sunsetsunriseofficial-blog

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Tuff n Stuff

It’s well time for an update!

Things are well underway with Tuff Mallow’s current projects. 

Let’s start with The Closet Door- 

Th Closet Door, or TCD as I lovingly call it, is a small free to play game I’m hoping to release this December. With 3 love interests, each with their own unique story routes, 5 lively side characters, and a sarcastic and flavorful MC, the story was already off to a fun start. Right now, all sprite bases have been completed (as well as a possible on screen bust sprite for the MC).  

As well, the GUI is all but complete and coded into Ren’py. So I am excited for the look and feel of this game so far!

I’m pretty new to background art design, so I am really proud of how things are progressing. Fingers crossed for consistency and fluid aesthetic! 

The next week I will be working around the clock to knock completing backgrounds out of the way, so I’ll mostly be streaming in Discord while I do so. Join in and see the progress! 

And did I tell you I did a thing? Well I did! I made a small trailer- nothing fancy, but my first play at video editing for TCD! Watch it here!

The Closet Door promises a lot of little pleasant things, so I am excited to share it with you!

BUT WAIT. You want to know what’s going on with Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise, ye?

Well worry not! Development for SMSP has not come to a halt! I’ve finally gotten around to completing MC’s bust sprite base. Her outfits (4- possibly 5) are in the works. 

The GUI for SMSP is coming along beautifully, although there are some tweaks here and there I still think it could benefit from. 

Story pacing and art consistency is a big deal for me, and I am constantly polishing the script to make it flow better. Right now, the common route is over 30k, but I’ve been tweaking it to see that it flows well and keeps players intrigued and engaged. The same for Matthew’s route, which is the one I’m working on rn. It’s all about how you play the game!

Just for fun and giggles though, I do share little nuggets of concept art on Discord as warm up for art for SMSP. It keeps me focused and may possibly quench some thirsts… hee hee 

^^ partial pic there*

I just wanted to check in with you and let you know I am still working hard to make fun and engaging visual novels and that progress is the word of the day!

Keep you posted! 

~AlwaysJMB

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Update!

Tuff with new Stuff

My first official Tuff Mallow Interactive Tumblr post! 

It’s been an exciting few weeks. I’ve been spending some time organizing some of the things I’m working on right now and attempting to design a schedule that is in line with my chaotic self-imposed to-do list. I think I may have a formula! More on that in a minute.

So what has been going on, you ask? Let’s start out with art and what has been in the works. with the character cards uploaded for the love interests from Sunset Memory Sunrise promise out of the way, my next goal is to begin the background art. As well, I’m working on the sprites and BGs to the characters from The Closet Door, a short free to play game nugget I’ve been working on in the wings. 

Another little artist victory has been art streaming for Inktober! I think it’s been a success so far and I really enjoy sharing my sketches and interpretations from the Inktober 2019 prompts while members of Tuff Mallow Discord hang out with me! I’ll definitely keep it going. Tuff Mallow Twitter for updates!

Aside from drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing strictly game art, there’s always the ever growing list of server emojis…

…so artistically, I’ve definitely been keeping myself busy. The wacom has been puttin in WERK. lol

And now on to writing! I’ve been making some leeway into Matthew’s route. As you may or may not know, the common route is complete and soon to be edited for any changes. After which I should have an accurate word count for it. As it stands, it’s just shy of 30k. That’s on the Sunset Sunrise side of things. The Closet door doesn’t really feature a common route and is moving a lot faster. I’ve almost completed one of the love interest’s routes (I need to make character cards and introduce these dudes!), and that’s one third of the work right there! Woohoo! My goal is to edit with the precision of an editing goddess~~and then hand it over to a real editor who actually knows what words do UwU. 

It’s no joke when you are doing it all your own. There are some things that I want to do with grandiose, but the world of reality is like NO. One of those things is an animated teaser trailer… but we shall see. So far, I’m working on animating, but I’m definitely new to it, so for now this theory is in test mode. Fingers crossed on that one. 

There’s so much else going on. I’ve still not even gotten to the GUI design. I’m really in love with it! <3 But as will be working on that this week as I finalize my schedule, I’ll be sure to make sure it’s included in my next update! 

So check me out on Discord if you will for daily updates and share our works and stories. I look forward to having you! This is getting to be a really fun experience and get more excited about it as I venture further into this game dev experience! 

~Always JmB

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What the Future Holds for Sunset Sunrise

Greetings! I have so much to tell you! The newness of this all is really sinking in for me as the creator of Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise. I thought in the beginning this was going to be a small one time project. And maybe with that, the gravity of being a game developer making an otome for PC release seemed small as well. 

Between the last update and this one, I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with and learning from some amazing individuals and creators in the otome development community. It really gave me a dynamic perspective of the potential to really reach audiences and create stories we can hopefully all relate to and enjoy. 

As for Sunset Sunrise, progress is going great! I’ve got the character cards created, the common route completed and 70% of the GUI complete. Sprites are underway as well! CGs for the common route are being fleshed out, and all backgrounds are planned. 

There will be changes though! There are even more projects to come, including a free to play game in the works, and a collaborative effort with a talented colleague’s studio. I’d like to be able to showcase all of these developments. So I’m making a new account. One for Tuff Mallow Interactive - the umbrella for all of my interactive projects and collaborations! The discord is also available for those interested in joining in on the journey: Join the Discord!

I want to continue to post about the boys in Shoreville, but I plan to post about so much more as well! So be prepared to see these new changes take place! This is about to be one heck of a party! 

Now lets look at the boys of Shoreville

Thanks for coming along for this ride. Like Demetri, I can’t wait to see where adventure takes us! As always- keep a lookout!

