Exilian

(Updated on 25th day of September, 2018.)

Welcome to the updated description of Tales From Windy Meadow, a Visual Novel currently developed for Windows. You can also read about it's world and protagonists on the of website Moral Anxiety Studio (http://www.moralanxietystudio.com/).



Tales From Windy Meadow is a single-player collection of interactive stories focused on a community of small village set in bittersweet fantasy world. This Visual Novel explores topics like finding your place in life, loneliness, pursuing your goals and dealing with your past and disadvantages. 

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50660&mode=view)

Our pixel art graphics are inspired by games such as VA-11 Hall-A and Kingdom: Classic, we want to create distinctive visuals and combine them with immersive, relatable writing and both guitar and piano music.

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50665&mode=view)

To make the dialogues more dynamic, the text-based narration is mostly replaced by animations, limiting the on-screen text almost exclusively to conversations. Even though we're using Ren'Py, we added some custom features to support our storytteling as much as possible. For example, you can bring up the game's map whenever you want to visualize where the various locations are set or use your mouse to hover character names to read their descriptions.



The game is in it's final stage. We've made more than half of animations, all of the backgrounds, UI, pretty much all of the coding not related to graphics. We still try to make the improve dialogues, music and sound effects, nevertheless we plan to release the game in Q4 of 2018. We have a lot of delay, though it's mostly because with time the game became much more ambitious than we originally assumed.



(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50661&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50662&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50663&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50664&mode=view)

To stay in touch with us, follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/MoralAnxiety) (@MoralAnxiety) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MoralAnxiety/) (@MoralAnxiety) to make sure you won't miss any updates!

Much love,
Maciej Aureus Gajzlerowicz
Moral Anxiety Studio

Welcome to Exilian, wonderful to have you here! Do feel free to update things here as well when you're able to :)

I need to get round to playing The Tavern, it looks great - as a game developer and folk songwriter myself this all looks pretty exciting! (I like the pixel style too - how many people are in your team, is it just you or are there 2-3 folk involved?)

Hi, Jubal! I wish I'd be that talented. : ) :
Some great artists work with me, though I want to learn how-to pixel art myself. : )

If you ever try The Tavern - let me know how you liked it! : D

Thanks! I'll try and download it sometime next week - I'm without much internet for the next couple of days!

I included this thread in this month's Exilian newsletter :)
http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5355.0

Happy #screenshotsaturday! I have to be honest, when I see some of the concept arts I get, I instantly think - these have to be a part of the final game...

(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/Nalia_mugshot2.png)

(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/ArgentiaV.png)

#screenshotsaturday

Well hello there! We made a huge progress lately and I would love to share with you newest concept arts from Tales From Windy Meadow, our incoming Visual Novel.

A) One of the in-game areas, a part of the village's domesticated forest. The wilderness in our fantasy setting is a hostile space filled with threats. Because of this, even basic mushroom hunting or looking for herbs is too dangerous for anyone to make a living out of it. In result, every village tries to control a part of the forest, taking care of its plants, keeping beasts away and trying to live in symbiosis.

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=45335&mode=view)

B) Meet Calor, our friendly village blacksmith. He doesn't like his job much, but he's good at it. Really good, actually. Because of his talent people from other villages can buy new tools from him without making a trip to the city, what makes Windy Meadow a fairly popular place.
However, we can't decide which beard do we like the most... Which one is your favorite?

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/CalorBig.png)

I definitely think the rightmost, with the big beard - he's a small-village blacksmith, I'm guessing he doesn't have a lot of time or money to keep it neatly trimmed! :)

Quote from: Jubal on October 14, 2017, 08:16:48 PMhe's a small-village blacksmith, I'm guessing he doesn't have a lot of time or money to keep it neatly trimmed! :)

Actually, blacksmiths in medieval times were quite wealthy! They were an important and valued part of their communities and there is a good reason why so many languages in Europe have various smith-related popular surnames like Smith, Schmidt or Kowalski. You can see a list here! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_(surname)#Variations)

Sure, our game's setting is a fantasy world one and isn't really a part of Europe, but I think it's one of these things worth keeping that even though most villagers are rather poor, blacksmiths are most likely among the richest members of their communities. : )

Yes, blacksmiths were wealthy in a village context, but professional barbers wouldn't have been a common sight out in the villages nonetheless and good razors/scissors for shorter trims might have been a pain to get hold of reliably; excepting clergy, in medieval western Europe big beards were a bit of a status symbol anyway (there are some great parts in the original medieval tales of El Cid where they go into whole passages of insulting each others' beards because it's a grievous insult). Owning a better set of clothes and buying better food would probably have been rather higher on a village smith's list than buying a decent razor, I'd guess.

(If you want more detail on medieval life etc btw do give me a shout and I can try and find colleagues who'll know about it - I am a medieval historian by profession, though in my case I study the Caucasus rather than W Europe primarily :) )

Shouldn't a blacksmith be able to make a razor on his own? : P

Well, in the sense that it's a piece of metalwork, but making a really keen, fine blade or a pair of beard scissors is a rather different skillset to fixing spade-tips and fitting horseshoes! In any case, the point about beard size stands (of course, you can make whatever beard fashion you want the 'fashionable type' in fantasy lore - it might be a nice nod to give a certain style to the blacksmith which is then seen as more common in the city, as a nod to him having more money & thus trying for a slightly more cosmopolitan style).

1) The majority of our spectators, especially from Poland, asked us to keep Calor with the longest beard possible. Just remember that we have to stay reasonable - from time to time a blacksmith has to get pretty close to fire.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/3ov9kc0hQrR1yFvqqQ/giphy.gif)

2) This week we wanted to introduce you Argentia. This travelling merchant doesn't live in Windy Meadow, yet she's the most trusted trader who keeps returning to our village from Berytus city. She's a young, but already respected member of the merchant guild, who puts trust in her wit and insight. And, of course - her crossbow as well.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/26vIeBsI5YjJfMSLS/giphy.gif)

Yes, even I can definitely agree that one can go too far overboard on beards! :)

(And that wit, insight and a crossbow sound like a good trio of things to trust in).

When you guys are animating lots of characters for speech etc, do you have a standard bottom-half-of-face cycle you can reuse and repackage the rest of the face around somehow? The detail-level pixel art looks very nice.

I can't really say... Because complex animations are still long way down the road. ; ) However, we won't lipsync the faces for the sake of the dialogues. We focus on the characters' emotions, so they'll work more like idle animations.

Yes, that makes sense :)

Happy #screenshotsaturday!

We visually updated the main heroes of Tales From Windy Meadow. Do you also think we made a right step? : )

In the following weeks we're going to introduce you these characters and share some new information about their personality and background. You can also find some additional info in our recent IndieDB (http://www.indiedb.com/games/tales-from-windy-meadow/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-october-update) devlog.

