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🍮

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🍮

Progress on Beautiful’s Sprites

A screenshot of a battle from The Magical Girl in PROXY with placeholder 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

A screenshot of VEGAS Pro 16, with Paint of Persia overlaid.

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🍮

August 17th Build!

Happy Magical Girl Monday!

I’ve added Pretty’s battle sprites, the Mascot’s sprites for when the player is defeated, and some music courtesy of Dsmitti!

I’ve been messing around with the way cutscenes work, so if there’s anything that’s weird compared to the last build, please let me know. I reverted the code back to the old version for this build because of a few bugs, but I may have missed something!

I haven’t finalized any cutscenes because I’m still revising the first chapter of the light novel. The dialogue/narration/descriptions in the light novel are word for word what’s going to be in the game (though the game will have a few branches that the novel doesn’t explore).

Because I’m changing the way cutscenes work in the code, I don’t want to use any more placeholders for this episode — I want to finalize the cutscenes once and for all!

If you haven’t, please read the light novel sample on Google Drive and give your honest feedback in the survey at the end.

Even if you have read it before, I’ve most likely updated it since you have. So if you have the time, please read it again and let me know what you think!

Please avoid generic “Everything’s perfect!” responses, and instead tell me what your favorite part was and why.

If there’s anything that needs to be explained more, whether because it was confusing or because you found it interesting, let me know.

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🍮

Pretty’s Battle Sprites Are Done!

Happy Magical Girl Monday!

I’ve completed Pretty’s battle sprites and implemented them into the game. A new build will be uploaded later this week.

As I said last week, I’m going to move on to Beautiful’s battle sprites, and then the monsters’.

Over the weekend, I was playing around with Redbubble and I added more stuff to the store! I’ve also created a storefront on TeePublic. The designs I upload will be the same across both stores, but with a little variation in placement, since the image uploaders function differently. So, if you like a design but don’t like the way it will print, check the other store!

The links to both stores are on the PROXYFLANS Linktree!

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, please like, reblog, comment, and share with your friends! Feedback is my greatest motivator!

Flan Girl was Cake All Along

Happy Magical Girl Monday!

I didn’t post last week due to a bad migraine, so here’s a little something to make up for it!

“F-Flan Girl! All this time…”

“I’m sorry, Takako. All this time… I wasn’t flan. I was cake.”

I’m still working on Pretty’s battle sprites. Out of all the magical girl battle sprites that will be in episode one, I think Pretty’s are going to take the longest. Because she has flowing fabric for her sleeves and skirt, I have to double check everything to make sure it looks natural.

I’m currently finalizing her special attack, and will move on to her hit, defeat, and defense sprites. After that, I’m going to move on to Beautiful’s battle sprites, and then the monster 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, please like, reblog, comment, and share with your friends! Feedback is my greatest motivator!

Music Man Enters the Discord!

Happy Magical Girl Monday!

I’m still in the progress of creating Pretty’s battle sprites, and also editing the first chapter of the light novel, so there’s no preview of that this week.

I’ve recently added the flan tunes channel, where Dsmitti the Music Man has already shared something he’s been working on! It will be in the next build, but if you want a preview of what’s to come, join the server!

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, please like, reblog, comment, and share with your friends! Feedback is my greatest motivator!