anymore due to the conflicting art styles.
Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore game's universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is?
*Veynn: As for this game and its characters, I most likely will not do anything with them as I feel there would be no necessity. However, I am working on a small side game that take place in the same universe.
What do you look most forward to upon/after release?
*Veynn: I look forward on hopefully bettering my other projects after garnering experience from working on this one!
Is there something you're afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game?
*Veynn: Not really, no.
Question from last month's featured dev: At what point in development do you start making the game? Do you write out the story/dialogue/events in its entirety before programming? Or do you just have general concepts planned and flesh things out as you go along?
*Veynn: I actually did write a very, very basic outline for a 90 chapter webcomic months before I decided to make Träumerei a game project. So, I'd say I started development a few months after drafting the first basic plot synopsis. After that, I started to work on both dialogue and eventing before saving programming for last.
Do you have any advice for upcoming devs?
*Veynn: Make sure to plan ahead, but more importantly, have fun! If you want to make anything, go for it! Do whatever makes you happy. And, even if things may seem daunting at first it does get the easier as more time goes on. Don't be afraid to ask for advice and help or to work alone or with a team--in the end just rely on your judgement and feelings.
It really does seem difficult at first, but it's absolutely well worth it to try. All you need is patience and enthusiasm!
We mods would like to thank Veynn for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!
Remember to check out TRÄUMEREI if you haven’t already! See you next month!
In my playthrough of Träumerei, a few bugs are apparent throughout the game, most of which are Paper Scrap related bugs I’ve found after recording my let’s play.
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1. Picking up Paper Scrap 4 does not count towards the overall count of Paper Scraps you have collected, despite picking up the previous three then picking up the fourth one in the orange fluid fountain only, Paper Scrap count is still at “x3″.
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2. Another Paper Scrap one, regardless of how many you pick, the description states “1 of 7″ all the time.
It’s a little hard to read clearly, but top left of the image below “Traumerei Chapter 0″ contains the items description, while having “Paper Scrap x3″ for example, the description’s number on the left doesn’t change after you pick up one Paper Scrap.
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3. Both a Paper Scrap and an event based one, Paper Scrap 5 is positioned within an area of the game to which you cannot leave the area, unless you observe the fountain multiple times when it gives you the option after picking up Paper Scrap 4, but with this route Paper Scrap does not appear by the axe. You only get the option to pick up the axe through the route required to get the Paper Scrap 5, but unable to leave the area as you can see below, no escaping...
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Inescapable areas...
The next few I’m not sure if they are bugs, or if they were intentionally there...the screenshot above is one of few but if you take certain choices within the game, you are locked in with death being the only escape.
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1. Near the beginning, you have two choices after applying the bandage to Mr Magpie, “Yes” or “Yes, but...”, selecting the second option will lock you into a route where you will eventually die by choosing to go to sleep after acquainting with Annabelle then she leaves.
2. Same area where Paper Scraps 4 and 5 are, not observing the orange fluid fountain three times after picking up Paper Scrap 4 (before clicking on the option after Noel says “Something...feels off here.”) will lock you into a route where picking up the axe twice will be the only escape.
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Lastly, a sound bug appears every time you open up the game, or just after a Game Over screen, whenever you go onto the main menu of the game. Opened up the game multiple times and died multiple times to get to the main menu and every single time, the sound bug appears and even on a low volume, the sound bug is quite loud.
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With any bug hunt I perform on a newly released game, it isn’t anything that portrays the developer at all, I’m not giving any sort of impression like “How dare you give us a game with these problems, you dumb mate.”, or anything that is hurtful or in my case both hurtful and meaningless.
Wrote this post under 2 days after the release of Chapter 0, @traumerei-project is a lovely, dark themed horror game with a few references here and there with Little Red Riding Hood being the most obvious. For an RPG Maker game, me personally I have not seen anything like this before with the unique art style, along with the game being a sidescroller with the character in-game sprites being really big. Always accustomed to smaller sprites, which I feel gave @aveynn a wider scope to give character sprites more intention to detail when performing their artistic magic! ^o^
I am auditioning for Traumerei’s characters Noel, Anabelle, and Lila! This one is Anabelle, I’m going to upload the other ones after this one. So, I hope I did good... (/v///v \)