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/WindyMeadowHeroes.png)

Hm - it's good though I think the faces may still need playing with a little. The new style is expressive, which is nice, but especially on the middle one of the trio it feels odd, the face is very symmetrical/looks straight forward despite the body and head appearing to be rather more angled, if that makes sense?

Well hello there!
Tales From Windy Meadow just landed on our website (http://www.moralanxietystudio.com/)! (We're going to change the logo, though. ; ))

It's also a great opportunity to share with you the description of one of our three protagonists - Vena, the huntress. What do you think about her?

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! : )

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/VenaFaceSSS.png)

That's a really nice outline, good stuff! :)

What kind of dangerous beasts are we talking here/what are they hunting that involves spears? Boar would be the obvious, I guess, but if her parents are hunters to feed themselves I feel like bows to take down deer are a more natural fit - which isn't to say Vena should switch weapon, the spear is very cool, I'm just wondering if it might be nice to add some ingame explanation linked to that choice and have her deciding to adopt the spear as her weapon specifically because she wants the adrenaline-rush of taking down more dangerous beasts.

Hi there, Jubal! A complex topic that deserves a complex answer. : )

In the Viaticum setting (the one in which both The Tavern and TFWM are set) there is no real distinction between animals and monsters (beasts). The general understanding is that animals are small, monsters - larger and more dangerous, but it's completely subjective. You can still find small rodents, cute birds or a house cat, but many animals are mostly present in their wilder forms. For example, a sheep in our world is a huge beast with a couple of horns and an ability to easily trample a hostile human. 

You mentioned a boar, and it's surely a good example. However, it's difficult to find a boar similar to the ones we know from Europe. We actually plan to show a boar in our game, and we want to portray it as this giant beast with large tusks and spikes spread all over its body. Basically, in Viaticum humans are not the dominant species. We need to be clever. Or at least run fast.

Predi, Vena's mother, is a master arbalist. Sometimes you have only a single shot, and a bow may not cut it. A good crossbow is much more reliable.
Latro, Vena's father, is the one who mastered the art of the spear. It's a defensive weapon, one that can be thrown and one that can be used from a good range even in a melee battle. When a huge beasts jumps on you, you don't want a sword or an axe. You want to stab it and run away. And Vena is very, very impressed by her father. To the point where she probably wouldn't change her weapon of choice even is she would find it tempting.

When Predi and Latro were hunting together, they were often facing their game in the open battle. However, when Predi got sick and Latro was forced to hunt with young Vena, they started focusing on traps and keeping each other safe.

Also, they don't hunt to feed themselves. It's too dangerous and too difficult to live solely from hunting. But at the same time, animal trophies are worth a lot. Bones, tusks and feathers are used by craftsmen, rare meat is considered to be a luxury, furs and skins are essential for many trades. Some trophies are also valued by alchemists and other magicians. Overall, Vena's family is fairly rich, one of the richest in Windy Meadow... but I don't think she realizes how much she already has in her life.

-------

In the game not every information will be put as bluntly like that. A lot of things will be only suggested through some conversations or graphics. : ) Explaining things can be nice, but it's pretty boring for most of the player, myself included.

Ahh, that makes sense - thankyou for the info, good world-building! :)

Say hello to Fabel! : )

(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/FabelFaceSSS.png)

Nice! As a spoken-style storyteller myself, I think I'm going to like this guy :)

A few spelling/grammar points for this one, btw:
> First line, I think "Fabel has experienced" would read better
> "Not only were his parents killed," is the correct version.
> The "Why did he choose" has to be a question the way it's phrased, so it should either be "Why did he choose to adopt the boy? It remains a mystery." OR the non-question version would be "Why he chose to adopt the boy remains a mystery."
> "Once he realised that he was pretty good" would work better I think, keeping the tense consistent
> "Should he follow" rather than "Should he follows"

Thank you! I'll fix it later on.

I hope I didn't ruin anything this time! : P

(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/IudiciaFaceSSS.png)

This one's mostly right! The first sentence should be "Lucidia didn't even notice her 21st birthday.", but I think the rest of it is basically fine :)

And another really nice character idea/portrayal as well :)

Another #screenshotsaturday, another time for a major update!

Through November we described three protagonists - Vena, Fabel and Iudicia - who are staring in Tales From Windy Meadow, our #pixelart fantasy Visual Novel. Now, with our new logo and some spelling fixes it's a good moment to group all the descriptions together.

Starting next week, we're going to focus a little bit more on the Windy Meadow itself - the area designs and the mood we're looking for. You can expect a new YouTube upload as well. The programming of the game had to be postponed, but we still hope to share with you the game's gameplay in December. : )

Also - I wanted to thank you, Jubal, for helping us with the grammar. : )

We hope you're going to have a fantastic weekend!

Glad to help - and I really like the new logo, too, good work! :)

Thank you for sharing our progress in the November update! I missed it before since I was out of town, but I appreciate it a lot. : )

For this ScreenShotSaturday we made a small video showing some of our concept arts as well as the music examples.

No problem, it's what we're here for!

The video works well I think - and I really like the music style, too, it's good :)

It took us two months but we almost finished the Windy Meadow's map. Our goal is to turn it into a useful tool for you to - while playing our Visual Novel, you can always turn on the map to see where specifically you are, what is going to be especially useful for those of you who can't spend much time during a single session of reading.

See full resolution here! (https://imgur.com/gallery/csSXopb)

(https://i.imgur.com/csSXopb.png)

Nice! :) It's really pretty, very well done! I think my only map quibble is on the leftmost section, which I assume is mountains - the mountains look tiny compared to the trees, houses, etc, which makes the map scaling feel a little odd I think?

Thank you! : )) Actually, these are more like medium-sized hills, not impenetrable mountains. : )

Ah, OK :) I think I'd still maybe suggest making them fewer, larger, and possibly greener? It does just look a bit like the map suddenly switches scale at the moment.

Happy ScreenShotSaturday! While we're preparing something special for the holidays, let's take a look at some side characters appearing in Tales From Windy Meadow. Both of these ladies belong to the village watch - we teased the third member of their crew last week. 

The warrior on the left is an experienced soldier sent to Windy Meadow from the city. The blade of her halberd is heavy enough to cut through most of the beasts living in the nearby forests, while her armor is a classic gambeson - a long, padded jacket made of dyed linen. It's a decent defensive suit that can be worn for a long time without getting too uncomfortable. Her service here isn't a highlight of her career - many people consider this sort of duty to be obnoxiously boring and dangerous.  

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/SSS16XII.png)

Also - do you remember one of our protagonists, Iudicia? Here you can see her younger sister, Firma, in her favorite red shirt. Since she comes from a poor family, she can't afford advanced military equipment. Her strength and determination convinced the mayor to give her this job, she's more of a self-learned peasant than an actual warrior. Nobody questions her role in defending the village during the last assault of trolls, but she's well aware that she's sometimes mocked by kids for her clumsy moves.

She doesn't care, though. She knows that she started in a bad spot, but she does her best to move forward. At least she didn't have to become a vagabond, nor a bandit. Hopefully, a bit of a smile will help her get through this time.

