Celestial Tear: Demon's Revenge [RELEASE]

[trexrell]

You just brought it to my attention that it does not say the game will be in chapters on the website. We plan to do in chapters for a couple of reasons and try our best to stick to a 2 to 3 month update schedule finishing the full game within a year. At this point you can say we have a full team of artist and coders working with us and this includes some from our publisher. The first chapter will be released very close to the time we originally were planning, I'm estimating late April to early May and that is if we decide to add another character more locations and get some more motion comics to add to our story telling elements. Not to mention to get us a better jump on promotion and testing. We are very excited about the coming months and hope to get some good feedback in March.

[trexrell]

Big Plans For March

So we are ending our February and coming into what could be our biggest event since our Kickstarter campaign. We are on a schedule of releasing our playable demo by the third week of March. We want to give you guys a little incite of what the demo will contain and how things have changed since our campaign up until now.

Demo News

The demo will be about an hour long depending on how you play it. It will be more or less an intro into the actual story and feature our main character. When we release the demo we are really going to be looking for some strong feedback, everything will be upgraded and we feel we can not make a great experience without your input. Our goal is to make a really great game, we want the game to do well commercially and critically.

Voice work

We have had some issues with the voice work for some of the characters in the demo. Most of that was due to some of the voices we rushed and acquired shortly before its release. Now we are going with our core and strongest group of voice actors for the next showcase. That would include Jalen K. Cassell, the voice of Jagen , Cecilia Yus, who will voice Mioni and hopefully Amira, Echo Viridian as Sinara, and our newly acquired voice actress Danielle Mcrae who will be the new voice of Sen.

Sprite Work

We are wrapping up this month with a lot of great news and content. I have been working on Jagen again and I have been making his sprite look more like the image that Ricky has drawn. I have added more detail to his armor and upgraded his gauntlet to look more like Ricky's detailed work.

Using this design I have been implementing it into Jagen's combo animations and I really like how they look opposed to what they were before. This new version will be featured in the demo, so he will definitely have to look the best he can look.

I have also been working on some animations dealing with the character sprites such as climbing, jumping, bending down, and stance. Here is a small example of Sen's in game map sprite.

We have enlisted some more on on tile sets over the past couple of weeks and the production has been fantastic! We have had some really talented people come along and the work they have produced along with our contracted spriter is amazing you are really going to enjoy what we have to offer as far as landscapes go.

Music

I firmly believe that we should have one of the best soundtracks for an indie game this year. Mark continues to impress with his remakes of our older tracks. Jagen's new battle theme may be one of the the best tracks he's made so far. I personally think Jagen has all of the best music associated with him. I can not wait to hear you guys' opinions on it.

The Full Game

We have plans to release the game in the near two to three months. That being said, I want to clarify what this game will feature and what may be left out as far as the first chapter goes. As you all should know, this game is going to be chapter 1 of a full length RPG experience. We aim to make the chapters at least between 14 and 17 hours. We have 3 playable characters, 8 areas in 4 locations, and a few secret ones too, all in the first chapter.

What we may or may not be leaving out is an additional playable character and 3 more areas which would just take a little bit more time but could be added to the next chapter.We shall find out what we could do with that by the end of March.

-Tyrell and Whitney White

[Kain Nobel]

I've been sitting on a certain thought for at least a week by now, so I might as well spill the beans. The last thing I want to see is a commercial project go through development hell...

Content Hidden

Certainly, in a TV, web or film series, episodes make sense, but games are more interactive and less of a spectator medium. Releasing these complex projects in episodes is certainly doable, Master of the Wind did just fine doing it this way, but I'm sure they all faced ramifications from this format. I'm not saying episodes are a bad thing, MOTW had a great fan base and did a good job, but it wasn't under the commercial and publisher pressures like your project is. Matter of fact, I would urge you to get in contact with Volrath and Artbane themselves and see if they have any "heads up" style advice on this subject.

