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[longshorts]

I love the look of this. The world needs more watercolor games. Keep up the good work!

[JaJ]

This looks wonderful!

GRAPHICS
We're a little bummed out after our animator left due to their internship and finding a replacement is proving very difficult. We've thought about two different solutions but would like to hear your opinion:

> Draw characters by hand and animate them with Toonboom. We've not used the program before but it should be a good alternative to traditional hand-drawn animations.

> 3D models; we can create and easily animate them but fear the watercolour backgrounds + 3D characters would not blend well. We want to avoid the goofy look of old Final Fantasy games, but are unsure how.

 Any ideas or advice would be incredibly useful at this point. Thanks in advance!

I think out of these two options, 3D models sound like the hardest to get right within this style, you'd need really solid models and textures for them to blend in. Not sure about toonboom either since I never used it, I hope it is good enough to create subtle animations, instead of typical cartoon animations.

[Pixel Noise]

This looks awesome! I loved Spice and Wolf, and wondered right away if that was an influence on the design. Definitely curious to hear some OST samples when you have them - the world itself seems a bit "off" and definitely diverse, so it will be interesting to try to match music to that

[Bricabrac]

I love the look of this. The world needs more watercolor games. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! We're really satisfied about the style we choose, feedback so far have been overwhelmingly positive ^^
Watercolors are working well for us for various reasons:
- they're not only pretty, they're distinctive. That's real important when you're a little indie game struggling to get noticed.
- they're easier to pull off than "standard videogame graphics", since we all went to art school and watercolors were the bane of our existence for years.
- using hand-drawn graphic in game is proving to be comfier than expected, thanks to collision maps. We'll talk about this in our next devlog.

I think out of these two options, 3D models sound like the hardest to get right within this style, you'd need really solid models and textures for them to blend in. Not sure about toonboom either since I never used it, I hope it is good enough to create subtle animations, instead of typical cartoon animations.

Yeah, I fear hand-drawn animations are still our best option. The problem is, the workload is starting to be really heavy for just the three of us.
So, animators, send us your portfolios. We'll need help sooner or later

This looks awesome! I loved Spice and Wolf, and wondered right away if that was an influence on the design.

Spice and wolf was definitely an influence! I know there's a DS game based on the franchise, but sadly it's Japanese only and I can't try it... I'd really like to see how they handled the gameplay.

Rune Factory, the Harvest Moon spin-off about living in a fantasy world, was another huge influence. Those games have a (weak) overarching plot, but their true focus are the tons of sub-quests based around interesting NPCs and their personal issues, often interacting with each other. I really loved that feeling of living in a close community of friends, and hope Selling Sunlight will have a similar atmosphere.

Definitely curious to hear some OST samples when you have them - the world itself seems a bit "off" and definitely diverse, so it will be interesting to try to match music to that

First time I heard our composer play, he was beating rocks in front of a microphone and accompanying it with the distorted sounds of an hacked keyboard.
I think he's crazy enough to work with us. Music samples should come by September.

[JaJ]

Also consider that having detailed, unanimated portraits is still perfectly acceptable. Just look at newer fire emblem games. I know it may not be ideal, but it may be better than having cartoonish animations or 3D models. 

[Bricabrac]

Also consider that having detailed, unanimated portraits is still perfectly acceptable. Just look at newer fire emblem games. I know it may not be ideal, but it may be better than having cartoonish animations or 3D models.  

Portraits will surely be static, and have 2-3 different emotions at maximum. Having a varied cast of NPCs, at the moment, is more important than having lots of fancy animations.
Animations will be needed just for the character sprites. We have maps, at least the main character should be able to walk around.
I fear lots of NPCs will stand very still in our demo. Luckly it's a game about merchants, so it's only natural for them to stay behind a counter  

[JaJ]

Ah, I thought you wanted to animate the portraits too, and I thought that was kind of unnecessary. XD
I think for smaller sprites something like toonboom likely works out just fine. I'd try it out

[Bricabrac]

Devlog #4 - Sexy bard and the mystery of the flying sofas

Our fearless background artist made the first watercolored backgrounds, so we started putting them into the game!
By default, Rpgmaker can't handle pixel-by-pixel movement, but luckly there are pre-made scripts for that.
We put the drawings as background images, made our collision maps, and put all the parts that needed to stay over the character, like chairs and tables, on a separate level using the titleset editor.
Obviously, bugs were found. Our characters are much taller than rpgmaker's default sprites, so this happened:



Our solution? Instead of simple pictures, chairs and tables became "events" - rpgmaker's way of saying "elements of the game programmed to do something".
The games now costantly checks the coordinates of the character, and changes the events proprieties accordingly from "stay above character" to "appear below character". It's convoluted, but it works!



