Skye Over the City

 

I drew some more art for Skye this time, as Kotone already has a few scenes like this.
On a side note her animations are very close to complete at this point, though I can't showcase how she fits into the story just yet.

I know many people eager for more news but there's really not much I can say right now as I just have to stay focused on finishing the rest of the game and I don't want to reveal anymore beyond what the demos already contain.
It will still take at least the rest of the year to animate the remaining enemies and bosses, make the cutscenes, and other elements even though the level design is mostly finished.
Despite this I will still try to post regular small updates, probably with art or things unrelated to Vivid Dead until the game is closer to completion. The next one may even be a bit of a surprise for some.
Once again however I'm sorry to have to give everyone the bad news.

Development wise I mostly been doing bosses lately, but some changes have also been made to Kotone's animations that I thought felt kind of stiff or awkward in motion like her heavy attacks.
The hub world and game progression has also been reworked somewhat again, I decided I had to make some changes that might sadden some people in the future for the sake of time and simplifying development,
but ultimately I think it's for the better. Because many people tend to struggle with the progression of the demo I was at first thinking of making the game more linear again like version 0.1 but decided not to.
But still I feel that the old layout wasn't doing a good enough job pointing the player in the right directions.

琴音にはすでにこんなシーンがいくつかあるので、今回はスカイのアートを描き足しました。
ついでに言うと、彼女のアニメーションは現時点で完成に近づいていて。ただし、彼女がこのゲームの物語にどう関わっているのか、まだお見せすることはできません。

多くの人が続報を待ち望んでいるのは知っているが、今はゲームの残りのを完成させることに集中しなければならないし、すでにデモに収録されている以上のことは明かしたくないので、言えることはあまりません。
レベルデザインはほぼ完成しているものの、残りの敵やボスのアニメーション、カットシーンの作成、その他の要素に少なくとも今年いっぱいはかかるでしょう。
にもかかわらず、ゲームが完成に近づくまで、おそらくアートやビビドデードに関係ないものを使って、定期的に小さな更新を投稿しようと思います。次回の更新は、ある人にとってはちょっとした驚きかもしれません。
しかし、またしても皆さんに悪いお知らせをしなければならないのが残念です。

開発的には、最近は主にボスを作っていたんだけど、琴音の強い攻撃など、なんか動きが硬いというか、ぎこちないと思っていたアニメーションもいくつか変更しました。
ハブワールドとゲーム進行もまた多少作り直した。時間の都合と開発の簡略化のために、将来的に何人かの人を悲しませるかもしれない変更をしなければならないと判断したんです、
しかし、最終的には良い方向だと思う。多くの人がデモの進行に苦戦する傾向があるため、最初はバージョン0.1のようにゲームを再び直線的にしようと考えていたが、そうしないことにしました。
しかしそれでも、古い構造ではプレイヤーを正しい方向に導くのに十分な役割を果たしていないことがわかりました。

Erie Yagami artwork plus other news

This month and last I got several enemies completed. Recently I've been mostly just making enemies everyday since most of the level design is done.

In September my computer power supply broke, so I started using another laptop I had and found many points of fps drops and lag. As a result I also spent a lot of time last month editing graphics and optimizing, but I think the game should run faster and smoother now than before. Unfortunately however I will not be able to apply these changes to the current demo.

This rabbit like girl is Erie Yagami. Right now in the demo she's an acquaintance of Kotone who gives helpful advice. Like Kotone she is also a street artist and shows up for the graffiti battle minigame from time to time. Erie always looks upbeat and cheerful, but in truth her mind is a little bit twisted. She's also close friends with the kunoichi Risa.

Erie probably looks very similar to Moon Rhapsody's Nyx, who was originally designed to be a character in Vivid, but since MR and Vivid Dead are set in different worlds I felt it was best to change her design.