I hope the red shirt isn't a plot hint for Firma...!

Happy holidays! A special ScreenShotSaturday update, a nice little video showing the speed draw of one of our NPC head shots. Also, a great chance to show you 2 of the songs we're going to use in Tales From Windy Meadow!

I think I need to watch that one several times to improve my own (very bad) pixelling! The music's lovely as ever, too :)

Happy new year!

Our last ScreenShotSaturday this year is quite busy, but we managed to prepare a short devlog highlighting our bigger updates. You can find it on IndieDB (http://www.indiedb.com/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-december-update).

If you have any questions, issues or ideas, let us know and we'll get in touch with you in 2018! : )

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/mainroadbig2.png)

That's a lovely landscape, really evocative - great work! :)

Thank you very much, Jubal!

No probs - and happy new year, too! :)

Living in the Empire can be rough, and if you're not a well-off person, it can be a real struggle. Especially if you live in a small village such as Windy Meadow.

However, it led people to develop great skills utilizing secondhand tools, weapons, trinkets and even ruins. In this #ScreenShotSaturday we wanted to highlight one of the examples of this process - the house of Limos, the local fisherman.

Before the first houses were raised in this area, the only construction you could find here was the lonely military tower. It was meant to provide refuge for boats and travelers that tried to make use of the nearby rivers. When the roads became known for the safe roads, a new tavern was built. After it the first settlers came, finally one of them was able to develop a farm. Windy Meadow was slowly becoming a reality.

When the upper parts of this military tower were demolished during a dragon's attack, the people living nearby had to decide if they will stay or move away. Since they couldn't afford to recreate the tower, they decided to raise the palisade and spread their defenses instead.

Nevertheless, Limos, who was in his twenties, couldn't add his own share to this investment and in result couldn't be a part of the protected village areas. And since the ruins of the tower were right next to the rivers, he decided to stay in them for some time. Save enough coins selling fish and move inside the village walls after some time.

But after years of postponing this plan Limos admitted he has no interest in moving out any time soon. Even though his place is quite small and he had to pay some workers to make a simple outbuilding, it's a perfect spot to enjoy some privacy and take care of smelly fishing business without complaints from the neighbors. And every year without a massive monster attack makes Limos hope that this just-for-some-time-house will bring him cheerful memories until the end of his days.

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/fishermanlargelogo.png)

How common are dragon attacks in this world?


Also, "in result" should be "as a result" (or "in consequence" also works). :)

Thanks you for your advice. ^^

Dragon attacks (or animal attacks in general) are often enough that people are not very surprised when they hear that a group of beasts destroyed an entire village nearby, but not common enough that they would completely avoid taking risks or living in rural communities. It's a part of the common danger. I instantly think about people who live nearby volcanoes or in the flood zones. It may end terrible for you, but when it works, it works well enough that you can enjoy your life. ; )

A group of beasts? Do dragons travel in packs? :o  (because that would be fun) :)

Some of them do! ; ) We don't have their graphics, but in our fantasy setting and tabletop RPG dragons are basically dinosaurs. (No fire breath included in most of the cases.)

Aww, but that's the best thing about dragons!!! That and the flying thing... ;D

That's subjective, I'm afraid. : P For me the coolest thing about dragons is the "giant reptile-like" appearance.
Some of them fly in our fantasy realm, but not all have the need to do so. Being a t-rex makes you quite safe if you stay on the ground.

Also, in the Empire dragons are not gathering treasures since they are mostly interested in food and expanding their territories, but at the same time their bones are extremely valuable and durable. And while the Imperials don't have stable sources of gold or silver, dragon bones are actually used both in high-level craftsmanship and as the source of money. Killing a dragon is literally like gathering a treasure - you can not only sell its meat, horns, tongue, blood or eyes, but you can also just gather its bones and cut it into small coins.

Of course, to kill a bad boy like this one you need quite a group of suicidal heroes and some advanced technology / traps:
(https://orig00.deviantart.net/8ad3/f/2014/088/1/e/14gottendrag2fb_by_ninjatic-d7c50mr.jpg)

I don't want to kill it, I'd really much rather pet it (or ride it, but I'll settle for cuddling if flying isn't an option...)

I think you can try to raise it if you find a dragon egg, but I'm not sure you'll be able to force it to not kill everyone in its sight (aside of you) when it's going to get hungry. Unless it's not a problem for you. Or you are a mind-controlling mage.

Who said I'd be forcing it to do anything... Dragons are elegant creatures far beyond our level of understanding, you can't force them to do anything... I was merely hoping to be lucky enough to befriend one... (still am...) :)

...not the ones in our world, definitely. xD These are monstrous, savage animals.

From a human perspective I probably agree with you, but what do the dragons say they are? Surely they don't see themselves as savages?

In our setting they don't talk, so we can't ask them. Viaticum world has no intelligent animals, they are instinct-controlled. So our dragons have dinosaur-inspired lifestyle - they are focused on eating and protecting their land or migrating.

Actually, they often eat each other since other animals are not large enough for carnivorous dragons to even bother.

Some theories would suggest humans to be an instinct-controlled species aswell, so that does not mean that they are not intelligent...
Yes, I do agree with you, the lack of interspecies communication is a slight problem...

As I see it, these are more like the dragons in e.g. Game of Thrones, if not a little less clever than that: they're big wild animals, rather than sentient beings like Tolkien's dragons. You might as well ask how lions, or wolves, see themselves. This is fairly true-to-mythology as well: many "wyrms" and suchlike from medieval myth weren't necessarily bright at all.

For example, this is an actual (paraphrased) medieval bestiary entry on dragons:

QuoteThe dragon is larger than all the rest of the serpents. It has a crest a small mouth and narrow nostrils, through which it breathes, and it puts out its tongue. Its strength is not in its teeth, but its tail, and it harms more by blows than by force of impact. It has no harmful poison, but it is said that it does not need poison in order to kill, because it slays anything which it embraces. Not even the elephant, with its huge body, is safe from it. It like concealed near the paths which elephants are in the habit of using, entangles their feed with its coils and suffocates them to death. Its homes are Ethiopia and Inida, where there is always heat.

In other words, medieval folk were happy to see dragons basically as some sort of big snake/lizard thing - a really scary one that could kill elephants, but not a sentient being in the way that some modern dragons are portrayed.

This was exactly my point... Lions and wolves are not just wild creatures... I attribute that mainly to the fact that for a long time I have been under the impression that humans see themselves as the crown of creation/evolution and everything they do not understand (or anything that does not walk and talk like them) is a beast of inferior intelligence...
Just because we cannot persieve something as sentient, does not mean it isn't...

