the tag for aspiring developers... this is where i give advice for making games and visual novels! also stuff about my music and art... the general creative tag i guess.
It's a stretch
But is Timber's name a reference to the riddle
"If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound"?
Since - that's his killing method
If not, that's a neat coincidence
the reason i picked timber as his name is because i already had a wolf named pine, so i wanted to pick something tree and wolf related, and also as the pack leader he gets the most general name (all types of tree), and then his mom is named after the cold ground he sprouted from... like legitimately i am making things up as i go along but the perfect words/names exist and present themselves to me and i'm like well damn it could only have ever been this one thing! it's part of why i feel like i'm not in control of what comes out, something more important is speaking through me...
So what I wanted to ask is do you post the sheet music for your tracks anywhere? I play an instrument that's like a flute(idk what it's called in English, because it's a folk instrument) and I would really like to play tracks from NWT.... I love them..... Very much......
i don't have sheet music, but i want to release my music project files so people can play around with them--it's a bit of work to get it prepared and i haven't felt like doing that but i hope to start soon.
How do you plan out your stories? How do you think of, connect and progress the threads in a way that feels natural? Do you start with a theme and plot line first, or do you make characters then fit them into stories and adjusting them accordingly?
storytelling is a muscle you gotta stretch, the more you do it the more decisions will come naturally. i feel like i had very specific paths i took to getting where i am today...
syrup for example: i wanted a yuri game where one of the girls is edible, but it's sad if she dies when eaten, so i made her candy and the other girl is a scientist who can replace her parts, so she became a candy alchemist. from there i just put in a bunch of things i liked (it became about friendship instead of yuri tho), all my games kind of just go in whatever direction they want. so by the end it feels like it was meant to be that way, but i only ever start with a very vague plan.
night with timber was supposed to just be a timber dating sim because i wanted to think of cute/harrowing scenarios with him... mason au was... i mean you all witnessed it in real time, i couldn't have known this would be how my week would go... so i guess the short answer is everything is improvised and i just go with what feels exciting/satisfying to me personally.
Is it easier to imagine yourself in the characters shoes to write about them or just Simply brainstorm how they would act base on their morals and beliefs, or both
oh hm i guess i never really imagine myself in their shoes when writing, the goal is for me to be invisible.
I remember you saying at some point you were switching from notion to obsidian. Is obsidian really able to do stuff like those cool wikis you've shown before? This question is coming from an obsidian newbie whos struggling😅
i haven't been able to move for real because it doesnt work the same, but obsidian has a ton of plugins so you could feasibly make it work... i haven't been using it at all lately because i moved all the files to my new pc that i haven't fully switched to yet...
Can you please make more yuri/GL games? I really like yuri/GL. I will download it if you will make it! can you also give me a tutorial of your art style/ tips on drawing? I hope its not that much to ask.. Thank you for reading!
i probably will but NOW IS NOT THE TIME!!!!
my tip for drawing is if you want to improve your technical skill, you should take a life drawing class. they are extremely effective.
Where did you got the idea for namiverse?
developed naturally as i made games in the same world
Why do you name all of your characters (or the majority of them) with names of random things?
having a naming scheme makes it easier to decide what to call them, which helps a lot when i have like a hundred named characters
how do you get over all those moments when a certain chord just won't sound right however you tweak it...
what about songs that aren't good enough but you can't think of how to improve... iirc you once mentioned something about this regarding mochi's theme from legacy lwt?
i wish i could articulate stuff when it comes to music, i'm self taught and figured it out just through vibes so i can't explain it as well as like, color theory or whatever... a lot of times i just give up on the song for months until i happen to open the file again later and hear exactly what i should change in my head. give yourself a break from the song and it might click like that.
do you planned to port some of your games to mobile like Syrup 2:Candy Alchemy RPG or Lonely Wolf Treat?
LWT no because of engine limitations, syrup 2 yes
Do you have any tips or tools for how you organize your stories and games when writing?
i've been using ellipsus for story notes, i used to mostly use notion but im trying to move away from it because i'm annoyed by various things about it. ellipsus is anti-AI and you can choose lots of cute colors (aesthetics are important to me when writing since i'm gonna be staring at it for a long time)
my main tip for writing branching narrative games in ren'py is to not put your whole script in one file because it's easier to navigate the branches if they're in separate ones. having too many is a pain in the ass too, but like each route in NWT for example is its own file because it made sense to split it up that way.
Thank you so much for the ren'py tips on your blog! You write the tutorials in an easy to understand way and I just find them fascinating to read!
I guess my ask is- what tutorials do you think you might make in the future? Not that you have to make more or anything! I'm just curious.
i'm happy people read them!!!!! i wrote one on grids but i haven't posted it yet because i was making a new section of my site to house them rather than having them be mixed in my blog. still working on that... i want to make html/css resources as well but a ton already exist so im not sure what i can add. gonna get back to it at some point...
do you have any plans for similar games like syrup 2 as RPG? with battle system
i wouldn't make another one until syrup 2 is finished. it was a lot of work and i don't enjoy designing battle systems in general so definitely not my first choice.
how to stop procrastinating on my vn
close this tab
for charm studies, astra's garden and syrup 2; when did you think of the type of gameplay and how it would go with the story
with charm studies i wanted to make a game that explained some of the magic system, and people wanted to see cassia again so i used her for it. i didn't know what kind of minigame i wanted to go with it, i just wanted a puzzle that made you feel like you were doing magic in some way. i like picross, so i wanted to see if i could make it in renpy, and when it looked like i could, i used it for the cassia/magic studying game idea and called them charms.
for syrup 2, specifically, it was that i had just finished atelier ayesha and the ending cutscene pissed me off so much that i was like I HAVE TO MAKE A BETTER ALCHEMY GAME THAN THIS so i started putting the prototype together. i had been wanting to make another adventure story with syrup but my first iteration of the idea was in rpgmaker, which wouldve been a terrible idea because i am barely finishing LWT haha. the story early on was just me writing a bunch of disjointed scenes but i structured them into chapters later and figured out a good direction for the overarching plot.
tl;dr, the order goes vague premise, gameplay, actual story.
So after playing Syrup 1 again, I was wondering how you do these Narration bits with the oval shaped illustrations on the left side and the text on the right, while having no menu visible?
How exactly did Orchid and Lillium get into Netherworld in the first place? Are they actually demons?
it's nvl mode, ren'py has 3 types of textbox systems you can use so i switched between them for syrup 1 (and 2... and starry flowers. wait and charm studies. i do this all the time.)
orchid and lilium are witches
Do you think you'll keep drawing chubby/plus size girls in the future? I like how they look in your style!
many of my characters are very thin so it's fun to draw more round ones, it's better if there are more body types in general...
wait is BET part of the namiverse??? I thought you said BET is in its own universe like Return to Ash?? What games are Orchid and Lillium from beside BET???
BET is separate in the same way her tears were my light is separate. connected by technicality. i'm sorry if my answers are confusing... BET is a storybook kind of world...
How did you plan out the diverging paths in Bad End Theater? What is your process like for planning diverging paths? (e.g software, method, etc)
i drew a flowchart in clip studio. you can do it on paper too, it's just easier to edit for me that way... then later on i made the finalized version ingame since it was too confusing to look for endings without it.
Is there a specific reason that you chose Teto or did you just choose Teto because she's Teto?
if she wasn't a synth v voicebank i wouldn't be using her. synth v is really easy for me to work with compared to the others i've tried AND she can sing in english which is a huge bonus for me. i started with eleanor because she was free and english, i actually prefer her voice to teto's but some songs i've made are more suited to teto's voice. she's like, sharper if that makes sense. i want to use more voicebanks but the barrier to entry remains just a little too high for me... (i love kaai yuki so much, wah.....)
what brush are you using for timber’s community service bc i looove the style ur working with rn
THANKS!!! i talked about my art process in a dev diary before, i need to move more of my posts to my site but i've been too busy with other stuff... the brush i used for escape from wormwood is mameo pencil (i used it for nwt bgs too)
what do you want to do after you're done with all of this? do you have another goal in life we don't know?
also, i want doughnuts. preferrably chocolate.
what do you mean after i'm done with all of this? i'm gonna be making games until i die
Hewwo! I was wondering, out from personal experience.. did you ever struggled with not being constant with work? From my perspective of thee as an artists and some friends, you all seem to do so much is so little. Was it always like that? And, what would you reccomend? Sowwy if too much question, but thanks for readin<3
if i could spend my every waking hour making stuff, i would do it. it's so fun. sometimes i'm too tired though. it's good to rest and remember that your value is not in your creative output or the work that you do, and stressing out about needing to make things will only make it more difficult to make things. make making things fun for yourself and you will naturally want to do it. i hope that answered your question!
What was your favorite part about writing A Night with Timber?
torture route. timbei became real before my eyes. i knew i needed to put these two in a room together but i didn't think it would become like this...
Will we get more games like NWT in the future?
the sequel, Week with Timber, is being written right now. next friday i will be releasing a new WIP build on patreon. current word count is 25,501, i expect it to be longer than NWT in the end.
Hi Nami! I'm a beginner visual novel developer. Your work has inspired me to try my hand at creating visual novels in Ren'py. I really like your games; they have a very warm and pleasant atmosphere :3.
What advice would you give me as a beginner author? Should I start some social media? What should I pay attention to in terms of creativity? Maybe you could also advise me to avoid some mistakes, looking back on my experience?
(I apologize if the sentence is written strangely or awkwardly, I am not a native speaker and have a poor knowledge of English)
thank you! you don't need social media. make your game first, don't worry about anything else. i struggle to give advice when the questions are so open-ended... literally just make it and you'll learn a lot! it's ok to make mistakes, YOU WILL GET BETTER!!!
how long did it take you to make Contract Demon?
one month, made it for a game jam!
If you could hire a guest composer for one of your games, who would it be and why?
hmm... i don't have anything i specifically want someone to make music for, i think it would really depend on what i'm looking to make. i've thought about contacting some musicians i admire but so far i haven't had something that makes sense to try to do that for. i like making my own songs anyway... sorryyyy
What is something about html/css/js/etc that you wish you knew sooner For me this is a bit embarrassing but I didn't know root relative paths until like a month ago (i've been doing this stuff on and off for 3 years) :'(
hm... mostly when i first started i didn't have an editor with live preview, which made me feel like the process was super tedious and i didn't like it. i gave up for a while, but playing with css on cohost made me more confident to try again--plus when i first started worrying about cohost shutting down, i wanted to make sure i had a website up as a new central hub. i can't think of anything more specific... it was really just, i could've gotten into neocities a lot sooner had i known there was an easier way than saving changes in the neocities editor and refreshing the page to see if it looks right lol.
Are we possibly going to get more save slots in Syrup 2 in the future? Believe it or not, 15 pages isn't enough for me ;-;
(I miss the 99 pages hehe)
hm i'll add more... it was unlimited in previous builds but i ran out of space for page buttons and it felt weird to let you access pages there was no button for. whatever, i'll change it in the next update!!!
Hey! French player here and I wanted to know, since I noticed some errors in the translation of syrup 2 if it was better to contact you for that, or if we could directly tell the translator, if it's the second option where can we find their social medias or mail or anything else to contact them?
if you email me i can fix stuff
I've noticed that leveling in Syrup 2 is kind of OP, because I did 3 in-game days of grinding to get past a boss I was really struggling on and then proceeded to 2-shot the boss and every enemy afterward until the end of time, so now my friends are just sitting there useless as I overwhelming victory everything 😭
yeah, closer to the end you can manage your stats/reset your levels but in the meantime i don't really have a way to discourage people from grinding. that's the price of having it be pretty open. i don't want to redesign the enemies stats to scale with syrup's level either...
if you branched out from visual novels, what kind of game would you make?
you say this like i haven't branched out!!!! i wrote a whole rpg framework in renpy!!!!! charm studies is picross!!!!!!! my next project is trying to figure out how to code jigsaw puzzles in ren'py...
are the lyrics of good intentions supposed to mirror the events of night with timber or am i stretching by alot
oh i guess the themes are connected but i had not thought about that until now.
