Indie Otome - Blog Posts

I am almost done with my revamp of my Oracle’s superhero costume, but I wanted to do this chart real quick. Making her Awkwardness level so high is just so endearingly hilarious because She constantly jumps whenever Nik sneaks up on her at her desk and she’s fumbling to play it cool. Not the best play it close to the vest, but she tries.

Also fun notes: Her name is closely related to Apollo and Delphi. “Laurie” refers to “laurel” or “sweet bay tree” which are one of the sacred symbols Apollo, while her last name “Kastri” is in reference to the Greek village that was formed above the ruins of the ancient site of Delphi.

( I am a Greek Myth nerd, so when I saw my chance I took it XD )

My Oracle (I call Laurie) & Nikolas/Chronos Fanart Inspired by screencaps from the Re: Cutie Honey Opening

I plan in the future on doing a more updated or detail design on the Oracle costume, though I hope this version will do. 😅

I just saw that the Kickstarter for the Indie Otome, Love at the Milky Way Diner, has reached and passed its goal! To celebrate I just wanted to post my MC, Ursa, and can’t wait to see what’s next to come.

For all those interested the demo is available to play through Steam and Itch.io

The LIs I can't wait to romance after playing their Demos! ❤️

Ais (Touchstarved)

Elias Gallagher (The Groom of Gallagher Mansion)

Peppermint (Candied Hearts)

I said I wasn't gonna do this, but after all the trouble of adding a bunch of outfit options into the character creation, it seemed like a waste to not be able to change your outfit after creating your character.

So now you can! Honestly, the bulk of the work is just getting all the outfits in; making it so you can change them turned out to be easier than I had thought. This applies to accessories and glasses too. Since making this video I've added all the items you can equip into the game, though I still have to make character portrait assets for several of them, which should be pretty easy since the clothes are just shoulder-up shots, and then some simple accessories.

So you can collect clothes and change them throughout the game. And I added more hairstyle options too, like a single braid (besides the double braids that were already there), wavy hair, and some other options.

I'm still debating whether or not to make the clothes mechanically significant in some way or just leave them as cosmetic only. Like should they provide some kind of stat boost while wearing them? The stats are supposed to represent your character's personality, so I'm not sure. But then, clothing choices can also be a reflection of one's personality, so maybe that should be a thing...? The personality traits are "the big 5" though, and I'm not sure what clothes read as "agreeable" vs "openness" or "extroversion" etc.

If anyone has any thoughts on that lmk

Edit: also not sure how Kage's birthday got messed up in this video but he's not a Capricorn, he's a Sagitterrorist ;p so I'll have to go in and fix that

Back to working on the customization options for the character creator at the start of the game. Working on getting more clothing options and accessories in (getting rid of the ugly placeholder hats etc.). See this post and this older one for more info on that.

Also got rid of the weird giant red flowers that were locked to the twin tail hair before. Kind of made it hard to accessorize that hairstyle when those were already "built-in."

And obviously you can be a variety of colors in terms of skin/hair/eyes, these are just "base values" shown that hues can be shifted from in the generator.

I've added more in than this but I didn't feel like making samples of all the new stuff.

Also made the Save menu a little more user-friendly, like showing information on each unique save file (like the in-game location you saved at, amount of $ on that save, in-game date and time and which characters you've met, in case anyone wants multiple save files and needs to keep track of them without having to load a save just to see where they are). RPG Maker also doesn't come built-in with an option to delete a save file from the save menu for some reason, so that's been added too.

EDIT Also, none of the clothing or hair options are locked to the body types, but some of the outfits might not layer properly on certain types (mainly the largest body type with broader shoulders will clip through a lot of the smaller-framed clothes). Unfortunate but that's a limitation of working with 2-D pixel art

Only the review for the Steam page, not the game, I'm not that fast D: But hopefully they approve my page and I don't have to make 10,000 revisions or anything

First floor of the carnival's haunted house, just testing the animation here. Cute little mouse eyes in the wall holes, painting eyes on upper floor do that cheesy follow you around thing, lightning windows, haunted couch, and the ceiling is leaking blood a little bit.