Superiority/inferiority is a value judgement, and isn't related to my contention - which is that they don't walk or talk like us, and we should therefore not really fairly expect them to think like us either - it doesn't make sense to attribute mental traits (like having higher thoughts about species, or a perception of self, or the same sorts of feelings we recognise in ourselves) to creatures that neither have nor indeed need or want the capacity to do so. Asking "what does a dragon think about itself" is sort of secondary to "how does a dragon think about itself, and does it even have a need for a perception of self in a sense we would understand". (Mainly, though, I think "are non-human animals sapient or sentient" may be a topic for the philosopher's plaza (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=58.0) rather than the game design section!)

Your pixel art is absolutely beautiful. Sometimes going for a higher abstraction level in art gets the point across more precisely rather than less, especially since the resolution is high enough to allow for the kind of detail you have.

Thank you very much for your kind words, Thalanor! I find it amazing that back in the 80's-90's pixel art was just a way to squeeze as much content as you could from very limited hardware and low-quality TV screens, but now we can take build upon this artystyle and create something much more impressive and speaking to one's imagination without being so restricted. : ))

We are in an awkward spot where we have many parts of the project being a work in progress. Because of this, for this ScreenShotSaturday we've made a mix of our graphics, showing a scene that is not related to the game's story itself. WIP goblins, WIP boar and WIP wilderness background, just to tease your fantasy appetite. ; )
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/goblinsSSS.png)

That is a pretty sizeable boar! The goblins are fun as well - quite ape-like in style :)

This looks great! Looking forward to this coming out and seeing more of the production. :)

A second video showing the process of making some of our pixel art. : )

Again, very nice work! :)

Work in progress of some of our in-game areas. ^^
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/Shelter-TalesFromWindyMeadow.png)
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/Boat-TalesFromWindyMeadow.png)

You can now find our January devlog on IndieDB. : ) (http://www.indiedb.com/games/tales-from-windy-meadow/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-january-update)

Another speed draw from us. : )

We are not sure about this one... What would you like to be changed?
EDIT: By the way, I like the new Exilian logo a lot. A nice step forward.
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/Vhouse400.png)

Quote from: Aure on February 10, 2018, 03:42:39 PM
EDIT: By the way, I like the new Exilian logo a lot. A nice step forward.

It's a version that we usually put up temporarily to mark Saints Cyril & Methodius Day on 14th February - see this thread (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5525.0) for what it is and why we do it. If there's enough demand we could always leave it, though we would then have to design another logo to mark C&M day.

Oh, I see! I actually know their story pretty well.

Yeah, we kind of stole their saints' day and made it a festival of writing, we usually fundraise for charity for it as well :)

I see what you mean about the logo - the parchment background does make the Exilian text stand out more, I guess? We need to do more design & update work on the site generally, but I'm a pants designer and I'm quite stretched keeping things running most of the time :(

As for the image, I guess I'd say it depends if you want a "warm" or "cold" feel to the house. If you want a colder, emptier feel, I'd make the wood colours paler - if you want a "sleepy but lived in" feel, maybe a warmer palette for the pans and the oven, which currently look very much like the moonlit palette outside.

We have a great week behind us and a very promising one coming up next. Not only we participated in an interview for TwoHappyCats blog (https://twohappycats.com/2018/02/12/moral-anxiety-studios/), but we actually made a gigantic progress making the game's prototype. We had a huge delay, but it finally starts looking pretty good... Though we still have a lot of graphics to complete.

Such as these ones! We almost finished portraying our villagers and they are turning out great. For this #screenshotsaturday, we're sharing one happy family - Mita, Castus and their only son, Pudens. These farmers are the owners of the best fields in Windy Meadow, but their most important source of income is definitely the apiary and their mead-producing business.
(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/Lea_Mug1.png)(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/Castus_Mug1_1.png)(http://media.indiedb.com/cache/images/games/1/64/63166/thumb_620x2000/David_Mug2.png)

Nice! Is that a birthmark, a scar or an illness that Pudens has on his face?

Maybe a larger picture will make it clearer. : P

Changes, changes... The new art is born and then evolves, while Tales From Windy Meadow in its entirety comes closer to its final state.

But the most important changes are unable to show in a small #ScreenshotSaturday post. On Wednesday we're going to share these details. The sad thing is we failed to finish the game to this day... So the March release is now out of our reach.However, we finally have the most basic, raw version of the game working.

Our previous decisions led us to a wrong spot, but now, after switching to a new game engine and changing the programmer, we managed to achieve in 10 days what we were unable to make during 6 previous months.

We are still behind... But there is a lot to show. We'll start showing the game's screenshots and its features next week.

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/sss24II.png)

Looking great! I am a big fan of VA-11 HALL-A so I will be keeping an eye on this as well. :)

Some graphics are still not ready and some things still need to be improved, but we really like this "point the name with your mouse to read it's description". It changes a lot of the writing as well, since this format allows us to easily avoid bad dialogue such as "as you know, I was always your friend and your father never liked me..."

Everything is still work in progress. : )

Our newest devlog is now available on IndieDB. (http://www.indiedb.com/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-weekly-devlog-1-character-descriptions) We plan to turn such updates into a weekly thing. : )
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=47734&mode=view)

Should we... Should we stop them?

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/SSS_10_III.png)

Yes please, it's such a nice tree, it would be such a waste...

Looks great, sounds like an interesting concept. I love the art style too! Keep up the good work!


p.s. Save the tree!  :ents:

@Caradilis
The tree may be pretty, but I wonder how would it work as a part of the palisade... ; ) ;

But honestly, I like it a lot. I'll keep it safe as long as I can. ; )

@kinklade
Thank you very much for your kind words! <3

---

We have never participated in IndieDevHour, but we'll try to start with the weekly updates from now on. : ) Tomorrow we should be able to post a new devlog as well. : )

This is Temnus, Iudicia's father. Longer description would enter the spoiler territory, but I hope you'll like the visuals. : )

(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/Temnus.png)

And here goes the devlog! : ) (http://www.indiedb.com/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-weekly-devlog-2-maps-websites)

Nice update. The map looks like it will be a useful feature. Will it be necessary to track where characters are in order to inform dialogue decisions that you have to make?


Checked out your new site as well. Looking good! :p (puts mine to shame a bit!!)

Well, your website allows you to easily introduce your blog posts and other information, our is more of an "on-line business card". There is always a cost to be made... And to be clear - I'm not the one who made our website, my girlfriend is responsible - and if I remember correctly, the source code should be available somewhere on Github!

I would say that knowing your character's place isn't essential for making in-game decisions since the majority of them is either focused on role-playing or the personal choices. However, it gives you a lot of important context, especially for Vena's route. : )

One place, two visions... Which one do you prefer?
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/VillageSquareSSS.png)

I can't quite pinpoint my reasoning, but I like the first one better... :) Maybe it's the cloudier sky, I'm not sure though...

Yeah I think the first one has a more interesting sky and gives a better sense of depth.

Great work on both of them though!

I like the sky from the first image, and the left building's nearside wall, and that the gateway behind the statue lines up


I like the well, and right building roof from the second image

See, I quite like the statue not lining up from the second image, but overall I think the first image is better, mainly because of the sky.

