beaumontmanor

[beaumontmanor]

Dev Update #6 - itch.io & Animalese

Hello everyone! We're rapidly approaching the launch of the Beaumont Manor demo, which will initially be posted to itch.io. The itch.io profile for the game is now online, so follow our page here! I'm also finalizing the survey that will be provided to the playtesters of the game. It'll ask a few short questions about demographics (age, gender, location), prior experience with visual novels, and finally questions related to the player's impressions of the characters both before playing the demo and after playing the demo. This survey will launch with the next update post, along with the demo for chapter 1! I hope you'll enjoy getting to see some of the final product for Beaumont Manor as much as I've enjoyed creating it. Here is a small snippet of the survey:

In terms of art and assets, all of Barry's expressions are finally finished! This means all of the characters in Chapter 1 now have their expressions. The next thing I will be working on are the clue sprites to be hidden within the garden background to be investigated. After that, the final main asset I will be working on is the background for the dinner table scene, which will hopefully be a humorous ending for the first chapter.

Thanks to the efforts of my partner, each of the characters in the game now has a unique sound effect for their dialogue! This is similar to what's seen in games like Ace Attorney or Undertale, which allows the characters to have a bit more personality without going the fully-voiced route. You can see the setup for how we achieved this here:

At the very start of our script, as part of the game’s initialization code, we define some functions that will play a specific sound effect whenever the text for a character updates. This of course depends on the text speed of the game, and players can disable this effect if they wish by setting the game’s text speed to the highest setting, which shows the whole line at once. Once we’ve done that, we just specify the callbacks for each character when declare them for the first time:

We are in the final stretch before the Chapter 1 release, so please stay tuned! Thank you to everyone following the development process.

[beaumontmanor]

Dev Update #5 - Revisions, Revisions, Revisions!

Hey again everyone, The art assets for Chapter 1 are nearly complete, with work on the expressions for Barry and the background for the Garden being just about finished! The main assets remaining are the clues for the garden environment and a background for the dinner scene towards the end of the chapter. Here is a sneak peek of the garden scene:

On the writing/story side, there are now sequences where players can make their own dialogue choices. At this point the majority of the dialogue for Chapter 1 is set, so the only real adjustments now are adapting it to accommodate for dialogue sequences where necessary. which will be expanded on in the programming update. On the programming side, the sequence in Chapter 1 where the player first meets Mavis has been made more dynamic. Originally Lyra asks a set of predetermined questions before the scene progresses, but now the player can drive the conversation through dialogue options. Mavis is only willing to answer a small number of questions, so it's up to the player to choose them based on their own criteria. It could be based on what they think will give them the best clues for the investigation, or simply just what they're curious about in regards to Mavis. In the future, this will be tied into the existing investigation system to allow players to ask characters about specific clues they've gathered during conversation.

For audio, more work on sound and ambience has been done for the later scenes in Chapter 1. The player can now hear the thrumming of machines coming from the laboratory where we first meet Mavis, along with appropriate sound effects as the door to the lab opens and closes. Additionally, I'm looking into giving the characters faux-voices (think "animalese" from Animal Crossing or the text sound effects from Undertale), which my partner will help with generating.

As you can see, the final deliverable is shaping up with just the last little bits left to work on asset-wise. Once it’s complete, I’ll be gathering feedback from playtesters to finally start addressing the initial hypothesis driving this project: How can character design and storytelling elements in visual novels be effectively implemented to enhance the player's engagement with the game? Stay tuned for more info on the survey!

[beaumontmanor]

Dev Update #4 - Point & Click Initial Mechanics & OST Sneak Peak!

Hello everyone! This is the fourth update post for The Mystery of Beaumont Manor, and there’s a couple big points to mention.

It probably won’t surprise anyone familiar with game development to learn that the deliverable for Beaumont Manor is being slightly reduced in scope, but this is to ensure that the final product is in the best shape that it can be. The first chapter will be delivered regardless, with the second as something of a “stretch goal” if there’s enough time in the semester. Whatever doesn’t get completed during the semester will be finished sometime after, however, as The Mystery of Beaumont Manor is a project I’d like to see reach a proper finished state that could be put onto digital storefronts like Steam or itch.io. With focus on the later chapters put off for now, more effort can go into making sure that the first part of the story is as tight as possible, which should help better assess player attachments to the characters.

