#velox formido

[artwithoutblood]

We're Women, After All. So kill your family and run away with your new mermaid girlfriend.

Warning: this game contains themes of misogyny and violence/death. 

The Ash Mermaid gives you a knife. She knows the pain your family gives you. Just kill them already.

Made in 36 hours for the Velox Formido jam. This entry primarily focuses on the themes of Forbidden Love and Flower Symbolism, but it has a bit of Trapped With Someone if you squint. Do not expect anything profound.

Features:

3.4k+ words

4 endings

Credits:

Additional images from Unsplash

Music by Zack Valence

[robobarbie]

Velox Formido Results - Categories

--------------------------

CATEGORY: NARRATIVE

WINNER: Stuck with you by teletuu

2ND: We're Women, After All by @catskets

3RD: FaithEater by @heartsyncproductions

4TH: Dahlia by Crystal Game Works

5TH: OFF-SCRIPT by @mishantics

--------------------------

CATEGORY: VISUALS

WINNER: OFF-SCRIPT by @mishantics

2ND: We're Women, After All by @catskets

3RD (TIE): Dahlia by Crystal Game Works

3RD (TIE): 009 LIVES by @lavendeerstudios

5TH: Last Call At Desert Blossom by RootBandit

--------------------------

CATEGORY: SOUND

WINNER: Last Call At Desert Blossom by RootBandit

2ND: OFF-SCRIPT by @mishantics

3RD: Dahlia by Crystal Game Works

4TH: Flowers of Asphodel by @shewassaying

5TH (TIE): We're Women, After All by @catskets

5TH (TIE): 009 LIVES by @lavendeerstudios

--------------------------

CATEGORY: THEME INCLUSION

WINNER: lovetellers by @ednaarel

2ND (TIE): petals for the road by lumintree

2ND (TIE): Wait Until Spring by Summer Light Studios

4TH: OFF-SCRIPT by @mishantics

5TH: FaithEater by @heartsyncproductions

[shewassaying]

Our Velox Formido Submission, Flowers of Asphodel, is Out Now!

We made a game in 36 hours!! For you, there are no Doors that won't open-- until you find yourself trapped in a Library with an abrasive man whose help comes at a cost. Help him, and just maybe, you'll escape. https://shewassaying.itch.io/flowers-of-asphodel

Our Team:

Writing/Directing: Me

Sprites: @helloyinn

CGs: @aiixen_

Illustrations: @_minthe_draws

BG: @radicalhoodie (tumblr)

Coding: @Bukubukubuku9

QA/Coding: @rottentief

Editing: @CrescenceStudio @Icefire149

Music/Sfx: @ejtanmusic

QA assist: @cafeestar

VA: @alexiusminerva

[arimiadev]

oops I entered a weekend long visual novel jam and made another VN about cute vampire girls except this time you're trapped with one who's trying to decide if you're her next meal

it's free to play on itchio!

[heartsyncproductions]

I did ittttt I made a game in under 36 hoursssss

FaithEater

In a world where humans hunt the Gods for a chance at hope, you have betrayed the Faith Eaters. Given the highest punishment, you've been thrown into the Cathedral at the End of the World, where the God of Death Muerte has been imprisoned. You expect it to devour you without mercy. Instead, it offers you hope. The very same hope the Faith Eaters have taken away.

Features:

- 5k words

-4 endings

-1 CG

-gender neutral MC

Content Warnings: violence, blood, death, implied religious trauma

[burning-academia-if]

Can we pretend April isn't over? It doesn't feel like it should be over. First and foremost, I got sick again because my immune system is trash lol (I have been sick every month this year). I also joined the Velox Formido Game Jam where I made a game in 36 hours! It was a nice reset/break from BA even if it was a chaotic time. I have done the other 2 iterations of the jam so missing this one felt wrong lol. With that said, both of those things did cut into my time with BA.

I mostly focused on coding in a lot of things + editing through sections. There was very little writing done this month. I wrote the other two ending scenes for Chapter 2, as well as the the other RO pov end scene. I just need to finish the student government path + random scene variations and then the writing will be done! Since I've also done a decent amount of coding/editing for this chapter as well, I really just need to finish the last sections and write/code them in and the update will be ready! I'm aiming for the end of May for chapter's 2 release, with the first week of June being the latest! I hope you guys enjoy it when it comes out!

