Travel DevLog 2 - Working With The Devil On My Shoulder.
Travel DevLog 2 - Working with the devil on my shoulder.
Week 2 of development has been going well on Travel Devil 2. We’re setting it straight after the first game so you get to see how the dynamics of Tornacense and Kirby are changing as they get used to being around each other.
Tornacense and Kirby facing an unhinged street preacher in the first game.
It’s great returning to these characters. I’m trying to make their drawings more exciting and dynamic. I’ve got a lot more time to make the character drawings now as I’m not working to game jam timeframes. I’m also going to learn to use the Renpy Action Editor to add more options to the movements in the game.
I’ve been working on many different aspects of the Travel Devil 2 to keep things interesting and motivating. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
Many more concept sketches were drawn. Now I need to get them looking swish on the computer.
Backgrounds and video footage of Amsterdam have been sourced to showcase in the vlog parts of the game.
Set up a Bluesky profile – now I just have to learn to use it :S
Spent a lot of time updating software – yay!
Planned some fancy menus for 1st game recap, unlockables and character profiles
Coded some of the game framework in Renpy
Drank a lot of tea (Woo rock and/or roll!)
I've been using the plot outline to build the framework for the game. Robert has been working away on the writing. He's already written the recap of the first game and the opening scene which we’ve been hammering out together.
We’re hoping to get Travel Devil 2 out this year if we can. However if you can’t wait, you can pop on the old humask and check out the (short) first installment here on itch.io.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope March is treating you well!
More Posts from Doublefreegames and Others
Lydia's Labyrinth has made it to over 100 downloads!
🖤❤️💜Thank you to everyone who has supported this and helped us to make it here!💜❤️🖤
We're a two person dev team who make short games for free and for fun so having this many people downloading Lydia's Labyrinth is incredible for us! Genuinely, thank you so much.
If escaping a deadly labyrinth while being chided by a cute yet deranged vampire sounds appealing to you, then check it out below!
https://valhallions.itch.io/lydiaslabyrinth
Thanks for stopping by and allow me to raise a glass to you for being a part of this journey.
Cheers!
Travel devil 2 - Shame the Devil, tell the truth - DevLog 4
Well folks it's been such a week. I've had some extra work on this week but fear not... Travel Devil 2 continues its march through development.
This week I have
Designed some additional menu assets
Worked on a talk show set
Designed some apocalypse assets based in Paris
Learned about the national dish of the Netherlands - Stamppot (critical cultural research and tonight's dinner)
Paris has fallen to the unholy march.
Unfortunately the talk show set is still a work in progress as it's not coming together in a way that I like. Also things are going a bit slower than I’ve expected. Just gotta keep my head up and keep on with it.
I've also got some news about the writing. Robert has been leading the story development and has
Been writing many new scenes
Started a point of view chapter for our new character Chloe (art reveal coming soon!)
Finished a secret scene
Carried out location research about demonic art in Amsterdam
Poster for the play "Lucifer" from 1910 painter by Richard Roland Holst (1868 -1938) - https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=urn:gvn:WITS01:109324, Public Domain
I'm glad to say that things are still moving forward. These devlogs help me to recognise that. Next week is going to be hectic as well so I'm going to try and focus on character art. I'm also hoping to make some time to play some visual novels. There's a few I've been meaning to try and I always find it inspiring to see what magical creations other people are making.
If you’d like to see how the infernal story began you can download the original Travel Devil narrative game for free on the Valhallions itch page. You can also see my side projects and asset packs on the DoubleFree itch page.
Take care everyone!
DoubleFree
Hell yeah, I'm back! Travel Devil 2 - DevLog 3
Good news! Was sick. Got better! It wasn't anything major, just sucked for a while.
Bad news - Game development was pretty loosey goosey, but stuff still happened! Here's what I've been working on:
Storyboard of the prologue is planned.
Started working on a talk show set.
Concept sketches done for a demonic talk show host.
Menu art done.
Worked with the writer on the flow and pacing of the writing.
Many pose sketches done for CGs.
Development is going well, just a bit slowly but that's to be expected. We're still on track for a 2024 release on Travel Devil 2 but if you want some fiery, decision-making action you can check out the original narrative game here - Travel Devil - Episode 1 Paris. We hope you'll join us on our demonic travel vlog across Europe featuring your host Tornacense.
Thanks for stopping by!
Travel Devil - better the devil you know!
There's less than a week left of judging for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and it's been a fantastic experience for us so far! Travel Devil has received such wonderful feedback and critiques. We take on board everything that is written to us so we can make better games every time!
So today I'm going to give a little insight into how and why Travel Devil came to be.
Do you wanna know how Travel Devil came to exist?