Hopefully the system won't lag on large maps.

[Riho]

I really like what I'm seeing so far. Good luck with the game!

[Vilanat]

Yeah, same. it looks gorgeous.

[Bricabrac]

Just passing to say that Selling Sunlight got featured on Siliconera!
Expect a new devlog as soon as we stop drinking. Lots of exciting news to share.

[Bricabrac]

Devlog #4 - Getting serious


We have a shiny new website! People have asked for it (it was totally Alexis Kennedy's fault), so we made one - complete with a mailing list - and we've also now got a Twitter account. Follow us for solar blessings, lore tidbits and irregular doses of pretty watercolors.

Website - Twitter

So, what have we been up lately?


GAMEPLAY
We don't have many new screenshots to show, because we've mostly been coding the foundation of our gameplay: boring stuff like "merchants NPCs (non-player characters) now refresh their stock every month" and "every NPC will only buy certain types of goods from you".

We also spent two weeks coding a system to keep all our in-game text separated from the engine. This means we can now read, write and edit the dialogues without even opening the game. We had to re-format our script for the new system, which was painful and time-consuming, but we needed this to avoid severe headaches while proofreading.


GRAPHICS
We finally have an animator!
Bev Campbell works digitally, but with such grace her work almost looks traditionally colored. She's still trying to find the right art style, but we think her little sprites will blend well with our backgrounds:

We've also been working on the UI. Watercolors aren't the best medium when it comes to creating repeatable patterns, so we're still experimenting. Have a look at the city UI:

Whenever you enter a city from the overworld map, you'll be presented with a screen like this. From here you can select a location to visit, read the area descriptions or check the status of the market in the area. Each city excels at producing a category of goods, like bee products or glasswork, while others are always in demand.


CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT: THE BARD
You've probably seen this smug cutie before: His Blondiness is the poster boy of our game. But who is he, exactly?

Here are four random facts about him:

- He's a magician, and also a bard. The two jobs are roughly the same thing anyway.
- He has an unhealthy obsession with kings, and only tells tales about royalty.
- He loathes mirrors. How does he manage to maintain his look, you ask? Well, he has many lovers. He's probably seeing a hair stylist or two.
- Yes, of course you can flirt with him.

Bonus picture: the bard was our lab rat when we were still experimenting with the art style.

May the Sun shine on your path even in this chilly season.

[WarpQueen]

Wonderful art style, I really wish I could draw like that...
Look forward to seeing more of this!

[Panurge]

Mushishi? Invisible Cities? Sexy bards? Whatever it is you're peddling, I'm sold already!

[valrus]

Yay, I love this kind of game; don't know how I missed it. (Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest that you should play Nomad by GameTek, one of my all-time favorite games.)

Just a thought about the physics of the world: if a planet tidally locks and manages to keep its atmosphere at all (as opposed to losing all of it to sublimation on the cold side), you should get a strong, cold, constant wind at ground level, and always towards the helling boiling storm at the sunward "pole".  This would have consequences for the world, like in sailing, air travel, and energy.  (Like you'd expect to see lots of windmills, because you can always rely on the wind being there and going in a particular direction, but it'd be a big problem for balloon/zeppelin travel.)

Was the Stilling a sudden change, or just gradual locking over millennia?

[Bricabrac]

Yay, I love this kind of game; don't know how I missed it. (Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest that you should play Nomad by GameTek, one of my all-time favorite games.)

Didn't knew about this game, thanks for the suggestion!

Just a thought about the physics of the world: if a planet tidally locks and manages to keep its atmosphere at all (as opposed to losing all of it to sublimation on the cold side), you should get a strong, cold, constant wind at ground level, and always towards the helling boiling storm at the sunward "pole".  This would have consequences for the world, like in sailing, air travel, and energy.  (Like you'd expect to see lots of windmills, because you can always rely on the wind being there and going in a particular direction, but it'd be a big problem for balloon/zeppelin travel.)

