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Happy Magical Girl Monday!
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
For today, I have a couple updates!
First, the novelization. I’m still in the process of editing it, but also designing the cover. From the very beginning I had a specific vision for the content (Takako pointing at the reader, Flan Girl in the background facing away). However, over time I realized the original layout I drew it as was a little boring.
So, every so often I’ve been redrawing the cover in thumbnail form. (Mini sticky note pads are great for making guidelines.) One aspect I’m going to keep that isn’t reflected in all the sketches is the volume number being in the O mask in the logo. (In this case, it’s the number 1.) I just think it’s neat.
Which of these do you like best? I’m also thinking of using Tumblr’s new poll feature to do tournament brackets for the designs.
Second, I uploaded two YouTube shorts today! (Technically one, but two versions.)
I got a graphics tablet for Christmas, so I’m finally doing something I’ve been wanting to do in either 2D or 3D–Vine and TikTok animatics! I hope you enjoy this little peek into another way to meet the cast of TMGiP. I’ve got a bunch of ideas up my sleeve that I’ve been sitting on.
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
You can find all links on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
Happy Halloween!
Happy Magical Girl Monday! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
I’ve been working on editing the first volume of the novelization, sketching out possible cover designs, and working on writing the second volume.
I’m working on new designs for Redbubble! Here’s a sneak preview of what one of the designs will be!
Well, not new new–you might remember that I started these “microorganism” chibi designs for PROXtober, but life got in the way and I was unable to finish them. Instead of uploading them all at once, I’m planning to upload them in groups of five!
Finally, regarding the game itself–I’ve been playing around with what I have so far of it in RPG Maker, and have come to a decision. It’s not viable for me to go with my initial design concept of branching paths based on the outcomes of battles. There would just be way too many paths to take into account! So, I’ve decided that the game will be linear, and follow the novel’s plot. I actually made a similar decision a few years and iterations of the game ago–originally, my design would be that the player could choose any magical girl to fight the monster, but I changed it to the current model of Magical Girl Monthly dictating to Takako which magical girl had to be chosen.
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
You can find all links on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮 PROXYFLANS 🍮
A Quick Announcement
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
This is going to be a short post, since I just have one announcement.
On Saturdays at 8/7c, starting with this Saturday the 24th, I’m going to be doing a live reading of the novel’s current draft on the PROXYFLANS Discord server’s stage!
Like I said in the last post, it’s not going to be a straight read. Instead, it’s going to be rough. I’m going to be pausing every time I come across a continuity error, and make a note that it needs to be fixed. Also, since it’s a stage channel, you can raise your hand at any time if you have a question. (But if you don’t want to speak, you can just @ me your question and I’ll read it!)
Each night will be from a half hour to an hour, and I’ll be reading one or two chapters. (It depends on how long it takes me to read one chapter, and how many things I realize I need to change.)
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
You can find all links on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮 PROXYFLANS 🍮
June Check-In
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
I believe my last post was in April. What have I been working on since then?
I’ve been working on the light novel, and I’m getting really close to my word count goals for each chapter! As I’m typing this, I’m updating the word counts in Trello again.
I’ve discovered that Scrivener actually has an estimated reading time when you click on the word count–the average time for each chapter is about 30 minutes. I’m thinking of doing a live reading, either by myself or with friends, on the PROXYFLANS Discord. Of course, it wouldn’t be a straight read–this is still a draft so there would be pauses when something doesn’t sound right so I can make a note of possible changes. (By the way, I’ve converted the Discord into a community server!)
A major continuity error I came across was Takako describing her classroom as being on the top floor, and then in a later chapter she was going up stairs to another floor–but not the roof! I fixed this by drawing out a map of the school on grid paper, and then scanning it and importing the pictures to Campfire Pro to play around with what rooms go where. With an official map to use as my guide, I feel that my descriptions of Fujioka High School will make more sense, and I also have a better reference when doing pixel art!
Speaking of pixel art, I’ve gotten back into it! The other day, I completed Tsubasa’s hair and eyes for her RPG sprite, and started on Hotaru’s. Hotaru’s hair and eyes are almost complete!
I’ve also decided that instead of creating new art from scratch for Flan Clicker, I will utilize the RPG sprites, possibly scaling them up to add different expressions. This will make the sprites easier to line up for the dress up game, since they all use the same base, so for example: I won’t have to draw the same type of socks in two poses for different characters, instead using the same base and maybe I’d just tweak the colors.
