a little lily princess

hanako

#1 by hanako - Oct 9 2015

So, it's probably about time I created a thread to give you guys some idea of what's going on here!

This is the adaptation of the novel A Little Princess. For those unfamiliar with the source, it's about a young girl in Victorian England who is sent back from India to live at a boarding school in London (during this time period, a lot of British officers were stationed in India, but it was considered a bad place for British children so they sent them back to England to be schooled).

Sara is a sweet, studious, and imaginative girl who likes to make up stories. She misses her father but she adapts to life in England, she has lots of pretty toys, she makes friends... and then bad things happen. And that's probably enough for you to know right now if you haven't read the book.

This is an adaptation and will be using a great deal of text straight out of the book, although many things are being added, tweaked, and in some cases outright changed. There will still be some surprises if you're familiar with the story. (Especially if you're used to one of the movie or anime versions, since I'm not going from them.)

It is also a stat-raiser - but a fairly simple one. This is not LLTQ! You build up and spend stats in order to unlock events, and the requirements for the events are visible, so you're not flying blind (and in a pinch, 'build ALL your stats' is a perfectly good idea).

This is a yuri game but it's light yuri, and the routes shade from 'clearly just friends' to 'sweetly romantic' and several points in between. There are six routes planned, I have currently written the first draft for four of them and am just starting the fifth. It's not a very long game and will probably fall in the $10-15 range.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#2 by hanako - Oct 9 2015

The art is in progress so I'm limited in what I can show right now, but here are three of the students who attend the school:

From left to right, these are Jessie, Lottie, and Ermengarde.

Jessie is a free spirit with artistic interests, and Lavinia's best friend (Lavinia will be showing up later).

Lottie is one of the youngest girls at the school, a cute little thing who is known to throw tantrums if she doesn't get her way (or even if she's just bored).

Ermengarde has the reputation of being the school dunce, because she's hopeless at most of her formal lessons.

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#3 by FantasyFan - Oct 9 2015

This was one of my favorite childhood stories, so I'm super excited!!!

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LittleRaven

Re: a little lily princess

#4 by LittleRaven - Oct 10 2015

I'm so happy you're working on this!

bookworm37

Re: a little lily princess

#5 by bookworm37 - Oct 12 2015

I'm so excited about this game! Can't wait.

Also, I love the art so far.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#6 by hanako - Oct 23 2015

Just finished drafting Mariette's route, so that's 5/6 in rough. Only one more to go.

I have more sprites but I'm waiting to put them in batches together. Sara and Lavinia should be coming soon.

asperity

Re: a little lily princess

#7 by asperity - Oct 26 2015

Oh, how awesome! I read the book for the first time a year or two ago after never having gotten around to it as a kid, and what a treat.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#8 by hanako - Oct 27 2015

And here are the other two schoolgirls that feature in our story:

Sara, on the left, is our protagonist, a sweet and dreamy girl often distracted by strange ideas or stories she is making up in her mind.

Lavinia, on the right, is Jessie's best friend and the reigning Queen Bee of the school.

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#9 by FantasyFan - Oct 27 2015

Why does the mean girl Lavinia look so CUTE? And Sara's so incredibly cute too. I'm drowning in cute!

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somestrangecircus

Re: a little lily princess

#10 by somestrangecircus - Oct 28 2015

I don't remember half these characters...I really need to reread the book before this comes out, huh?

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Runespoor

Re: a little lily princess

#11 by Runespoor - Nov 9 2015

This looks amazing and the book was one of my favorite, most important novels as a child (right up there with Mathilda), so seeing this is very exciting!

I'm taking the fact that Lavinia shares the same pic as Sara as cautious encouragement to believe she doesn't get sidelined after Sara has more important things to worry about than the former star student of the school. ...I got invested in Sara and Lavinia's weird, one-sided rivalry when I got older [small]and started shipping them[/small].

