The Month In AI (MAY 23’)
“An unexpected success!”
Domo domo, Author-kun des.
This month I found unexpected success with /Heroine Defeat General/! For people who have been following House Delaroux on Itch.io, thank you! Me and Shogun-sama will work hard on making sure that /HDG/ is as good as it can be for its' VIRIDIAN release. Please look forward to it early/mid June!
Thoughts on /Heroine Defeat General/
When I went into /AGDG/ 50, I didn't think I would come out of it a restounding success, over 1k viewers and more subscribers than I ever had for /Conspiracy/ Girls!
It just goes to show that the power of Coom is not to be underestimated.
Ah for the people who haven't kept up, I made a tiny prototype called /Heroine Defeat General/. The focus on the game is on capturing heroines ala Pokemon. I made it mostly as a test of whether it was possible to implement Pokemon-like mechanics inside RPGMaker MV. It turns out that it takes to Pokemon mechanics pretty well!
/Heroine Defeat General/ Game Page
https://madison-delaroux.itch.io/heroine-defeat-general
/AGDG/ 50 Submission Page
https://itch.io/jam/agdg-demo-day-50/entries
The Dev Logs:
Thank You, Work Begins!: https://madison-delaroux.itch.io/heroine-defeat-general/devlog/527837/thank-you-the-work-begins
Prototype Progress Week of 230508: https://madison-delaroux.itch.io/heroine-defeat-general/devlog/529283/prototype-progress-week-of-230508
The /HDG/ Style Guide: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/108373631
Pixiv Art (@Iland)
Final Hours Before the Deadline: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/108345737
Bikini Knight Bondage Concepts: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/108221497
Reasoning
Since /HDG/ was such a success, I have decided to work on it for a little longer. At least, up until the end of the major gym battle, which has its equivalent in Pokemon Red.
Some part of me wondered before this month whether it was a good idea to do a coomer game since I purposely made /Conspiracy/ Girls without any EXPLICIT lewds inside. But a change of direction is good for the body, so great thanks to Shogun-sama for picking me up and pointing out da wey.
I am thankful for the success and the interest in the style guide as well. I am not exactly the best at game design, so I am working with Shogun-sama to produce the game. I will work hard on producing more images and working with Shogun-sama to finish the game, so as to not disappoint people who have put faith in the project.
Thoughts on Vision Design
Funny how things turned out, I was working ona harem comedy visual novel when the unexpected success of /HDG/ let me use a lot of the designs I planned for that inside it. Many of the original concepts fit like a glove, especially Miko and Misogi, and slowly but surely, after the Style Guide for /HDG/ came out, the concepts got fleshed out even more.
Reasoning
I am very proud of how the style guide turned out. Every day when I start work on /HDG/, I read the style guide to give myself inspiration, so you know it’s good!
Thoughts on Master Duel
I simply didn't play Master Duel at all this month. (laugh)
It might very well be official: Tearlaments has killed the game for me. Going forward I will not be playing very much Master Duel, even though I do enjoy it very much.
Reasoning
I like tinkering with waifu decks, my joy is in taking what might be bad or weird waifu decks and having them beat the big meta decks, but Tearlaments is such a major power level spike, I can't even pretend that there is any significant chance that a waifu deck can compete seriously with Tears.
Also a major factor is that I missed out on qualifying on the recent regionals; Tearlaments really made the game unfun to play. I made it to round 2 in every Duelist Cup in the last year, but I really just couldn't muster the strength to play this time around.
Oh what was it that turned me off the game? Was it the lack of control DURING MY OWN TURN, or that there are no good ways to get around Tearlaments that don't involve gutting your own deck?
In truth, I was also very busy working on /HDG/ (ehe), so I don't have the time to devote to making it competitively. Not to make excuses, but I was really out of practice. I barely remembered how to play Swordsoul and Labrynth (T.T). With only 12 logins this month, I think I'll take it very easy on the Master Duel front from here on out.
It is a disappointing end, but we all knew that it would have ended this way, after all, Author-kun was very fond of saying "Nothing else matters until Tealaments." And now that Tearlaments is out, "Nothing matters anymore." I most certainly won't be playing Master Duel competitively in the near future.
Plan
Currently, I have a plan for the month of June divided into three parts.
1) Work on the first part of VIRIDIAN until the 7th. This will be crucial since if the first part is done well, the second part of scripting Yudina’s boss fight will be easy. During the time in between, I’ll have to start gathering feedback from people.
2) Work on VIRIDIAN pt2 from 7th to 15th. While VIRIDIAN pt1 is a town, VIRIDIAN pt2 is the equivalent of Virdian Forest in Pokemon Red, albeit with bandits instead of bugs. It will also introduce the first major boss fight in Yudina, bucking the pokemon trend a little, but we are still on track.
The longer deadline is to give me less stress working on the first part of VIRIDIAN, which I think there are many major game design decisions I have to make with Shogun-sama first.
3) Finish Pewter in time for /AGDG/ 51. Hi schizo anti-lolidev, if you read this far, /HDG/ will be No.1 for /AGDG/ 51, and you can do NOTHING about it!
Last Word/ Criticism
I know that these things are all doable, thought I have to keep working in the face of a lot of work. There might be a lot of work, but it is perfectly doable. Please look forward to VIRIDIAN!
Arthur Delaroux & Shogun-sama
HouseDelaroux.com
230531