Art work so far has mainly consisted of background work, as there are still locations that appear in the first chapter with backgrounds that either need further drafting or a final pass. There’s still plenty of work to get done here, but the backgrounds for the garden and possibly the research lab should make some good progress over the course of these next two weeks.

On a more substantial note, the basic mechanics of the investigation system are now working! In order to implement a point-and-click style investigation mode for Beaumont Manor, we start by making use of Ren'Py's imagemap feature in a custom investigation screen. This lets us define a "ground" image (aka the base image) and a "hover" image, which shows what every interactive zone in the image would look like when highlighted. We then give it a set of coordinates to define the interactive zones, or "hotspots" and what value they should return when the player clicks on them. Once we have this, we can define a label in the main script to mark when the investigation should start, at which point we show the new investigation screen. As the player clicks on the various locations, they'll uncover clues that get added to their inventory for use throughout the game. There is also a check that prevents the player from advancing past the investigation sequence until it verifies that they’ve collected every clue. If they haven't, they go back to the label that marks the start of the investigation section, where they can then select another clue. The clue locations are made obvious in the example, but in the game proper they will be more closely integrated with the underlying scene and require a closer look to find.

Images:

Investigation screen code

Investigation block in main story script

The investigation screen, no items hovered

First item being hovered over with the mouse

Underlying image

And for our final part of the update, we have audio tracks! Below are two drafts for music that would play during investigation sequences and in the garden respectively. Still subject to change, of course.

First draft of Mysterious theme (attached), which would play during investigation sequences throughout the game.

Second draft of Garden theme (attached), meant as backdrop during Lyra’s conversation with Barry in the gardens

With this big scope change having landed and the deadline approaching, my main focus is just on making sure that the first chapter of this game is as solid as possible. I want to make sure that what content is there will be enough to hook any potential future players.

Thank you for staying tuned with our progress on The Mystery of Beaumont Manor!

[beaumontmanor]

Dev Update #3 - More Sprites & Inventory Screen

Hello everyone, it’s time for the third development update for The Mystery of Beaumont Manor! Progress has been slow but steady, and there’s a couple new things to show off.

For writing, I’ve continued to refine the existing writing for chapters 1-3, doing my best to check things like whether character voices are distinct enough and making sure that there are no obvious plot holes that a reader might encounter during a typical session. I also took some time to sync the updates to the script into the Ren’Py project, as the main writing actually takes place in Google Drive, where it’s easier to keep track of things and format the writing. The script in Ren’Py is then updated based on that, since there need to be adjustments to the formatting to translate the normally written lines to the Ren’Py dialect.

On the character side of things, I’ve worked some more to clean up the expression sprites for Mavis and Dominic and can show them off now! Backgrounds for the garden and the lab, two of the next areas in chapter 1, are still a WIP, but hopefully I’ll have more updates on that front soon.

Additionally, the majority of the first chapter has been assembled in Ren'Py (character sprites, dialogue, movement, sound) with the investigation mode sequence being the main part that's still mechanically incomplete. Work on that is continuing this week and should hopefully be in a usable state by week's end.

And now for the last update, this one on audio. Some scenes that were initially silent, like the opening of the game, now have some subtle but appropriate ambience, so the player hears the sounds of bird and wind before Lyra approaches the manor and we transition into the main theme. On the topic of music, progress has been a bit slower, but work will continue this week on themes for the manor's laboratory and garden.

Going forward, I want to try and keep the current trajectory I have, hopefully getting background assets ready in preparation for filling out the rest of the scenes in the first chapter. My partner Daniel will also continue working on facilitating point-and-click functionality for the investigation sequences, which hopefully can be shown off in the upcoming update.

[beaumontmanor]

Dev Update #2 - Story, Expressions & Ren'py!