As for the blog, the end of April was suddenly really busy with asks?? I'm so used to it being slow LOL With that being said, I might not answer as many asks as often since I want to focus my energy on wrapping up this chapter! I'll still be answering a few a day, usually during my break at work, but home time will be focused primarily on the game! Hopefully I can catch up on them during weekends, but no promises!

Anyway, today's preview is more Family Fun Times:

[knickknackpj]

New month, new devlog! I talk about trying Velox Formido and stuff im working on, and announce a jam I'm helping out on!

[eeriemori13]

Another jam game.

Okay. So I will be back to working on Accidental Necromancy soon, but I made another game for the Velox Formido game jam. You should check it out! And the other entries too!! They were all made in less than 36 hours so you know they'll be interesting at the very least... (EDIT: I played all the other entries and they're amazing!!)

[alydra]

Velox Formido being over my big show weekend has given me one thing that I can't unsee: A ticking timer to get all my shit done by, counting down to a fun event I don't get to do because I will be... doing a different fun event.

[robobarbie]

Velox Formido Results - Overall

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WINNER: We're Women, After All by @catskets

--------------------------

2ND: Stuck with you by teletuu

--------------------------

3RD: OFF-SCRIPT by @mishantics

--------------------------

4TH: Last Call At Desert Blossom by RootBandit

--------------------------

5TH: Dahlia by Crystal Game Works

--------------------------

Great job, everyone! I will see you in a few months for the 10-day-long Velox Fabula jam.

[robobarbie]

WE GO VELOX FORMIDO

VOTE HERE

[robobarbie]

velox formido starts in a couple weeks! if u want to challenge yourself with a very short game jam, this is a great chance! don't forget to submit theme suggestions!

[arimiadev]

Hello visual novel fans and vampire lovers! It’s been a while since I last wrote a postmortem, so I hope I’ll be able to write this concisely (and coherently).

Dahlia was a short visual novel I created in under 36 hours for Velox Formido, a shortform visual novel game jam ran by robobarbie and Allie Vera. It’s inspired by Ludum Dare, one of the longest running game jams in the world where devs are tasked to make a game in 1 weekend based around a theme. I got my start making visual novels by entering Ludum Dare…which was 10 years ago, as of 2024!

I had my eye on this game jam for a while now, as this isn’t its first incarnation. I’ve been a bit burnt out the past year or so, not completely where I can’t make progress but to where I feel like my work has slowed down a lot more than my peers and feel I can’t make anything quickly. When I saw the jam was happening this weekend, I hopped on board once the themes were announced.

the themes

While Ludum Dare has a rigorous process of eliminating themes until it gets down to the final one, Velox Formido has it where there are 5 themes that win and participants have to use at least 2 of them in their entries. The final themes were…

Enemies with Benefits

Flower Symbolism

Doomed by the Narrative

Trapped with Someone

Forbidden Romance

I started crafting ideas as soon as the themes were announced, which was what the jam started- meaning the clock was ticking!

My first idea was a shounen rivals-esque sapphic story about two rivals meeting up for alone time. I started writing it immediately but moved on to another idea- being trapped with a vampire. I doubt I’ll ever use the first idea, so I’ve shared the snippet I was able to write for it here. Every new line is the other woman talking, so think of it as a quick back and forth.

Even though I had started on this idea, I wanted to write something more… mysterious. Frilly. Girls in cute dresses, to be exact. So I began potting an idea where a girl wakes up to find a vampire in her room, unsure if she’s had her fill yet or toying with her next meal.

the story

The “flower symbolism” theme was definitely my first pick, as I love the concept of it and played around with it in my last visual novel, Asphodelium. I named the characters Dahlia (beauty, change) and Camellia (admiration, longing). Dahlia represents a change in Camellia’s life, a sudden burst of newness. Camellia longs for something different, some way for things to change.

The other theme I picked was “trapped with someone”, as the premise is a girl stuck with a vampire in her room. I didn’t want it to be outright horror, but still a little creepy and tense.

Dahlia "I've had enough pitchforks stuck in my face for today." Camellia "And why is that?" Dahlia "Because your kind isn't too welcoming to my kind." Camellia "I was asking why you were here in the first place." Dahlia "Obvious questions get obvious responses. I needed a snack, of course." Camellia "And you chose my residence." Dahlia "Didn't you say this was your fathers?" Her words curl around the last word, like ivy growing against a trellis. She's clearly already had a "snack", but was it enough to satisfy her? Or am I the main course?

Both of them are somewhat young, but there is still the element of the unknown. This creature clearly already had a meal, but does she want dessert? Is she just toying with her food? Or is she truly delighted to find someone her age to talk to?