Off topic but I've always been a fan of your music - specifically from NWT, and I was wondering if you could tell us how you composed the music, instruments used, the droning noise, etc. (and how you got the guitar to feel so natural). and if possible, how you composed the music from your other games!!
i make songs in FL studio, the guitar in NWT is from a vst called FLEX, the preset is uhhh *checks* electric pick bass 2 from the general midi library pack... um, i would like to gather my project files and put them in the music section of my site so people can play around with them, but i haven't gotten around to it yet.
btw the low bvvvvvv in tracks like toxicity is from the fruity dx10 synthesizer which i used often in LWT cuz it was free (but a little on the crappy end), it makes a lot of cute sounds so i still use it sometimes... made my own preset just called "reverse" for that one.
I tend to write a lot of stories and campaigns that are darker or more serious in subject, so I wanted to ask... what's the best way to convey a sense of dread/desperation without being "too over the top" or underwhelming?
The collar scene from NwT made my heart absolutely sink when I witnessed it, as well as the bad ends from Syrup 2, so I'd absolutely love to learn to achieve something like that <3
hell yeah!!! for me i just try to focus on the emotion of it... for example...
i particularly love how the collar bit unfolded, because when you first see it, senbei is warned not to overdo it (foreshadowing, he's going to overdo it), timber acts confident despite the threat, fast forward to 3 days later where it's a complete 180 and timber is in his lowest state and senbei wants to KEEP GOING WITH THIS, disturbing even osmanthus who has been shown to be a pretty bad guy looking at his narration alone... and like you see timber, who you at this point really empathize with, and you don't know exactly what happened so you really want to understand how things got to that point, then you go into torture route assuming senbei is this sadistic psychopath (which effectively he is)... but importantly you already know that timber WILL make it out of the situation alive, so it isn't TOO scary to delve into the darkness to understand what exactly went down.
i don't know if i'm being coherent... anyway, crucially, we are not in timber's pov for however long the collar was shocking him until it broke. we don't get to know how long it was going off or the details of how painful it was, because we already saw the affect it had on him physically and emotionally. starting torture route, you KNOW this is coming, so you're basically just watching for the tipping point the whole time, while coming to understand senbei as this really insecure and petty person who is not able to deal with timber mocking him like at all. so he just comes off as horrible and pathetic even though he's completely right about timber being a murderer. AND HE KNOWS HE'S RIGHT AND TIMBER'S GETTING AWAY WITH IT ANYWAY!!! SO FRUSTRATING FOR HIM!!!!! i think that makes it easier to get through, that we know senbei is suffering going crazy over this and that timber will ultimately be okay and twigs is there for him now...
so i guess, in summary i would say, keep a bit of hope alive and it probably won't feel too over the top... nwt definitely benefitted by being a nonlinear story, but you can still give a sense that the characters will make it through even without being sure of the end result. i hope that helps...? (tbh i just like talking about torture route, it's probably my favorite thing i've written...)
Hi nami!!! What advice would you give someone to start making video games?
NEVER GIVE UP
What are your favorite aspects about coding your website
i enjoyed learning what i can do with html, how to properly format things etc, i like writing css and decorating my pages even though i usually do a very simple one-column design... but mostly i like the end result of getting to add to my site, and have so much information and art accessible for fans!!! this is like!!! so vastly preferable than uploading it to some platform somewhere!!!!! it's so impossible to browse people's art when they only post it on twitterlikes or instagram!!!!!! the barrier to making your own site is a lot higher but i fucking love neocities and think it's so worth it to make your own site!!!!!!!!!! IT'S SO!!! REWARDING!!!!!!
measured in bees, how many more yuri/yaoi games will you make in the future
let's discard the categories... i don't want people to keep getting upset when they feel like i'm making more content about one than the other... instead, i will make many bees worth of nami games in the future.
Out of the stuff you've worked on and released, is there something you wish got more attention than it currently does compared to how much attention some of your other things got like Bad End Theatre?
right now my answer is that i want everyone to know NWT just so i can consume more content about it. i don't want to stop thinking about these guys. but i'm also finding i prefer when things stay a little niche, it would be pretty overwhelming to have more people messaging me than there already are... i still think LWT has potential to blow up a bit once it's finished and on steam, and i'm nervous for that to happen considering the various subject matter for people to have incensed opinions about. if that makes sense.
so like, nemlei, coffin of andy and leyley dev. i'd actually been playing their games since the first one they put on itchio, i left a comment on it and they said syrup 1 was a source of inspiration to them and i was like 🥺, and kept following their work because it was just like, really good stuff!!! i like their art a lot and i love the dark subject matter and just really fucked up horrible characters they write (where that is the point). i always felt like they were very brave to write such messy themes and have it be fun, it made me want to write darker things too just because i think that kind of stuff is so interesting.
then they made andy and leyley and it got really huge on tiktok or something and a ton of people started harassing them for making a story that was morally wrong. when like... THAT'S THE POINT OF THE STORY... i've only played a bit of the game up until they make it out to the streets i think (haven't checked back in since then, i'm sure a lot more has happened lol) but i found it to be pretty fun, like the rest of their work before it... so it's really sad they were basically forced to delete all their previous work and internet presence and just like, go into hiding in order to finish their game in peace.
as someone who was also forced to leave social media at one point, i think about and relate to this a lot. i never really got harassed on a MASSIVE scale, but i did have persistent stalkers for years afterward, and i used to get really anxious about releasing new things or having extra attention on anything i'm making in case it leads to new people stalking me. (wait, i guess there ARE still people stalking me that i know of on tumblr lmao...)
anyway, i'm to the point now where i can manage my emotions about it pretty effectively, and there aren't many avenues for people to hurt me anymore. i'm cordoned off on my own website, people are allowed to have an opinion about me elsewhere. feels bad, but it's easy to not look at it. i'm busy thinking about and drawing my OCs.
sorry for the long tangent, this is what i always end up thinking about when someone asks if i wish my games got more attention. from all the comments i've gotten, i feel like there's already enough, and i'm able to live comfortably too so i have no complaints... i just want more people to talk to me about NWT (which clearly is already happening!) so um, i'm satisfied!! haha
was very happy to see the princess poffin ost uploaded last month!! super cute tunes <3 love hearing more versions of poffin's spooky soiree theme!! excited to download it if/when it makes it to patreon teehee :]
it had me wondering, how much weight do you put on recurring themes when writing osts for games filled with returning characters?
[ps.. idk if there's room for it, but it would be super cute if character's themesongs could be played from their gallery pages? ??]
*GASP* YOU'RE A GENIUS... I'LL ADD A MUSIC SECTION TO THE PAGES!!!!!!
i love grabbing old songs and remaking them with different instruments/vibes. that was most of NWT's soundtrack, and actually the first track i finished for WWT is another one of those... (will be posting that to patreon on monday)
I've been trying to get myself to finish a nwt fanfic recently, uh and it made me notice something about how you write villains (I haven't played bad end theatre or return to ash yet so im ignoring those)
you have a set of characters who are framed as "sucks and wont get better" (manjuu, osmanthus, momxie, senbei)
but your other antagonists tend to be... more a result of the situation they are in than anything els (timber, nil, probably someone else that i cant remember)
anyways this made me curious if you ever intend to write a more classical redemption arc for some kind of antagonist?
and separately how you feel about people writing redemption arcs for like manjuu or osmanthus in some kind of fic (god I need to figure out how ao3 works)?
dont worry if I ever write anything about senbei it will be gay and kinda victorian and he will be scheming and evil
please feel free to redeem them if you want, i guess i don't really have plans to. something's going on with senbei but i wouldn't call it redemption... you'll see by the end of the series...
do you have any rules regarding people using your code to learn / use as a base and expand upon for personal projects? (i.e. not sold / shared and whatnot)
not really. i just want people to make their things.
how do you manage/format writing the script for a game like NWT or bad end theater with multiple routes and dialogue options? i can never make it consistent in one linear document T-T
they're separated into different files by route. BET has script / tutorial / hero / maiden / overlord / underling, nwt has one for each route + epilogues and a nsfw scenes file. do not do one linear document, it gets too long.
also question about art what do you start with in art , i mean like do you start with head or torso ? or something else? i do wonder, and do you have your colors somewhere saved for specific characters?
i draw the head/face first. for colors i pull up previous art i've drawn of them and colorpick from that.
What motivates you to make videogames?
lust and perversion
Hey Nami! Good morning! Honestly I think we might have some pretty similar working methods, since I only work on my projects based on sudden burst of energy/interest that I cannot always control. I feel that maybe this is pretty similar to what you do too. However, I think you do it in a much more healthy way that I simply cannot do. I always end up losing focus/interest before actually finishing anything and I end up with like 10 unfinished projects that I only started. Do you have any advice?
if you get stuck, think about why you're stuck--if the project is too big and overwhelming, think about a small chunk of it that would be finishable that you can share with a friend. i'm currently nervous about how big WWT is, but i'm also intensely motivated to make it all, so i made myself finish the first route so i could share it with patrons and get some reactions to carry me forward into the next build.
also part of why i like juggling projects is if my brain gets burnt out on thinking about one of them, i can stop thinking about it by focusing on something else, then come back refreshed. unfortunately this means things like a year or two hiatus between treat chapters. but this is the price i pay for solo dev. everyone has been patient anyway, it's fine...
i have.......2 questions!!!!
I would like to request details on what you mean by "Never use Unity."
On a more dumb note, a previous ask was at inbox position 68 - 1. Is this ask at position 171?
inbox is at 117 this morning... i answer them in random order.
my experience with unity is that it is a nightmare to work in and i look forward to never touching it again. as an all-purpose tool it is overly bulky, you're better off using something more specialized to the genre of thing you want to make. they also take military contracts, so fuck them. (THIS ARTICLE CALLS THE ENGINE LIGHTWEIGHT??? IN WHAT WORLD)
how did you do the lineart in a nwt I find textured but pixelated lines very visually appealing
oh i wrote a patreon post about this! made it freely available just now so anyone can read. i really gotta transfer my newer dev diaries to my site blog...
hello Nami!
So, I recently decided to be coder for a vn...originally, it was supposed to be made on Clickteam Fusion 2.5 cuz I have zero experoence with other engines, but I thought a little and decided that using Ren'Py would be easier...
Do you have advice for a person who never touched any actual game engines?
definitely use ren'py if you're making a visual novel. probably don't use ren'py if you're making other types of games. never use unity. i'm working on a resource hub
Heya! Hope you’re doing fine today! If I may ask, how is Starry flowers book 2 looking right now, even if it’s just slight advances in its draft state?
thanks! haven't touched it since the one time i started on it thinking i would just go ahead and make the whole thing... got too distracted by night with timber and now those characters are all i can think about. i'll loop back around to it at some point. i might fully finish syrup 2 first after all...
as for what state it's in currently: FULLY outlined. some parts are scripted or have a bit of dialogue but not much. there is some placeholder art in there. i would say it is at 5% completion.
Nami, how would you cope with the pressure that comes with painting? I often can’t draw anything because of that stress:(.
take a break when that happens! the times i'm drawing the most is when i have something i can only communicate through drawing it. it's ok if it doesn't come out perfect, the point is to have fun.
I love how the master of yuri games makes yaoi or bls sometimes too. I love the romance you put into your games, especially slow burn one. Did you ever consider about a ship being so good you got obsessed while making the game?
this is what happened when i was making syrup 2 and had to stop to write starry flowers
btw BL has always been my foundation, i do not consider myself to be a yuri games guy anymore (though i will continue to write yuri ships anyway), there are a lot of genders and i crave variety
it is a very random question but , what is your favorite brush to use overall in Clip Studio ?
and where do ya find color palletes for your characters (idk if this was answered)
default mechanical pencil. i've strayed from it a little recently in favor of a rougher brush, but i still use it for syrup 2 lineart.
for color palettes, i tend to pick a main color and build around it. usually i know what i want a character's hair color to be at the very least, so that's where i start.
nami how do u work on ur projects? I've working on my own game for about 6 months now but sometimes I just don't know how to continue or what to do next. How do you know what to prioritize? ;-;
i atually don't know how to not work. it's fun for me, i like to draw, i have varied enough tasks that i can jump around when i get tired of doing something. it's really something you just have to develop habits around and don't force yourself if it feels bad to work on something.
which of your characters' designs take the least and most time to draw (not counting outliers like phoenix)
i don't actually like drawing spice because she's so flowy and complicated, BUT, i got used to it the more i drew her.
peri in his normal outfit is also a pain to draw but i powered through because i love him
treat is incredibly easy for me to draw, so is twigs since theyre very round. those are the first that come to mind!
