veiledlinks-vn

[veiledlinks-vn]

So I randomly stumbled across this and it looks really neat!! Are you still working on it? How are things going? It looks like the last update was around New Years, do you have any more news (even something small, if you don't have anything big)? I'd be super interested to hear!! (P.S. godspeed soldier, idk much about it but I know coding and game-making can be a huge task)

Oh, hello there! Thank you for your kind words. ;w;

Yup, I'm still working on it, the only reason progress is so slow is because real life has kept getting in the way, sadly enough. It's been many frustrations and disappointments these past months. If I'd had it my way, I would've finished a demo last autumn at the very latest.

We'll get there eventually, and I have to stop beating myself over it. I do apologise for the wait, though, and while it's not much, I still want to share what has been done since the last update:

Ryouken's part of the demo is in its final editing stage, so he's so close to being finished!

I found the last audio files I needed, and one of them was something I've searched a long time for, so that was a huge relief.

I've decided on how the cover images will look like and have sketched up one of them and started inking and painting the other.

I've managed to finish another CG, as well as make 3 sketches for Yuusaku's route. He still needs some proper planning with how many more branches he has compared to Takeru and Ryouken, but I'm having so much fun with it.

Future drinking games for players: take a shot every time Ryouken deems something as irrelevant, Yuusaku shrugs, or Takeru says "what".

I'm not sure how interesting the coding process can be, but I did some editing to the randomise function and now, it works splendidly while looking neater!

I promise coding is fun and not as complicated as it might look like!

That's it for now. Hopefully, the summer will be better than it was last year. Thank you again for stopping by, I appreciate it! ♥♥♥

[veiledlinks-vn]

Last update for 2023

Hellu, guys! I hope the year, with all of its ups and downs, has treated you well despite passing by in such a rush.

I got stuck in overtime hell at my workplace these past few months, so my productivity has been down to zero on pretty much everything, including VL. I'm sad and disappointed, since I'd wished to have something more concrete by now, like the demo or at least a release date for the demo, but I don't even have that. I sincerely apologise for the lack of updates; next year seems brighter (pepper pepper knock on wood).

However, that doesn't mean nothing has happened; there has been some work here and there wherever and whenever I've had time or energy to squeeze something in!

Ryouken's part of the demo is so, so, sooo close to be finished! Just a bit more, and it's editing and proofreading time!

I've also done a tiny overhaul on Yuusaku's route, mostly for the sake of keeping track on his route progressions without pulling my hair. And I've finally added Roboppi as a sprite, too! And with that, all the planned sprites are finished! Wohoo!

Takeru's demo parts are practically done (still need to finish the last CG for him), so I've just typed a bit here and there on his later parts/ship routes whenever inspiration's struck me. We're getting there, even if it's slow.

I've also done some belated GUI work and gotten those last things exactly how I want them, but that's not very interesting, I believe. ^^;;;

That's about it for now, unless I start throwing around more spoiler-y screenshots.

Have a happy new year, everyone! See you all in 2024! ♥♥♥

[veiledlinks-vn]

Almost-end-of-summer log

Hello, everyone, I hope the warm/cold weather have treated all of you well! ^^

I worked two jobs this summer, sadly enough, which resulted in too little sleep and too little energy to do anything. So I have to admit I haven't worked much on VL these months. Fear not, there has been some development, so it didn't stand completely still, even if it wasn't as much as I'd wanted to.

Writing continues to go forward, both on the stuff for the relevant parts, as well as scenes coming later, but being all too fun to write variations of.

The art department has just recently been picked up again; I've barely had time to draw all summer, sadly enough. We're getting close to finishing all the assets needed for the demo!

Updates will come more regularly now when autumn has come. Stay tuned for more!

And happy fourth anniversary to the final episode of VRAINS!!! ♥♥♥

[veiledlinks-vn]

Happy 6th Anniversary!!!

It's been 6 years now since VRAINS aired its first episode! Gawd, time really flies, doesn't it? And here we are, years later, still loving this show and its characters! ♥♥♥

So, to commemorate the anniversary, I've got something special to share with all of you: a small clip featuring sneak-peeks of the boys' routes!