Yeah, I read about this, I found a couple of good essays about the possibilities of life on tidally-locked planets. 
While strong winds will surely be present, I decided they won't be a key focus of the setting. Part of the reason is that Alain Damasio (lore writer of the videogame Remember Me) already wrote an incredible novel about a world where the wind never stops blowing.
It's one of my favourite books. It would be hard for me to create a similar setting without being subconsciously influenced by the novel, and the result would feel recycled.
I choose not to compete.

So the world will have frequent and strong tempests, but no costant winds, and this lack of scientific accuracy will be addressed in-game. Magic is involved, but not in a "it's magic ain't gonna explain shit" way - there's a subplot involving mages, spider-people, and their schemes to influence the world's climate. The main character is just a merchant and won't be too involved in global conspirations, but... Befriend the shady corporate overlords right people and you might be able to glimpse something.

Was the Stilling a sudden change, or just gradual locking over millennia?

Gradual locking over a short time span of a couple of years. This is an important detail of our setting - people understood what was happening, calculated the position of the planet once locked, and fought for a place in the strip of costant sunset.
That's why the map is full of city-states with different cultures, and some of them are very grumpy with each other. The war is officially over, but antipathies don't die so easily.

[Bricabrac]

Devlog #5 - Learning to Fail Better

Happy New Year, everyone! How's your 2017 going? We've been REALLY HAPPY and REALLY SCARED at the same time, so let's start by talking about the big terrifying news:


We've been in touch with the folks of Failbetter Games, creators of award-winning narrative games like Fallen London and Sunless Sea. They have a neat incubation program for beginner indie developers, and managed to find a spot for our writer/programmer (that's me!).

You may have heard about Sunless Sea, a game about roaming the seas, losing your mind and eating your crew.
The Kickstarter for the sequel, Sunless Skies, will launch in February.

This means I will be able to work in their London offices for a few months, receive a bit of tutoring and learn how a real studio works. What an incredibly scary and exciting experience! That's why we spent the last months screaming - uh, and also working, I swear.
For example, we made a demo. It's a shaky pre-alpha full of bugs and temporary assets, but it's nice to see everything coalesce into a playable build. It's not ready for public testing yet, but we've been receiving feedback from colleagues and friends.

One of the most common critiques was the exaggerated saturation of some backgrounds.
Traditional watercolors are, alas, a complicated medium: the brightness of the colours is dependant on natural sunlight, so putting the drawings in a scanner is a recipe for disaster. Despite a massive dose of post-production, we're still not satisfied with the results.

Look at the loss of detail on the wall and the carpet: the scanner ate all our blue tones.

Cold light scanners could be a solution, but since they are very very costly, we're going to experiment with cameras!
By using a high-resolution camera, we should be able to digitalize our watercolors without losing detail. It will also be interesting to shoot photos with different light condition - to use the sun itself as a post-production filter. It sounds appropriate for our game, doesn't it?

On the other hand, our animator Bev works digitally, and has been facing a different problem: create character sprites that will blend well with traditional art.

Looks like "No borders and clean lines" is the way to go, but now characters don't stand out very much.
We'll try to enhance their presence by using shadows.

Our composer also delivered atest track for the title screen - you can listen to it on Soundcloud.

More sprites: the Beauty and the Bard.

That's everything for now! May the Sun shine on your path.

[cynicalsandel]

posting to follow development. i lost the thread twice already because i couldn't remember the name.

[Bricabrac]

An interview with Failbetter Games

Hello!
Sorry for the lack of regular updates - I'm still alive, but have been horribly busy.
I was sent to the far North to learn to speak like a True Englishwoman and make better games. The Failbetter Games folks - makers of Fallen London and Sunless Sea - decided to pick me up as part of their incubation program.
This interview to the whole team was originally posted on the Failbetter Games Blog:


How did Selling Sunlight come about?

    Giada (writer): I was working in a marketing agency, where I was spending most of my time playing Fallen London during office hours and farming games at home, to heal my soul.

    I was lifeless. I was bored.