A few months ago I saw a godot/unity plugin on your links page for “Yarn Spinner”. But it seemingly got removed sometime since then. Are you hiding something for us?
i wrote the script for puppergeist using yarn, but i don't plan on ever making a unity game again so... yeah i mean it's a fine tool, i just don't use it anymore
I have to ask but when did you start development on NWT? Since I think it's crazy how much dialog there is in this game and i'm so curious on what that was like. Oh god I can't believe I 100% the whole thing
i wrote about the schedule in the postmortem! i started on it in late september and then it took over my life until it was done.
What are your current goals for your art? Anything you're hoping to improve or try your hand at? :3
i've been enjoying animation a lot lately, so i want to animate more for my games going forward :)
LWT's battle system is pretty different from other rpgmaker games (only having attack and defend), was there ever a point in development where a full fledged battle system would've been considered?
no because i only use the battles for storytelling purposes. i'm not interested in designing battle systems for the sake of it.
Heyo! I’m really interested in creating a story of my own and was wondering if you have any tips on what makes a strong narrative. Also, are there any resources you’ve used in the past to help you with your stories?
write characters who wanna kiss... but they can't kiss.... BUT THEN THEY DO kiss...! that's always fun.
i don't have real advice for this, you just have to write and you'll improve with practice.
Hi, have you taken any programming courses or not?
none, i learned everything online. i only went to school for art.
Hi Nami! Big fan of your games. The Treat series inspired me to make narrative games back when I started out.
I'm putting together a newsletter and I didn't know you need a physical address for those. How did you get an address to put on your letters from Trick?
thanks! i used my business address, which is a registered agent. pretty sure you can do a PO box though... i think there are some services that will let you use their mailing address but i can't remember which one it was (maybe buttondown?) ...i wish i could recommend tinyletter because i loved it, BUT IT DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE!!!!!!!!
Hi Nami! I was wondering if there will ever be lwt plushies for makeship too or if it will just be Plush Wonderland.
(Also I just bought Return to Ash and I'm super excited to play it!)
thanks, i hope you enjoy it!
makeship has a much higher minimum order quantity and it's harder to do reruns, so i wanted to plan the timing of treat makeship plushies with like... the actual game release.... since it is so far from being finished......... i thought going through with a smaller run in the meantime would be nice, since people ask me for LWT plush all the time
How were the Lonely Wolf Treat plushies designed? The characters look different from their game design. Especially Treat, who does not have fully black eyes.
the lonely wolf treat plushies are cool, but the designs seem pretty different from how they look in game, especially treat and trick with the different eyes. was wondering why, because it really threw me off when they were announced
they sent over the art for approval, and i provided some references but they mostly did it on their own! i think it's cute having them in a different style, and since these won't be the only plushies to exist, i thought it was worth trying out... my wife has some dolls in this style too and you can dress them up and pose them and stuff, i think it's adorable. i'm looking forward to buying some alternate outfits for mine when i get them HEHEHE...
How long did it take you to create your first visual novel?
my first ren'py project was a disgaea fangame i made with a bunch of other fans, from the dates i vaguely remember i think it was probably about 6 months from concept to demo. it was never finished.
What was origins (og concepts) of Cassia? I mean, ur first idea of her?
i felt like designing a cute witch at random one day, and she's what came out. when i was looking for characters to put into starry flowers, i figured her design fit for the role i needed. a lot of treat npcs are recycled designs like that, too!
people seemed to really like cassia after seeing her in starry flowers, so i wanted to use her in more games later on... there was a jam i had planned to do with some friends, and the concept for charm studies was made for that. i ended up dropping from that jam because of bad timing, but later made the game for NaNoRenO instead. that's the story!
What is your game-making process? Story, character design, coding, etc.
it's pretty much that, except the asset creation part goes in whatever order i feel like.
do you keep a book/notepad/something keeping track of all the lore for your games or do you just keep it all in your head and remember it?
a few years ago i transferred all my random notes and docs into notion, especially random character details because it was getting annoying opening up my game files to find specific lines. idk if i recommend notion anymore necessarily because they're going really hard on promoting useless AI garbage, i actually switched to obsidian a few weeks back. i might transfer everything into that at some point.
hello! im the web comic eggbug from earlier. i have the same drawing tablet as you. any tips on how to draw consistanty on it? also my comic: [link]
im back with more webcomic questions! how did you do your cast page? i dont know how to make websites but i really want a cast page! also, what pen and pen/tablet settings do you use?
how do you make the pling/bell sound in your songs? it sounds so catchy
umm depending on which one you're talking about, it's probably 3xosc or fruity dx 10, both are VSTs that came free with fl studio so a lot of treat songs use them.
Thoughts on artists removing old works because they aren't as quality/as polished as their newer works?
i think everyone should be allowed to move on from their past works, especially in a solo dev situation where it doesn't affect anyone's income but their own.
Hello Nami! Loved you since I found 'her tears were my light' in 2017/2018! Sorry if you get this alot, but is there still new content planned for Sex Advice Succubus, or is it over? Also, if you were to give any tips or tricks to new ren'py users or your story process in general, I would appreciate it! (Someone trying to make their own visual novel!)
SAS is definitely not over! i started working on a 3rd session but i haven't been able to write the script for it yet. i have at least two more sessions planned after that, but one of them will have erotic content, which i don't know if i'll be able to actually sell considering the recent steam/itch.io developments. i'm going to make it anyway, but i'll have to figure out a different release plan if that type of content is no longer able to be sold.
as for ren'py tips, i have a series of blog posts that might be helpful! good luck!!!
how do you come up with ideas for your games?
a better question is how are people not thinking of story ideas all the time??? i'm plagued with a thousand ideas that i don't have the time/energy to make real... and then every time i make one people ask for a sequel... it'll never end!!!!!
Hai nami! I've recently been thinking about getting back into my writing and programming for a short story using Ren'py for the first time. Do you have any tips or any advice? I really love your work, thank you so much...
thanks! umm get yourself a buddy to share progress with. games are more fun to make when you have a friend in mind to show it to.
Im trna start an animation series and the plot making and character-backstory making process is going well.
Any specific suggestions for good animation hardware?(Drawing tablets, styluses, external memory for long episodes etc.)
i use a xencelabs tablet, it's one of the smaller ones. external memory is definitely good if you're working in video, i'm not the person to ask about that though since i only make short videos sometimes.
hello nami! you have inspired me to make my own webcomic! any tips on how to keep a weekly schedule for posting?
aw, yay! what works for me is drawing comics in advance. when i first started apoc, i posted the comics as soon as i finished drawing them... but i went on really long hiatuses because of that, since i didn't really have a good way to pace it out at the time (and i'd get distracted working on games and stuff instead)
when i started planning once-a-week updates, i got a lot more consistent in uploading them without needing breaks. been going strong for a few years now... i usually write down my comic ideas whenever i think of one (i think of them often haha), and if it's a storyline i'll sit down and do a sketch version all at once, then as the next update day approaches i'll make sure i have a comic ready by the day before at least.
you should plan your schedule to be extremely manageable in case life circumstances get in the way, like at one point i went on vacation for two months but because i only update once a week i only had to draw 8 comics in advance. it helps that they're only 3-panel comics too, so they don't take long to finish at all. knowing i can knock one out in an hour or so helps me to not feel overwhelmed when wednesday is looming and i don't have a comic ready yet... i still have to draw next week's too actually..... good luck with your webcomic, anon!
Bonjour Nami!! Your games have inspired me to try making my own rpg maker game so I'm working on a short 10-20 minute game as my first project to get the hang of it and was wondering if you had any tips for getting inspirations for short stories? Everything I write either feels boring or far too ambitious for a short first time game
any premise can be fun depending on the execution. give your characters a simple and straightforward goal, and obstacles to that goal will write themselves, that's my advice! good luck~
Is there anything in particular that inspired you to make Her Tears Were my light?
Also do you have any tips for making stories for visual novels? Trying to make one run as a passion project
i thought it would be cool to make a vn where you're literally time, since i thought ren'py's rollback feature was neat. the story was built around that premise haha
my advice for writing stories is to just go ahead and write the script directly in code if you're comfortable with it, since to me it feels like a waste of time to have to copypaste everything into the right formatting. good luck!!!
What program do you use to plan out and draft visual novels / games? Like, when you're writing out all the story and figuring out how everything goes together. Or when you're developing ideas and making notes of things to add. I know you've shown snippets before of some massive Notion file with basically all the Namiverse lore organized out in it, but I thought that was more for worldbuilding, backstory, and characters. I didn't know if that's where you actually decided all the plot beats and scenes of games as you're making them. Also, sorry I think this has been asked before but with Cohost being shut down and the answer being from at least 7 or 8 months ago it's hard to find it.
i used to write outlines in google docs, but i switched to writing in notion and it's still what i use ftmp. i've been getting frustrated with notion recently tho because they're going so hard on ai nonsense while ignoring core functionality, like idk if it's just my internet but databases are extremely slow which just makes me want to avoid using them. anyway it still works as an easy way to nest a bunch of planning docs, but i downloaded obsidian recently and i'm enjoying using that for some of my todo-lists haha.
In BET, what was originally Hero's fifth redundant behaviour? I feel that in the release, "diplomatic" is also effectively redundant, as it is always an opposite to "dutiful" in Hero's side and Maiden and Overlord's sides do not even check for it anywhere.
there were two flags for if you killed demons. "tyrant" also used to be called "slave driver", which i changed because it felt like a little much. this build is dated ...
Yay, asks are open again!! I love asks!!
Anyways, I have two questions.
Hi! Did you buy FL Studio right away, or did you use another program in the past? Do you have any recommendations for a free alternative?
fl studio is nice because the free demo version lets you work on songs as much as you want, you just can't load a saved file. for free music tools, you can try LMMS or jummbox, but i haven't used either of them so i don't have any advice beyond that.
i think fl studio was $90 at the time i bought it, and it took a few years before i decided to upgrade to the producer edition or whatever... i think it's worth saving up for if you enjoy making music and stuff, but definitely be sure that you actually want to make songs before buying anything haha. i briefly used ignite when i first started, but i wouldn't recommend it since none of the skills transferred over to fl studio.
When it comes to Lonely Wolf Treat, are you happy with choosing to make it in RPG Maker? If you could easily move it to a different engine (like Ren'py), would you choose any or would you stay at RPG Maker?
Since you made a whole game for a studio now, which of the game developing styles (game jam, alone, studio) have been the most enjoyable for you?
What is your stance about modding (and publishing) your games?
ohmygod HI!!! I made it to an open ask! Ahhh, if only I bothered to get on cohost before it went down! I'm so honored to be here!!!
Hello, Nami sensei! —Compared to Sophie Gray the name I only learned about a few days ago, I’m probably more used to calling you this, haha! After ouexchang interaction about APoC,I threw myself back into high school exams and hadn’t checked your website or updates for weeks—but now I’ve graduated high school and am about to start university! It’s such a surreal feeling how time flies. And of course, I’m amazed by the new website design and updates—a tremendous leap forward! Also, congratulations (though belated) on landing your ideal job and moving closer to your dreams!
Now, after all this rambling small talk, there’s of course a question I’ve wanted to ask for a long time—especially now that you may have a studio’s technical and financial support:
If you have any plans to add voice acting for each of your OCs in future game projects? It might significantly increase production costs, but their interactive lines are so entertaining! In fact, I’ve already 'auto-voiced' Treat, Syrup, Toffee, Peri, and Pastille’s comic dialogues countless times in my head—probably because I’ve seen similar personalities in other games or anime and instinctively assigned them fitting voices!
nami is still my preferred name so don't worry :) congrats on graduating!
i have no plans to do voice acting because i'm not confident in being able to direct it/achieve a good result. i might change my mind someday, but right now i would rather focus on improving other aspects of my games!
Not sure if this violates your nda, but was the reason why the Bad End Theater CD haven't being restocked in a while had anything to do with the studio you now work for, or has Turtle Pal Tapes just not restocked it yet?
they just never restocked it as far as i know... i have other cd plans though so it'll come back one day
Im confused
Syrup 2 will be only open to patreons?
it's currently available for patrons to play, but it isn't finished yet. when it is, it will be released on steam for anyone to buy.
how long is your current list of ideas-you-really-wish-you-had-the-time-to-implement-right-away?
it's more like... i wish i had energy..... realistically i have a lot of free time, i just haven't been able to use it that well... there's so many things i want to do!!!!! wahh!!!!!!!!
