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[anoldor]

Can we still do asks? Well, I'm just gonna do this anyway, you can read whenever.

I should start this by saying that your situation is understandable! I'm truly alright with your decision. I can't deny that there are some disappointment, but it's purely because of the fact that you might reduce the route length, that's all. I love longer story, it's more immersive that way, but it's okay. I hope you can update on us about this decision, doesn't matter when o/

When I'm following IG's progress, I secretly have been hoping for some Anoldor's updates. But I don't voice it, it's not really my style to ask that kind of thing anyway. And you don't owe us anything, really. Anoldor is a free project! You give us your time and skills, while we don't give you anything. So yeah, I hope you don't worry too much about this.

I miss Anoldor (especially Eminence and Edwyn, my faves *EHEM*), but it's okay. Focusing on IG is enough for me for now ^_^ I will keep supporting these projects anyway! \o/

I might not see futur asks (as I am just keeping an eye this week in case someone has problem with the survey or something). Thank you very much for your support and your understanding, I feel so much better now.

Also I can understand the disapointmen about reducing a bit the expected word count but I didn't choose the number approximately, I was in the mindset of "the more, the better" before, but I merely cut boring stuff out of the outline and spread more proportionnaly lore between the routes. I really don't think it will reduce the value of the route, and I am not an obstinated person, if I see that more is necessary it will be adjusted again.

Thank you again for your support and your kind words <3

[anoldor]

[FR Important] Le futur d’Anoldor]

English version here

Bonjour à tous, avant toute chose je voulais m’excuser de ne pas avoir été très active sur les réseaux sociaux ces derniers temps. Cela n’a pas été facile, mais nous avons décidé de placer Anoldor en hiatus pour un ou deux ans et nous allons probablement réduire le scope du projet. (Notamment, retirer les game over, réduire l’encyclopédie et diminuer le nombre de mots par route. Rassuez vous, nous ne toucherons pas à ce qui fait le sel du jeu : les choix et les épilogues qui en découle.) Rien n’est encore décidé à 100 %, nous espérons ne pas à avoir en arriver là mais au cas où il soit nécessaire pour nous de prioriser certaines routes, nous vous demandons de bien vouloir répondre à ce sondage pour savoir lesquels vous voulez voir en priorité. 

Il est certain que nous recruterons aussi un écrivain pour prendre en charge tout ou parti  de l’écriture (avec un outline très détaillé et mon aide bien sûr).  Cela ne vous engage à rien (surtout qu’il est possible que vous changiez d’avis d’ici là), mais que vous parliez anglais ou français, si vous êtes intéressé pour travailler en temps qu’écrivain pour Anoldor (soit bénévolement, soit en tarif réduit), vous pouvez remplir ce formulaire  pour qu’on vous recontacte à la fin du hiatus pour voir si vous êtes toujours intéressé.

Comme vous pouvez vous en douter, cela n’a pas été une décision facile à prendre et je voudrais m’excuser personnellement car c’est en grande partie ma faute si nous en arrivons là. D’une part parce qu’Anoldor est mon premier projet, que je n’avais aucune expérience quand je l’ai ficelé et que j’ai grandement sous estimé le temps que cela prendrait de le réaliser. D’autre part car j’ai moi même surestimé ma capacité à gérer deux projets en même temps. Je pensais sincèrement en être capable car ce n’est pas la première fois que j’ai plusieurs projets créatifs en simultanée dans ma vie, mais deux jeux où je suis directrice, écrivaine et responsable du marketing en plus de la programmation et de l’UI, c’est trop. C'est pas nécessairement une question de temps, le problème c’est qu'il me faut une bonne semaine pour vraiment me remettre dans le bon état d’esprit de chaque projet pour le diriger/écrire/promouvoir correctement. Du coup, j'ai l'impression de dépenser une énergie folle et de perdre du temps à chaque fois, tout en étant constamment parasité par l'autre projet. Ce n’est pas tenable, j’ai finis par comprendre qu’il fallait que j’en finisse un avant de pouvoir retravailler sereinement sur l’autre.