Will work on this more later but I'm probably gonna focus more on cat cafe for now, I mainly needed to start this for a screenshot for the Steam page :)

I know I said haunted house was next, but I decided to start the cat cafe first. Working on the haunted house today though. (Also cat cafe isn't done, obviously there has to be more cats etc.)

Since Steam wants a minimum of 5 screenshots, I'm trying to get a little more map variety for that so it doesn't look like the whole game takes place on a handful of maps. After I get something presentable for the haunted house I think that will give me enough to submit my upcoming game page to them for review!

Went back and did a little work on the character creator for 2-Headed Boy, just on the hue shifters to improve color selection.

Before "tan" skin looked too much like an orange spray tan. So I adjusted that to make it more natural looking and named it "medium." Also added an olive tone.

I added grey and brown to the eye color options and fixed the green so it looks less neon (there's still a bright green option though). Made yellow actually look yellow instead of light orange.

I have more work to do on this of course, the biggest thing being clothing and accessory options as I'm not crazy about the placeholder assets I have for those :/

New shop added for the Midnight City Mall in 2-Headed Boy, upcoming free to play yandere boyfriend RPG.

Buy candy, eat trash, be free

More work on the Valentine's Day event for 2-Headed Boy.

Updated logo for 2-Headed Boy, my under development F2P yandere boyfriend RPG.

How's your new boy?

Does he know about me?

Snippets from Valentine's Day in 2-Headed Boy. Give a seasonal gift to your love interest. If they've become attached enough to you by the time V-Day rolls around you can unlock them as a boyfriend (if you're not already dating!).

Just expect your yandere to have some things to say about it.

Working on the Social Media menu for the love interests. As you learn more about each of them, their "Likes" and "Dislikes" sections will fill. Keep track of their stats here as well. (Shown stats are for display purposes only, not the real stats, still working on those).

Relationship status will change of course depending on whether or not you progress far along enough on that love interest's route. Otherwise they will all read "Single," except for your yandere, who will read "It's Complicated," because of course it is...

Fixed the sprites for love interest Shinkiro, I accidentally made his skin peach-colored before. Now he's grey, just as God intended. Or y'know, whoever.

Walking sprite samples for love interest Yugen

A small carnival area for Midnight City. I still need to blend out the gradient on the ambient light for the night time Ferris wheel. And make the interior map for the haunted house.

Also considering putting a clock on the Ferris wheel, but I'm not sure if that would cause lag or not...still thinking about that one.

Finally put the final love interest into the game. The blonde is Yugen, birthdate May 21. He's the slowest burn of all routes, and also the one your yandere hates the most, because he's the most difficult route to sabotage. Once Yugen is invested in the player, he tends to not let go... This one's gonna be a tug of war for your yandere.

Next is to make a sprite set for him!

Expanded the arcade area a little, and if you read the text box there you'll see which new map I'll be working on next! After adding the final love interest, anyway.

Also added 3 new shops to the mall, the electronics store, noodle shop and a shoe boutique, for more gift options for your love interest.

Also added the grocery store. There's not much to buy there yet, but I plan on adding in the ingredients for the cooking system to that shop, so you can make little treats for the love interests. ...Don't let your yandere find out you're doing that though.

Other than that just kind of worked on optimizing map transfers to make them less janky. Oh, and not shown here but I started working on the holiday event things too!

Samples for 1st LI's sprite animation, Yurei! Now I can start working on a design for the final love interest option...

Sprite sheet for new LI Shinkiro is finished, here's a sample of him running! Yurei is next, then I'll do the design for the 3rd love interest option. Still gotta finish the mall too.

My eyes going blurry now @_@ thanks for the support! All revved up to work hard on this yandere boyfriend project

I started adding shops and items beyond just the food court to the Midnight City Mall, plus a few aimlessly wandering NPCs.