Excuse me for my poor English, I always feel difficult to write fan creation, not knowing how to write characters' dialogue or actions without being ooc. I wonder how writers like you create such vivid characters and write their lines.
aww, thanks! i don't know if i have good advice for this, you kind of just need to get really familiar with how characters talk and take note of their little quirks. everyone has them :) just practice and ask your friends for feedback, they might be able to give you suggestions!
I put Poffin's GB game on my 3DS emulator for fun (because I love poffin!!!). I've been wondering if poffin was inspired by another character or if she's completely original?
i love that. she's original, i made her to be like a cute mascot character but then treat became more of my mascot instead.
As askbox is likely closing soon, is there an environment/background that you've created which you feel more attached to than others?
i like peri's house at night because the colors are so cozy and so many good scenes happen with it as the backdrop hehe
Do you know any sites to publish stories? I've looking for a while but didn't found anything too comfortable. I've been thinking of using one of your templates for a site and just publish pdfs here in neocities but I don't know if people would be attracted to something like that. I feel like it's very hard for people to be interested on original stories like this that aren't made into a visual novel format or a published book...
not really... i think making a site is a good call because people can visit it and read through your whole archive easily. i know i go and read random people's blogs and writings when i'm browsing neocities so i think it's worth a shot!
Apologies if this is too intrusive, but did you go to school for creative writing or art? For whichever one it was, what are your best tips for improving in the other field without college. I guess if it's both, are there any resources or techniques you know to improve these skills that aren't as expensive as a 4 year degree? (I know basic stuff like practicing often, studying what you like about others' pieces, being reflective on what you've done always helps. I mean, like, beyond that.)
i went to art school! 2d animation was my major but i dropped out after 3 years since i didnt need a degree to get a job and the only credits i had left were academic, i felt they were too difficult and a waste of time. i took one creative writing class during my time there, but didn't get to write the sort of things that i write now haha. well, i guess i took a screenwriting class too... anyway, writing was definitely something i got good at by just doing it more (and studying disgaea, i always say this but it's true.)
idk how to get better at writing other than just doing it, but for art the best thing that helped my technical skill was life drawing. look up if there are any life drawing groups/sessions/classes in your city and go to them, they don't typically charge much from what i remember the last time i looked it up.
whats your favorite soundtrack(s) that you've created? and where do you get inspiration for making them, or is it more freestyle?
also as you can tell by my username, I love lonely wolf treat, this game makes me happy :) as much as i'd like to support you more i'm unfortunately broke... but I still look forward to anything you make in the future!! now back to the shadows I go
the songs just kind of happen, i don't feel like i have control over what comes out other than picking what VSTs to use... umm hmmmm i did the music for my new game and it's really good so maybe that's my favorite atm... NOT THAT YOU GUYS CAN HEAR IT YET (crying)
thanks for playing treat, your support by playing stuff and talking about it is more than enough!
do you have any advice for keeping the scope of your game in check? I tend to be an ambitious writer, so I worry about biting off more than I can chew...
try writing a brief outline of the game first and think about how much work it will take the finish each part. how many characters do you have to draw, how many bg assets, how long the scenes might be, etc... if there's any part of your outline that adds too much work or you think might be boring to read/play through, cut it or condense it. good luck!
Any FL studio native plugins other than 3x Osc & Flex that you want to give a shout-out to?
(This is an excuse for me to ask who Malt is because I keep getting teased with these name drops and I feel like I’ve missed some ultra important lore that only true fans™ know about)
yeah ummm fruity dx10. i've also used fl keys a bit... and i like some of the fpc drum sounds, i don't use the plugin for that tho i just scroll through the big list of wavs idk
malt is toffee's favorite idol, she's a catgirl with long white hair who can be seen on posters in the background mostly (in syrup 1 and another piece of candy). she has no spoken lines and hasn't made any in-person appearances.
You can skip this question if you're not comfortable answering, but I wanted to ask about your newest song. The lyrics seem very personal, and it got a lot of attention after you posted it (for good reason, it's so good!!), kind of going viral. I was wondering how you felt about the attention? Was it scary, or are you more comfortable with it now? Or maybe it's good to see that the song resonated with so many people :)
definitely happy it resonated with people! i was a little worried tbh but i thought the music video would look so cool that i couldn't NOT release it, and the song gets stuck in my head all the time. i have other songs that are more personal that i've been struggling to finish, but i think i just need more distance from them. one day i will finish my first album..........
Hello! Wanted to say thanks for making and sharing your work <3 Starry Flowers was the VN that got me to seriously think about making VNs, and seeing you use neocities (instead of the major SNS sites) inspired me to do the same (it's so must cozier on here...)
Also: was there a particular moment/event/thing that got you into making games?
heck yeah!!!!!!! i started making games because i wanted to make a disgaea fangame. it motivated me to learned how to use ren'py, and i started making original stuff once i was more comfortable in the engine. the fangame was so ambitious that for years after that i had to go back to it to refer to how to code certain things... getting to the point where i didn't have to refer back to that project anymore felt like graduating hahaha.
How do you get inspiration for your projects? I've been curious for a while!
this is probably not a very satisfying answer but ideas just zap in my head and i write them down and let them stew for a while. sometimes i mix and match gameplay ideas with random story concepts like "oh this story would work as an idle game" (at least that's what happened with astra's garden!)
hi nami! i've been wondering... because you have such a cutesy moe style, is there any sort of anxiety around drawing nsfw or dark topics? i have a cutesy art style myself, but i've always been mortified of the idea of someone seeing my art of adult characters and mistaking them for kids and trying to make me out as something i'm not... seeing a fellow grey-ace artist with a cutesy art style who's able to make that sort of stuff gives me hope that maybe i could try posting things like that someday too, but i wanted to know if there's anything specific that you do to manage anxiety around it or gain confidence? i'm not really at the level of popularity yet where i can just log off of social media and hide in a website of my own while still retaining a fanbase, so unfortunately i'm still exposed to the horrors of twitter... but.. ouhhh, that website makes me feel like i'm gonna get killed if i post anything more suggestive than a simple kiss lol. but i want to get over it!!! i need to get normal in the head so i can get weird in the art!!! please tell me your secrets!!!
ok my direct actionable advice is don't post on twitter if it's not fun to post on twitter. create a separate space and direct your existing fans to it, a place that you will feel safe posting. is it important to you to have fans and maximize your numbers by showing everything you make to everyone all the time? or do you want to be able to express yourself freely in a more exclusive space where probably only people who want to see it come in and see it (higher satisfaction rate haha). that's what you should think about when deciding what to do i think...
below is my more personal answer, i have a lot to say about this subject so... huge ramble below
for me, drawing nsfw was directly tied with figuring out my sexuality. i grew up shipping BL pairings and wasn't interested in the nsfw side of fandom for a very long time--i couldn't engage with it because i was very sex-repulsed at the time.
now, normally (or at least what was normal over a decade ago), genderbends of male characters would just give them boobs or like a typical "sexy body" and call it a day. i'm not really interested in that body type. maybe it's too tied up with being an object meant for the male gaze or whatever, like that's definitely something i internalized based on the media i saw around me growing up. that idea of a woman is foreign to me. maybe my gender is wrapped up in this too--like i know women can look all sorts of ways, but i don't personally relate to the label because to me it is tied to that, and ideas of motherhood and fertility, in my head i'm just like... i'm not in this group, i'm not attracted to this group (and that's fine with me).
then i realized i could draw genderbends of my OTP with a body type i AM attracted to. flat-chested girls, like me! sex stuff wasn't scary anymore, it was like... wow these characters can make each other feel good and be intimate and it's a nice time! how lovely! i can draw it and it makes me happy!!! other people like these characters too, and i can share it with them!!!! that's my line of thinking... that's why i draw nsfw sometimes, because i enjoy writing about it, and i share it because people like my stories.
even now, i want to make a nsfw game about malt, but she is short and flat-chested with big eyes. it doesn't matter that she's a working adult in the story, people will still use the way it looks as proof that i am an evil and dangerous person for drawing it. people have already thought that about me based on my existing treat comics. people have thought worse things about others for art that is not even explicit or sexual at all. this is just a thing people will use to attack artists if they feel like it, no matter what the actual content is. it's an argument you can't win, so you just have to shrug your shoulders and draw what you want and hope the people who are mad at you will move on to the next target (or ideally find something more fulfilling to do with their life than harassing artists online).
at the end of the day, i'm not going to change how my art looks to make some hypothetical person more comfortable. if they come to the wrong conclusion about it, that's on them. there are enough signals that my characters aren't children that if they miss every single one of those, they didn't truly understand what the problem is with that kind of art to begin with.
i'm afraid to talk about this kind of thing openly (especially because it triggers my OCD) but since it came up i was glad to be able to get all this stuff off my mind, and i hope that it helps you too... good luck with your art, i hope people will be normal about it. 99% of people are normal about mine :)
Out of curiosity, are we able to comfort Kardaemon in SAS, or is he just gone now? I felt a bit bad for him after his rejection.
i have a cameo role planned for him in contract demon 2 (if i ever get around to making it haha
OI NAMI, EU ADORO OS SEUS JOGOS!!!
Eu queria saber se Syrup 2 vai ser pago? Porque quero muito jogar e se for pago, provavelmente, não irei conseguir.
translation: will syrup 2 be paid?
yes, but i want to make a free demo available so people can play the first two chapters or so. you'll get to play it at least a little bit!
going off of the ask that asked if syrup 2 will be paid, will it be on itch.io / other site with a configurable amount of payment? Can I pay double for one copy of Syrup 2?
(also cough will there be a fennel icon..)
it'll be on itch.io, yeah. i guess i can also do steam key giveaways too...
i wish i could make a poll and make you guys vote on which treat characters to include, cuz i shouldn't draw them all... probably doing qmin, cassia, and astra next!
Okay, so I could rant on about how much I love your games but I have a question
So Im still in high school and Ive recently started leading a team of animators and voice actors for a animation series I want to create and publish on youtube. So
A. How do you manage the stress of being a project leader and seeing to everyones needs and personal life and other work?
B. How would you recomend I get seen on YouTube's competeitive algorithm once I get started?
Thanks! P.S. my favorite couple is Periwinkle and Pastille.
A. set reasonable deadlines and check in on people, make sure they're communicating with you if they're having problems and not just quietly stuck and feeling guilty about the thing they're supposed to be working on but don't know how to progress
B. if there was a secret i could tell you, everyone would already be doing it to maximize their views. don't worry about the algorithm or money or any of that. just do it because it's fun, and the community will show up over time!
good luck with everything!!! because you're still in high school i feel like it's extra important to remember there's no need to rush. usually if you're gonna have a piece of work go on to become the cornerstone of your career, it's not going to be something you thought of as a teenager... that doesn't mean don't bother making things, it just means think of it as gaining experience toward making even cooler stuff in the future! i hope this answer is useful!!
What is your opinion about our lord and savior Kasane Teto (More so when did you start using utauloids and what inspired you to do so)?
i love teto! i was so happy for her when she got a synth v voicebank, esp since that meant i could use her!!! there's a ton of really good teto songs coming out these days because of it too, it feels like... a teto renaissance...
i've always really loved vocaloid, and only i knew of a few eng vocaloinds in the past (like oliver???) but i learned about eleanor forte right around the time i had gotten more comfortable with making songs. she was free, so there was less of a barrier to getting to play around with it and stuff... like i didn't want to buy a voicebank only to find out i didn't enjoy using it and feel bad for wasting money. my dream was to be able to make really good ending credits themes, since a lot of games i love have lovely vocal tracks for the ending credits. i'm glad i got to do that with BAD END THEATER!!!
but yeah i just love vocaloid in general, now i come up with songs in my head all the time and add them to a big list of things to make... it mostly takes a long time to do the instrumentals for them ironically... ahh i have some covers to finish too tho... look forward to more soon haha
let's go icons! picked pastille on a whim :)
how did you learn to do pixel art for your rpg maker games? did you find a good tutorial or did you just play it by ear until it looked good?
i'm asking because i finally got around to learning vx ace and now that i got the scripting and such down it seems like custom assets are my next roadblock. the stock assets are fine but if i want to make even sillier games for my friends i think i'm gonna need to learn custom tilesets and such lol
i had been doing pixel art for a long time before getting into rpgm, but just every now and then as a hobby. i probably looked at tutorials but nothing that was super influential comes to mind to share as a resource. i'm sure there's better stuff you can find out there now anyway!
yeah so tilesets are the hardest part of making an rpgmaker game imo... even when you understand how to draw the tiles, the way the autotile stuff works still confuses me sometimes, so anyone who can make cool tilesets has my respect. super lesbian animal rpg comes to mind as a world that was very well-realized (also vx ace! i still haven't beaten it tho...)
nami, what version of rpgmaker do you use, and do you have any tips on getting started with an rpgmaker game? i have so many stories to tell.
vx ace! i tried mv and didn't like it. i've played with earlier versions and they were a little too clunky to use... iirc your pngs need to be palletized or not have alpha or something, it made editing assets kind of a pain. i have not tried newer rpgm versions but... unite is just a unity plugin right...? i don't need something like that...
how would you feel if someone famous played lwt and it blew up in popularity the same way bet did? i feel like it would be significantly more impactful because of how connected lwt is to the rest of the games
also thank you for these icons i can continue to be trick
sorry i won't let anons use special icons (although.. i could make anon versions of every character too.......)
anyway if treat blows up i will feel afraid but happy. happy because it will help people to be more accepting of lesbians, polyamory, and trans identities (mostly this is what i hear in comments already), but afraid because i think people will strawman its messages or get mad at me for making it or attack others for liking it... that's all out of my control tho and kind of just a side effect of making art that is experienced by many people. i am trying not to worry about it too much, but the fear of what the public reception will be like when the game is finished has certainly held me back from working on it as much as i otherwise would've... even though i do want it to be done...... i hope this answer was not too much of a bummer haha.