I'm just skeptical of trying to maintain a commercial game this way, as with scope comes complexity and with that comes having to fix something from six episodes ago interfering with the here 'n now. I personally think it's better to make something from start to finish and QA test it to death and then, when you're confident it's mostly stable, release it to the wild as a complete package, hoping players will be coming back with only minor bugs.

I mean, yeah, it's all doable and you can get more publicity and feedback through episodes, but I'd imagine you'd have to have it established very early on everything technical that will be in the game. Also, one would need to be ready to append changes in the database so the player can keep passing on their save file from one episode to the next without accidentally overwriting what they currently have, ie the infamous "corrupt save file" bug.

I'm not trying to deter you from doing episodes, if that's how you plan to do it, but if you're doing it for the sake of your publisher's orders you might want to discuss these points with them. You and your team appear to be intelligent, talented and driven individuals, so perhaps you've already anticipated the challenges. You need to love your project because the project isn't always going to love you.

Not only am I looking forward to everything up and coming, I'm hoping you guys have success and am interested in learning more about your experiences with the making of this project; the good, the bad, the ugly. I've already got too many commitments currently, but maybe we'll work together in the future some day. Until then, keep that passion :)

[trexrell]

I've been sitting on a certain thought for at least a week by now, so I might as well spill the beans. The last thing I want to see is a commercial project go through development hell...

Content Hidden

Certainly, in a TV, web or film series, episodes make sense, but games are more interactive and less of a spectator medium. Releasing these complex projects in episodes is certainly doable, Master of the Wind did just fine doing it this way, but I'm sure they all faced ramifications from this format. I'm not saying episodes are a bad thing, MOTW had a great fan base and did a good job, but it wasn't under the commercial and publisher pressures like your project is. Matter of fact, I would urge you to get in contact with Volrath and Artbane themselves and see if they have any "heads up" style advice on this subject.

I'm just skeptical of trying to maintain a commercial game this way, as with scope comes complexity and with that comes having to fix something from six episodes ago interfering with the here 'n now. I personally think it's better to make something from start to finish and QA test it to death and then, when you're confident it's mostly stable, release it to the wild as a complete package, hoping players will be coming back with only minor bugs.

I mean, yeah, it's all doable and you can get more publicity and feedback through episodes, but I'd imagine you'd have to have it established very early on everything technical that will be in the game. Also, one would need to be ready to append changes in the database so the player can keep passing on their save file from one episode to the next without accidentally overwriting what they currently have, ie the infamous "corrupt save file" bug.

I'm not trying to deter you from doing episodes, if that's how you plan to do it, but if you're doing it for the sake of your publisher's orders you might want to discuss these points with them. You and your team appear to be intelligent, talented and driven individuals, so perhaps you've already anticipated the challenges. You need to love your project because the project isn't always going to love you.

Not only am I looking forward to everything up and coming, I'm hoping you guys have success and am interested in learning more about your experiences with the making of this project; the good, the bad, the ugly. I've already got too many commitments currently, but maybe we'll work together in the future some day. Until then, keep that passion :)

We definitely considered all of that since we fully realized that we were indie devs that could not gather all the funds to make the project full and complete from the door. We also feel a certain obligation to do right by the people who were willing to fund the project to the point to where it is. We clearly could not have moved as fast as we have without that help, or garnered the attention from the publisher for that matter. We are trying to be competent as possible, our publisher in no way requires us a release date or force us to comply to a certain business model. Although we are open and willing to take advice from them, we push ourselves like any other serious business and set our own goals and deadlines that we work to achieve.

Thanks a lot Kain, we look forward to more feedback from you.


[We are coming very close to releasing the demo, we have worked very hard pushing each other and arguing with each other to make sure everything fits our combined vision. We feel that we have something that everyone will really have fun with. This month has been very exciting and we are eager to get feedback on everything that we have. Be prepared to lend us your unbiased opinion and let us know how you feel about everything when it comes out.

