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Hi, Doomfest here. I am the lead artist for Dischan. In this tutorial, I will run through the process of how a backdrop is created. It deals mostly with workflow and assumes you are fluent in Photoshop,  but I imagine bits and pieces are easily applied to most digital drawing programs. The background used is the room from Juniper’s Knot, and it has day / late afternoon / night variations, as well as plenty of bleed so the image slide around in-engine. Since it’s a visual novel backdrop, there are some steps that are only relevant to visual novels. This tutorial is quite lengthy (and I didn’t want to flood the blog’s index page), so hit the jump to get started!

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IT IS TIME.

LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND THE REST; dischan media is releasing its first visual novel: Juniper’s Knot!

Here it is.

Also here.

Oh, and here’s the soundtrack too.

Obviously, they are both free! You may give us your money if you so desire, however. People were asking if they could, and now that we actually have a product out, we feel that we may accept your contributions. You may use the “Like the game? Support us!” link on the Juniper’s Knot page to do so.

And sorry for the wait. We do hope you enjoy it, fellows. For those of you who haven’t been following us lately: Juniper’s Knot is a short, fantasy, kinetic novel (meaning there are no choices) that tells the story of a boy’s encounter with a demon in an abandoned village. As it is tiny, saying any more may just ruin it for you. I’ll say one other thing, though: our new programmer, Anton (Guy-kun) Prydatko, is in the process of porting the novel for iOS with his own engine. Gasp! Holy expletive! Look forward to it- I know that I am.

But that’s not all that’s happened, you know; there are other great rumblings from dischan’s den… Have you looked at the store at all? There’s something there!

From creator of Digital: A Love Story, Christine Love, Analogue: A Hate Story and its soundtrack have arrived on the Dischan Store!

You may purchase the game for 15.00 USD here. (There is a demo on this page, also!)

You may also buy the soundtrack made by composer Isaac Schankler for 5.00 USD here.

Analogue: A Hate Story is an interestingly put together visual novel, quite different from the average sort. You play as a spacefarer, uncovering the mystery of a vanished colony with the help of pestering little AI. It’s very much an impressive thing, operating around the discovery of olden logs and the relationship (or lack thereof) between the player character and the AI. I encourage you to give it a try.

I’m not done yet, guys. There is still yet MORE to say. The site in general has gotten shinier- in some ways literally! Image thumbnails in general are now displayed at 100% quality, so re-upload your avatars and enjoy the prettiness of the forum! The store also now has gifting implemented, so you can give your pals things from there… as gifts! Messages in your inbox can now be deleted by page to clear up clutter faster (finally), and the site has altogether gotten better with bug fixes and all that! Happy browsing, duders!

That is all I’ve got! Our first “game”, an iOS port in the works, a new game on the store, a new soundtrack as well, the site is (more) awesome… yeah! Can you believe that there’s more to come, and soon…? I can hardly, myself.

TTFN

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I honestly have no idea what that last “No” is for. Taking a stab at it, it’s something like “miniature renai” but with an “o”. Taking a page from NaNoWriMo? Speaking of, what’s the “No” for in that? Novel? Oh, whatever; we’re making another visual novel.

This time it’s a kinetic novel, meaning there won’t be any choices. It’s called Juniper’s Knot, and it’s a fantasy thing that we’re doing for said NaNoReNo. That means we have until the end of the month to finish it. The script is already done, and going through the editing process. Here’s a link to the WiP thread on Lemma Soft.

In more Cradle Song related news… What news? I guess to give you an idea of how much work we’ve been doing, we’ve made 63 commits to our git repositories since February 1st. I wish we had more to say about things, but when it’s this far into the dev cycle, lips start getting zippered. We got a surprising amount of fanart lately, though!

… Artists sure seem to love Karin. As you can see, we also got some fanart for Juniper’s Knot already (???); there’s more of it, too, but it’s naughty. If you really want to see it you can find it black & white here (NSFW 18+) and colored here (NSFW 18+). It was done by eu03.

Well, that’s that! Look forward to Juniper’s Knot, for it is coming quite soon! And I promise, there will be even more news in the coming months!

Artist Links:

Magister: deviantArt, pivix, Sketch Blog (NSFW 18+)

Pas: Sketch Blog (NSFW 18+)

mefloraine: tumblr

panties: deviantArt, Tegaki, pivix, Sketch Blog (NSFW 18+)

eu03: deviantArt, Blog (NSFW 18+)

Be wary of Medical Whiskey (NSFW 18+). Here there be rampant pornography.