Thank you so much for your voices. This last picture had a huge traction on Facebook, where it gathered over a hundred comments pointing out that the "lower" option was better, but I do see your point and there were other voices pointing out that the first picture has its redeeming qualities.

I mentioned about it and some worldbuilding stuff in our third devlog. : ) (http://www.indiedb.com/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-weekly-devlog-3-worldbuilding-is-fun)

Old versus new. : )
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/WinyMeadowForestOldVSNew.png)

Looks a lot better! I like the extra leaf detail and look like there is more depth in the background of the forest floor. :)

Are you going back though and reworking a lot of you old background art?

Thank you! I'm afraid to even think about it, but it starts looking this way. ; (

Uh oh!
Well hopefully it will be worth it in the end

New devlog for Tales From Windy Meadow! We introduce the basic concepts related to our character sprites - which are separate from the character portraits. (http://www.indiedb.com/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-weekly-devlog-4-standing-walking-acting)

I must admit, as a person I find no comfort in animal trophies... But the colors of this building - home to the family of hunters who live in Windy Meadow - directly move me, like a place I would love to see in real life.
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/VenasHouseTalesFromWindyMeadow.png)

In our fifth devlog we focused on some of the mistakes that we made during the development. (http://www.indiedb.com/news/tales-from-windy-meadow-weekly-devlog-5-one-step-forward) ; ( ;

Ah, the character name search/replace - I know that one very well, had some issues with it working on LIFE :)

Also, TWM is in the newsletter again:
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5576.0

Thank you, Jubal! : )

My apologies for being late this time. ^^ We have this nice tavern with two empty, ugly paintings inside... What would you like to see in their place?

Members of the family would seem the obvious subjects? Unless they have some other significance, like they'd be hanging pictures of a monarch or religious figures or something. Or you could replace it with a more usual tavern beam artefact - a really long tusk from a monster, or some tankards, or something like that.

I  disappeared from social media for about 10 days (I apologize for being quiet on Twitter, Jubal!), but once I returned, we made a lot of  progress. We haven't finished making all of the required graphics yet, but the game itself finally gets close to its final form. In other words - we started filling many of the in-game areas with their inhabitants. : )
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/tastyclawtavern.png)

Lovely stuff! And don't worry - I'm likely to be a lot less communicative for the next few weeks myself, got a big conference coming up so my schedule is about to get *very* hectic.

So... Have you ever wondered how Fabel lost his legs?
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/banditspritebase.png)

D:

A small "behind the scenes" update:
In "Tales From Windy Meadow" Iudicia, one of our protagonists, has a younger sister - Firma. You can see some similarities in their portraits, though they are not identical.
Iuidicia looks more like their mother, while Firma took after their father. Isn't this clever?
Now here goes the funny thing: our graphic artist didn't even notice this feature while she was designing the characters. Apparently, it just turned out this way.
#AccidentalGenius
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/sss28IV.png)

That's really neat, yeah :)

I may not know that much about medieval weaponry, but I did my homework about medieval books for my fantasy realms. : P Here are a codex, a wax tablet and pieces of old parchment. : )
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/book12.png)
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/doublewaxtablet12.png)
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/oldparchment2x12.png)

Watch with sound for the full experience! The first almost-finished scene from our game, with complete sounds and almost-finished graphics. We plan to have many more like it. 

Looks good!
I love the music - it matches the tone really well.

Thank you! At first I was planning to base the entire soundtrack on one artist (folk guitarist), but I'm more and more convinced that some minimalist piano would be a great addition. : )

One of the first things our writer really wanted to make for Tales From Windy Meadow was the candle-making scene. The comparison of the old village building vs. its reimagination really shows the long way we now have behind us.
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/villagehouse.png)

Yeah, that's a huge development in the graphics - the newer version looks excellent!

Thank you! We still are going to add the characters as well as their idle animations. : )

The rainy evening in Windy Meadow. (Looks best in HD with 50 frames. ; P)

Little Oak village, 8 years before the action of our game. Loving the new colors. Ideally, we would like to add fire animation as well.
(https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/LittleOak.png)

These videos could use some nice lo-fi themes.

Rain in Windy Meadow, Salvia's Hut. The recreation of a 10-months old concept art - modified and adapted for the purposes of the game.

The next step - adding the characters.

Both of these look great, really nice job  :)

Thank you, Tusky! Although, I decided to make a longer comment about our development:

Serious talk time! Nothing to be worried about, just explaining the current situation.

For months we were sharing our concept arts and images, but only recently we started to show you longer videos and GIFs of Tales From Windy Meadow.

Also, trailers are so important in the world of game development, but we still don't have one! Why is that?

Here is the problem - we're building the game layer after layer, not scene after scene. It makes showcasing the progress really tedious, even if we finished like 90% of the game's graphics.

The "layers" we already have include: dialogues, interface, backgrounds, character portraits (and their emotions), basic character sprites, a majority of the non-character animations - rain, fire, doors...

The layer we DON'T have yet - and which stops us from recording more in-game videos - is the character animations. Walking from one place to another, or sitting down, or throwing a spear, or just smoking a pipe... There is an example of it shown in the video - it's the only part that was simple enough to draw that our writer / developer was able to make it mostly by himself.

The current approach is good for the game's quality... The main thing that suffers is our marketing. : P

So just a few words of comfort: new content is coming. Once we finish more character animations, we're going to have a lot of things to add to the game and finish a whole bunch of new scenes at once. Trailer and cool screenshots are on their way, we just have to survive this last part of the marathon. ; )

A big thank you to all of you for your support, we appreciate and hope to do our best turning Tales From Windy Meadow into the best Visual Novel we can. 💓

Happy #screenshotsaturday!

Can you help us decide how "dimmed" should a non-speaking character be?
(https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/dims.png)

Medium.

I suspect medium too, though I'd be interested to see what that looks like when switching between them as a conversation unfolds before I could be really sure.

I see, thank you! Twitter says "dark", I think I'll focus my tests on these two alterations.

We would appreciate even harsh criticism. ^^ Happy to finally reach this point of development!

Just watched through the video on fullscreen - now I look at it in big, it definitely needs more contrast between the characters.

Also, it felt weird to be constantly looking over to the left to see who was speaking, and not to have an indicator of that from something more central where the text I actually wanted to read was. Different coloured text for the different characters in the discussion or some kind of central visual indicator would mean people's eyes moving around less and make the conversation much easier to follow, I think.

Thank you! I keep thinking about adding borders to every portrait to make them look more like an overlay, though I need to test it. I will possibly use it for the next ScreenshotSaturday.

Look forward to seeing it :)

Quote from: Jubal on July 17, 2018, 09:27:32 PM
Also, it felt weird to be constantly looking over to the left to see who was speaking, and not to have an indicator of that from something more central where the text I actually wanted to read was. Different coloured text for the different characters in the discussion or some kind of central visual indicator would mean people's eyes moving around less and make the conversation much easier to follow, I think.

