Game Dev Update - First Thoughts on Post v1.0 Ramen no Oujisama

Hey guys!

I've some thoughts on what ought to be done with Ramen no Oujisama now that we're past v1.0. The game can use some upgrades here and there, given its two-year plus development. Improvements were made as we coursed through its development but this wasn't done across the board - because standards on various aspects of the game before were different to what I've got now. So we stuck with what we had and finished it according to those previously set standards.

These current improvements were not possible without Summer in Springtime, despite how much that game's development tortured me lol.

So what kind of improvements are we looking at for Ramen no Oujisama? There are many aspects that can be touched on. These include:

• Character sprite improvements: This is essentially a redo of the character sprites we have. Like Summer in Springtime, I can ask for help from Ukyu and we'd have our hybrid artwork. Since I'm doing the final artwork anyway, I can do it like in Summer in Springtime - the body is shared, but there can be two kinds of styles, applied mainly to the head area. This improvement is very time consuming, as it involves art from scratch all the way to exhaustive script modifications. My idea is to get our version out first, before applying Ukyu's style in. This is possible, but it will take a lot of time to do. I may also opt to just go for a single style, if this is too crazy to do.
• Special scene sprite improvements: Again, essentially redos of affected special scene animations. There are many that can benefit from this, as you've seen in Sango's SE02 V2. This is possible as well, but all the scenes will have to be modified if we want Ukyu's stuff in there as well. This will take a lot of time to do.
• "Fun" addons: Due to how I made the animations and scripts, I think this will be quite a pain to do right now without the character sprite improvements. I think it's possible to set it like if you want the characters wearing random headgear - like furry ears - or something like that. This may be limited in scope though, otherwise, having, let's say, horns for Sango would need to be applied to the character sprite and special scenes. This will really depend on what I come up with in the character sprite and special scenes - it may not be realistically possible at all! Or maybe the "Fun" stuff can be tied to Omake Scenarios and special scenes used here.
• Omake Scenarios: I think if we want light stories or rather, one-offs that end in special scenes, these can be done, but work here will depend on the load of getting the general sprite and special scene improvements done. This section may or may not depend on on Sharkie.
• Ren's Route: I almost forgot, Ren's route. Hers will be a longer one from what Sharkie told me. Now her route will be done in due time, but as you can see, this complicates things with the upgrades I'm thinking of. I can prep the other upgrade materials first while finishing Ren's route in the current form, before putting together the upgrades.

So as you can see, post v1.0 work is like recreating the game, only it's a lot bigger than Summer in Springtime. My problem with this is the sheer amount of work needed to make these happen.

From what I've seen with the new head and face works that I've been posting up, it seems a good number of you like to see this sort of improvements.

On top of these, there are the final special scenes with Ukyu's artwork for Summer in Springtime that I've yet to touch on, and Godhood  - which is always pushed back because of these other works, and the digital artbook that I've yet to finish.

So I'm going to give these some more thought, and see which one is best to do first. Alot of these are in the "we'll see" phase, since there may be a lot of things that I don't know about that'll hit me only when I stumble on them, and that may limit what can and can't be done down the road. 

Right now, what I might want to touch on is Summer in Springtime and the artbook, to get those out of the way, while Ukyu can help me with the line arts of the new character sprites.