Là encore, le choix n’a pas été facile, mais j’ai décidé de privilégié Imperial Grace pour les même raison qui m’ont poussé à me lancer dans ce projet dès le départ. Anoldor est mon projet de cœur, mais Imperial Grace que j’aime également énormément est mon projet professionnel. Comme vous le savez, une des raisons qui m'a poussé à lancer un deuxième projet commercial, c'est que mon travail se passe assez mal, j'étouffe dedans, je sais que j’ai besoin de créativité et d’autonomie pour être vraiment épanouie. J’ai vraiment envie de devenir développeuse à plein temps un jour. Je sais que c’est une entreprise périlleuse et fastidieuse, mais je me dois d’au moins essayer et pour ça j’ai besoin d’un projet commercial. J’ajouterais également, qu’Impérial Grace a été construit avec un scope plus raisonnable, je n’ai pas répété les erreurs que j’ai fais sur Anoldor, je connaissais mieux les difficultés et mes limites quand je l’ai imaginé, il est donc tout simplement plus facile à finir en l’état. Normalement le développement devrait encore prendre un ou deux ans, là où pour mener à bien Anoldor tel qu’il est aujourd’hui j’aurais encore besoin de 4 ou 5 ans minimum.

Comme je le disais cette décision n’a vraiment pas été facile, je ressens beaucoup de hontes face à mes erreurs, mais je ne veux pas les laisser m’empêcher d’avancer ou les enterrer en espérant que personne ne les remarque. Depuis le début, vous avez toujours été formidables, je comprendrais que certaines personnes soient déçues et décide de boycotter Imperial Grace et Anoldor, mais je sais que vous n’êtes pas du genre à entreprendre des campagnes de trolling par vengeance et mine de rien c’est déjà très rassurant.  Je vous remercie mille fois pour vos encouragements et votre soutient jusque là, ceci est le dernier message qui sera posté sur les réseaux sociaux jusqu’à la reprise du projet. Portez vous bien.

Ayael et toute l’équipe d’Anoldor  

[anoldor]

[Important] The future of Anoldor

(Version française ici)

Hello everyone, first of all I wanted to apologize for not being very active on social media lately. It hasn't been easy, but we've decided to put Anoldor on hiatus for a year or two and we'll probably reduce the scope of the project. (In particular, removing the game over, reducing the encyclopedia and reducing the number of words per route. Don't worry, we won't touch what makes the game special: the choices and the epilogues that follow). Nothing is 100% decided yet, we hope not to have to get to that point but in case it is necessary for us to prioritize some characters route, we ask you to answer this poll to know which ones you want to see in priority. We will definitely also be recruiting a writer to take on all or part of the writing (with a very detailed outline and my help of course). This doesn't commit you to anything (especially since you may change your mind in the meantime), but whether you speak English or French, if you're interested in working as a writer for Anoldor (either for free or at a reduced rate), you can fill out this form  and we'll get back to you at the end of the hiatus to see if you are still interested. The gamme will always remain a free project. As you can imagine, this was not an easy decision to make and I would like to apologize personally because it is largely my fault that we have come to this point. On the one hand because Anoldor is my first project, I had no experience when I put it together and I greatly underestimated the time it would take to complete it. On the other hand, I overestimated my ability to manage two projects at the same time. I honestly thought I could do it because it's not the first time I've had several creative projects going on at once in my life, but two games where I'm the director, writer, and marketing manager in addition to the programming and UI is too much. It's not necessarily a matter of time, the problem is that it takes me a good week to really get into the right frame of mind for each project to direct/write/promote it properly. As a result, I feel like I'm wasting a lot of energy and time each time, while being constantly parasitized by the other project. It's not supportable on the long run, I finally understood that I had to finish one before being able to work on the other one. Again, the choice was not easy, but I decided to go with Imperial Grace first for the same reasons that pushed me into this project in the first place. Anoldor is my heart project, but Imperial Grace - which I also love very much - is my professional project. As you may know, one of the reasons that pushed me to launch a second commercial project is that my job is not going well, I'm suffocating in it, I know that I need creativity and autonomy to be really fulfilled. I really want to be a full-time developer one day. I know it's a risky and tedious business, but I owe it to myself to at least try and for that I need a business project. I would also add, that Imperial Grace was built with a more reasonable scope, I didn't repeat the mistakes I made on Anoldor, I knew better the difficulties and my limits when I imagined it, so it's just easier to finish as it is. Normally the development should take another one or two years, whereas to complete Anoldor as it is today I would need another 4 or 5 years minimum. As I said this decision was not easy, I feel a lot of shame about my mistakes, but I don't want to let them stop me from moving forward or bury them and hope that nobody notices them. Since the beginning, you have always been great, I would understand if some people are disappointed and decide to boycott Imperial Grace and Anoldor, but I know that you are not the kind of people to undertake trolling campaigns for revenge and it is already very reassuring.  I thank you a thousand times for your encouragement and your support until now, this is the last message that will be posted on social networks until the resumption of the project. Be well. Ayael and all the Anoldor team  

[anoldor]

I am always so exhausted - mentally and physically - after writing that I feel like OpenOffice is some kind of monster that sucks my life energy through words.