Excuse me.Is the world view of the NAMI universe already constructed from the beginning of production, or is it constructed as it is produced?
i make things up as i go! it's more fun to invent and expand things as i'm making them rather than creating a strict lore bible from the beginning... i don't care that much about worldbuilding EXCEPT as it affects the characters in the story. the world is just there to make cool stories happen.
i've return to ask another...
but anyways what game you felt the most relief when you finished
BAD END THEATER, because it took so long to finish all the art it felt like i would never be able to finish it, but i finally did... after that i was like cool i never want to draw these characters again (of course i still draw them sometimes). i think when i finish treat instead of being relieved i will be anxious about its wider reception haha
What is the process in making the story for your games?
i tend to draw the character designs early on because seeing their expressions makes it easier to capture their vibe... then i just try to write from start to finish. it's really nothing special haha
Will there be more games like bad end? More specifically more games with the bad end character the underling, or a same creature with the same personality? I like the lil dudes story quite a lot reminds me bit of myself when i was a wee lad, a dubious little b-
And would you continue on making games like this? With the same pixelated theme and music?
may i suggest KAIMA? i'm not planning to reuse underling in other stories since they're pretty specific to BET, but maybe one of the moths in poffin game will give you your fix haha
any tips on how to network with other game developers? i'm not very good at talking to people, but i both want more friends and to have more professional connections...
instead of thinking of it as networking, you should think of it as participating in a community. play other people's games and leave thoughtful comments! the professional connections will come later on... people like to help each other make cool things, so if you talk to people about what you're doing they will often say "oh i know someone who could help you with that!"
i have a billion feelings on how capitalism-brain is hurting indie developers who think they need to make a profit right out of the gate to succeed, but i don't think this ask is necessarily about that, so i will save it for a future blog post lol.
hi! How does it feel to participate in different jams? Have there been times when you didn't have enough time to make a game by the end of the deadline? It just seems a bit stressful to me to make a game for a time... (sorry for my english)
yeah, i try to scope the project to be small enough that i can make it in a reasonable amount of time, but sometimes i still overdo it haha. i think if deadlines stress you out then i wouldn't recommend doing jams, but it can be a good motivator to actually finish a thing instead of forgetting about it and leaving it on the backburner forever... oh, but if you don't finish in time for the jam there's nothing stopping you from finishing it on your own terms later on! making games should be about having fun, so just do what will be most fun for you :)
Do you listen to music or background noise when you work? If so, what do you like best?
i do! depending on what i'm doing it's either podcasts/video essays or just vocaloid music. been looping this song for a while now.
I don't know how much general appeal this would have, but would you ever consider making *physical* releases of the art collections once Syrup 2 and Lonely Wolf Treat finish? I'd imagine you have a massive amount of concept art and development thoughts on making Syrup 2, and personally I would 100% buy a physical copy of all the LWT art collections put together. But then again everyone here on this ask page are probably only the super fans. Just because we here may all want one might not mean writing out and editing + printing + shipping an artbook are worth the cost. Printing a bunch of comic strips you already made into a paperback booklet is one thing, but putting together a full on artbook is much more time and effort. Do you think it's still something you'd ever look into?
i do want to make it, i'm just not sure i want to be the one to put it together. i enjoy making pdfs, but for a more professional thing... it sounds more stressful than fun... just knowing i would want it to come out perfect, and i don't know what printer to go through to make it a nice, high-quality collectors item... i still need to print apoc volume 2 after all, haha. i think there's still potential to make it one day, i'll definitely need to finish the games first before i can pursue it tho!
question: nami, what inspired you to make LWT?
and an obligatory: moxie on top
i wanted a cute animal girl slice of life yuri as an excuse to draw nsfw, but i don't draw nsfw very often so i just kept making good games instead
is there a reason that you made a 2025 version of raining pouring?
i wanted to remake it since it was my earliest eleanor song and uses her old "lite" version. i'm remaking shifting next, but i want to put more effort into that one...
Any general tips for making comics? Currently working on a webcomic myself and it's really fun but I can't help feeling I might fall into some beginner pitfalls from lack of experience
draw pages in advance and post them on a schedule. when i started another piece of candy, i basically just posted them as soon as they were finished, but that led to long hiatuses and a lack of motivation to draw new stuff. since one comic strip is something i can finish in about an hour (depending on the level of detail), it's pretty easy for me to find time to knock a couple out and queue them up, or finish them the night before if i was too busy doing other things.
having structure helps a lot! for you making it and for the readers who will make checking for your updates a part of their online routine.
ah, my other advice (and i'm sure you already do this) is to read comics you like and study what parts of them are working and what you want to try to replicate for your own work (not in terms of content, just in terms of what platform is being used, how often they're releasing, how they promote their comics etc...) like, webcomics should be fun and not something that becomes such a burden that it crushes you. idk if this was the type of advice you were looking for, but good luck..!!
Hi Nami! Im a really small videogame creator and im still a teenager, i just wanted to ask, how did you started doing games music and art? Im really inspired on you and i really have a lots of talents to hehe... Andddd... what are some tips or something you can give me? (its ok if you cant-) Alr that was all Thanks for reading if you do!
i started by doing fan works! i love disgaea so i learned to draw by doing disgaea fan art haha. i did comics for a while, but it felt easier to make games since i can tell a full story a lot more quickly as a visual novel. after that i learned how to make music, cuz i saw some other artist friends learning how and it inspired me to try it myself.
my advice is to take things one at a time! just make what you want and have fun. good luck with your art!!!
For making games, do you prefer Ren'py or some other existing engine? I've worked with RPG Maker and it's an UX disaster, haha... Have you ever thought about making your own engine?
By the way, do you use any kind of version control (like Git) for your games? When using RPG Maker I noticed how easy it is to make an accidental hard to trace edit that breaks things...
ren'py is my top fave, i enjoy RPGM but it's kind of a pain in the ass to script events at this point since i can't just type it myself... (i mean i know there is the option to type yourself but im not comfortable enough with the language to confidently do that lol)
i'm not smart enough to make my own engine, but that's ok with me because i've spec'd so far into ren'py that i can basically do anything with it. i would rather focus on making games and let someone else develop and refine the tools in the background, otherwise i'd get obsessed with tweaking tiny stuff and stop finishing projects.. oh no...
i don't use git for my personal projects (don't be like me) but i use it with the studio i work for since other people need to be able to access the most recent files. i keep backups of all my projects, so i'm not worried about losing TOO much progress if something were to ever go wrong.
In Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet, you can reach Toffee's ending in two ways, where one is if you went through Butterscotch's ending before. This path is also advertised in the Art Collection. The story itself seems to be more in line with the other way, though. And there is also the fact that the hint for the ending is "it is not going to be easy".
Was there intended to only be the hard path, but the easy path was added because it was too hard to reach?
yeah that's exactly right, originally i hadn't planned to do a toffee ending so i had to figure out where to place it after the fact... but then it was way too hard to get to, so i made an easier route. the pastille end is now ironically the hardest (people used to always ask me how the heck to get there lol).
and a third ask... do you have any music making tips?
just start doing it. don't be afraid. make a dang song and your skills will improve. it's the same as with drawing! gotta start out sketching stuff before painting your masterpiece.
Urgent question!! Will Pastille ever return to APOC?( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;)
he just needs some time, that's all
Who composes/helps compose the music for your games? They deserve a raise
thanks, i make the songs for lonely wolf treat and a lot of my more recent games (starry flowers, astra's garden, charm studies).
i've also worked with lydianchord, mock off, kyanite heart, and jaelights!
Imagine you had never played disgaea in your life, which of your games would not exist or at least be very different?
i'm not sure i would make games if i hadn't gotten into disgaea. i learned ren'py in order to make a disgaea fangame after all...
if you could turn any of your pre-existing games into a show or movie adaptation, which would you choose?
Lonely wolf treat drama show.... high budget syrup movie... starry flowers telenovela......
KAIMA anime. science saru, call me...
i wanna ask again,
Sensei,would you consider adding multiple language options to the Another Piece of Candy manga webpage?It would help us fans to recommend your artworks to more friends.
By the way, I still haven’t received my physical book (even though I was informed a few months ago that it had already been forwarded to Beijing). However, I’m worried that too frequently asking about the delivery status via Gmail might disturb you. Will you notify me via email when it arrives? That's very important!
The Chinese New Year is approaching. Wishing you a fulfilling 2025 where you can achieve more of your artistic plans and aspirations!
it's difficult for me to manage that sort of thing, so i rely on translators to post them through their own accounts. i have pdfs available on itchio for now though!
as for your book, you should have received tracking information via email... once it's sent to the post office, it's out of my hands ;_; hopefully it makes it to you someday soon!
don't be afraid to email me though, it's easier to respond on there than through asks like this haha. happy new year!
Have you ever went to GameStop or Best Buy and wondered how cool it would be if one of your games got a physical copy? Realistically, it probably won't happen, but have you ever thought of it?
i mean, there's a non-zero chance of it... i AM working for a studio again... 
I know this probably is asked a lot of times but, is LWT the last we're gonna see of the trio? (i'm clingy and don't want it to end)
don't worry, i'll continue to draw comics :)
What was your coding problem that you spent five days working on only for it to either end up in the trash or being the most obvious thing in the world?
i've been trying to think of a good answer to this for a while... i think the most frustrating one in recent memory was when i was trying to get drag and drop stuff to work for SAS's bonus gallery (the update with that feature is as-of-yet unreleased...) but there was a bug on the ren'py end that was causing save issues, and i genuinely thought i was just coding it wrong. the bug was fixed in the next ren'py update and i was like OMG IT WASN'T MY FAULT... i'm so used to programming things just being my lack of skill, but i have decent skills now...
i swore off drag and drop features after that, but i might swear back in because if it's less frustrating it would be really fun to be able to make proper card games in ren'py!!!! i play a lot of card games in my spare time after all.
Will you still be doing the Vinegar game? Since you mentioned in an ask your upcoming studio made(is this the right way of phrasing it??) VN is a spiritual succesor to it.
(Sorry for bombing your asks, I think this is like my 3 or 4th ask all after eachother! Don't know if they all went trough or not...)
yes vinegar will still get her own game! the new VN has some similar themes but is ultimately a way different story from what i want to do with vinegar.
also it looks like your other asks indeed did not go through... you might have to wait for the "sent!" text to appear to make sure it actually sends haha. sorry they got eaten tho, hopefully you're an outlier... (when i sent test asks they always went through, and i've sent a lot of those lol so i'm pretty confident it should work 99% of the time?)