There's the book/plushie store and clothing store made so far, planning an electronic store and a shoe store next, along with a little noodle shop. Unfortunately all the items besides food are only gifts for your love interests for now (you can't equip clothing and have your character change outfits). Maybe after I release the game I'll patch that in, but for now I'm trying to mainly focus on features that directly impact gameplay/the storylines (gifts being a mechanic for boosting stats with love interests).

I also have a crafting/cooking system, and those gifts give better stat boosts with the love interests than shopping, but I haven't implemented the recipes/ingredients for those yet.

Also I finally actually put the banking system into the ATMs. Player gets a fixed amount of money every Friday deposited to their account, so you will need to budget somewhat in-game. Will add small ways to make extra money too at some point!

See my face when I slide through,

Every place I will find you

Every time we fell apart,

Girl, I see it in the scars

Added another love interest/rival to yandere for my yandere boyfriend RPG. New guy is Shinkiro (black hair), birthday August 24. Unlike Yurei (white haired glasses boy), Shinkiro is more outgoing and shameless. Yurei will try to avoid the yandere, and try to convince the player to also avoid him, pointing out his toxic behaviors. Shinkiro will deliberately antagonize yandere boy by flirting/being openly affectionate with the player in front of him.

Featuring a fully customizable MC for the player (gender, appearance, name, birthday and more). Free to play, WIP.

My darling,

When you smile

It is like a song...

And I can hear it now

"Baby, hold my hand

Let me be your man

Let me take you away from the cold,

Baby be my diamonds and gold"

So I lamely kind of burned myself out doing my taxes yesterday and didn't really get anything done on 2-Headed Boy, but I thought I should at least post a concept drawing of one of the other boyfriend options/rivals for the yandere boy.

This one is Yurei, birthday April 14, occupation: freelance artist/gig musician (vocals and piano). Went to a private art school from an early age. Lives on the 2nd floor of your apartment complex.

This one is a somewhat slow burn, does not give his heart easily but when he does...watch the switch flip!

Just started drawing assets for him so more to come soon ™

Worked on the light effects for 2-Headed Boy today. Before, the city lights would only turn on/off when the player loaded into a new map (depending on the in-game time during that map load), but that seemed pretty awkward. I mean, what if you're hanging out on the same map from daytime until it's supposed to be dark?

The map would get dark before, but the city lights wouldn't come on and the open/closed shop signs wouldn't switch without changing what area you're in, which could get confusing. If you were standing outside the mall and the business hours passed, the sign wouldn't light up "closed" instead of "open" unless you went into a building and came back out for example.

But now, light effects are dynamic! Streetlights come on when night falls whether you change map or not. Open/closed signs come on when they're supposed to for your MC's local businesses.

And the window lights for that weird fenced off condemned house.

Probably more important than all of that though, is the game now has a more eye-friendly font! Plus, a handy window in the top corner so you can always know the date, time, and season.

You also might have noticed it says it's October in the video, but the season is winter; I manually changed the season to winter without bothering to match the month, just to show off the winter map. But the game starts in October, and so will start on the fall map :)

Here's the first part of the Midnight City Mall for 2-Headed Boy, my yandere boyfriend RPG WIP!

This floor features ATMs for withdrawing funds/reviewing your bank balance (funds are deposited to your account once per in-game week cycle), as well as a crane game for winning plushies to give to your love interest(s). 5 different plushies creatures each available in multiple version for a total of 20 plushies. Different love interests like different plushies.

Also features a photo booth (usable with love interests), still figuring out exactly how I want to implement that part.

A lounge area with some paintings, and a food court with some oddball clerks. A variety of menu options are available. Figure out what foods your love interests like and have a lunch date.

Eating food/beverages also replenishes your "Spoons," a points meter that depletes with social activity in the game at varying degrees depending on the activity and how things are going with your love interest. Certain foods/beverages also provide different buffs. Still working on this part!