Creepy OpenOffice vampire monster is canon now, no take back. 

[anoldor]

About Anoldor

Hello everyone, if you've been following Anoldor's news, you know that I recently announced the opening of my little "studio", and its first project Imperial Grace. Since Anoldor account is pretty quiet those day, I thought it may raise some concerns, so I wanted to come back with you, on what this announcement means concretely to Anoldor and on my motivations to do this second project and also why our social media are rather quiet those days.

Why Anoldor social Media is quite quiet those day : Simply because I don’t have anything more to tell/show for the moment. Most of the work I do is on the writing area (which perform very poorly in social media), and programmation (same, since the visual didn’t change I just code it for it to be easier for ME). Running social media account is really time consuming and I have more important things to do, if I want to actually deliver a game one day :p

I am not going to lie, the fact there is a global pandemic didn’t help the team, and we are all working at a slower pace, (and my motivation to work is obviously affected by the rest of the team motivation...) but it doesn’t mean we planned on abandonning Anoldor. NEVER.

Also, on a personal note, I believe we started too soon communication for Anoldor, we were very excited to share our baby to the world, and your support and advice was really helpful, but asking people to wait for several years between release is hard. Sometime, I feel like going on hibernation for a few years and come back only when we have enough content in advance to not make you wait too long but I don’t want anyone to believe Anoldor is dead. That’s tough. 

My motivations for doing a second project It is obvious that managing two projects simultaneously is not simple. I think all creators know this project bulimia where you always have lots of ideas, I'm no exception but I've always been able to restrain myself until now. If I made this choice with full knowledge of the difficulties, it's because IG is not just another game, it's also the beginning of a life project. The truth is that when I started Anoldor, I didn't know much about the Visual Novel universe, I learned everything from scratch, and there were a lot of ups and downs. It was always obvious to me that Anoldor was a passionate project and that it had to stay that way. Except that I got a taste for it. Coding, creating stories, leading a team, seeing the game come to life, I really got a taste for it and the more time went by, the more I realized it was something I wanted to do in my life. Not as a passion, but as a job. I'm not naive, I know how hard it is, but I also think it's worth at least trying. That's why - without giving up my full-time job - I decided to create a commercial project, shorter and less ambitious than Anoldor (so that it could be done in two years), but of impeccable quality. A game that I intend to sell. Several people have asked me why not just make Anoldor commercial, and the answer is simple: Because that's not what we agreed on. Neither with our players, to whom the game has always been presented as a free project, nor with the team that has always worked on a voluntary basis and with the guarantee of not being pressured to meet deadlines - we move forward at our own pace - and with no paperwork. What is the impact on Anoldor? Writing being the most time consuming part of the project, I originally planned not to take care of writing IG (just detailed storyline), but in the end, for several reasons, I co-wrote it. (And I really enjoy this, so I might ask for a co-writer for Anoldor too). Nevertheless, I chose to give up other passions (the Roleplay forum in particular) to compensate for this workload, in fact, the creation of IG should only moderately impact the Anoldor one since I will continue to devote my vacations to writing Anoldor exclusively as I did before. However, the impact of IG on Anoldor is also, in my opinion, positive because the more I write, the more I program, the more I direct, the better I get in all these areas. I've already seen real improvements in the way I work, in my rigor and skills. Furthermore, if I ever reach my goal of being able to work part-time in video game development, I could, in fact, devote more time to Anoldor as well. Generally speaking, I'm quite aware of my limits, and that's why, as I said before, IG is less ambitious than Anoldor in terms of content: less love interest, portraits rather than whole sprites, a common route with romantic branches rather than one route for each love interest, fewer places etc. (paying for all these elements also helps to be reasonable *cough*) however, I'm really proud of what Imperial Grace is becoming. Too often, I've confused ambition with quality, and I hope to prove with IG that I can make a game with more reasonable content that is still a unique, memorable, and enjoyable experience. Have a lovely day everyone, and thanks for reading my very very long rambling! 