DISCLAIMER: The content is still a work in progress and won't necessarily match the final game.

I can't even begin to express how excited I am about finishing this! Stay tuned for future updates and thank you all for your support. ^w^

[veiledlinks-vn]

I just discovered this game and I'm excited about the release! When do you think a demo would be out? I was also wondering if we'll see any other characters beside Yusaku and Takeru and Ryoken. Like Shima or Spectre or Aoi? Any other Hanoi knights? Not Dr Kogami I hope! Or is the cast limited to the first three and their lover interests? it's okay if it is, I'm just curious. Thank you for your hard work :D

Hellu, anon! I'm happy to see you're excited for VL, thank you so much. ^w^ To answer your questions... 1.) I'm hoping to have the demo out this summer/early autumn, but if life happens, at the very latest before the end of the year. 2.) Yes, there will be other characters, but I won't reveal which ones just yet. If you're new to this blog, I've done Guessing Games that revealed the love interests while offering an exclusive screenshot to the winner who was able to guess the LIs' identities for each round. I thought it could be fun to do so with some of the side characters. I'll be making more announcements about that in the near future, so keep an eye out for them. 3.) #2 pretty much answers #3, but I want to clarify the side characters in the Guessing Games will not be the only ones you'll see in the finished game. All the side characters will also be featured to varying degrees, depending on the route you're playing on. I really can't say much more than that without giving away spoilers. Thanks again for the ask, anon. I hope you and everyone else continue to look forward to Veiled Links. <3

[veiledlinks-vn]

Hellu, hellu! Happy spring to you all!

April was busy with real life (family being family, finding a job, and celebrating a lot of birthdays, including my own), and other fandom projects, but also more progress done on VL. ^w^

Another third of the demo has been drafted and will be edited before proof-reading can be done. We're getting there!

While we're on the subject of the demo, I can also say that the CGs in it are almost done as well, with one of them being one I've struggled with ever since the project started, but now looks exactly like I wanted. I hope you'll like them. :3c

I've also made slight editing to sprites that have buggered me for months yet haven't fixed because focus being elsewhere. I'm using Ryouken as an example, but a few more got similar edits (his blinking is much smoother now):

4. I solved a few coding issues that has caused me a lot of headaches, but now, work like they're supposed to. I swear, the ren'py community is wonderfully supportive and helpful. ;w;

5. A few more animations have also been added. Because why making it simple when we can make it complicated? OTL

6. Speaking of animations and sprites, I finished adding them to the proof-read sections. A fun, but oh so time-consuming, task.

That's it for April! I have a few more things up my sleeve, so stay tuned in the near future! ^w^

[veiledlinks-vn]

Hellu, everyone! I hope March has been treating you all well! ^^

Spring is still far away here, and the constant change in temperatures resulted in me catching a cold twice. So annoying...

Work has been going steady, though, and I thought it could be fun to share some of the progress I've done this month!

Almost all the variables have been coded for two character routes! The third needs more work, but there's been steady progress there as well.

While I use a lot of free assets for my backgrounds, I sometimes have to either buy assets or just make them myself. One of them was close to being bought, but I decided against it and made it myself instead. It still needs polishing, real life got in the way, but we'll get there!

A little preview, wonder what this can be and where you find it. :3c

3. What will be a third of the future demo is almost completely proofread and coded. The other two thirds are drafted and will soon be edited.

4. Some of the sprites have gotten a few more facial expressions and outfits, with pleasing results. ^^

5. The probably last sprite got finished! I had a blast with that one and can't wait to show it in the game. ^^

6. I also continue to do stuff in the wrong order and rewrote 4 larger sections, but they turned out much better (lesson for the day, kids, let things take time).

7. A good chunk of CG work has been done, but I don't want to say how much.

8. And of course, drafting and editing has been done, on older scripts as well as new ones.

That's it for now. I'm continuing on into April with more excitement (and hopefully less health issues). Take care, everyone!

[veiledlinks-vn]

Hi! I love your Flame design, he's just so pretty :') here's a question though: I checked your main blog and saw an earlier design and it didn't look quite the same as how he does in VL so how much did you change his design? not taking your drawing talent development into account. sorry for my bad english. good luck!