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#12 by hanako - Nov 9 2015

The first draft of the script is complete in all scenes.

It will be a while before the game can go into public testing, because not nearly enough art is complete for that yet. I will, however, be recruiting private beta readers at some point in the future. I will be looking both for people who have and haven't read the book, since there are different things to consider.

Bornsecular

Re: a little lily princess

#13 by Bornsecular - Nov 9 2015

I'll throw my name in the ring ASAP for any type of testing. I'm fairly new around these parts (the forum, at least) but I do QA testing for my job if it's any reassurance or character reference.

I fall under the "hasn't read the book" category. I think there may have been a movie made years ago that I saw but I have a terrible memory so it's basically like I didn't see that either! X-D

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#14 by FantasyFan - Nov 9 2015

I'm definitely interested in beta reading.

I have read the book and I'm very familiar with it.

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#15 by hanako - Nov 9 2015

(No need to jump in yet, I'm not doing it YET and I haven't worked out the list of questions I need to ask, so you'd have to post all over again when I'm actually ready for it.)

Mir

Re: a little lily princess

#16 by Mir - Nov 16 2015

This sounds super cool. And the art style is lovely. :O

I vaguely remember watching one of the movie adaptations when I was little, but this would be a good opportunity to revisit the story.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#17 by hanako - Nov 29 2015

Becky is in sketches now - once her sprite is finished I can do Announcements.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#18 by hanako - Nov 30 2015

The (most important members of the) staff at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary:

That would be Becky, the shy scullery maid
Mariette, Sara's personal French maid
and of course Miss Maria Minchin, the proprietress herself.

I'm kind of busy at the moment so official game page and announcement should come later this week sometime.

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#19 by FantasyFan - Nov 30 2015

I love Becky's design - she's so CUUUUUTE!!

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#20 by hanako - Dec 11 2015

forgot to say:

webpage - http://www.hanakogames.com/allp.shtml

sharable tumblr post - http://hanakogames.tumblr.com/post/134768754462/a-little-lily-princess

Nothing on either of those that you don't already know if you've been reading this topic, though!

LittleRaven

Re: a little lily princess

#21 by LittleRaven - Dec 13 2015

Still so exciting!

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#22 by hanako - Dec 22 2015

M_Keith

Re: a little lily princess

#23 by M_Keith - Dec 22 2015

hanako:

I'm flying, Jack!
XD

Mir

Re: a little lily princess

#24 by Mir - Dec 22 2015

omg that's so cute :3

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#25 by hanako - Jan 2 2016

Poor Becky...

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#26 by FantasyFan - Jan 3 2016

Love the background!

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#27 by hanako - Jan 11 2016

The first act of game script has been converted and blocked out with sprites and backgrounds. No sound yet, and the gui for the stat stuff is still undone, but it's still a sign of progress.

A few CGs are drawn so far, as well as a few sort-of CGs, with characters in chibi form (comedy scenes, generally).

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#28 by FantasyFan - Jan 11 2016

Still REALLY looking forward to this.

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#29 by hanako - Jan 17 2016

I have scripted (same caveats as before) through the common scenes of Act 2, and one of the six routes.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#30 by hanako - Jan 25 2016

Second route scripted.

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#31 by FantasyFan - Jan 26 2016

Yay!

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#32 by hanako - Jan 30 2016

ELODIE NO

... wait, wrong princess.

(Three routes scripted.)

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#33 by FantasyFan - Jan 30 2016

LOL!

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katicflis

Re: a little lily princess

#34 by katicflis - Jan 31 2016

Is there an expected release date for this?

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#35 by hanako - Jan 31 2016

Not a clear one because it depends on the speed of the artists. However, since I have to travel around and go to GDC for the Black Closet thing and will therefore be kind of distracted in March, I'm guessing probably not until April.

All the routes should be scripted and ready for private testing next month but the art won't be finished for a while.