Give me a list of people who don't pay their taxes in the syrup/treat world!!! 😶🌫️
Sincerely,
(NOT) The goverment
oh wait i guess this ask went through, although i'm not sure if you sent it before or after that one.
anyway i'm not a snitch, and in some places they don't have taxes anyway (vanilla and glaze lol). sorry mr. the government, but i don't think going after timber is going to end well for you ;)
do you plan to make more vocal synth songs? your more piano-esque tunes are some of the things I replay constantly,, (*´ω｀*)
aw!! i'm happy to hear that. i wanted to release an album by the end of last year, but i wasn't able to finish it. i made a new song for the upcoming VN that will be announced soon, so you can at least look forward to that! i'll keep working on more since i enjoy making them 
do you ever plan on open sourcing the modified version of ren'py you're making for syrup 2? i feel like with how many changes and new frameworks you're adding to the engine people are able to make some insane stuff with it, and making it open source would only make that easier
i haven't actually made any changes to the engine, it's all just screens and custom functions. i actually started working on a fresh project that will let you pick and choose pieces to build an rpg (or other things like if you wanted to use it for minigames), i should get back to working on that after my schedule calms down a bit. i think it will be easier to release and add new features to something stripped down like that! i'll still share syrup 2's code though, it'll just have to be after the game is finished (which is a long ways off still...)
hi hello
not really an Ask because i can't think of a good question but i re-replayed Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet recently and it is such a Banger... i love the Writing and Dialogue so much, every character feels so Alive and Three-Dimensional they are such epic scrunklies
as an aspiring Writer(?) i found practically every part really instructive... the Characterization is so solid and strong!! and drives everything they say and do in concrete and compelling ways!! the Characters are so filled with Personality!! every line of dialogue accomplishes Characterization or Plot Progression or Both!! a splendid demonstration of the Writing Advice in your blog...
makes me wish i could write stories of my own with characters as Strongly Characterized as them (and i shall work to achieve this!!)
and i love Starry Flowers too, i feel very normal about Periwinkle yes
in short, please know that your work is to people like me what Disgaea 4 must have been for you (i read your Big Fenrich Post and your valfen comic... so cool)
i have learned literally just now that you have way more valfen comics archived on tumblr, i must see this immediately
anyway yes please continue to make cool gay people!! i love your work!!
hey thank you!!! i feel like syrup's writing has aged a bit (esp in comparison to my more recent stuff), but i'm happy to know you feel that way. disgaea is also a series where every line either progresses the plot or adds to the characterization... i've wanted to go through a disgaea scene line by line and point out how good it is but there's so many good scenes i have no idea what i'd do. the scripts are so tight... anyway yeah it's nice that you mentioned this because i feel like disgaea is the main thing i learned how to write from, and this in particular was one of the things i loved about it. it's so... EFFICIENT!!!!!!!
please enjoy all my old disgaea fan art!!!! i've had valfen on the brain again lately so i'm stoked i can get more people into them just by proxy lol... um i wasn't sure if i was going to share this here on my site but... i recently wrote a fic about them, and have been drafting a couple more..... pwease enjoy, fellow d4 fans............. 
Are you still interested in making a fighting game with all of the characters and stuff you've made over the years?
i wouldn't make it myself, but i do want to work on an original fighting game with one of my friends who would have fun programming that sort of thing.
Hewwo Nami! hope ur doing great!
Will we ever get more Danny x Chai content? :o
yes :) idk in what form tho, i just like the ship a lot.
What program you use to make music? And, where is available?
i use FL Studio! it has a demo version you can try for free, you just can't load saved projects i think.
Concerning the the two games you're working with that aforementioned studio to release this year; are they going to be part of the same connected universe as everything else you've written, or are they your own thing separate from the Namiverse?
separate! they each have their own lore. with collaborative projects i prefer to do standalone things since i don't have as much freedom (although in this case i still have a lot of freedom with them haha)
Olá nami, amo seus jogos, uma pergunta,o toffee tem chance de voltar em algum jogo como o pastille e o Periwinkle? Desde já obrigado, beijinhos 😖
english (summarized): will toffee show up in more games?
yes! they have a prominent role in syrup 2 :)
how does your development process look like roughly? your games inspired me to get into RPGmaker myself and i'm curious what experienced peoples ways look like! ( ´ ω ` )
let's see... it depends on the project a little, but usually i start with a general story premise and some character designs. character design is probably my favorite part of the process, so i like to do it as soon as possible since it informs the writing.
i write my scripts directly into the engine, but usually i'll have a rough outline of the whole story to work from so i know what direction generally to write in. sometimes the script strays a lot from the original outline, i try to let things develop organically rather than being tied to my original plan. sometimes i won't know what would be best to make happen until i get there after all! (for example the date at the end of starry flowers could've taken place at like an amusement park or something like on a ferris wheel to make it all dramatic lol, but i was playing animal crossing during development and saw a meteor shower in it and went NO!! THAT'S WHAT THEY NEED!!! IT'S PERFECT!!!!!)
after some scenes are written i usually have enough of an idea for what the music should be like that i can start on songs. i used to outsource this, but i've gotten really into music production and feel a lot more confident about doing it myself these days. it still depends a little on what i think the sound of the game should be like (jaelights' music fits best for SAS imo!)
and programming stuff just kinda happens as necessary... basically all the parts of gamedev i just work on whatever i feel like in the moment, and eventually the game is finished.
i hope that answers your question...! whenever people ask stuff like this i always feel like i just say "uhh idk i just make it" which isn't that helpful, but i really don't think about it that deeply. i just make what i want to, and i've been doing it for a long time so the barriers to finishing stuff are a lot lower :) good luck with your rpgmaker games!!!!!
(sorry for grammar mistakes) what do you recommend to new programmers that want to start with the game development?
ren'py! but it depends on the type of game you're interested in making... i like writing visual novels so ren'py was a great fit for me, but i know VNs aren't everyone's cup of tea--like if you want to make a shooting game with not much story, ren'py is going to be useless to you.
i like ren'py because it let me focus on the parts of gamedev that i actually cared about, instead of having to program basic functionality like game menus and saving. there's a wealth of resources for something like unity, but it's a pain in the ass to make a unity game because you have to program all of it. with ren'py i only had to do minimal programming and got to learn concepts slowly while making things...
i really want to write a blog post explaining the fundamentals of programming to help make it more accessible to new programmers, now that i'm pretty experienced with it... so look forward to that when i have the time! (as for now, i'm in ask mode all weekend lol)
If you had the resources, do you think you would ever work on a Princess Maker/ Volcano Princess style raising sim?
mermaid splash was supposed to be inspired by princess maker 2 but it turned out pretty different. i think it's the type of game that's too big for one person to make, so i would have to sacrifice getting to work on other things if i wanted to seriously do something like that.
i am pretty intrested what will be the VN about? that is being annouced this month (atleast i think it is this month)
we are planning on announcing this month, but it might be early february instead, we'll see... the trailer got finished recently so you guys will get to find out more soon enough~ it'll be another month or so before it's actually finished and released tho (it's gonna be around starry flowers length).
Do you think you'll ever release Nomnomnami Art Books or Sketchbooks? What about hosting Online Zines?
artbooks/sketchbooks yes, zines no... sounds hard......
Hello!!! First time asking im kinda nervous lol but I have a question regarding Peristille :D How did you decide that Periwinkle and Pastille to be the ones for eachother? Was it on a whim or is everything planned out from the start of syrup?
it was on a whim!!!!! that was why i was so excited about it... the ideas for them came about completely organically, they just happened to be made for each other. fated lovers i never would've guessed when i made them.
did you compose all of the music for treat (excluding tracks from other games like the HTWML theme)? i mainly ask because how big of an evolution i see between the original "lonely wolf" and "cat cradle's boutique", it's honestly really impressive that you got so good while you drew and coded your games by the side, those 2 tracks are in like an entirely different league (i love the latter one to bits btw gwhahwhash)
oh gosh thank you ;o; yeah the first treat songs were from when i very freshly got into making music. the only things i composed before it (in fl studio at least) were some of the bad end theater tracks.
i actually DID do the htwml theme--it was the only song for that game that i did before i asked for help haha. lydianchord made their own rendition so that itd be consistent with the other tracks but it's mostly the same song. the melodies from the syrup songs aren't mine though!
the one unfortunate thing about getting better at music is now i have much higher standards so it can take a long time to finish a song... it hasn't stopped me from finishing them but sometimes i get too intimidated to start on them. i basically have to make a bunch of songs in one go when the mood strikes or else it's hopeless. i want to find a way to make music more casually so i can post songs more often.
As a video game developer, have you ever experienced the feeling that one or more of your games is being underservingly overshadowed by others despite the effort you put into them? Is there a game getting a lot of attention that you think another game deserves more?
hmm at the moment no not really! i'm satisfied with how all of them have performed, and i think even the ones that don't get as much attention might still find their time to shine in the future. and if not, then oh well, i'm making lots of stuff all the time.
with that said, i have a feeling syrup 2 is not going to do very well because it's not obvious what kind of game it will be at first glance. BET is pretty self explanatory and LWT has the advantage of being an rpgmaker game (a vibe people understand and show up for). syrup 2's selling point is that it's a whole rpg made with ren'py, but that's only impressive if you know what ren'py is. i think a lot of people have had their fill of cute witchy crafting games too, so they might see it and go "oh, just another one of these" and move on. um... i really don't mind if it stays niche though, i'm mostly making it because i think it's awesome. sorry i didn't mean to type so much about this haha, i've spent many years on syrup 2 and people who already love my games will adore it, but it doesn't have the special sauce to be a popular game i think--so that's the one where i will probably be like "AHHH PLEASE MORE PEOPLE NEED TO PLAY THIS ONE" once it comes out.
hi nami! how do you stay focused on what you do and not be distracted by other things?
i'm procrastinating RIGHT NOW! my trick most of the time is that i do whatever i feel like doing, i just happen to enjoy my work. it's a habit rather than self-discipline, if that makes sense... i'm really awful at forcing myself to do tasks i don't want to do.
what sort of vsts and software do you use to make music?
woah i got two asks about this in a row... what a coincidence hehe
i use fl studio because it was free to try and i had friends that used it that i could learn from when i was first getting started haha
here's the VSTs i commonly use:
and i use synth v for vocal synth!! i have eleanor and teto... actually i bought more voicebanks but i haven't used them yet because they're not for synth v... i gotta try vocaloid 5 sometime soon (i've had it downloaded but no motivation haha)
How long have you been drawing for and any tips to improve?
i've always been drawing. in elementary school i had a pokemon folder with mew on it that i traced over with notebook paper and it left little indents from my pencil... sorry mew... anyway i think i started drawing anime in 5th grade or something cuz i got a how to draw manga book from the book fair.
here's my tip: learn to be ok with your art not coming out the way you wanted it. i STILL think i'm not that good of an artist... i just like drawing, so i draw what makes me happy :) if you keep drawing you will improve naturally, and i think having a positive attitude about it is the main way to stay motivated. good luck!!
ever thought about making a full-on horror story? (unless BET counts as one)
i think im getting closer to doing this
do you ever think about AU's for your characters?
if you had a dev studio helping on games (maybe a small one?) what kind of game would you make?
i would want to make something i can't do on my own, like a rhythm game. (wait, we already did greenfinger...)
Hello! It's a music kind of question, i noticed the track "Atelier Sweets" was gone from the chapter 8 update (well it's not hard to notice it's in the readme) but i was wondering what was the story behind making it and then just replacing it with a fuller version, because i don't really remember where it plays
yeah! so, i threw in visiting [witch town] when i first made clever fox moxie as a fun bonus area. i only needed a quick song for it because it's one little screen, so the loop was pretty short (30 seconds). for wandering wolf trick i ended up letting you go to the marketplace there, so i made an extended version of the track (magic market, ~1min) because there's a lot more stuff to interact with there... the shorter loop was not cutting it haha.
anyway when i released the first build of treat complete i left the duplicate song in there since it wouldn't hurt anything. but having a file taking up unnecessary space was annoying me... so i switched the song out for the full version. if you try to load an old save on that screen in ch3 the game will crash because it can't find the old file. but that's the only side effect! it was unlikely people would have a save file like that (since it's a bonus area) so i figured it was worth risking, especially before i make a wider release... i wouldn't do something like that for the future steam version haha
Hello Nami, how do you decide on the size of a project? I'm currently starting to make VNs but I always overscope a lot of my ideas and never finish them.
i guess the place to start is knowing that even a small idea can have a huge scope. so it's best to plan a game that's a lot smaller than you think you're capable of, because you'll inevitably want to expand it when you polish it out anyway. game jams are great because you get a hard deadline to plan around... idk, i've been making games and other things for a really long time so i think my sense for how long something will take just developed with experience. rest well knowing it's a skill you can work on and practice :)
aimed at that VN length anon answer, games ALWAYS become bigger than you first imagine honestly. my current project is probably gonna be around 4 hours but i originally planned it to be about 10 minutes lol. shit just happens when you love your characters
so true anon, so true
do you ever feel you have no control over what your characters say and do? i open tyranobuilder (too smoothbrained for renpy sorry) and start having my characters interact and it just ends up in a completely different direction than i intended all because one character went a little loco
yeah this is how writing goes for me, my outlines only vaguely match what comes out in the final script. it's like directing actors, they bring their own performance and u gotta just trust in them and go with it.