今月と先月は多くの敵が完了しました。全てレベル設計大半の済んだから最近は敵を作ってるのがほとんど毎日していました。

九月は私のパソコンの電源が壊れた、あと、他のノートボークパソコンを使い始めたのときは様々のfpsドロップや遅れの点を見つけました。だから先月はグラフィックを編集するも最適化も多くの時間を費やした。今ゲームが以前より速くとうまく機能するようになったはずと思います。残念ながら、これらの変更は現在のデモを適用することができません。

このウサギような女の子はエリー・ヤガミです。現在に、彼女はデモに琴音の有用なアドバイスをくれる知り合いとして現れいます。エリーも琴音のようなストリートアーティストです、落書き勝負のミニゲームにもときどき顔を出す。エリーはいつも明るく元気そうに見えるが、実は彼女の心が少し歪んでいます。　エリーもくノ一秋山里沙と近い友達です。

エリーはムーンラプソディのニュクスに似てるおそらく、ニュクスは元々ビビッドデッドのキャラクターとして設計される、でもムーンラプソディとビビッドデッドは舞台が違うから彼女のデザインを変更した方がいいと思いました。

 

Vivid Dead v0.3 Demo Update

This is a pretty large update overall, but in terms of the main story it covers about the same amount as previous demos. There is however many new features that can mostly be found after completing the older stages.

Major changes from v0.2.1:

• Kotone walks by default now instead of always running. To run tap the directional key/button twice, or just use an analog stick controller.
• The default weapon is now a regular knife rather than kodachi.
• Grabs can be escaped instantly using the knife by pressing the attack button, although Kotone will still take damage.
• Clothing is destroyed faster and if Kotone is at 0HP when grabbed she will be stripped and violated if nudity is on.
• The mountain stage from v0.2 extended has been removed and parts of it merged with a different stage.
• Treasure Dungeon minigame is not in this version, there is a different minigame instead.

これは全体的にかなり大きな更新ですが、主なストーリーについて以前の体験版とほぼ同量を扱っています。
しかし、旧ステージを完成したの後にはたくさん新機能を見つけることができます。

v0.2.1から主な変更点:

• 琴音はいつも走っているのではなく、既定で歩くようになりました。　走るには矢印キ―を倍タップするか、ただのアナログコントローラーを使います。
• 既定武器が小太刀から通常なナイフになりました。　
• 攻撃キーで直ぐにグラブ攻撃を逃げることができます、　でも琴音まだダメージを受けます。
• 服が破壊されやすくなる、また裸体設定がオンと0HPと捕まったら、琴音が裸にされと暴行されます。
• v0.2ext版山ステージは削除され、様々な部分が別のステージに追加されました。
• 宝のダンジョンミニゲームはこの体験版にはない、　他のミニゲームがあります。

Public version: https://kosmic91.itch.io/vivid-dead-demo

Extended version: https://www.patreon.com/posts/vivid-dead-demo-109133617

Vivid Dead Comic #1

 

Skye artwork plus other news

I was going to post an update before February but I had a lot to deal with last few weeks, including not having electricity for a couple days, but everything is back in order now. I manged to complete one stage in January and mostly finished planning the one remaining though there are a couple old stages I think need some heavy improvement that I've been doing this week.

At this point, 90% of the game is fully mapped out it's mostly a matter of just going through and drawing the assets+building everything. I should note again the game still has much development left to go however because I haven't made many new enemies or animations in a long time trying to get this part out of the way. When I started the game(as Nocturne) I had initially wanted to keep it short, shorter than MR at least and maybe only take around 4-5 hours or so to finish. I can pretty much confirm though the game will take most people much longer than that to play through, probably in the neighborhood of 10-15 hours without trying to find everything. Even though I cut down on the stage count over time, many of the existing ones are now twice as large and require backtracking to 100% and to make progress sometimes. There are a lot of key items now as well so I'm thinking I'm going to make a separate menu instead of just showing them on the bottom of the pause screen. 