M_Keith

Re: a little lily princess

#36 by M_Keith - Feb 2 2016

After Long live the Queen I'm never trusting chocolates in any video-game again.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#37 by hanako - Feb 2 2016

They're Lavinia's, she might have set them under a hanging anvil as bait...

M_Keith

Re: a little lily princess

#38 by M_Keith - Feb 2 2016

hanako:
They're Lavinia's, she might have set them under a hanging anvil as bait...

Well someone has been watching too much road runner. XD

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#39 by hanako - Feb 4 2016

Current progress on the display of the stat-raising activities:

(edit - removed because I've made some adjustments but haven't uploaded them yet)

Those little pixel icons are something I picked up early in development as placeholders. They are available for use in commercial games, so I don't have to change them. Of course, they are pixel art, so they don't necessarily go all that well with the rest of the display. On the other hand, they're simple icons that only appear during the stat-raising section, they don't really matter, and any replacements aren't guaranteed to look better or be more understandable...

Opinions?

(May want to click on it to see at fullsize, the forum is shrinking it slightly and making them look fuzzier. That screenshot, if you look closely, also demonstrates why there are icons. 'Double all [RunningMan]' does NOT mean 'Double your current Vigour score', it means, 'double the number of RunningMan icons'. )

jcdenton

Re: a little lily princess

#40 by jcdenton - Feb 5 2016

I think most of them look pretty good and clearly communicate the stat, but the running man seems to stick out a bit, might be the aura around the figure. Overall though they don't clash with the interface. The chibi Sara is awesomely adorable

ThePokeGirl

Re: a little lily princess

#41 by ThePokeGirl - Feb 5 2016

The icons sort of remind me of Littlewitch Romanesque.

Mir

Re: a little lily princess

#42 by Mir - Feb 5 2016

Took me a minute to determine which stat a couple of them corresponded to (though that might not be an issue in-game, depending), but as far as the pixel art artistically clashing with the rest? Not really, no. I wouldn't have even thought twice about it if the question hadn't been asked, actually. XD

Ren

Re: a little lily princess

#43 by Ren - Feb 5 2016

I think the only one that clashes for me is the running man - it's not the pixellated style, though, it's the surrounding colour. Your UI is all shades of purple and warm greys, and most of the other icons have colours that don't clash (pinks, light blues, pastelly greens) but that one has such a distinctive green that it really sticks out for me. If you can change hue at all, I'd go for a red-purple or something of the sort.
It might be personal taste, but I would also consider making the centre box's opacity higher, too - I think the icons would look better on a solid background, rather than with the underlying motif visible.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#44 by hanako - Feb 5 2016

I think I'll try messing around with a few of the icons (the one in act 2 for pain is probably the hardest to make sense of) and then leave them until after the first testers have a chance to play and see what they think.

(No, not yet. But soon.)

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#45 by FantasyFan - Feb 6 2016

I don't really have an opinion on the little icons, but the overall stat page is SO ADORABLE.

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#46 by hanako - Feb 8 2016

4/6 routes scripted, basic GUI for the stat-raising and date-choosing in place. Still no sound, still need to mess with the GUI for save/load/options, haven't touched gallery/checklist stuff yet.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#47 by hanako - Feb 12 2016

All routes scripted!

So, at this point, I need to recruit a couple of pre-readers. This is not open beta, this will be restricted to a careful few who can be trusted to follow directions and not burn down the candy store.

Art isn't finished, sound isn't even started, this is for people who love to read and to analyse what they're reading, for checking the character development of the routes.

To apply, either post here or email me at [email address removed] with the following information:

How familiar are you with the source material, and which versions? Read the book? Seen the older movie, the newer movie, the anime? (I would prefer to get a range of possibilities here, so if you know NOTHING about the original story, that's perfectly fine!)
What character (other than Sara) interests you most? If you don't know what cast I'm using, check the early part of the thread or the game webpage.
Are you British? (I'm trying to use British spellings for this so knowing which way you lean is helpful.)
Do you have an example of some reviews you've written, to show how you think about fiction? (If you've done one of these jobs for me before, you can remind me of that, because I am scatterbrained enough to forget!)
Preference is given to people who've bought games direct from my site! If your forum email address isn't your purchase address you can let me know about other ones I should check.