Another art-related tidbit, I’ve signed up to participate in Art Fight! It’s been a while since I’ve drawn characters that aren’t related to PROXYFLANS, so I feel that this will help the creative juices flow. (Really, it’s been too long!) I think I’m just going to upload three characters of mine from PROXYFLANS–Cute, Pretty, and Beautiful–because they’re a complete set. If I were to choose anyone from the main cast, I’d be too tempted to prepare references for everyone. And while I do have full body sketches for the character sheets done, I don’t have the time to scan and color them all.
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
You can find all links on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮 PROXYFLANS 🍮
Novel Excerpts Compilation and More!
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
I’ve been a bit busy with classes, but as I promised on the previous Magical Girl Monday, under the read more I’ve created a compilation of excerpts that were prompted by Tumblr users. (And my ask box is still open, so if you want you can send in more prompts!)
Before we get into that, though, there’s a few things I want to go over!
First, here’s a link to a Trello board that I made so you can follow along with my progress on the light novel! I will update it whenever I make major progress. At the moment, it’s organized so each list represents a chapter, and each list has one card that has the chapter’s current word count out of my goal (8000 words). However, I might change the way it’s organized if I think of a better way.
The 8000 words per chapter isn’t a hard goal—I want to get close to it so the chapters are roughly the same length, but I’m fine with it being a little under or a little over. For example, chapters one and four are very close to 8000, but aside from a little editing, I consider them to be pretty much done since they hit all the points I need them to.
Once the story is written and edited, I’m going to design the cover and maybe a few single page illustrations, work on the interior formatting, and sell the final product in eBook formats on Itch.
What about the game itself?
The game is currently on the back burner until the first novel is finished, since most of the cutscenes will come from the novel. Doing this will improve my workflow, since I’ll have a collection of chapters to use as reference for the game instead of working on them side-by-side.
However, I’m highly tempted to switch over to a version of RPG Maker for the main game, most likely MZ. Creating cutscenes from scratch in GameMaker Studio is very frustrating. I downloaded the trial for RPG Maker MZ (RMMZ), and while I wasn’t able to utilize it every day that I had access to the trial, there was a big difference in the workflow when it comes to creating cutscenes—really wish that I had used a version of it from the start, especially for my Capstone.
One major difference may be the battles—I know I’ve said before that the current iteration of the battle system will be the last one, with no more changes, BUT this was when I was coding the entire thing from the ground up.
The built in system in RMMZ is very similar to what I currently have in GMS, but the issue that I’m seeing is I wouldn’t be able to use my current sprites without a lot of JavaScript behind the scenes. I’m familiar with JavaScript, but a little rusty when it comes to creating my own stuff. That being said, I feel like my focus with TMGiP has been with the story more than the battle system, so I feel that as long as the story branches properly and the cutscenes work, I’ll be happy with the outcome.
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
You can find all links on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
Continue reading “Novel Excerpts Compilation and More!”Ask Memes!
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
My last post was in November, and I said I wouldn’t be posting because my course load was heavy. It’s now February, and this semester has been even heavier! I haven’t had any time or energy to work on the PROXtober chibi vectors or art for the actual game.
However, I have been able to work on the light novel — this takes me less energy than doing pixel or vector art. And I’ve made progress!
Last week, I reblogged an ask meme on my main Tumblr, and I’ve decided that this is what I’ll be doing in February:
I will reblog multiple ask memes on Tumblr (like “send in a word and I’ll post an excerpt that it appears in” or “send me an emoji and I’ll post a random line/excerpt”) and I’ll respond to them as I get them, regardless of if it’s a Magical Girl Monday or not.
My ask box is always open regardless of if I’m taking ask meme challenges or not — if you have any questions about development, feel free to ask!
Want a download key for the debug build? Want to read the first chapter of the light novel? You can find both on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
Further Progress on Beautiful’s Sprites
Happy Magical Girl Monday! (By the time this is posted, it might be Tuesday, though. Oh well!)
I’m finalizing Beautiful’s palette, and I started applying it to her idle sprite.
My course load is a bit heavier this semester, so my PROXtober chibi vectors are not high priority. It’s also possible this might be the only Magical Girl Monday post this month, or I might post on different Mondays.
Want a download key for the debug build? Want to read the first chapter of the light novel? You can find both on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
Progress on Beautiful’s Sprites
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
I’ve finished the rotoscoping for Beautiful’s battle sprites, and put them in the game as a placeholder. I also updated the code for type matchups to include Beautiful, because otherwise there would be an error when attacking.