Originally we put together a game idea for a spooky pet adoptions agency. The game would take place on Halloween and have six pets (3 unlocked and 3 locked) to play with. Each pet was going to have a unique story and minigame associated with it. It was codenamed "Spoopy Pets" and it was far too much for the me and Robert to take on and complete in the Spooktober VN Jam timeframe. We worked on it for the first two days of the jam before we were flagging problems up, so we changed trajectory. It's not a dead idea though, it's in the list of rainy day ideas.
Speaking of the rainy day ideas list, that's where Travel Devil comes in. We thought this up a while ago but just put it on the back burner as there was no time to work on it. The concept was simple - a demon escapes hell and starts a travel log. Then the servants of hell follow in its wake starting the apocalypse march on humanity. When Spoopy Pets became too big we had a look at what we had to play with and Travel Devil just sort of fell into place. Robert started writing and I started drawing.
Character design went pretty smoothly. I went for a mix of cartoon styles, drawing inspiration from things like Dead End, Gravity Falls, The Simpsons and Garfield.
Traditionally, visual novels use anime and manga style design but truth be told, I'm not very good at that style. It takes me ages to make characters look good when I try to draw like that. Hats off to all the wonderful artists in this jam who made beautiful, scintillating characters. I'm so impressed by their dedication to fantastic character art.
One of the first pitfalls I encountered was background art. I like to use sites like Pixabay to get backgrounds but recently it's been flooded with AI artworks. The game jam expressly forbids AI use in your game so we had to get creative.
Fortunately this game revolves around travel vlog creation in Paris and we found loads of creative commons photos of the famous tourist destination. Seriously there are so many fantastic photographers out there and it was a complete life and time saver for the jam. All I had to do was add a translucent white filter to the top of the photos to make the characters pop out and we had our backgrounds!
Development went well once we got on the right track. Travel Devil was made using Ren'py which is a joy to develop with. We did have to wind back our ideas at one point as both Robert and I got sick with a nasty bug but we made it. We stripped back some choices and streamlined the game to make sure we could get finished. Originally, we wanted the player to be able to unlock multiple hidden scenes in one playthrough. As the deadline loomed we simplified it so that the player would only see one of three potential side stories that were growing due to the activities of our main character Tornacense per playthrough. We included 7 unlockable scenes and also 6 unlockable images in our gallery.
There's also a nifty guide to finding all the unlockables right here if you want a more relaxing time while playing.
If you've had a chance to play Travel Devil you may have noticed that we planted some seeds in our side stories that will be big plot points as we go forward. Travel Devil is going to be a series of five games travelling around Europe making video journals and outrunning the underworld.
Tornacense and Kirby will grow, we'll meet lots of new strange and devastating people and love could be just around the corner! Who knows? That choice will be yours.
If you want to check out the first installment of Travel Devil you can nab a pentagram portal and find it right here.
Travel Devil was made for the 5th Annual Spooktober Visual Novel Jam in under 30 days. The next one will be made with a lot more time dedicated to it!
Thanks for stopping by!
DoubleFree - Artist and coder for Travel Devil
Always happy to see a good grisly mystery! Just played "Disconnected" a fantastic visual novel by Teharra Rose.
You're a 911 dispatcher. You're taking to a woman who wakes up in an ice bath. She doesn't know how she got there. Can you save her life?
Game jam stuff - today the writer wanted a tiger for the labyrinth!
A tiger getting ready to strike...
So I know I'm not gonna get time to hand draw a vicious tiger so I thought I'd see what I could cobble together from available images on pexels and pixabay.
With a bit of tweaking and some filters I came up with a tiger. This project is getting big so I'm having to resort to some quick and dirty tactics. Here's hoping it works!
Lydia's Labyrinth is coming to the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam 2024 - now with a tiger!
Look, i`ve never been too good at talking politics, but i do wish to make a statement that what happened today in the US elections was fucked. A whole lot of people are going to be fucked. If you are one of those stuck there....please...just do your best to stay alive...
What is the key to surviving the ever shifting edges of the Blade Room?
A hidden panel, a memory locked away or just dumb luck?
"Choose Your Fate" in Lydia's Labyrinth the game book - coming soon.
I'm currently rearranging the art from landscape graphics from the visual novel game to portrait book style. I'm also recolouring for print and ebook :D
The game experience will be similar to the "choose your own adventure" novels. The the writing is done and now, the writer and I are working on the formatting and editing. Things are moving forward fast and I'm really excited about it all. Just got to stay focused and get the work done!
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Hey there! I'm an indie narrative game developer.I love to make story games steeped in myth and fable using characters like vampires, demons and wraiths.
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