I agree, those things would be a good indication. I suppose often when there is dialogue there, games often put it in a speech bubble, and you can easily spot who is talking that way because it points at someone. Won't work for where you have it on that UI though but maybe a tailored version of that may work?

Looking really nice though :)

I wonder if there's any way you could sensibly rejig the UI to move the names side to side as well, which would make eye movement a bit more natural...

Would you agree that the new portrait outlines and a easier-to-read font size make a difference? : ) If it's not enough, I do intend to experiment some more, maybe including, for example, this "swapping sides namebox" that you mentioned before.

(https://image.ibb.co/gdhMby/SSS21VII.gif)

It does make a lot of difference, yes - I think that I'm now not really looking at the name text, that said, but I can certainly keep track of who's speaking better with this system. Whether it's worth considering moving the name somehow may depend how important it is for players to remember everyone's names/how often people's names get brought up in dialogue anyway.

Whenever a character is mentioned in the middle of the conversation, player can point at the name to see their short bio. So I would say that remembering every name is not crucial.

Thank you for the fast feedback. : )

OK, great :) And no problem!

This one really took a lot of time. It's the prologue of Fabel's storyline.

Great aesthetic.

I Liked it from the stills you'd posted before so nice to see it come to life.

Spoiler

Quite a sad prologue - I hope that traveler knew some basic first aid!!

Thank you, Tusky. One of our artists says this scene is a complete failure and that it's "unintentionally funny", so I was kind of afraid of sharing it. : P

I don't think it came across as unintentionally funny, though the bandit did come across as almost nonchalant rather than terrifying, maybe?

Just a quickie, we have some Summer-related issues with newer updates but we'll be back in full strength next week. ; )
(https://image.ibb.co/b8Xm39/SSS21VII.gif)

Quote from: Aure on August 11, 2018, 10:41:19 AM
Just a quickie, we have some Summer-related issues with newer updates but we'll be back in full strength next week. ; )

This looks absolutely amazing. Looking forward to see more.

Your colour palettes continue to be super effective, good job to whoever it is on your art team who does those :)

Thank you both for your kind words... I hope that once the game is going to be released, we'll be able to orchestrate some nice Steam-keys giveaway on the forum, just to express our gratitude for your encouragement and advice. : )

From a scene currently worked on... We actually have time issues with adding the very needed sound effects. : )
(https://image.ibb.co/iKioXe/vatesrain.gif)

Yay, rain!!! *dear rain, wish you were here... love, me.*

Honestly, this looks awesome!

Greetings! In Tales From Windy Meadow we have only one dream sequence, but I think it looks pretty well! We're sharing it for ScreenshotSaturday and hoping to see your feedback!

*repeats himself from twitter* Looks fantastic!

^^ Something different, but I always wanted to do this!

I am so happy to see how much we pushed the game forward during the last two months. I'm especially proud of Iudicia's prologue. It was very interesting for me to try to adapt a character with Asperger's syndrome to a fantasy setting, in which nobody knows what this condition is or how could they call it.

I hope that all this effort is visible in the scene itself. <3



Please remember that the game itself has three protagonists with their own struggles, dreams and doubts. Come and get to know them on our updated website. (http://moralanxietystudio.com/) Big thanks to Tusky for pressuring me into making this update. xD

So, what do you think? : )

New chapter selection screen!

Ooh, looks lovely - well done! :)

Slowly but surely, our Visual Novel gets closer to its destination. ^^

Windy Meadow closed out this month's newsletter :)

https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5773

Just read about this in the newsletter! It looks amazing, I love it!

Thank you! I spent about 10 hours today working on the game and it really keeps me motivated to see someone sharing a bit of reinforcement with me. ^^

I liked the reworked images you posted on twitter - looking really nice. It's always a shame to have to delay to refactor or rework things to match later and better stuff but definitely worth it. I had a lot of that on my last project, the models I made at first were laughable compared to at the end so I had to spend a similar amount of time as you going back over them all!

Cheers, Tusky! In my case it's mostly the result of a conflict with the original programmer who had to be removed from the project after about half a year in. The original idea was to have an experienced programmer and to let me take on myself a large part of pixelart, writing and so on. However, I was pretty much forced to become our programmer instead and we have large delay with the graphics department. It currently looks better than I ever thought was possible, but I have to learn how to digest all these delays and problems. : (

Nevertheless, I really think that you are making a great job improving your graphics. I have this feeling that "Tourney" looks like the games from late 90's and early 2000's really wanted to look like but didn't have hardware to do so. For any kid who spent dozens of hours playing Age Of Empires it's a really delightful sight.

The last month and a half are just so... What's the opposite of "soul-crushing"? Soul-building?
Anyway, all of the parts of the larger picture finally work together and look as they were supposed to. : )
(https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/SSS01.png)
(https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/SSS02.png)
(https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/SSS03.png)
(https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/64/63166/SSS04.png)

Greetings!

Very soon we plan to share 1) the trailer 2) the demo version of the game 3) the Steam page for wishlisting. The former two are almost there - if they pass the testing process, we should be able to share them next Saturday. : )

Also, there is a good chance that Oray Studios (which makes a huge part of the game's graphics!) will show our work at G-Star 2018 in South Korea in just a couple of weeks!
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50964&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50963&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50962&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50961&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=50960&mode=view)

Fantastic stuff - starting to really sound like things are all coming together (and look like it too from the screens!)

So, the trailer wasn't officially shared in social media... I was hoping to see your opinion first since I can still try to change it.
This version, however, is very close to my heart and I'm happy to share it with you. : )
Since this Visual Novel is a bit different, I wanted its trailer to also be unique. But is it even good? Do you like it?

I really like it :)

I'd make two tweaks to the writing:
> "Changes, that you can't control." should just be "Changes that you can't control."
> At the end I'd use ellipsis for emphasis, so the penultimate section ends "strange and volatile..." and the last bit is "...how do you deal with it"?

But I think those are my only comments. Of course there's slightly the issue that you need to watch the trailer twice to get most of it, because it's hard to take in all the text and images simultaneously, but short of a voiceover I don't think that's avoidable.

Thank you so much for your time! I'm going to think about it. <3

No probs - glad to see more of it coming together as ever :)

Greetings!

Just wanted to let you know that Tales From Windy Meadow has it's own store page on Steam! You can now conveniently take a look at the game's description, trailer and screenshots, as well as wishilist it to make sure you won't miss the game's release nor the sales. : )) (https://store.steampowered.com/app/875660/Tales_From_Windy_Meadow/)

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51073&mode=view)

Well done on getting it launched! :)

ooo exciting. Looks good :)

The community hub doesn't work for some reason though. Added to wishlist and followed anyway. Knowing steam I imagine they use any shred of data about a game possible to automate it's appearance in the store so hopefully it helps!

Hi there!
Tusky, are you sure that the community hub doesn't work for you? It does work for me even if I'm not logged in, though there is no content there. Does this link, for example give you no results? https://steamcommunity.com/app/875660/discussions/

Well hello there!