~AlwaysJmb

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You completely deserve it! 💖

I SOMEHOW MADE IT ON TIME **lies down**

IKEVAMP IS FINALLY OUT IN ENGLISH AND I AM SO EXCITED UWU. Playing Naps (Napoleon) first rn, and i can’t wait until Isaac gets released with my other boys aaaaaaa~

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Hey Everyone!

It has been a while since I have addressed everyone this way!

This is going to be a slightly more lengthy introduction to our next project, “Gilded Shadows” - which has gone through several name changes, so you may have seen me posting about it under a different title.

Gilded Shadows is an otome visual novel that focuses on the story of a main character named Morgan Leone (name customisable).

 The setting is expansive, with part of the world following a more solarpunk aesthetic with bright colors while the other part is more of a darker cyberpunkesque situation. The word is tidal locked and the different aesthetics align to the day/night division of the planet (day side is more solarpunk, night side is more cyberpunk).

In the story, the player will be introduced to two main factions they can choose to get involved with -

Endgame, a group dedicated to protecting the citizens of Altair and keeping the peace between different governments and groups across the planet…

And Crimson, a notorious crime family situated on the night side of the planet.

Neither group is entirely what it seems - because where’s the fun in that?

We are currently planning for six love interests - like Changeling. Three guys who are a part of Endgame, two who are part of Crimson, and one who is unaligned.

There are several additional options for love interests and we’ll be looking, down the line, to determine if this is a game we can potentially add content to after release to expand the world and create additional routes.

As we’ve mentioned before, we are planning for the MC to be semi-customisable, allowing the player to pick her name, hair color, skin color, and a selection of personality traits that will open up (or lock up) specific game options and content, as well as affect your standing with different love interests.

This time around, we are planning to include relationship meters that will help the player track how well they’re doing with specific characters, but this does not mean it’s a stat-raising game by any stretch.

Choices will function similarly to Changeling but instead of adding in a “right choice indicator”, we decided to put visible meters that a player can choose to look at (or not look at) while they play.

We’re looking at other ways to make the game slightly more interactive than Changeling, without branching out too much and making something that is too different from our first project.

As far as where the project stands right now:

I have most of the main cast sprites in some stage of completion, the GUI is coded and set up, and all the routes have at least basic synopsis done.

Like Changeling, this game will have a common route where the LI route is chosen toward the end by some choice that will be integrated into the gameplay. (However, I’m trying to make a shorter common route as a whole. Changeling’s is a bit too long I think).

The first chapter of the common route has a rough draft that is fully written (yay! LoL) and the rest is plotted out.

Changeling’s word count goal was 300,000 words and we hit 686,000 total. This time around, I’m setting the goal at 400,000 so we’ll see where things end up! Since, in some ways, my current plans may mean more branching in general, it’s possible the word count will go up, even if the overall play time does not.

At lot of people have asked about Kickstarting and crowdfunding - we just finished up our reward obligations for Changeling and we are definitely planning to Kickstart Gilded Shadows! Due to some of our plans (like MC customization, among others) we are going to need much more help with coding. I’d also really like to include more CGs this time, but that means getting more help with art than we had last time.

And this setting is so huge and beautiful that I want to include a ton of backgrounds!

We’ll be keeping everyone up to date on that but I do not expect the KS to happen before we have at least some semblance of a demo put together. That means finishing at least one more chapter of the common path and completing a couple more sprites that will need to appear.

 We’ll be posting more profiles and things in the coming days and I’ll get back into doing regular progress reports like I did for Changeling.

Looking forward to starting another dev journey and I really hope you guys fall in love with Gilded Shadows as a project! See you soon!

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Alright dearies, I’m working on profile cards with some more info about the cast of Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise. There’s some really cute stuff I’d like to share in those cards, so I’m pretty excited about it :)

I’m also working on the teaser trailer featuring a music clip from the upcoming OST, composed by the talented Tavian St. James. https://soundcloud.com/tavianstjames is where you can hear some of the amazing tracks they have created. I’m really geeked to work with them, as the music style they create is such a theatrical style- perfect for this story in development! <3 

Well I’ll be sure to update shortly with some awesome artwork and news about the writing side as well. Until next time! ~AlwaysJmB

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Sooo... Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise is not in hiatus. I am just one of those ppl slow on the uptake and just getting back into a social media schedule! A lot has been going on. Sprite development is under way as well as a some beautiful tunes for the game. I’m working on a teaser trailer as well- more on that shortly! As the dev process really is taking full swing, I’ll be sure to update with relevant info and trivia about the game and characters to bring you into the world that is Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise!

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Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise, a GxB visual novel romance presented by @alwaysjmb is in development! A story about love and friendship and finding oneself after heartbreak... and a dash of mystery! A story unfolds for a woman who's past should be a memory, but it may affect her promise of a new future! After a devastating end to a relationship, she takes a friend's offer to begin a new life in a sleepy seaside town in Maine. 

Thinking this will help her forget her past heartache and begin a new life, she moves with renewed hope. But things aren't that simple. Right away the five men she meets there remind her that the past is not so easily forgotten and a mystery is at play. 

Who are these men and what role will they play in the story? Is her determination to make the most of it strong enough to help her move forward? Will she be able to meet the promise of a fresh new life? Is love on the horizon? Or will she become tangled in a mystery?

 ~~~ 

Please join me on my journey as I share the development of this game! More information will definitely become available as I make updates on progress! I look forward to making an exciting game with memorable characters. I'm very excited to share Sunset Memory Sunrise Promise with you!