 

Anyway, the character here is Skye Chione, a harpy who lives in a castle hanging above the mountains near the city. The castle only appeared recently when the city of Shingetsu became overrun with demons, and Skye was a just a regular citizen beforehand, though she is a foreigner not fond of human society and it's laws, having grown up in the wilderness. She doesn't care about the current turmoil but finds amusement watching Kotone's struggle to deal with the situation, sometimes putting more obstacles in her path.

 

私は二月の前に更新を投稿する欲しいでしたでもここ数週間にたくさんことに対処しなければならないでした、二日には電気がないことも含めて。　でも今は正常に戻っています。一月に一ステージをすんで残り一が大半に企画を済んでした。けどまだ数のステージを練習に戻ってしないと感じはもあります。この時点で、ゲームの地図が90%企画されており、あとはアセットを描き、すべてを構築するだけです。しかし、私は長い時間には新し敵とかアニメをしなかった、だからこのゲームにはまだ多くの開発が残されている。開発のときは（Nocturneとして）当初は短くまとめたかった、せめてMRろりも。完成するには4とか5時間くらいたぶん。でも今はたいていの人はそれよりもずっと長い時間がかかるだろう私は確認できる。すべてを探そうとしなくたら、おそらく10-15時間くらいはかかるだろう。時間をかけてステージ数を減らしたとはいえ、既存のステージの多くは2倍の大きさになり、100％にするためにはバックトラックをしなければならず、前進できないこともある。今は多くの鍵アイテッムもある、だからポ―ズの画面の下の表示するよりも別のメニューを作って考えっている。

とにかく、このキャラはスカイ・チオネー、新月都の近くの山の上で城に住んでいるハーピーです。その城は都市が化物と妖魔で氾濫したのとき最近現れただけ。その前にスカイは普通な市民だけでした、しかし荒野育ちでしで人間社会とその法律が好きではない外国人だ。現在の混迷を気になりないでも琴音の闘いを見ているで楽しみを見出す、時には道にもっと障害物を増やす。

 

Onward

 

So 2024 is just around the corner, there's still a lot of things I want to finish before I show more gameplay. I feel like December was mostly a successful month of progress, 2 more stages of the 4 I had left are 90% complete minus enemies and some missing background elements. Although some of the earlier ones now I feel like I may need to go back again and improve slightly as I don't think the quality is quite on the same level as the more recent areas as a result of many refinements to the game over time. I added another type of magic that has a more unique ability compared to the other spells, there's one more left I have to make. That's all I really have to say for now, I feel before February I should have all the stages and areas in the game finished as long as there's no setbacks. So next year expect to start seeing some more substantial news once spring comes around.

Also I want to thank everyone who helped me reach 1K in pledges on Patreon, I can work more comfortably now than I have in the past not having to think about bills as much. With this though I'll have to work even harder to ensure VD gets finished and the final product delivers.

Last month of the year...

Another month already over, I know many want to know what's happening, and whether another demo is coming. Well good news is I feel like I made a lot of progress this month, more than I usually get done at least. I've added and polished multiple areas in the game, made some existing parts a little longer. I still have around 4 stages not finished, though 2 are in the early phase of development.  The world map overall has changed pretty dramatically since the last version but people probably won't notice much since the demo only covers a small portion. I say world map, what I mean is the hubs that connect between areas were initially just save points, sometimes you find the ghost merchant there. I made there areas more interconnected with more to find. The actual map screen that you see on the pause menu also looks different and more detailed.

Bad news is all of this work means I haven't been able focus on any other aspects of the game like the enemies, dialogue, abilities, music for a while and will likely be that way for a least a couple more months. So the game is still not very presentable past the early stages unfortunately and even making any gifs/videos doesn't feel right at this time now with how bare it is. So even though I said January might be a possibility for a new demo update, most likely that won't be happening...
Which honestly is hard for me to have to admit, as I feel like I've been working on this game forever, not to mention MR which can't focus on at all right now, and many are eager to see more. However Vivid Dead means everything to me, and I won't rest until it is completed and polished to highest quality I can make it.