How do you balance working on art vs. working on programming? Game programming seems to rely on art, and art relies on good code to run it, so how do you decide which scaffold to set up first?
i just make placeholder assets as necessary and finish the art later. luckily i work with engines that don't require a ton of coding, so it's mostly just a matter of scripting stuff... when i have a lot of energy i can switch between tasks easily, i think those days are the most fun.
i've been blasting on treat stuff all week and the pattern has been like... make tiles so i can draw the map > start scripting events > draw more tiles/sprites > playtest to make sure things work > add character faces to go with new dialogue > open fl studio to make a quick sound effect... in random order i guess (i playtest a lot as i go). but once everything is in place i can just relax and clean up the illustrations and stuff. GAMEDEV IS FUN..........!!!
do you have any tips for someone who wants to make a living doing art but doesn't wanna learn 3d?
why would you have to learn 3d... i don't work with 3d at all and i'm doing great!
nami ohhh nami... bestow upon thee thy Ren'py UI Customization Principles wisdom...
i would love to but this is such a broad topic i don't even know where to start. i made a pdf a few years back about ui design that might be what you're looking for?
nami, how do you manage to make so many unique characters without making any of them two-dimensional? been working on some for awhile now, but after the third character it feels near impossible to make anything new.
i know it's a long ask, but i was just wondering how you manage to do it y'know?
tbf i think some of them are flat depending on the context. like... this seems to be an issue with spooky soiree mostly, that people have been disappointed seeing characters in that game when they know them from a later one (peri and vinegar for example). because when you go backwards it feels like they've been dumbed down or lost their appeal, when actually... they just hadn't been developed yet........ so really my answer is just to put your characters in more situations so you have excuses to do things with them that you wouldn't have thought of before. let them develop over time! it's fine!!
might be a bit of a weird ask, but
How do you make like the melody of yourmusic/songs? Do you already know what you want it to sound like or decide while doing it (or a bit of both or any other way)?
very mixed... it's hard to describe. sometimes i hear it in my head and have to scramble to open fl studio and get it down. other times i go through my vsts and hit random notes until i find something that sounds nice and start putting notes in that way. i can't play piano or anything so it's usually a lot of like, put the notes in, listen back to check that i spaced them correctly, then as i'm listening get an idea for the next bit and try to put the notes down for that.
i've tried to learn music theory but it doesn't click with my brain at all, so i just go by vibes. i have an eleanor song ive been trying to make since like 2020 but i can't get it to sound how it does in my head (only the melody and lyrics are done) so i'm stuck. i still think it's a miracle if i finish any song, but i'm getting better at it/more comfortable with it... especially with treat since the tracks come out so easily (that's what's good about having preset instruments ready to pick from!!)
anyway i'm rambling now... i like making songs, i started doing it at the end of 2015 (for BAD END THEATER actually) so soon itll be 10 years. wowee! wish i'd had the courage to start sooner!
You mentioned waiting years to announce Phoenix, so I gotta know, how far in advance did you plan out the Treat series when you first started it?
it's all improvised, i'm just slow to finish it.
with phoenix it was literally like, one day i went "trick should raise a baby chicken so they can later ride around on it like a chocobo" and the more i thought about it the more it made sense. the first concept art for this was from 2021, about a year before chapter 7 came out.
Do you have a way on staying motivated to work on projects?
I want to know on some tips to stay focused and not just give up on either my art or animations, because usually I just say "this bad gr" and I delete the entire project. I want to animate a LWT thingy for myself currently but I'm scared that I'll give up halfway through, do you have an ideas to keep my stupid self focused?
well for one, stop deleting your stuff! whenever i feel that impulse i just come back to it later, then usually i'll either go "hey this isn't bad actually" or "oh i know what to do to fix this"
but yeah i guess just try to figure out what motivates you so you can use it to your advantage. for me, i don't feel satisfied just telling someone about whatever thing i thought of (comic, song, game, whatever), i just look for the shortest path to being able to share it, at least in a rough form as long as it gets the point across.
tonight i was scripting treat plot stuff and getting really excited to be closer to sharing a wip build with patrons, since i'm about halfway to the next good cutoff point. set up small milestones for yourself like that and you'll start getting addicted to reaching them. that's how i live my life lol hope it helps you too!!!
i lowkey wanna tie my ocs together in some way since rn they like. just exist without interacting with each other or having defined places where they live or see each other. i'd like to change that this year. do you have any tips on worldbuilding and stuff?
hmm my approach is very practical, like i don't decide on anything until it's relevant for some story reason... i'm not interested in writing a bunch of lore/backstory for a place unless it's going to come up in relation to the characters that show up there. cuz if it's not in the games, it might as well not exist. when you're JUST STARTING with whatever fictional world it's like a blank canvas so just put things that are fun to you in it! make it up as you go!! i hope that helps :)
i know this might be a bit silly or redundant to ask but how would one "learn" art most people i know who draw just picked it up from when they were young, are there any resources you would recommend?
it's something you learn by doing! i also started drawing as a little kid so i'm not sure i have the best advice to offer.
as for resources... i actually watch a lot of naoki saito's channel because i really like his series where he corrects fan-submitted illustrations. (there's english cc for all his videos but it's machine translated, so i think it can be confusing at times if you don't know any japanese... sorry)
watching him draw over a more inexperienced artist's work and strengthen the points its trying to commmunicate feels very refreshing to me, because i'm so used to corrections/critique being like "the anatomy is bad, so fix it"... instead, he gives very clear and actionable suggestions and explains the thought process behind all the things he's doing to improve the artwork. watching those vids helps me remember that drawing for its own sake is fun, and makes me want to draw more. also i feel like my art got a little better after watching him just because i was like "DAMN this guy really goes nuts with the transform tool!! i should do that more often!!!!"
anyway, a piece of advice for complete beginners looking to draw anime or whatever--i thought this recent vid was especially good because it teaches the concept of "deformation" aka taking something from real life and stylizing it to your tastes (in this example, just an eye). it really helps explain why anime looks like that, which in turn helps you draw it better. i just appreciate so much that naoki saito can put things like this into words and give new artists a step up... idk all his vids are really encouraging, and i think that's the right attitude to have when you're going into drawing.
tl;dr just draw and have fun. improve at your own pace :)
advice for storywriting / VN writing?
if your story doesn't excite you, then you can't expect it to be exciting to anyone else. write what's in your heart, even if it's embarrassing. embrace cringe.
All of your characters fit their appearance extremely well, so I was wondering if there was any particular way you chose your base/shading colours?
thank you! i don't think i have a good answer for this... i just pick colors based on who will be next to each other/what environment they'll be in. skin tone and hair get decided before their clothes usually... although it's tough to determine what order it actually goes in because i kind of think of it all at once...? there's only been a few characters where i had to try a bunch of alternate palettes before deciding which one suits them best.
I hope you don't mind me asking. You've done nsfw stuff with some of your characters, but how often are you thinking about it from square one? Like, writing a character with the intent they're gonna do sexy stuff?
treat started purely as an excuse for cute animal girl yuri. it would've been just that, but then the story started going places... the dynamic changed A TON from the original premise lol.
syrup was supposed to be a yuri setup too, but once i started writing it, the vibe wasn't right at all. i think i stopped trying to do "an excuse for yuri" type setups because they never turn out as planned...
there is a nsfw game i've been wanting to make that i may or may not have the guts to follow through on, but i'm not ready to say who it's about. THAT character was meant for nsfw. i have drawings from... 2017?! ok not as early as i thought. it feels a lot longer than that....... i think about this character a lot.....................
If I may be so bold, is there any reason your games include support to polygamous relationships? Just curious because monogamous people don't tend to like polyamory, I myself would say that probably a big thing that made me respect them was playing Treat years ago
one clarification: polygamy and polyamory are not the same thing. this is a common point of confusion for people who don't know much about the subject i think (not helped by the fact that the word monogamy is used for both married and unmarried partnerships while the opposite has two different words for it...)
anyway, consensual non-monogamy is great! let people be in oddly-shaped relationships that work for all parties! i'm happy if treat can help to open people's minds about this.
Have you written any characters with intent on them being autistic?
not intentionally, but there's definitely stuff you can read into for some of them
So me and my friends are playing through Treat (most of us are completely blind and we've only made it up to chapter 3), and from a first impression basis, I have to ask, did anything in particular motivate you to write a story about, (what I interpret as), for lack of a better term, microaggressions and stereotypes?
Speaking as a Latino, ive unfortunately had some run ins with that kinda thing and so has my family, so it feels pretty cathartic in all honesty to have someone write about it in a way thats actually carefully handled, even if its not direct.
(And if you havent written it from any personal experience at all, then kudos, because imo its portrayed pretty well.)
oh this is nice... thank you, i'm glad you felt it was portrayed well!
a theme i'm really fixated on is others having certain expectations of you, and overarching societal expectations in general (this is huge in disgaea: "demons are like this, so as a demon i must" etc etc... like, the main villain of d1 decides demons are all bad and angels are all superior. but it's just different cultures!!!! sorry for the disgaea tangent but it feels so relevant to how i think about treat's world hahaha, i don't think i'm explaining it well here so once again i will just ask everyone to play disgaea)
i think probably every human on earth has been misjudged in some way before so it's kind of universally relatable. my personal experience of it is with gender and sexuality (more often an internal struggle to conform than someone directly hurting me with stereotypes) but yeah... i've gotten emails before from people who like, maybe just happen to have a really large build so strangers are inherently afraid of them, that really related to treat on that level. it sucks to get mistreated over bad/incorrect assumptions, and it feels like a space with a lot of different nuance to explore, which is why i enjoy writing about it even if it brushes up against extremely touchy topics!!
umm this answer feels very rambly so i hope it made some amount of sense... enjoy the rest of treat, it only gets better from there haha
oh that's so lovely to hear, yay! webcomics take a long time to really pay off but i think it's worth the effort. as long as you're having fun drawing it, people will have fun reading it :) i highly recommend having a consistent update schedule. posting once a week can feel really slow, but it's nice when people remember to come and read each update as part of their week... and you can build up a backlog in advance so you're not rushing to finish a page the night before. (all the december comics i've been posting for mine were drawn on the same day or two in november haha)
for comic ideas, i keep a big list of everything i think of so i can draw them when i feel like it. i have years-old premises that are finally gonna get posted next month... sometimes i go a long time without thinking of comics, but if i sit down and focus i can usually come up with something fun. since mine is based around an ensemble cast, i try to look at which characters haven't shown up in a while or if certain characters have never really interacted before, and try to come up with something based on that. having a recurring question/premise helps too (for example the "what's your type?" series)... i like doing template-type comics and seeing what comes out when the characters have room to be themselves haha
i hope these thoughts are useful to u anon, have fun with your webcomic and always remember it's ok to take breaks from time to time~
not a weird question at all! my motivation is that i like writing/drawing characters being very intimate and lovey-dovey because i think it's interesting and sweet.
i grew up very sex-repulsed, but eventually i found kind of a safe haven in yuri which felt very comfortable and not scary. i like writing about sex as a topic (which is why sex advice succubus exists) but i only draw actual nsfw stuff every now and then (which is why my nsfw comics have all come out 3 years apart...) and my art isn't very explicit because i'm more interested in the feelings around it and not so much the visual details. i put up fully censored versions for people like past-me who might feel too overwhelmed at seeing it but still want to read about the characters in that type of scenario.
basically, asexuality is a spectrum and this is my funny little place on it. i hope that makes sense!
renpy's documentation includes pages that explain everything you can do with screen language and screen actions, so over my many years of making ren'py games i have become very familiar with these pages and how all of the individual parts fit together. now when i play non-ren'py games i look at them and go "could i make this in ren'py...?" i do not stop to ask if i SHOULD make it in ren'py. i just go "i want to make that" and end up with games that are a little clunky but functional! this is the only way that i know.
