Cow Girl Farmer (Cuddlebeam)

[AhziDahaka]

I will admit I've been kind of wondering if there's a design document or something that exists somewhere. As more people get involved it might be good to have a document or development wiki or something that they can access so everyone is on the same page, as opposed to having to wander through a thread on a forum they may not even be able to access. It's important from a design standpoint to ensure that graphics, sound, gameplay, and writing are all consistently working together to produce the desired experience. As a bit of a budding graphic designer myself, I've seen how something as simple as subtly moving, resizing, and coloring a piece of typography can completely change the tone and message of an entire work--the devil really is in the details of how everything fits together.

I also noticed that your estimates for the cost of art doesn't appear to include NPCs. All of those characters I imagine will need to be graphically represented in some way as well, and depending on how many NPCs you want this cost could easily outdo the cost of the cowgirl depictions. Then there are backgrounds, item graphics, etc. to consider...

Also I sent you a PM a few days ago but haven't gotten a response. I imagine you've been busy so I'm not real worried about it but I figure I'll give you a poke here on the off-chance that one of us somehow isn't receiving responses from the other.



Thanks for all the care and attention you're giving to our suggestions and concerns!

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by AhziDahaka

I will admit I've been kind of wondering if there's a design document or something that exists somewhere. As more people get involved it might be good to have a document or development wiki or something that they can access so everyone is on the same page, as opposed to having to wander through a thread on a forum they may not even be able to access. It's important from a design standpoint to ensure that graphics, sound, gameplay, and writing are all consistently working together to produce the desired experience. As a bit of a budding graphic designer myself, I've seen how something as simple as subtly moving, resizing, and coloring a piece of typography can completely change the tone and message of an entire work--the devil really is in the details of how everything fits together.

I also noticed that your estimates for the cost of art doesn't appear to include NPCs. All of those characters I imagine will need to be graphically represented in some way as well, and depending on how many NPCs you want this cost could easily outdo the cost of the cowgirl depictions. Then there are backgrounds, item graphics, etc. to consider...

Also I sent you a PM a few days ago but haven't gotten a response. I imagine you've been busy so I'm not real worried about it but I figure I'll give you a poke here on the off-chance that one of us somehow isn't receiving responses from the other.



Thanks for all the care and attention you're giving to our suggestions and concerns!

They will be stretchgoals. You've already seen how expensive everything is as it is. Non-Cowgirl NPC's are not going to be the "visual" appeal of the game, so thier image is important yet not critical. I was thinking of having a little contest for them later on, or if things go well, add it as a stretchgoal. I'll even get some drawn myself. Maybe I can get an agreement with ZDemian too.

The item icons have already been made, so no worry about that.

Sorry about the PM! I must've missed it, sorry. These first few days have been quite intense. Please, re-send it, and I'll reply as soon as I can.

The wiki is actually a very good idea. Maybe Google Docs would work too? I'll set it up for when the hardcore development starts. Thanks a lot!

[AhziDahaka]

Originally Posted by CuddleBeam

They will be stretchgoals. You've already seen how expensive everything is as it is. Non-Cowgirl NPC's are not going to be the "visual" appeal of the game, so thier image is important yet not critical. I was thinking of having a little contest for them later on, or if things go well, add it as a stretchgoal. I'll even get some drawn myself. Maybe I can get an agreement with ZDemian too.

The item icons have already been made, so no worry about that.

Sorry about the PM! I must've missed it, sorry. These first few days have been quite intense. Please, re-send it, and I'll reply as soon as I can.

The wiki is actually a very good idea. Maybe Google Docs would work too? I'll set it up for when the hardcore development starts. Thanks a lot!

Alright, that all defintiely makes sense. I'd had the impression you might have had graphics for items and various other UI bits already, but was not sure about environments and NPCs. You may want to note they're stretch goals on the Indiegogo page.





...Speaking of which, while looking over the current-as-of-this-posting iteration of that page, I started wondering if the cowgirls all share the same vocabulary. If so, that might end up playing a major role in making the dialogue feel machine-like and monotonous, so I'm wondering how possible it is to have different "vocabulary sets" or "word affinities" that the cowgirls would be assigned depending on their personality factors! This would determine whether they use words with more positive or negative connotations ("that would be fine" vs "that would be great"), use of eloquent or simple language ("salutations" vs "hi"), or even (depending on how sophisticated the generative grammar is) whether they use contractions and what ones (such as "is not" vs "isn't" vs "ain't").

Of course, you may simply be awesome and have already thought of that, in which case cool beans!

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by AhziDahaka

Alright, that all defintiely makes sense. I'd had the impression you might have had graphics for items and various other UI bits already, but was not sure about environments and NPCs. You may want to note they're stretch goals on the Indiegogo page.





...Speaking of which, while looking over the current-as-of-this-posting iteration of that page, I started wondering if the cowgirls all share the same vocabulary. If so, that might end up playing a major role in making the dialogue feel machine-like and monotonous, so I'm wondering how possible it is to have different "vocabulary sets" or "word affinities" that the cowgirls would be assigned depending on their personality factors! This would determine whether they use words with more positive or negative connotations ("that would be fine" vs "that would be great"), use of eloquent or simple language ("salutations" vs "hi"), or even (depending on how sophisticated the generative grammar is) whether they use contractions and what ones (such as "is not" vs "isn't" vs "ain't").

Of course, you may simply be awesome and have already thought of that, in which case cool beans!

Already thought of. :P

However, I should include it, no? It would be a wise idea. Adding it in!

Thanks Ahzi!