Don't worry if you're not picked, actual open beta isn't that far off.

FantasyFan

Re: a little lily princess

#48 by FantasyFan - Feb 12 2016

Just sent you an email - I'd LOVE to do this.

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somestrangecircus

Re: a little lily princess

#49 by somestrangecircus - Feb 13 2016

Sent a very late email last night.

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somestrangecircus

Re: a little lily princess

#50 by somestrangecircus - Feb 14 2016

Also, sorry for double post, but I had a question about the stat system you explained on Twitter/blog. What happens if you select No Event for literally every single week?

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hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#51 by hanako - Feb 14 2016

In act 1, you'll be a bit bored, but the game will progress as normal.

In act 2, you'll have only one route available (because Becky's route is available whether you did her act 1 events or not, considering the circumstances) and then the game will never end because the scene where you wake up to find that everything has changed can't happen until you've reached PEAK DESPAIR. Common scenes will stop appearing, and you'll just have week after week of stat-raising going nowhere until you give up and play through the route scenes.

It's designed that way as a safety net in case you have trouble meeting the stat requirements for Act 2 scenes, to give you extra time to catch up rather than dumping you at some sort of bad end. But if the player insists on not playing the game, they can sit there forever being silly if that's what they want....

LunaEclipse18

Re: a little lily princess

#52 by LunaEclipse18 - Feb 20 2016

This looks adorable <3

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#53 by hanako - Feb 23 2016

Doing my first pass through adding music and sound effects now - Jessie's route first, then backing up to run through the others.

The last batch of CGs has been sent to the artist.

The backgrounds are still running a little behind, though.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#54 by hanako - Feb 27 2016

Soundtracking for Lottie's route is done.

katicflis

Re: a little lily princess

#55 by katicflis - Mar 1 2016

Got any kind of timeline for us?

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#56 by hanako - Mar 2 2016

It depends on artists! I can't make them draw faster (much as I wish I could)... I've soundtracked 4 of the 6 routes and am touching up the GUI but while I can hope the art will be finished this month I can't count on it.

edit: One artist just checked in sick and requested the month off to recover, so I guess that kind of suggests this is going to take a while...

Hoosha

Re: a little lily princess

#57 by Hoosha - Mar 4 2016

No offense but your artists are always unreliable..

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#58 by hanako - Mar 4 2016

Humans get ill, it generally isn't scheduled in advance.

But that is why it makes me feel bad to try and give any estimates of when things will be done. It's not POSSIBLE for me to know when things will be done until they actually are (or, at least, are very close to it). If I were sitting on a completed project putting it through a month of testing, then I'd be able to say that it would probably be done at the end of that month. If I were printing discs and waiting for them to come back from a printer, I'd have an estimated time of completion.

If, however, I've asked someone to draw 200 pictures or write 100,000 words, neither I nor they know precisely how long that will take and what events might delay the process. We can only estimate, and most people's estimates tend to be "If everything goes perfectly, it will be done in X". And nothing ever goes perfectly. That isn't their fault.

I have had a few artists who were actual problems in the past, I didn't work with them again after that. Things happening is just life, though.

At least they didn't eat poisoned chocolates.

Bornsecular

Re: a little lily princess

#59 by Bornsecular - Mar 4 2016

Working with people in any capacity is a crapshoot. We are all quite fallible, delicate things. At least we keep getting regular updates! Keep on keepin' on.

LateWhiteRabbit

Re: a little lily princess

#60 by LateWhiteRabbit - Mar 8 2016

hanako:
Humans get ill, it generally isn't scheduled in advance.