We are first going to be streaming the demo on hitbox with the Average Giants on Monday the 23rd at 9PM EST. Come see us get some direct criticism and see what Indie Game Magazine has to say about our game. If you guys can come and lend us the support, we would really appreciate it. It is always a fun stream and both Nicks are really cool people and usually very nice.


Battle Background animation

One of the cool things that we are bringing to the table and that gives the battle backgrounds a bit more depth is adding some really solid animation. We have managed to get our animator, Chris Lewin, back on the job and he has produced some really solid results check it out!



Ricky is at it again and he has done some really cool art work. He's interpreting our vision from my less than stellar story boards. He started working on the intros of the three main characters and so far, just looking at the first frame it is going to be epic!

How I feel about our project right now

We have learned a few things through these past few months about our game and what we really want to provide the players with. I think one of the most important things that we wanted to do as a developer is come up with something that is fun, engaging, and interesting. Then I believe somewhere beyond those lines we feel that we have a bit of a mature audience and we wanted to do something that would have meaning and a bit of social commentary without taking itself too seriously. At this point the game has sort of taken on its own identity and it is sort of developing into something that we would have never seen coming, it has matured into its own individual thing and like a parent to it's children we are very proud of it. Our game is dark and a bit grim at times and we feel like we really can not help it. We think our game is perfect the way we are writing it and we really hope you all feel like it is too. I hope that our central message is interpreted properly and everyone is able to find enjoyment with something we put all our heart into.


To give just a little more insight into how we operate and what we are thinking when we are working on the game, we never had a sense that we want people to think of this game as something from their past like nostalgia, nor did we want to recreate the wheel. We have played and have been big fans of RPGs and games in general. Our first priority has been to balance every part of the game and I feel when one part of the game starts to look, sound, or even feel a bit better than the other, there is a tiny voice in the back of my mind that is letting me know that the other things just have to measure up. I think to myself how could this part be just as good and that is the tough part about making this game with all the great artists, musicians and minds working on this project. We want so badly for everything to come together.

Thanks,

-Tyrell and Whitney White

PS: We work directly with Artbane.

[DerVVulfman]

Artbane? Heheh... Got some golden years talent there, eh? No one wanted to ever join a contest in RPGMaker XP making against him! Tell him I said 'Hi!' :D

[trexrell]

Hey everyone, we have been pretty quiet over the last couple of weeks mostly because we are working towards a predetermined goal. We have been hammering at our demo for the last couple of weeks due to a stream that made us work twice as hard on our game due to some of the missteps that we saw within in it. The good thing is that we have a pretty good demo and we are going to distribute it to our backer beta testers soon.

Presentation


We have had some pretty solid work done by Ricky over that time. He has been working on some of the character intros as well as the world map and hopefully we'll see the complete versions soon. He has already done an excellent job as always



Battle System Status

We have just a few more things to implement and test with our battle system, although it is almost ready to distribute and test for our backers we still have much more that we need to do as far as visuals and bug fixes.


Frost Bite

We are pretty excited about the combos and the combo finishers. They add some real variety and excitement in the battle system, enough to hold your attention. As you go further into the game you will be able to unlock, upgrade and perform more combos to help keep you engaged and having fun throughout your gameplay.

Interactive objects are something that is in the game but we have yet to implement it. This is something else that will add a little more depth and variety in our system. As we have been playing our current build we realize that this could be used to make boss battles a little more strategic and add some variety in the ways you can defeat your enemies.


- Thanks again, Tyrell and Whitney White

[trexrell]

Official 1st trailer. Featuring the voice of professional voice actor and voice of honest trailers, Jon Baily. Coming to Steam August 20th

[trexrell]

[Ahzoh]

Badass trailer and game, bro.

It kinda makes me jealous... ='(

[trexrell]

Hey everyone. I just released my first game. It is available on Steam RIGHT NOW!! Let us know what you think, leave a steam review. $5.99 on Steam.


http://store.steampowered.com/app/385190/



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lq6lRIYtvQ