Our developer had a bit of time to spare and we are trying something new. From now on, many of the character sprites will have irides that reflect their character portraits. Details still may change, but it's a fun way to make some characters look more unique during the scenes which introduce multiple characters at once.

And since it's a feature that should have been added four months ago or so, making it work required modifying something like 1400 PNG files. This is what our dev gets for making late-development changes. Bad planning at its finest.

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51137&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51136&mode=view)

Neat! And yeah, graphics style changes are huge work - respect to you guys for doing this one, I think it's a helpful change :)

It was a difficult week, but quite efficient as far as working on Tales From Windy Meadow goes. We are now working on the epilogue, but also fixing older graphics that don't match the level of the rest of the game, adding new sound effects and, of course, fixing the dialogues.

In some parts our designer rewrites pretty much 60%-80% of the original script. Yikes.

At least the music is fantastic and needs no work whatsoever. ^^
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51179&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51180&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51181&mode=view)

Whenever I feel like I need to take a break from developing Tales From Windy Meadow, I try to add to the backgrounds some animated critters. : P
(https://66.media.tumblr.com/35872a05c02acc6ce9492b0f60994d16/tumblr_pip8w5MlKT1wja205o1_500.gif)

I love that gif - really brings some bits of what's going on to life :) (And duly included in this month's newsletter!)

Thank you, Jubal! In the meantime, I prepared one more update... ; )

I can hardly believe it, but today I'm working on the game's epilogue. I'm waiting for one more image and rewriting the endgame credits. Tomorrow I'm sending the game for some testing, and if we decide the quality is satisfying, we'll try to try to release Tales From Windy Meadow before Christmas.

Yesterday, Oray Studios sent me some fantastic graphics that I'm editing right now. This game is so much more than I originally aimed for and it truly makes me proud.

For this ScreenshotSaturday I prepared two "old vs new" backgrounds. Some differences are obvious, some won't ever be noticed by anyone... Yet you won't believe how much time it took me to apply all the changes I wanted. And I think it was worth it.

Have a fantastic day!

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51346&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51347&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51348&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51349&mode=view)

It's happening! 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘆 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘄 turned out great! We're still changing some minor details, but even now we're proud of the Visual Novel we developed. Uploading it on Steam and adding the achievements was (almost) painless and we'll do our best to make sure that 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿!
To make sure you won't miss the initial discount, wishlist the game here!
Our journey is almost over. Thank you for supporting our project for over year and a half. ❤️
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51400&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51401&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51402&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51403&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51404&mode=view)

Well done! I look forward to finally having a go at playing it :)

It's the last ScreenshotSaturday before Tales From Windy Meadow's release... So we've made a new trailer!

Only five more days... Thank you for all the support you shared with us in the comments. <3

I watched the trailer - looks fantastic. Love the music you used in it too.

Good luck for the release!

Thank you so much! I actually wanted to use this music track for our first trailer, but I was unable to cut it right... And I just love this part from 0:46!
EDIT: And here is its source. ; ) (https://www.zapsplat.com/music/classical-piano-music-taylor-howard-tempest/)

Tales From Windy Meadow is now available on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/875660/Tales_From_Windy_Meadow/). I wanted to create an interactive story that explores the anxieties of choosing one's path and living in a small community.

It turned out just as I wanted it to be, but better. It's set in my beloved fantasy setting that I've been working on for 10 years. It tells a slice-of-life story, not an action-adventure one. It's a Visual Novel, but it's not about romance nor sex. I love the music, I love how the graphics evolved since the early concept arts. I love how the dialogues improved over the years.

It's a niche game and I understand if many of you won't find it interesting, but I also know for some people it's a unique, intimate experience. And I'm happy I made it.

Thank you for sharing this moment with me. ^^

Congrats, a great moment when you finish something like this :) I'll get a front page announcement up later tonight - got a flight back for Christmas leaving about now and posting from my phone but once I get home in the UK I'll sort that!

Oh dear, have a good flight! I was once taking a plane from Poznań, Poland to Edinburgh and the views were fantastic. Thank you for willing to support the project!

I'm still not home, this has been a journey from hell, but this train has wifi so announcement has duly been announcemented:
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5839

:)

Congratulations!

Will be picking myself up a copy after the christmas break :)

I have to say it's been fun following your progress and seeing the game become what it is.

Thank you so much! I hope the game won't disappoint you!

Marcel Weyers, a very kind writer from Germany, took a closer look at Tales From Windy Meadow and since he found our story to be worth spreading, he decided to help us by translating it into German!

In result, I started working on all the useful tools that could make this translation come true. And since we're doing it, it will also help us create other language versions, so we already made the first steps into creating the Polish version of the game. ^^

So yeah, I'm already after the game's release, but I'm not resting yet! : D Are there any other languages supported by Tales From Windy Meadow that you would like to see?

(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51586&mode=view)
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=51585&mode=view)

Ooh fun! :) I wish I could offer Georgian, but mine isn't quite good enough yet...

I have now bought & downloaded Tales from Windy Meadow, but I'm struggling to catch up with my own projects before I can allow myself time to play it ;)

I don't know how I did it but I somehow missed your reply. O_o
I never heard Georgian before so I decided to check it out on YouTube, it sounds fascinating! What a unique vocabulary, I never heard anything like it.
Thank you for supporting the game! I can completely understand that finding 2-3 hours may be difficult. For me it's even more difficult to find time during which I don't constantly think about the development process...

And here is my new ScreenshotSaturday update! : )

So far, the translation process in general is going pretty great! It's also an opportunity to fix minor typos or tiny bugs, so once the Polish and German versions will be ready, I'm also going to update the English version and push it one step closer towards perfection. : D

By the way, in German version "Windy Meadow" was translated into "Windige Wiesen". Pretty cool. ^^

Also, there's a good chance that our Visual Novel will be translated into Indonesian (or - an Indonesian version of Malay) and Ukrainian... Though it doesn't look like our main font is going to fit it well.

And if you'd like to support our game but you've already bought it, it would be a great help if you could share your review on Steam or Itch.io. Let us and other people know how did you like it! And if you need some nice, relaxing background music, maybe my old lofi mix would help? : )

Have a great weekend!

I finally did a playthrough :)

I did the run that got me the following achievements:
United We Stand
Healing Wounds
Windy Meadow
Wind Of Adventure
Storyteller
Looking Outward Together

I definitely enjoyed it - I don't know when I'll get a chance to do the other possibilities, but it was definitely fun. I'll try to write a review if I get time :)

<3 Thank you for your time, Jubal! I would be more than happy to read your review. ^^

When a character I've created starts dissing my game... (https://streamable.com/ms38v)

Fabel arguably ahead of his time in inventing the slice of life story there :)

Greetings! Our latest update is now live - English version is now updated, German and Polish introduced. Also, the game is now available on GameJolt (https://gamejolt.com/games/windy-meadow/385415).