I'm so happy people like my design, I remember being a nervous wreck when I first made it. ;w;

When I redrew him for VL, I didn't make many changes at all, it was mainly a colour update on his pants and belts, as well as giving him proper boots (I also tend to forget the bracelets he wears around his left wrist, but let's ignore that, they're supposed to be there).

(And speaking of forgetting stuff, I just realised I forgot the highlights in his hair, oops!)

Don't worry about your English, it's not my first language, either, and you're doing just fine to me. ^w^

[veiledlinks-vn]

Hello.I am happy to know that this fanmade piece is in progress. I cheering for you <3 I have a question; do you have any plans to make a multilingual version? I am not an English speaker, so I would really appreciate it if you could implement it, even if it is a simplified version.But if it would make your workload particularly heavy, I think you don't need to do that.

Asdfghhjkl, thank you, anon! That means a lot to me. ;w;

Now to your question. My immediate answer was "I really want to, but it's not going to happen ;_;". The question kept buggering me, though, so I looked it up a bit more, and found a way that could actually work! I wouldn't be able to translate into every possible language (I highly doubt my hardware would agree), but if there would be any requests, I could definitely look into it!

However, it's still a question that has to wait until the game is done, but I'm more hopeful about it now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, anon. ♥

[veiledlinks-vn]

kusaryo is the secret ssr relationship of yugioh vrains. you are so real for this

It most definitely is and I'm all here to spread the love. ^w^

The true goal of Veiled Links, turning everyone into multishippers.

[veiledlinks-vn]

sorry to bother you in not only reblog and replies, but I'm so curious why you decided on kusanagi to be the love interest for ryoken. no offense, I just imagined spectre to be the candidate, he's usually the one beside yusaku and takeru

Oh, dear, prepare for a long pre-production story:

When I started working on VL back in September 2021 (or that's when I created the ren'py file at least, the concept took much longer to develop), my plan was to make a longer multi-ship game with Yuusaku, Takeru and Ryouken, with the player being able to choose between them and unlock ships through the course of the game. Only having the Disaster dorks and the ships between them wasn't enough for me, though; I had already made a silly game like that just to learn the basics of coding. So, instead, I decided, just for fun, to have another candidate (which was Spectre), PLUS one more unique character for each of the guys.

Fireball was pretty much a given for Takeru. I had still not decided if I wanted Kusanagi to be part of Yuusaku's route (again, a story didn't exist yet), so Hotdog wasn't an obvious option. In the end, it did come down to personal preferences. While I'm terribly weak for platonic Aiball, I do like romantic Aiball more than Hotdog. Plus, it would look a bit weird (to me, at least) to have Fireball and not Aiball.

Which left Ryouken with pretty much no one. Spectre was already a candidate back then, so who really remained?

Well, Kusanagi.

The thought made me snicker first, because I hadn't even thought about them much before. Then, conveniently enough, I stumbled upon fanart of KusaRyou (or Patronshipping as I later used for it) and fell head over heels in love with them.

As I started working on the plot summaries, drawing sprites, finding backgrounds to use, designing the gui and coding the variables, I realized early that having 9 ships would be all too overwhelming to work with. And when it came to deciding which ships would stay and which I had to take away, the sad truth was that taking away the Spectre ships was the easiest choice. It's not one I really liked, but again, it all came down to personal preferences. I prefer Fireball before Wildfire and Patron before Respectful. And while I do prefer Wisteria before Aiball, I still thought it would look weird. If it was possible to add every possible ship combination between the characters I'm using, I would, but I'm only one person.

(Who knows, there could be a Spectre DLC in the future if I don't get tired of this project, but I don't make any promises.)

So, there you have it. I've had lots of fun creating the Patronship route, and I hope others will enjoy it, too. ^w^

[veiledlinks-vn]

I like these character sheets you put together for the love interests, but I have a question; are those the ONLY expressions we'll see or are they more like advanced displayables that can be combined in any way you want? I'm making VNs for fun as well and still haven't got around to understand how displayables work.

Hello from one creator to another! I'm always glad to see more people making VNs! Have you published anything by chance?

