Coming Out On Top

Things are going to remain pretty quiet as I code the next route.  If you’ve sent me an email recently, apologies–it’s taking me a bit of time to catch up.  I appreciate all your lovely feedback.  It makes me happy to know I didn’t make my husband squirm through the demo for naught.

If you have yet to see the latest version of Phil, one of the main characters, take a peek! (he’s got briefs on, there’s NSFW stuff going on down below):

http://obscurasoft.tumblr.com/post/51783965860/work-in-progress-phil-a

Relationship #2 is being edited right now.  Working on #3 while finishing up the assets and some of the side branches for 2.  I probably could not sound more vague.  :)

Sorry about the lack of detailed updates.  I’ll have more art posted the closer we come to the end of the year.  Right now, I’m using a lot of half finished character sprites and placeholders, and they’re not much to look at!

Saguaro–another Visual Novel maker–will be helping me with some of the more complex programming portions of the game.

If you haven’t seen her stuff already, check out her latest demo for a project called “The Censor.” It’s hands down the coolest VN I’ve ever played.  (And yeah, it’s just a demo, but holy shit.)  You’d think the fact she only uses silhouetted sprites in her games would be a limitation, but she makes everything look fucking cool.  

I feel very lucky to be getting her help with Coming Out On Top–she’s been able to implement things I haven’t seen in other visual novels.  On top of that, she’s a scarily good writer, and combined with her aesthetic sense, I’m convinced she’s not altogether human.

Writing, drawing, and other good stuff.

I’m at this weird point right now where I can show very little of what’s currently being produced.  Doubleleaf is doing a whole bunch of scenes right now that are heavy on the spoilers.  I do have a mockup of Jed’s sprite, but it’s still very raw and needs a lot done to it.

Most of my days are spent writing.  Occasionally I’ll have days where I toss out the stuff I just wrote.  So many plot lines and alternate scenarios that aren’t going to make the final cut.

Over in the forums, they’ll be voting on additional outfits for the boys later this month.  So far nobody’s suggested letting everyone just run around in jock straps, which I could have sworn would be the most popular request.  It’s not like I was secretly hoping for it, or anything…

So I believe the Scene Artist is technically called the “CG Artist” in the visual novel world, but in any case, I’m beyond delighted to announce Doubleleaf at DeviantArt (aka Saynomore at Y-gallery) will be illustrating the scenes for Coming Out On Top.

I’ve already gotten the first scene back from her, and I practically fell out of my chair sobbing from just how awesome it was.

I’ll post some scenes as soon as I get something that isn’t a massive spoiler.

Check out her art here.  You’ve probably seen it before if you’re a fan of yaoi art.  The caliber of the work speaks for itself.

http://doubleleaf.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://www.y-gallery.net/gallery/saynomore/?offset=0 (NSFW)

Kickstarter sent me this email today reminding me to make sure I send all my backers an update via their system.

“We know it’s been awhile since your project was funded, but we wanted to write and encourage you to keep sending project updates.”

We all know what happened the last time I followed their advice regarding updates right?   I got an exasperated message from someone telling me to stop sending so many freaking updates.

So I’m gonna leave this “helpful reminder” alone.  I think all my backers know where to find me.

Hint: it’s not “comingoutontop.com”, which is incidentally, a Christian ministries site.