You can read all the patch notes here! (https://www.indiedb.com/games/tales-from-windy-meadow/news/updates-translations-and-patch-notes-tales-from-windy-meadow1)

Nice :) I just sent you a PM, by the way (I know people don't always notice them on here!).

Finally got my review written:
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5890

For this ScreenshotSaturday we have a YouTube playlist with some of our my favorite tracks that are a part of Tales From Windy Meadow!

The original plan was to make one, longer video with some visual fireworks in it, but ultimately I decided to make it more of a "let it play in the background and make my own playlist from it" thing.

Here is the link to the full playlist! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzHeo2T00&index=14&list=PL3tDxuWrg5aR3FBJmdVy1N3G6u5R_lL3j)

Hello again!
It's ScreenshotSaturday, and a bit of a special day for me. Tales From Windy Meadow is now on sale (15% off!) (https://store.steampowered.com/app/875660/Tales_From_Windy_Meadow/), and we're happy to share with you some quotes from the reviews that are focused on my Visual Novel.
(https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/download/file.php?id=52323&mode=view)
Cutting out and putting together these quotes was quite heartwarming. We were met with an extraordinary kindness and a lot of encouraging opinions. We're happy to see such a positive perception of our work.

Of course, we also participated in an interview organized by Jubal (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5907.msg131053) a couple of days ago, and now it's time for us to look forward. Moral Anxiety Studio is going to become a more of a one-person initiative, and if everything will go according to plan, my next game will be officially announced very soon.

Thank you and if you have any questions or would like to discuss your adventures in Windy Meadow with me, feel free to do so!
And have a great weekend!

Looking forward to the next game announcement :)

Quote from: Jubal on March 14, 2019, 11:36:28 PM
Looking forward to the next game announcement :)

Would you like to help me by testing my prototype? : P

Ooh, yes, I'd be happy to :)

Thanks, Jubal! I already received some feedback for the earlier version of the prototype, and I'm working on some fixes and adjustments. : ) Would that be fine if I contact you sometime around Friday?

Guess who's back. : )

(https://i.ibb.co/g69n2bc/screenshot0.png)

I released the original Windy Meadow 5 years ago. It had many flaws. I couldn't pull it off - yet.
Now I'm going to make it right.
Coming to Steam (very) soon! (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366430/Windy_Meadow__A_Roadwarden_Tale/)

(https://i.ibb.co/JQQHFF6/screenshot1.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/wN2PVn9/screenshot2.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/p1w6Fp9/screenshot3.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/rdSMvCN/screenshot4.png)

I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. To me, reimagining an entire, old project is an exciting journey.

Oh, that IS exciting news!

How much plot overhaul will the new version have/has it been a lot of work to bring the lore into line with where things are in Viaticum post-Roadwarden (if that's been one of the aims of the update)?

I'm glad you think so!
Yes, the setting has been adapted to fit the one presented in Roadwarden, but it's mainly portrayed in text. I think it's been one of the worst things about the original Windy Meadow - there were boring conversations trying to explain how the world works, which are now either trimmed-down, replaced by other conversations, or pushed to other channels of information (like the character descriptions). I think I got much better at introducing worldbuilding over the years.

The plot overhaul is massive, but not easy to see right away. The core parts are still there - the fire, the marriage, the goblins, the main conflicts, the characters - but there are TONS of smaller and larger changes. Now each character has two clear conflict lines (previously, some of them were either vague, or not present at all - Fabel used to have only one conflict), I rewrote 99% of the text - sometimes introducing changes, sometimes completely replacing some parts with new ones - and am adding a few small scenes, various characters have new personality traits, I added accents, I put effort into making each character have distinct voice, to the best of my capabilities... Even the general "vibe" is different, with many characters losing their mean attitude or getting much less preachy or judgmental.

I don't think the old Windy Meadow is worth playing, but I kind of think it would be fascinating to make a detailed analysis of two versions side by side.

My first screenshot Saturday for new Windy Meadow!

(https://i.ibb.co/dQv0f7P/sss1.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/vJrVYPW/sss2.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/0ykY1v2/sss3.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/0V9pMyh/sss4.png)

All very pretty :) I love that gryphon especially.

Duly featured in Updates from the Forge (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=6679.msg150646#msg150646), and I see there's been some buzz on bits of Mastodon (https://sleeping.town/@terrana/110118812403743412) as well. :)

Is there a story behind it being called the Tasty Claw? I genuinely can't remember as it's a while since I played the old version of Tales.

Thank you! And you know what? It's never been explained anywhere in the game, but now that my UI is better, I could probably squeeze it in somewhere.
In my head, the reason is tied to Stabulus' expectations regarding moving to a small settlements. Pretty much a play on "finger-licking good". ; )

Quote from: Aure on April 11, 2023, 05:45:40 AM
Thank you! And you know what? It's never been explained anywhere in the game, but now that my UI is better, I could probably squeeze it in somewhere.
In my head, the reason is tied to Stabulus' expectations regarding moving to a small settlements. Pretty much a play on "finger-licking good". ; )

Aha - I was debating in my head whether it was that or whether Stabby really specialised in crab/lobster stew. Or both :)

Aure, it's really interesting to hear you speak about growing as a writer, and the challenge of delivering lore in an organic, unforced way.

Roadwarden does this very well I think. I was already primed to think about it while playing because of Doc's article on the subject (https://docseuss.medium.com/lore-is-a-trap-and-will-kill-your-story-if-you-let-it-so-what-can-we-do-about-it-9f84850980e3). So I really noticed how the lore functioned to help the character driven story along, as the "salt" in good proportion to the meat, using Doc's analogy.

I'm moving into the writing phase of Innkeep as well now, and I am trying to actively remind myself of this as I re-work bits of dialogue, or plan out narrative stuff more.

The article is quite lengthy so I can't get to it right away, but it does sound interesting!
I'd generally say that more people will connect with an interesting, relatable character in a tired, cliche setting than with a boring trope-heavy character in a unique setting. The setting may be fascinating for a writer, but it can rarely deliver a punch.

Haha, yeah that is Doc for you. ;-)
"I'd generally say that more people will connect with an interesting, relatable character in a tired, cliche setting than with a boring trope-heavy character in a unique setting. The setting may be fascinating for a writer, but it can rarely deliver a punch."
That's a really good way of putting it.

The setting I guess is more front-loaded: I won't often pick up a game for a character, because that relies on me both knowing the character and knowing the writers well enough to be sure it'll have that kind of quality. So I wonder if the lore is sometimes analogous to the outer parts of a sandwich: it's the bit you start people off with, and it's the depth bit underneath that you can dive into, whereas the character really provides the core narrative enjoyment in the middle?

That's a nice metaphor.

I think the setting can be distinguished from the lore in some way. For example, Dark Souls has a very evocative setting, but lore in terms of actually conveyed details about the history of the world is limited to mostly item descriptions and a few choice dialogue lines.