[anoldor]

I hope you have a good day today! :)

ooow thanks <3 You too! Actually, I hope you all have a wonderful day, everyday! 

[anoldor]

Do you employ new people on any of your projects? It has been my dream to work on a historical Visual Novel

Depends on which area (art, writing, music, marketing...), it’s better to send a mail or a DM to have a more concrete answer. <3

[anoldor]

I hope you will like my new project  It's more mature than Anoldor, but still full of heavy dilemma and badass characters ! 

 I will make an article soon about why it is so important for me and why it won’t impact too much Anoldor dev. (So don’t worry about this :p)

Hi folks! We are Synstoria, an indie team working in our free time on Imperial Grace, a medieval otome game with a strong political vibe! Don’t hesitate to ask us anything about the game.

Crowned Empress after the death of your father, you must show the world that a woman is fit to restore the Calidya Empire to its former glory. Wisely manage your alliances, your kingdom’s resources, and your heart’s inclinations to survive your first year of ruling.

Imperial Grace game features : 

👑  A super badass MC - She is ambitious, hardworking, a bit arrogant and very skilled at politics. Her other personality aspect can be shaped by the player.

💞 3 enticing love interests -  Alexander the General (man), Asha the Diplomat (woman), Théodore the Duke (man)

⚔️ A medieval realistic(ish) world - In the world of Calidya 

👩🏿‍🎨 A colourful cast of character - Figuratively and literally speaking. 

⚖ A country to rule - With a lot of hard but meaningful choices and an optional resources managment feature. 

🌶️ Mature content - Heavy topics and adult scenes.

🔥 A lot of problems to deal with - For the love of drama, but be careful to not die ~

Imperial Grace technical features : 

🖼️ Around 15 CG 

✒️ 140 000 words (minimum).

🎻 Original soundtrack 

🌍 Available in English and French   

💻 Made with Renpy (no high computer specs required).

To not miss any important news, feel free to join our newseletter! 

[anoldor]

31/12/2020

Today (and yesterday), I am dividing the script in small portion into the new game. Basically, before I had one file for each chapter, now, I have one file for each scene. (So for example 8 for chapter 1). It required to add/change some label. 

It tooks me some time to understand it, but it’s better for the translation, because I can send smaller pieces to the translater, so more regularity, easy to fix mistakes. I really should do a small advice article about translating a game real-time. 

Sorry for the lack of update the other days, I was with my family and then, I just didn’t feel like working. I take my projects very seriously, but they often become some kind of obligation, and I am afraid to break if I push too much. At least 2020 teached me to take care of myself. There is some time where I need to kick my ass because it’s just laziness, but often it’s my mind and my body telling me to breath, I hope I will get better to understand which kind of “I don’t want to work” I feel with time, meanwhile, I decided I wanted to take it easy in 2021 because hell isn’t over yet. 

But, I wish to everyone, a very happy new year full of love, creativity and super game ! <3

Redoing the whole code of Anoldor

g If you follow the update, you know that from the past few months I am struggling with a bug with the english translation. I tried EVERYTHING, I asked help from several people we weren’t able to even identify the reason for the bug. 

So I am redoing the whole code from scratch to make sure to not replicate it.

I have progressed a lot since I started programming Anoldor, so I try to see this necessity as an opportunity to make a cleaner and more efficient code��! I thought it would be cool to make some day to day updates about my progress, so here we are !

19/12/2020

Today, I upload again all the background image with a few improvement :

- I changed the resolution of the project (1280*720 to 1920*1080) the bigger the better /DIE/

- I optimized the size of the file by going from .png to .webp (1 MO saved by image with no quality loss…)

- Before I had two images (one with the good size, and one twice the size for zooming and other effects.), now I use some code to resize the big image by default without losing quality when I zoom.

- Also I organized my files better >.>  

20/12/2020

Today I uploaded again the sprite, with a few improvement : 

- size optimisation (webp + layered image instead of exporting the full sprite every time)

- variation optimisation. Playing with the next release of renpy, I can now do all the sprite variation (so flipped, night, night flip), with ~10 lines of code per character instead of 24. It’s such a huge progress for me !