not really, because i made them with that purpose in mind. my goal has always been to make characters that other people can love as much as i love disgaea characters!!!! that way i can gush about my faves without getting people to play disgaea first..... anyway yeah feels great, can't wait for everyone to know the new guys in treat so i can post about them
How do you come up with names for your characters? I cant do it for the life of me and I know a few others who are the same way
(And on a somewhat related note was it just a happy accident that half your characters ended up being named after food? :p)
i actually have a long list of foods/sweets/plants/spices that i draw from, so whenever i hear an interesting food name i add it to my list. it's hard to name stuff without a theme, so i try to stick to different ones depending on the characters.
the loose rules are:
i'm not very strict about the naming conventions though, like for brickzo he's just called that because i thought it was funny (i was thinking of kinzo from umineko). also eleni and kamilla were named from a random name generator site because i originally made them for a comic in 2014.
as for why foods: if i'm gonna have nomnom in my name my characters better be edible y'know
for a straightforward story (like for a game jam) i'll write the outline in one sitting, then write directly into the game script so that i can actually play the game and see it with the rough art. i have the character's expressions in mind while i write dialogue, so it's best to code in the face/pose changes while i'm writing it (this also helps it get done faster and with less edits because i'm basically doing all the steps at once lol)
for a longer game, it's kinda the same, i just complete it in chunks. for huge stories (like treat and syrup 2) i can't really hold the whole thing in my head, so i just come up with the main points to hit first and figure out the ending later. even with starry flowers, i wasn't sure what to do for the ending until i finished writing like half of it. you can only plan so far ahead honestly, it's best to look at what's there before you decide your exact journey since sometimes it makes more sense to swerve into something you couldn't have thought of back at the start!
oh man what a great question. i wish rpgmaker had a word counter so i didn't have to ballpark the amount to pay translators. ren'py spoils me so much, i can't even think of anything specific i need from it...
ive been debating about whether to ask this for a while, since i didnt want to come off as rude, but if i dont im never gonna get over it soo
its just something about moxie, mochi, and treat. specifically the relationship, moreso moxies status in it. now, i know that it was touched on in 7, but it still feels like moxie is a 3rd wheel alot of time. the story mostly focuses on treat and mochi, this actually isnt a problem for the most part, besides her relationship with mochi. outside of chapter 2, it just kinda feels like they arent in a relationship. every time its only mochi and treat, or moxie and treat. its really rare we get a moment with just mochi and moxie. it feels like moxies just the..best friend i guess? mochi and treat get a lot of time together since they live with eachother, and it just feels like theyre a lot more connected to each other than to moxie. (i honestly am trying my hardest to not sound rude and i hope im doing a good job-) so i guess the question is this, is moxie actually as close to mochi and treat as they are to eachother?
this isn't rude at all, it's totally valid! moxie has a complex about this but also is intentionally distancing herself because she has trouble being vulnerable. i think their relationship has a lot of room to grow as long as moxie is able to open up to her gfs and be more honest with them. it won't be overnight because she has a lot of issues from her past that hold her back (esp related to abandonment and feeling worthless) but i'm hoping to write some good scenes in the epilogue that lays out the path forward rather than just leaving it where they were at in ch7.
What's a piece of dialogue or a scene you've written (games or comics) that you laugh thinking back on it?
My friends and I made a whole folder saved of out of context images from your webcomic and personally Periwinkle saying "oh I don't pay taxes" is up there :P
hahaha omg there's too many little moments that crack me up... peri's tax evasion gets me every time too.
earlier tonight i was chuckling to myself about the "sexyspiders.web" bit in poffin's game... but i think one of the things that made me laugh most from a recent game was (and sorry this one's inappropriate) the ABO joke in sex advice succubus. the other one i immediately thought of was a line from mirror call...... why is it always the nsfw jokes that get me...........
ok let's see... this was 2015 so it's hard to remember exactly. i drew treat first, because i needed a side character for the mount sorbet bit of syrup's main plot. after that i thought it would be cute to do a yuri series of treat and friends that took place on the mountain because i love snowy settings.
after treat i drew a snow leopard (later sushka in syrup 2), nutmeg, mochi, a deer girl (chiffon, also in syrup 2), and then moxie. their personalities were clear from their designs, and i got the most attached to the treat/mochi/moxie dynamic, since the thought of moxie being a bit of an antagonist that also pushes treat and mochi together was really appealing to me.
then i made LWT and everyone developed a lot from there!! i was thinking of just doing slice of life comics about them initially, but i'm glad i made games instead. and they still got comics in the form of another piece of candy... so we really got the best of both worlds hehe.
oh this is a good question... no, i expected BET to blow up, so i'm glad that it did. a lot of my other games have blown up in smaller ways as they find their audience, so i don't feel like they've gone woefully unnoticed or anything. mainstream success is a blessing and a curse, so if i can continue serving a more niche audience without drawing too much attention, that would be ideal for me. i'm financially stable as is, so i don't need to aspire for more than that.
hm. short and specific answer is that i wish i hadn't deleted the previous chapter's maps when setting up the new chapter's project files, because it meant for the combined version i had to reconnect every door/map transition because they were numbered incorrectly in the code.
treat started as a game made for a 2 week jam (i didn't finish in time so i didn't submit) as an excuse to learn rpgmaker. it was the type of story i wanted to add to and make more of, but i didn't have a plan for how big it would be. from the start, i set up the project files so that i'd be able to combine all the games later on (which went smoothly aside from the aforementioned door issue).
i released the first few treat games pretty quickly, but after that it got harder and harder to finish them, because 1) i was doing other things, 2) my standard of quality raised as my skills/experience increased, and 3) there was a lot more to consider when writing everything.
the other thing i didn't expect was that so many people would get deeply invested in the series and ask for the next chapter all the time. i've felt a lot of guilt about not being able to buckle down and churn out the rest, although most fans have been extremely patient with me--it's just my internal struggle, wanting to not disappoint everyone's expectations and feeling like i'm constantly letting people down when i'm not making progress. i've always been weak to that kind of anxiety, although i've gotten better at coping with it over the years.
so um, i would definitely not randomly start an episodic project nowadays without considering the toll it would take on my mental health. but i do still enjoy writing stories that are connected to each other (obviously)... SAS is planned to have more chapters, but the stories are unrelated to each other and all i need to draw for them is 1 background and 1 set of character busts. very doable, very low pressure. that's more my ideal, rather than something like treat which has been pretty stressful (but also rewarding!)
anyway sorry if this was kind of a downer answer, i didn't mean for it to be! i don't regret making treat at all, i'm still excited to finish part 8, and i'm going to be very proud of myself once i reach the end of development on this thing. i'm terrified of what will happen if the game gets too much attention, but i know that it's a story that's meaningful to a ton of people too, so it'll surely be worth it... i'll weather the storm.... hopefully there is no storm tho..... hopefully it's just my anxiety............. wahh!!!!!
if you count treat series as one game, then definitely treat.
the other answer is syrup 2. it isn't done yet, but i've been working on it on and off since 2017. BAD END THEATER took a long time too, but i only worked on it in bursts, so the total dev time was probably not as long (though it still takes third place due to all the art i did for it omg)
i really enjoy lighthearted fluff with low stakes... i think slice of life stuff takes a higher level of character writing to pull off. like there's a reason k-on is legendary while a ton of other works in the genre it popularized get kinda panned (to the point where people think there is nothing substantial about k-on since it's "just another pointless slice of life anime"...). maybe that's an outdated take tho, i don't feel as strong of an audience rejection to it as you'd see 10+ years ago, but maybe that also just depends on who's talking.
i don't know if this is really a tip that would help, but there are "mundane" character aspects that i find really compelling. i'll use charm studies as an example since the darkest it got was the fact that class difference exists. senna can't stand cassia's type because it's like, kind of spitting in the face of how hard she's worked and will have to continue to work if she wants to achieve her goals. but she doesn't hate cassia as a person. writing that tension was really fun!! cassia has her own problems that senna doesn't recognize because she doesn't have any trouble focusing or taking in information... so the problem is like, "how do i express both sides of this without senna coming off as a complete asshole?" and people seem to not hate senna, so i think i got there... anyway my point is like, no character needs to die or have a tragic past for a conflict to be engaging. so if you're continuously falling back on more dramatic plot points, try being like "what would it take for this character to react the way i want without anyone having to die or whatever?"
i hope that's helpful... the contrast between light and dark stuff is what makes both sides more meaningful to readers, so there DOES need to be a balance. i think in darker stories especially people really want to hold on to the light moments, so you should put all the most important emotions into those. rather than just throwing in a joke at random, give it an extra layer like "oh no, they're trying really hard to make themself laugh right now!!" GOOD LUCK!!!!
it's easier (and more fun!) to make songs if i can thematically reuse melodies. and yes, i use fl studio for all my songs!! i was still very new to music when i made the first game, which is why all the early tracks are very short and simple, but i love that you get to see it evolve over the years as i got more experience. little time capsule of me figuring out the program.
i'm actually kinda sensitive to text sounds in games, like they're very grating to me unless they were given enough care and attention to sound good by the devs. there are some games i stopped playing because i couldn't turn off the text sounds. when they're good, it's great (like ace attorney)! but i don't think i'm skilled enough to make them well--or at least it's not a priority for me, and they can be a little buggy in ren'py anyway (if you open the game menu while the text is still rolling out, it can get stuck going bibibibibibi)
anyway, i have my own headcanons of how my characters sound, but i like when people can imagine it for themselves too. i like leaving it as something you can decide for yourself, especially when voice is so connected to gender.
i thought doing limited palettes would make each route stand out from each other. coloring them "normally" would've been too time-consuming for the amount of illustrations i had to do... and mixing the palettes for the climax made sense once the rules were established.
the concept art for overlord and underling already had their colors, so for maiden and hero i picked ones that complimented the others. maiden was gonna be pink at first... can u imagine...
thank you!!!!! i guess the first thing that comes to mind is you don't need a midi keyboard (or any fancy equipment really) to make songs. i think it only helps if you already have piano skills or whatever... i just draw the notes in, i can't play anything at all. i don't know if this is a good tip or just obvious. everyone should try making songs, it's fun.
yes, more poffin games. i enjoyed working in gb studio and got so much joy out of playing it on my phone... i wanna try doing other stuff with it since they have platforming and shooting templates too!
yes, i've tried a few! wolf rpg editor was really fun to use when i tried it, but i dropped it because it didn't have korean text support (i value being able to translate my games to many languages...)
i have game maker studio 2, but i was never able to make something in it. very neat workspace and seems powerful, but it was ultimately too confusing and afaik i can't use python like i'm used to, so i'm not very motivated to figure it out.
i have touched unity briefly and completely hated it. i have no desire to make 3d games... i know naninovel exists, but there's no reason not to just use ren'py if i want to make a vn. the main benefit to unity would be the ability to port+publish to console myself, but i'm not interested in doing that atm.
uh what else... i downloaded godot but it did not run on my pc for some reason. perhaps i will try it again one day.
sure, i choose some elements because they're more rare, or just because i think it'd be fun to write about them. it's usually like, "i have feelings about [thing] so i'll make a story about it!" or "i don't have a character like this yet, i'll put one in!"
astra's garden was a case where i just really wanted to write about chronic illness, so i did. many stories use characters suffering from chronic illness as kind of a prop? like some tragic flawless figure only there to be pitied, that doesn't really get to be a full person. it sucks. i really want to make a game about vinegar as soon as i can, because i have a billion thoughts that would be very cathartic to write about.
no, but some are inspired by characters from other media
i think rpgmaker is great because it's just scripting rather than coding. you can make something nice using the constraints of the engine, and you get experience in formatting your ideas in a way a computer can understand. just follow tutorials and don't be afraid to google stuff you don't understand! likely someone has already tried to do the same thing you wanted to do, so like... the answers are out there. go make a silly little game.
takehito harada, character designer + illustrator for the disgaea series
there are lots of small things i've absorbed from anime/manga/cartoons over the years but nothing notable enough to name. except masaaki yuasa maybe, just for how expressive his style is. tatami galaxy was the first anime where i was like "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN JUST DRAW BACKGROUNDS LIKE THAT??" and it stuck with me ever since.
definitely starry flowers, although syrup 2 is turning out to be the game i'm most proud of
when i was 11 or 12 i somehow got my hands on rpgmaker and tried to make a game with it using assets from pokemon sapphire (my favorite game at the time), but i couldn't figure out how to make tile collision work. if i had been more stubborn, maybe i would have a collection of poorly made rpgmaker games to look back on now.