Hey everyone! It's time for another update on "The Mystery of Beaumont Manor." We've been making some great progress, and I'm excited to share it with you. On the story front, I've completed the first drafts of Chapters 1-3, and I'm currently working on Chapter 4. The story is really starting to take shape now. In Chapter 1, we follow Lyra as she arrives at Beaumont Manor and meets its unusual residents. Chapter 2 takes us on a tour of the manor grounds, where some intriguing clues start to surface. Things really heat up in Chapter 3 when we uncover Dr. Beaumont's secret laboratory and learn about his fate. Now, as I'm writing Chapter 4, we're diving into the mystery surrounding Colette, Dr. Beaumont's daughter. Of course, there's still a lot of revision work ahead. I'll be fine-tuning character interactions, adjusting the pacing, making sure all our mystery elements line up, and developing some interesting subplots for our secondary characters. Speaking of characters, I've been having a lot of fun bringing them to life through their expressions. Each character now has five key expressions: neutral, happy, sad, surprised, and thinking. It's amazing how much personality you can convey with just a change in expression! Dominic, our stoic bull butler, has more subtle changes in his expressions, while Sylvie the moth maid wears her heart on her sleeve with a wide range of emotions. Mavis's expressions are as mysterious as she is, especially when she's thinking or surprised. As for Barry, our gruff beetle groundskeeper, I'm still working on finalizing his expressions. He's proving to be a bit of a challenge, but I'm excited to capture his tough exterior while hinting at his softer side.

On the technical side, we're making steady progress with Ren'Py, the engine we're using to create the game. It's been a pleasant surprise how straightforward it is to add dialogue and display character sprites or backgrounds. The real challenge (and excitement) comes from implementing our custom investigation mechanic. We're working on an inventory screen for players to review their clues, and my partner Daniel will soon start on the interactive elements that let players click around scenes to gather evidence. It's not a standard feature in visual novels, which makes it both challenging and fun to work on.

Looking ahead, I'll be focusing on refining the story, drawing more assets, and continuing to build out the game in Ren'Py. Daniel will be working more on the investigation mechanics, which we're really excited about. That's all for now! As always, feel free to drop any questions or thoughts in the comments. Your interest and support mean a lot to us. Until next time, keep those detective skills sharp!

[beaumontmanor]

Progress Update #1 - Character Sprites!

Hello everyone, I’m here to give you the first update on the development of The Mystery of Beaumont Manor! Over the past two weeks, I've made significant strides in several areas. I've been working diligently on drafting sprites for each character, which has been both challenging and rewarding. Simultaneously, I've been fleshing out the storyline, adding depth and intricacy to the plot. To keep everything organized, I've set up a dedicated Google Drive folder for the project, which has greatly improved my workflow. I'm pleased to introduce you to some of the key characters that will feature in the story. The main character is Lyra, a curious and clever individual who finds herself at the center of our mystery. Supporting characters include Dominic, a stoic bull butler; Sylvie, a charming moth maid; Barry, a diligent beetle groundskeeper; and Mavis, a secretive blue anole researcher. Each character brings their own unique perspective and backstory to the narrative. Looking ahead to the next two weeks, my focus will be on developing expressions for each of the characters. This process is crucial for bringing their personalities to life and conveying emotions effectively throughout the story. I'll also be revisiting and revising certain aspects of the storyline to ensure coherence and engagement. My goal is to complete all the character expressions within this timeframe, which will allow me to transition to working on backgrounds and in-game items in the near future. The development process has not been without its challenges. Barry's design, in particular, proved to be quite difficult. Creating an anthropomorphic insect character while maintaining believability and appeal required numerous iterations. Additionally, I've encountered some ongoing difficulties with anatomical accuracy across various character designs. However, these challenges have provided valuable learning experiences and opportunities for improvement. In terms of my project timeline, I acknowledge that there is still a substantial amount of work ahead. Nevertheless, I'm pleased with the current pace of progress. If I can maintain this level of productivity, I believe I will remain on schedule for my projected completion date.

[beaumontmanor]

One capstone project from a previous semester I found particularly interesting was Mark Cabalse’s project on "Color Perception: Human vs AI". It was particularly fascinating because of how he approached the creation of color palettes for abstract concepts like "War" and "The Aloha Spirit."

Another thing I found intriguing was how Mark didn’t just rely on straightforward color schemes. Instead, he tasked both AI models and himself with creating palettes based on abstract and emotive concepts. Mark’s process involved tweaking prompts and experimenting with different AI models to get the most fitting palette, and it showcased the range of interpretations that both human and AI can bring to abstract ideas.