- Ingrid and Elissa
OSAS Devlog #5: On the Up and Up
Before we get on with this newest devlog, let's take care of:
A Bit of Housekeeping
We'll be pivoting to making these devlog updates more chronologically friendly—that is, having them reflect the progress we've made in the past thirty-or-so days rather than reflecting on just the calendar month that has passed!
This is partly because half a month is a long time to report on the previous month's activities and partly because Ingrid can't remember what she's doing on a day to day basis for any more than the past thirty days, there's so much that happens in a week alone.
Anyway, on with the post!
Let's Get Even More Social!
Because we clearly didn't have enough to keep up with, we inaugurated brand new Facebook and Tumblr pages this past month!
As we gear up for our projected Demo release date in June, it'll be important to garner an audience from not only Twitter and Instagram but from anywhere else potentially interested parties may frequent!
The success of these platforms may not prove themselves until long after the demo has been released, but, as is Ingrid's marketing philosophy, it is better to have (consistent, updated) links available wherever people may follow.
If you've come to us from either of those platforms, hello, and welcome! It's great to have you here.
Life Updates
Elissa
January was a whirlwind month; I started the new year in Canada on the tail end of my honeymoon, and then as soon as I got back to the US I was busy apartment hunting and packing to move for my new job! The move was well over a thousand miles, so it was a pretty intense undertaking, but me, my spouse, and our fur babies are all settled in now.
I started work in February, which means having to re-learn how to balance the 9-to-5 with creative pursuits (AKA this project, among other things) — it’s different than it was in college, for sure! But one thing I really appreciate about my workplace is that it’s a really vibrant, creative space, so while I may be physically tired after a long day of training and settling into my new responsibilities, I feel like being there energizes me mentally. (Stealing creative motivation from work isn’t the same thing as stealing pens from the supply cabinet, right?)
I’m looking forward to spring to bring me even more inspiration for this project — I love writing outdoors, and though Of Sense & Soul is Green Carnations no longer, it’ll always be linked to flowers and growth in my mind. So, on to March snowmelt and April’s first blooms!
Ingrid
Much of my January was spent settling back home, decluttering my room, finishing zine work, and getting accustomed to my old desk setup again.
Then February came, and I really buckled down to work on this project full time!
This was greatly aided by the fact that Hong Kong (my current base of operations) has been on high alert due to the Corvid-19 coronavirus. Turns out being on self-imposed home quarantine is great for productivity! As an introvert, I am completely fine with this as the silver lining to the outbreak. (I would like to clarify that I definitely would rather there not be a super-contagious pathogen on the loose, as it's wreaking havoc on people's livelihoods and lives and having effects on the economy as well as digging up strange bigotry in all corners of the world, but I am of the opinion that there are positives to most terrible situations.)
Otherwise, it has been a productive, fruitful month thus far, and I am thoroughly excited I'm getting the wheels turning in the right direction.
Production Updates
This past month has been a flurry of new discoveries and decisions!
The most recent (and perhaps most transformative) development has been the choice of making the switch from our original 2K screen resolution (1920x1080) to creating assets for 4K screens (3840x2160). A majority of our assets haven't been created yet and some preexisting assets need to be reformatted for this resolution, but all our art is created larger than it needs to be so it's not too painful to make the switch.
Music
We've determined that we will be commissioning three original tracks for the OSAS Demo! Creating music, although we on the OSAS team have played various instruments in our fledgling years, is not something that we can do in-house to the level of polish we would like.
For the full project we would love to have a fully original soundtrack, but we'll handle the Demo first.
Writing
After a few incredibly busy winter months, writing is picking back up where we left off, route by route. The prologue for the game is ready to be implemented, and is just waiting on the right assets to accompany it.
Programming
Before our first meeting of 2020 at the end of the first week of February, we sat down with our programmer to test out some sprites, which brings us to the part of production which saw the most development...
Sprites, Sprites, Sprites!
Ingrid has dedicated her February to (mostly) sprite work, and quite a bit of progress has been made!
Sprites for Camilla, Claude, and background characters are underway, but we've now completed three sprites! These include sprites for our main characters Hugo and Seamus as well as one secondary character sprite for James, Seamus' best friend and Shrewsbury schoolmate.
A GIF of several demo-ready sprite variants for Hugo and Seamus.
The current goal is to create assets that are demo-ready, so the outfit variations for the protagonist sprites will be added after the demo is completed.
And because that wasn't enough, she's also working on...
Backgrounds!
Well, a background.
These are relatively uncharted waters for Ingrid, who is much more comfortable as a character artist, but she thinks this "move-in ready" shot of the conservatory is quite convincing! Furniture and more are to come, but
That's it for this month's devlog! Next month, we'll be covering our progress over the rest of February and into March.
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