21/12/2020

Today, I get scoled by the graphist for not respecting proportion when exporting the sprite (oups), so I re-exported them the right way. (Also, I am blessed to have such a pro working on Anoldor, KEEP PRAISING HER INCREDIBLE ART she deserved it). 

[anoldor]

I cannot wait to romance Edwyn, I'm in love with him already 😘

[anoldor]

This is such a great game!! I'm really excited by the scope of the lore and worldbuilding here and it's going to be so much fun! Sorry not an ask just needed to enthuse a bit lol xP

And it feels good to hear ! I am glad you like the game, especially the lore, since it’s all me, it motivates me to keep doing the encyclopaedia ! <3

[anoldor]

Just wanted to wish you a happy and safe festive season, and all the best for an even better next year x

Thank you Anon, same for you (and everybody else) ! We hope next year will be easier, 2020 definitely took a toll on us. 

[anoldor]

What if Elric and Alienor accidentally (?) exchanged their chrismas outfit.

Merry chrismas everyone 😂

[anoldor]

Redoing the whole code of Anoldor

g If you follow the update, you know that from the past few months I am struggling with a bug with the english translation. I tried EVERYTHING, I asked help from several people we weren’t able to even identify the reason for the bug. 

So I am redoing the whole code from scratch to make sure to not replicate it.

I have progressed a lot since I started programming Anoldor, so I try to see this necessity as an opportunity to make a cleaner and more efficient code ! I thought it would be cool to make some day to day updates about my progress, so here we are !

19/12/2020

Today, I upload again all the background image with a few improvement :

- I changed the resolution of the project (1280*720 to 1920*1080) the bigger the better /DIE/

- I optimized the size of the file by going from .png to .webp (1 MO saved by image with no quality loss…)

- Before I had two images (one with the good size, and one twice the size for zooming and other effects.), now I use some code to resize the big image by default without losing quality when I zoom.

- Also I organized my files better >.>  

20/12/2020

Today I uploaded again the sprite, with a few improvement : 

- size optimisation (webp + layered image instead of exporting the full sprite every time)

- variation optimisation. Playing with the next release of renpy, I can now do all the sprite variation (so flipped, night, night flip), with ~10 lines of code per character instead of 24. It’s such a huge progress for me !

21/12/2020

Today, I get scoled by the graphist for not respecting proportion when exporting the sprite (oups), so I re-exported them the right way. (Also, I am blessed to have such a pro working on Anoldor, KEEP PRAISING HER INCREDIBLE ART she deserved it). 

[anoldor]

Redoing the whole code of Anoldor

g If you follow the update, you know that from the past few months I am struggling with a bug with the english translation. I tried EVERYTHING, I asked help from several people we weren’t able to even identify the reason for the bug. 

So I am redoing the whole code from scratch to make sure to not replicate it.

I have progressed a lot since I started programming Anoldor, so I try to see this necessity as an opportunity to make a cleaner and more efficient code ! I thought it would be cool to make some day to day updates about my progress, so here we are !

19/12/2020

Today, I upload again all the background image with a few improvement :

- I changed the resolution of the project (1280*720 to 1920*1080) the bigger the better /DIE/

- I optimized the size of the file by going from .png to .webp (1 MO saved by image with no quality loss…)

- Before I had two images (one with the good size, and one twice the size for zooming and other effects.), now I use some code to resize the big image by default without losing quality when I zoom.

- Also I organized my files better >.>  

20/12/2020

Today I uploaded again the sprite, with a few improvement : 

- size optimisation (webp + layered image instead of exporting the full sprite every time)

- variation optimisation. Playing with the next release of renpy, I can now do all the sprite variation (so flipped, night, night flip), with ~10 lines of code per character instead of 24. It’s such a huge progress for me !

21/12/2020

Today, I get scoled by the graphist for not respecting proportion when exporting the sprite (oups), so I re-exported them the right way. (Also, I am blessed to have such a pro working on Anoldor, KEEP PRAISING HER INCREDIBLE ART she deserved it). 

[anoldor]

Sorry for the lack of news last week, I have been kidnapped by Pathfinder Kingmaker and I regret nothing. 

[anoldor]

What kind of cute nicknames can we give the characters to fluster them? ☺

I am terrible at nickname besides the usual cute ones, but I know how you can be creative folks so any suggestion ? :p