There’s a strange issue that I’ve come across and I’m trying to resolve it. The game will run fine on my laptop, but on my secondary monitor it lags in windowed mode. I tested it out with the previous build, and this is also the case. If you’ve had issues with lag, please comment on the latest post on itch.io. It might just be something on my end, but I want to be sure.
PROXtober has taken a back seat on my end because of my final projects for college, so I’ll probably be posting them going into November.
Want a download key for the debug build? Want to read the first chapter of the light novel? You can find both on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
Beautiful’s Rotoscoping Process
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
I had some difficulty* getting VEGAS to work on my college laptop, but I finally got it to work! I’m able to show you my progress on Beautiful’s Rotoscoping! Remember in the past when I’ve shown sprite sheets of blue stick figures? This is how I do it!
(I’m putting this here in case it happens again, or if anyone reading has the same problem: VEGAS kept stalling on the launch screen at “Initializing DirectX plug-ins.” In order to get it to work, you have to right click on the icon, select “Properties,” and in the “Target” section add a space and then “/NODXGROVEL” to the very end, without the quotes. Then, if it stalls on “Initializing External Monitor,” you have to unplug everything from the computer’s ports. I found the first solution in a YouTube video, and the second in the comments of another video, but figured it would be best if both solutions could be found together.)
So besides rotoscoping, what have I been up to?
I may have figured out a better solution to Youko and other NPCs not facing the correct direction while loading — previously, I had uploaded a video with a solution, but sometime between then and upgrading to 2.3, it stopped working properly.
I’ve been rereading and revising the light novel’s first episode, as well as fleshing out scenes for future episodes. (There’s some parts that I’m really excited to share!) In addition to this, I’ve been migrating my character sheet information from Excel, Scrivener, and my notebook to Campfire Pro for easier access and readability.
Finally, I’ve been working on PROXtober — I plan on uploading my first seven as separate posts to Tumblr, Instagram, and possibly Twitter throughout the day on Wednesday (10/7). The next seven I plan to post 10/14, and the final three I’ll post 10/21. They’ll all be in the first Magical Girl Monday post of November.
Shout out to Tumblr user Jukio8o who has posted something for every prompt so far! Here’s some flan, ’cause you’re epic! 🍮
The next build I upload, if everything goes to plan, should include the fixed NPC facing code, Beautiful’s battle sprites and her particle effects, and Pretty’s particle effects if they weren’t in the last build. It might even have the tutorial enemy’s sprites!
Want a download key for the debug build? Want to read the first chapter of the light novel? You can find both on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
PROXtober 2020
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
I want to announce my Inktober alternative for this year – PROXtober! I’ve been seeing other lists that aren’t 31 prompts, or give a few prompts per week, so I decided to do three weeks worth of character prompts. Also, the OTP prompt doesn’t have to be a romantic ship – it can just be two characters you like the designs of. They also don’t have to be characters mentioned on this list – I left off Cute, Pretty, Beautiful, Jet, Bone, and Flan Girl. You could even do a crossover with another magical girl series.
I’m going to post my own drawings in October, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with! Tag your posts with #PROXtober and #PROXtober2020, and tag me @PROXFLANS! I will reblog all the posts I see, and the ones I see on Instagram I will feature in a Story Highlight!
Want a download key for the debug build? Want to read the first chapter of the light novel? You can find both on the PROXYFLANS Linktree! (Until all the download keys are taken, I won’t make The Magical Girl in PROXY a public download.)
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
First Build in GameMaker Studio 2.3!
Happy Magical Girl Monday!
I uploaded a new build to itch.io, and it’s the first build that uses GameMaker Studio 2.3!
Grab a download key if you haven’t already, and then you’ll be able to read the devlog!
What’s the picture that accompanies this post? It’s a preview of something yet to come that I’ve been working on when not coding or revising the light novel!
If you haven’t already, please read the light novel sample and let me know what you think! I really want to finalize the dialogue and descriptions, and it’s easier to edit the text when it’s in a document than when it’s already formatted into a cutscene.
If there’s anything that needs to be explained more, whether because it was confusing or because you found it interesting, let me know.
Thank you for following the stories’/games’ development! If you like what you see, reblog, comment, and share with your friends and anyone else who you think needs some magical girl positivity in their lives!
Thank you all, and I hope you have a flantastic day! 🍮
🍮PROXYFLANS🍮
The Magical Girl In PROXY 