I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has shown interest and support over the past 3 years of development, it's meant a lot to me to know you're out there and are excited about the game! This has been a long journey for me, and I can definitely say that I've put my best into The Star Legation.
Just a little background information, if you're interested: This is my first time programming a game, which is why I used the Tyranobuilder visual novel engine to make it. Tyranobuilder has an excellent modular system that allows for tools to be assembled without the need to write much code. Of course, over time, I did learn to write some code, and I added in a lot of cinematic animations and cutscenes to embellish the storytelling.
Who am I? I'm a professional musician, a writer, and a tabletop role-playing game writer and designer of Solar Echoes. 3 years ago, I decided to try making my first video game...
I spent my first year writing the huge story for The Star Legation, which ended up being almost 1000 pages long--the length of 3 large novels! Of course, playing the game won't feel as long because there are multiple routes and experiences you won't have with only 1 playthrough of the game. During the time I was working on the story, I also was playing around with Tyranobuilder so I knew what I was going to be using. It helped me write the story script in a style that was easy to cut and paste into the game.
I also commissioned a lot of artwork during that first year, and I'm glad I did it then, because art takes a lot of time and direction. I had the pleasure of working with 4 very talented artists at different times--each was specialized in what they did:
John Fell: character artist
Lee Madison: starship and space artist
Alexis Rill: starship interior background artist
Aeghite: CG's, outdoor and some indoor background artist (plus the Omul character and Kaori's casual outfit)
The next two years were spent programming, customizing artwork assets, and composing. I wrote a lot of the music alongside the scenes that I was doing, and I often played parts of the scene while humming to come up with my musical ideas. You can find more details, if you're interested, in my composer notes that are included with the 99 minute, 40 track OST.
I did encounter some very difficult times during development, however. The game engine, Tyranobulder (TB), stopped exporting my game to a playable application because the game had grown too large. Thankfully, in August of 2021, TB was updated to version 2.0, and this fixed that issue, along with many others. However, as with most updates, some things became problems. Camera movement became inconsistent in some areas that I had to rework, and character sprite facings (left and right) were reversed in the code, so I needed to go through the entire game and invert the code so people were facing the correct way when talking. There were also odd animation issues to rework and work around.
And, the biggest issue that I still haven't been able to resolve: TB 2.0 currently does not export to Mac anymore. This is why a demo for Mac existed, but I currently don't have a Mac version for sale. I'm still trying out some workarounds on this issue, but until I'm confident the Mac version runs properly through the entire game (which I can't test because I don't own a Mac), I won't release a Mac version.
Despite those few issues with TB, though, I never would have been able to build this game without it. I'm very thankful to have found a development program that fit my limited experience in programming, and I've learned a lot since I started using it.
So anyway, that's my journey as a first-time game developer. I really hope you all enjoy the story and find it meaningful, thought-provoking, and fun. I also hope you really love the characters--I had a great time writing them and I honestly miss them now. Thanks again, so much, for your interest and support! Feel free to share your experiences and thoughts about the game here. Hearing your reactions and opinions is very rewarding to me.
Have fun!
Best,
Andy