    Sometimes you work on an idea carefully, and sometimes influences just brew subconsciously in your head and then explode. At some point I just knew I had to make exactly THIS GAME – then I had a job no more, and so I started making it, because why not. Friends got curious, someone started asking “can I draw the little cute icons for the items?” and a team was formed. Accidentally.


Where does the name Selling Sunlight come from?

    Giada: We made a big list of word related to our game’s main themes, which are:

•         Traveling vs. standing still
•            Buying and selling
•           The sunset
•            Bees

    Then we just meshed the words together until something nice-sounding came out. Not very fascinating, I know.

    Chiara (background artist): I remember we were torn between this title and Sunlight Seller, but Selling Sunlight just rings better.


Tell me a bit about the player character in Selling Sunlight.

    Giada: Your character did something BAD, and as a result has been forced to lose their identity and wear a mask.

    We want players to truly immerse themselves in this world, but this would have required countless customization options. By having a faceless character, everyone can decide what’s behind the mask! This also makes you no ordinary merchant, but a MYSTERIOUS RASCAL. Non-player characters will also have a reason to be curious about you, making interactions more natural.


The world in Selling Sunlight is stuck – the planet itself used to turn, but no longer does. What kind of design and story opportunities does this offer you?

    Giada: The planet stopped turning only 300 years ago, so people are still getting accustomed to the changes. Different communities now share a very tight habitable space, and they sort of tolerate each other, but old grudges are still very much alive. There’s also a religious crisis ongoing, because the Sun was once considered a God.
    Someone believes that the Earth fell in love with the Sun, and now can’t stop looking at him. Others just think that the Sun is trying to burn everyone.

    Chiara: Besides the storytelling options, a still world has an undeniably charming atmosphere: everything is suspended between darkness and light, nothing is clearly defined and everything is mysterious. Exactly like our stories and our characters.


What inspired the watercolour art style?

    Anita (character designer): We decided to do what we’re best at: traditional drawing. The whole project is based on the feeling we could make an awesome product without fancy materials or shiny graphics. Of all the choices we had, watercolours happened to perfectly fit the mood we wanted for the game, as well as being our first choice in traditional colouring.

    Chiara: I admit watercolors aren’t my favourite medium, but as Anita said they perfectly fit our game’s atmosphere. Background after background, I’m starting to appreciate their versatility. Trying to get the lighting just right in every picture is proving to be especially difficult and exciting.


You’ve chosen a combatless experience in this game – what inspired that choice?
    Anita: The game we wanted to make had to be relaxing, yet challenging. Also, it seems like fighting is almost your only choice when it comes to RPGs: we’re so used to get out of every uncomfortable situation by drawing a sword! How about something different, once in a while?



Don't forget to follow us on Twitter (@sellingsunlight) for more regular updates!

[Bricabrac]

Devlog #6: Moving forward. Standing still.

"...the end."
"That's it? That story had no moral, what was the point?"
"Stories don't need a moral to have meaning."
"Ah, there it is."
@ASmallFiction
- - -

Works of fiction need to have a meaning. This is especially true for a game like Selling Sunlight, which doesn't have a strong overarching plot but lots of small intersecting storylines. Having a central theme helps with keeping the tone consistent, making the narrative more coherent and compelling.
Finding your game's theme means answering the most difficult question:
what is the game exactly about?

“BEES EVERYWHERE” is usually a good answer when in doubt, but this proved not to be the case.
Regrettably.


When Selling Sunlight was still "unnamed merchant simulator RPG" I tought our main theme was "the value of things".
How much is a man's life worth? How much are you willing to sacrifice for business?

It was a pretty dark theme, now that I think of it.
(© Recettear: an Item Shop's Tale)

Working on the main storylines, I realized the game we were making wasn't really about money: we were using bartering as a way to connect with people - as an excuse for befriending other merchants and getting dragged into their personal storylines.
The main character is an outcast, forced to a life of never-ending wanderings. But by traveling, they can touch the lives of those who usually stand still, bringing a new point of view to people in need of a change.
Because in a word that stands still, you will have to move forward.
This is our new main theme.

Speaking of our main character, their race is one of the main things you can personalize. Here we're experimenting with skin tones.
Do you feel they're diverse/representative enough? We'd like to hear your opinion!
(And yes, you can be a plant! Of course you can be a plant.)

Until next time, may the Sun shine on your path.
Hope you won't get burned.