(This is actually Devlog # 15 for my monthly devlogs! I have a mirror of this devlog on my main post, though I want to share it here too since it contains my thought process on the game itself!)

Dang, I got a lot done in March! I submitted the demo for my new game I Got Transported Into My How to Draw Manga Book!? to NaNoRenO 2024 and had a blast making some backgrounds for Heiden’s NaNoRenO game Hug Embassy! It’s about about hugging sad girls who are Truly Going Through It and need a hug. Go play it and also play all of Heiden’s games on their page, they make tons of cool fun games I really like~!

As for the demo for I Got Transported Into My How to Draw Manga Book!?, I'll talk more in depth about it and my experience doing NaNoRenO this year because well, a lot has happened lol. I guess this will be a post mortem for it, though are there post mortems for demos? I honestly don't know lol, but I still want to talk through my thought process during the month in hopes of helping someone out or if you're curious at the very least. I don't want to reveal too much about the game, so any more detail will probably be explained in the future!

So what's with the concept huh?

So I'm in a discord server and we're all discussing places and settings you can be isekai’d to. Everyone was coming up with really cool and well thought out and gripping ideas, but my mind was blanking and it ultimately fell to something goofy like “what if you got isekai’d into a How to Draw book” lol

But then my brain started ticking like. “What if you got isekai’d into a How to Draw book? What would the world look like because it's not like there's a setting or characters besides the people you draw.  Omg what if it's the one all of us had when we were teens, the How to Draw Manga book from Scholastic book faires? Oh boy I'm showing my age with this huh.”

And I brought this up with my good friend Shyfox, who actually has the How to Draw Manga book I was thinking of! (I never was able to get that book as a child unfortunately.) By the way, you may have seen them in the credits of my previous visual novels as a beta tester and beta reader, and when I told them about my idea for this they wanted to help out! The unfortunate thing is that everything Shyfox contributed to are the parts we aren't able to publish yet (namely Pigma’s route) but they did provide a lot of input on route planning in general and getting me back on track when my ideas went too wild lol.

So why release a demo instead of the full game?

Well, it's a combination of several things but the biggest ones were the fact that Shyfox got sick in the first half of March during the writing phase so I helped them with getting Pigma’s route written, and then I got sick in the last week of March while coding everything! We actually got all of the writing we planned to do during the jam, but getting sick definitely slowed down dev time. I still wanted to get the game out, so a demo it shall be!

A little fact about me: I actually have attempted NaNoRenO in the past, but never could get a game done in time. Each year was a lesson in management and planning on getting something done in 30 days, and after some successful jam releases like The Perfect Portrait and Making a Monster for Only One of Any Asset  VN Jam and Wolf's Wool for Nonbinary Jam, maybe I can actually do NaNoRenO successfully?

And I did! Perhaps not a full game like I wanted, but I'm still proud of what was able to get done. I was really nervous about releasing a demo instead of a full game because I didn't intend for the common route/intro to be written like a demo so I had no clue how everyone would react to what I was able to release, but I've seen all the kind comments and support and I'm truly touched a lot of people like my silly game idea haha.

You’ve never been able to release a game for NaNoRenO? How’d you do it this time?

Usually my process is GUI/Base Code→Writing→Dummy asset making and/or soft coding→final editing/coding and final assets. It's not a set of hard rules, but rather a way for me to streamline my process because it's always worked for me before.

I know for a fact that the more that I write in the script, the more I need to code and draw for in the end. I did set a prospective word count in hopes of getting something short and sweet out, which was around 2.5K~ words for intro and 2.5-4K~ for each route, ending with a total of 7.5-9k total for the entire game. Sounds doable in a month, right? Especially since I'm only drawing one bg art and two sprites.

…And then my cowriter got sick and the writing was delayed.

…And then I got sick so the coding got delayed.

lol welp

Ah well, I'll try again next year!  Even having to make a demo instead of a full game because of setbacks is really valuable info to me, so I'm glad to have been able to get a demo out!

What about the drawing code?

Oh I can't take credit for that. The code was made by NyashniyVladya and I got it from their github! All I really did was redesign the GUI for my game and added the prompt up top. I'm really glad for the code because something like a drawing program from the ground up is far too complex for me. Heck, I'm still struggling with trying to add an erase option lol

There's stuff I'd like to add to it but idk if I honestly can figure it out! It seems like everyone is really receptive to the drawing option, so hopefully nobody requests for an update on the code because I don't honestly think I can within a reasonable amount of time. 😅 Still, I'm really happy I'm able to put a drawing mini game in a game about drawing things~

I do find it interesting that there were comments about people not playing a visual novel with a drawing mechanic before, because my idea to have a drawing minigame came from another VN with a drawing minigame haha. I got a lot of inspiration from Nick Lives’s game Doodle Date, which has a ton of really funny prompts in the game itself. In fact my favorite drawing prompt ever is at the end of Sketchy’s route, but I’m not gonna spoil it because you should play the game yourself.     

How about them visuals?

This was fun to figure out! At first I was thinking of drawing Pigma and Sakura in the same style you see in 2000s era How to Draw Manga books because to me they're super cute and nostalgic of 2000s Era DeviantArt art styles, but then I had an even better idea! Why not use my own drawings during that time?

So edited and traced over my middle school drawings and colored them in like I would back then!

I'm not kidding! In fact if I actually had the time, I would have actually traced over them with paper, inked it with the Micron pens they're named after, colored them in with colored pencils, and scanned it in with my scanner! I didn't have that luxury though, so I tried my best with some pencil and Micron-esque brushes in CSP.

Pigma and Sakura are modern characters in that they're not my super old OCs I've had for years, so I did come up with designs for them before using my middle school art as a base. But I did give them design traits my middle school self would've absolutely loved.

As for layouts, I was looking at how some How to Draw Manga books did their text layouts. The sci-fi esque futuristic vibes in the logos and the book layout is very charming! I'm probably biased though since it makes me nostalgic. I thought it would be really funny to make the fact that you're in a book actually literal, such as the acknowledgements and the table of contents. There really isn't that much to relay setting in the actual books themselves since of course there would be more white space, to help show off the drawings! I honestly can't wait to explore how to play with this because it's so odd yet really fun and freeing in how weird I can get lol

So what now? And when are you going to finish the full game?

Well first I’m gonna rest for a week or two. I was sick after all and I’m fine now, but I do think it’s best for my mental health to take a bit of time away from the game since I did work on it for a solid month.

As for when the full game will be finished: who knows! I don’t like to give hard set dates because I’m also working on other projects I know I should get done. I mentioned earlier in previous devlogs that I do want to get my older projects the accessibility overhauls and artbooks they deserve before publishing new games, so this game may be on the backburner as I juggle some things around. I would like to have it done by year’s end since the game is fully written, but again, no promises!

So that’s it for now! I’m really happy with being able to get something out for NaNoRenO~! Speaking of which, be sure to play Hug Embassy too! Also, be sure to check out other entries submitted to NaNoRenO this year and give them 5 stars if you liked them! There's a lot of cool stuff out there

Until next month, I shall see you later~! Take it easy and stay safe out there!

          ~Knickknack PJ 

  ★ WEBSITE| KO-FI | PATREON | COHOST!| TWITTER | TUMBLR | INSTAGRAM ★