But that is why it makes me feel bad to try and give any estimates of when things will be done. It's not POSSIBLE for me to know when things will be done until they actually are (or, at least, are very close to it). If I were sitting on a completed project putting it through a month of testing, then I'd be able to say that it would probably be done at the end of that month. If I were printing discs and waiting for them to come back from a printer, I'd have an estimated time of completion.

If, however, I've asked someone to draw 200 pictures or write 100,000 words, neither I nor they know precisely how long that will take and what events might delay the process. We can only estimate, and most people's estimates tend to be "If everything goes perfectly, it will be done in X". And nothing ever goes perfectly. That isn't their fault.

I have had a few artists who were actual problems in the past, I didn't work with them again after that. Things happening is just life, though.

At least they didn't eat poisoned chocolates.

No kidding. We artists are fickle creatures. One of my favorite artists (Josh Middleton) is too slow to reliably work on a monthly comic book - so they give him the job of doing covers, and if he starts even a 4 issue mini-series, someone else inevitably has to finish the series for him. Cassaday takes months to finish a comic book, and he is one of the top artists at Marvel.

Leonardo took 10 years to finish the Mona Lisa, and another 10 years to finish a bronze horse statue for the city.

What I'm saying is that we are terrible, terrible people, and no one should have to put up with us.

The training at art school was equal parts artistic techniques, and large doses of "MEET YOUR DEADLINE!"

I've seen the art for Lily Princess, and what is there so far is incredible. Definitely worth the wait in my opinion.

Pace

Re: a little lily princess

#61 by Pace - Mar 14 2016

After a long slumber I return to see a little gem cooking off in the background, just stopping by to say definitely picking this one up ^_^, Look at the bright side only too 4 years for me to make my first post; good show with this!

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#62 by hanako - Apr 7 2016

Coming Soon page for Steam is up:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/449250/

This is mostly so you can tell your friends who are Steam addicts to go hit the wishlist button now (anyone who wishlists should get email notifications when it launches, which should help the launch get off to a good start, which is super important for overall game performance)

And there are some screenshots there you may not have seen before, so have a peek.

But you're all waiting for the direct beta-testing period, right?

Currently, I'm expecting the final game to be $15 and the beta to be $10. I don't have a final launch date set for either of them. We're still waiting on the last bits of artwork to come in, and I don't want to give a definite date and then disappoint people. We may end up launching the beta with some of the art still missing, since you'll be able to replace it later. Not sure yet.

Darksilverhawk

Re: a little lily princess

#63 by Darksilverhawk - Apr 9 2016

I will wait eagerly for the direct beta to start!

(also, not a huge thing, but the text on the Stream trailer is almost impossible to read)

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#64 by hanako - Apr 9 2016

(Yeah, sorry about that. It was readable at the size it was created, less so on the steam page, and I couldn't see that properly until it was live. I hate making trailers.)

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#65 by hanako - Apr 17 2016

Updated the trailer to have bigger, more readable text. Steam wouldn't let me delete the original one, and the options to not show it in the storefront didn't seem to be working, so I eventually had to set the original trailer to only display in the Vatican.

I'm sure they won't mind having two trailers.

Finally got around to soundtracking Becky's route and adding some requested extra help features. Pretty much everything is done codewise except for making a demo version. Still waiting on art.

StarViella

Re: a little lily princess

#66 by StarViella - Apr 18 2016

This is super exciting!

LittleRaven

Re: a little lily princess

#67 by LittleRaven - Apr 30 2016

I'm so \o/ at this game coming to life so soon! It was my favorite back on the future projects list and I never expected it to happen within a year or so.

hanako

Re: a little lily princess

#68 by hanako - Apr 30 2016

still awaiting: one CG's final color, one sekrit bonus that probably won't be in the beta, one background, final polish on one other background, coding the demo because I've been playing RPGs all week instead

(And I often don't want to split off a demo until beta anyway, in case something has to be adjusted.)