Now to answer your question, no, those aren't the only expressions. All the sprites are layered images that I can put together to make many more expressions than what I can show in a character sheet. And playing a director and see what expressions look the best for a certain dialogue can be hilarious (and emotional) at times. I highly recommend learning about them, it's definitely not as hard as it can look :D

Since I've already revealed Kusanagi, have a small taste of his image folder:

[veiledlinks-vn]

GGs: #3 Round Reveal

Hello, hello, hello! Thank you to everyone who participated in the third round of the Guessing Games! It really makes me excited to everyone having fun with it :D Anyway, more people guessed it right this time. Sadly, we can only have one winner, and that's @celepom! Congratulations, Sally :D I'll be sending the prize to you via DMs as soon as this post is up!

For everyone else, here is the reveal: The identity for the third and final exclusive love interest is...Kusanagi-san!!!

Kusanagi-san is the exclusive love interest for Ryouken's route for VL, which I happily dubbed Patronshipping since there so far haven't been a consensus for their shipping name. As I mentioned above, this concludes the series of rounds for the LIs of VL. Once again, thank you everyone who participated. ;w;

As always, if you want to stay up to date with the latest news on VL, keep an eye out on the blog. Thank you! <3

[veiledlinks-vn]

Hello, people! There's been quite some guesses, but no one has been correct so far when it comes to the last love interest. So, like the second round with Flame, here's another hint. XD

The only other hint I'll give is to think carefully about the very few people who wears a hoodie in the anime :3 Also, just as another reminder, if users want to participate in the round, please submit your guesses through the ask box, not the in the replies of the post. If anyone has submitted a guess before, you're free to do so again. Good luck~. ♥

GGs: #3 Round Begins

I'm a bit late in my timezone due to real life, but that's fine. ^^

The third round for the Guessing Games begins! Here's the hint of the third and final exclusive love interest for Veiled Links!

Same rules a before; as soon as someone is able to guess the character's identity correctly, I will announce the winner and publicly reveal who the character is, with the winner receiving an exclusive screenshot (no sharing/reposting allowed) of said character from VL as the prize! Have fun and good luck~.

[veiledlinks-vn]

GGs: #3 Round Begins

I'm a bit late in my timezone due to real life, but that's fine. ^^

The third round for the Guessing Games begins! Here's the hint of the third and final exclusive love interest for Veiled Links!

Same rules a before; as soon as someone is able to guess the character's identity correctly, I will announce the winner and publicly reveal who the character is, with the winner receiving an exclusive screenshot (no sharing/reposting allowed) of said character from VL as the prize! Have fun and good luck~.

[veiledlinks-vn]

GGs: #3 Round Announcement

Hello, hello! :D I'm proud to announce that the third round for the Guessing Games will happen this upcoming weekend!

If you're new to the Veiled Links blog, make sure to read up on the rules if you want to participate. For the longtime users who's been with the Veiled Links blog for a while now, thanks again for all your support.

So, same rules, same process: When the the third round opens up, a hint will be provided to the participants and the first user to guess the character's identity is the winner and will receive an exclusive screenshot of said character as a prize (no reposting/sharing)!

The third round will begin on Saturday, January 28th, at GMT +1.

[veiledlinks-vn]

Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope your holidays and winter breaks and new year celebrations have been good ones, or at the very least okay. ^w^

As you might've noticed, I've been absent for more than a month. I mentioned it briefly on my main blog, but the reason for that is that I broke my ankle at the beginning of December, and had to spend weeks resting in bed or on the couch, making it much harder to work on Veiled Links. With so little progress being made, the hope of releasing a demo before the end of the year turned out to be impossible. Disappointing, but truth to be told, it turned out to be okay.

While this past month wasn't a break I wanted, it was a break I needed. I've had much more time giving thoughts to things I've avoided, working through them, and making new efforts in my personal life. So now, as my foot is healing up nicely, I feel more than ready to pick up the pace once more; insecurities not gone, but also far from as overpowering anymore.

I hope you're all prepared for more updates in the future! We do have one last guessing game for the last exclusive love interest to do, after all. >:3c

Until next time, thank you all for following the blog and supporting this game! It means the world to me! ♥♥♥