With the time constraints I wasn’t able to flesh out much of their dynamic, but I hope it was still an enjoyable taste! The story ended up being about 2.3k words long with 3 endings.

the art

I started doing the art about….12 hours before the jam ended. I love working with fullbody sprites as they offer me a lot more versatility with posing, but I knew I didn’t have time for that here. This time I went for 3/4ths bodies, namely just so I could cut it off at the end of their dresses. I spent about an hour on each of these.

With the time crunch I didn’t have time to do concepts for them- I just winged it! I knew I wanted Dahlia to have pigtails, though she was originally going to have a purple theme. Camellia was supposed to have proper curls in her hair, but because the game starts with her being rudely awoken, I went with messy waves instead. Think of it as bedhead rather than her actual hairstyle.

I also quickly did a main menu artwork towards the end of my crunch in about half an hour. It was originally going to be the cover art on itchio but Dahlia’s >:D sprite looks more striking.

For the backgrounds I went with free photos from Unsplash and edited them. Personally, I like the look of filtered photos as backgrounds depending on the aesthetics of the game.

I didn’t have time to edit the GUI aside from the textbox, which was NVL mode.

the presentation

Dahlia is stylized fully in NVL mode, with the textbox to one side of the screen. I love NVL mode for scenes focused on narration and setting the right mood.

I was considering making the game a different resolution, but because the NVL mode is to the side rather than the entire screen I wanted to make use of the widescreen resolution.

The game is set late at night, so each of the backgrounds had to be nighttime. To match with this, I tinted the sprites to match each of them. For example, the above tint looks like this:

transform nightcolor: matrixcolor TintMatrix("#8594d6") * BrightnessMatrix(0.03) image dahlia night = LayeredImageProxy("dahlia",nightcolor)

I wanted to try something more complex like a tint + another light source overlayed onto the sprite, but ran out of time.

Another part of the presentation I did was to have a variety of shots. I had a very limited about of art to work with (only changing mouths and eyebrows, no arm poses or eye positions) so I knew I had to be smart about how I composited the scenes.

One thing I’ve done in other visual novels was to have one character further away and have another closer to the camera but their sprite turned black. This allows me to give the illusion of depth without having a sprite of the back of each character’s head.

for instance, this is that technique in Canvas Menagerie

Doing this in Dahlia was a quick and easy way to make the visuals much more interesting rather than swapping between two mostly static sprites the entire game.

The way I do it in other games is on a per-sprite basis, meaning I set brightness and position each time. It’s hectic, really! But because of the time limit for this jam, I was able to come up with a much quicker way to set it up.

transform lefttt: zoom 0.5 xalign 0.3 yalign 0.05 transform leftttb: zoom 0.8 xalign -1.6 yalign 0.1 matrixcolor(BrightnessMatrix(-1)) xzoom -1

The lefttt transform is for the character in the back- in this example, that’s Camellia. The leftttb transform (b standing for “black”) is for the character in the foreground who’s shrouded- in this example, that’s Dahlia.

Basically, the leftttb transform sets the sprite to a bigger size than the farther away sprite, sets the position, and then makes the color completely black before flipping the sprite (because this should be us seeing them from behind).

I also did quite a few small animations in the game, such as Dahlia dancing around or bouncing up and down. You define it once as a transform and can reuse it again and again.

transform dance: ease 0.7 xoffset -59 linear 0.25 ease 0.6 xoffset 74 linear 0.19 ease 0.76 xoffset -70 linear 0.3 ease 0.7 xoffset 102 linear 0.2 ease 0.8 xoffset 0

If you’d like to see the code in action, then guess what- I’ve released the entire source code for the game on GitHub! Feel free to sift through it to see the components in action and copy some of the code for your own projects. All I ask is that you do not redistribute the game (i.e. download the code, make a build in Ren’Py, and redistribute that as your own game).

wrapping up

I’m pretty happy with how Dahlia came out. It’s short and visually distinct and helped “prove” to myself that I’m capable of making visual novels in a weekend still. I tried to avoid spoilers here, so if you haven’t played it already then give it a try!

— Arimia

[robobarbie]

SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED!!! ITS TIME FOR RATING AND COMMENTING FOR 2 WEEKS!!!!

[robobarbie]

JAM START! DONT FORGET TO USE 2 THEMES!!

[robobarbie]

SEE U TOMORROW FOR THE JAM