Made Marion Demo
Made Marion Development Update, June 2022
Hello everyone! I'm back fresh from vacation with a ton of cool stuff to show off from Part 2 of the Sherwood Common Route. I've finished all the coding except for a few bits that are waiting on art completion.
Sherwood Common Route, Chapter 2
In order to better balance the Sherwood and Nottingham common routes, the entire Sherwood segment found in the current demo has been changed to Sherwood Chapter 1. Chapter 2 now starts where the current demo ends, right after Marion asks if anybody can hand her a sword. This works better IMO, because the title of Sherwood Chapter 2 is "My Future, in My Own Hands," and that's the part where Marion really starts to take control of her situation.
Sherwood Chapter 2 gives players the chance to get to know the Sherwood love interests better, as well as revealing a bit more about the rebellion and its members. Tuck fans will discover hints about why he isn't available as a love interest at this juncture, and folks who chose to spend a little quality time with him at the bonfire will get some different scenes with him.
Speaking of which, we have our first choice that only appears if you've made certain earlier choices. When you get to the route selection question at the end of Sherwood Chapter 2, you'll get a fourth option that only appears if you got close to Layton at the bonfire in Chapter 1.
You still won't be able to romance Layton, but you'll get to be the recipient of his biting wit and perhaps learn an interesting tidbit that gives hints about our DLC. Don't worry, making Layton choices in the common route won't negatively affect your Sherwood romances.
You'll also be able to spar with the Sherwood love interests, which is a lot of fun.
You'll also get to spend time with some of the secondary Sherwood cast, such as Nell the tailor (who you'll learn has a few other interesting skills), Roan the changeling, and Aiden the cat sidhe (the only full-blooded fae who is visible in the main game, since only cat sidhe appear to non-druids).
Of course, in the end you'll be choosing which of our three Sherwood love interests will be working most closely with Marion; in other words, whose romance route you'll be embarking upon. Each of the three men has their own mission that they're undertaking for the rebellion, and each has particular skills to teach Marion, as well.
General Goodies
With this programming pass, I added tinting to the characters during dusk and nighttime scenes. Thanks to everyone on our Discord server for their feedback; my settings now look subtle but help to set the scene.
On the left are the sprites before the sunset tint is applied, and on the right is how they look with the tint (it looks a bit different in-game than it does in screenshots).
We also have a font for Avalon handwriting now! Here is the letter that Marion writes to her father in Chapter 2:
It bears a bit of resemblance to Tolkein's elvish script, but it isn't. What does Marion write to her father? You'll have the chance to set her tone to either angry or open to reconciliation, which will change a few scenes in the game's endings.
Whew!
I'm happy to report that my long Covid symptoms, which had been gradually fading over April and May, largely disappeared over our vacation. Nature is healing! So I'll be buckling down like crazy on Robin's route this month.
I know our dear Robin can be a bit overlooked in comparison to his powerful cousins Will and John, but I think more people will be interested in him with a bit more information about who he is and how his route unfolds. Thus, I will be re-introducing Robin over the next month on our social media. Keep an eye on our Tumblr!
See y'all in July!
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Thank you for the update. I'm glad you're doing better from Covid! I caught it back in February the day I got my booster (I thought it was going to be the end for me). I knew John was the one for me after I forgot all my native English. I'm surprised people don't love Robin. You can bring Robin to Thee Barbecue; Will and his attitude can stay home. Mas então-- bueno --thank you again.
P.S.: I do have a question, I saw a long time ago we'll be able to pre-order (I might be misremembering) the game on itch? Will the full game also be on GOG or just Steam? I wanted to get 2 copies for myself and a friend.
So glad to see how this game is coming along, and the guys sounds brilliant. As always, I'm crazy for that beautiful not-so-Little John; maybe he's refusing to fight back because he actually wants me to climb him like a tree? :D
Also, the Avalon font is quite cool. I never really thought about the fact that the language would look different in this game, I figured they'd just be writing in "The King's English". But then, I didn't know that the game was set in Avalon, so there's that. Anyway, neat little detail!
I'm also happy to hear you're starting to recover from long-COVID. I finally got past the worst of mine about a month back (it lasted about 4 months), and it was a relief; drinking coffee like mad and still falling asleep constantly got old fast. here's hoping things only get better for you!
I was wondering, will we get a preview of the Nottingham route too, maybe next update? :)
Thanks for the well-wishes, I'm glad your long Covid is fading too! Mine also lasted about four months, and I know all about that horrible, unnatural fatigue.
Made Marion is set in a fictional kingdom called Avalon. Its backstory is an altered version of the Arthurian myth, which you'll learn a bit about in the game's animated lore intro (we're working on that right now, and our cut-in artist Lawrichai is doing some really neat stuff with the graphics!).
Avalon is a tumbled mess of cultural influences from all over Northern Europe, with a particular focus on Gaelic/Celtic influence. Magic is real and comes from the mystical fae folk who are based on Celtic, English, and Scandinavian myth. Its fantasy elements and unique culture are why there are numerous anachronisms if you try to map it to actual history, such as dye colours that weren't available and couples dances that were considered scandalous in the Christian Middle Ages.
The entire Nottingham common route is already available in our demo, so preview it away! There are some small script edits that will appear in the final demo and the full game release, but otherwise the main changes to Nottingham Common will be graphical (new sprites, CGs, animations). The reason Sherwood Common Chapter 2 isn't in the existing demo is because of the sparring scene - I needed combat sprites and they weren't ready in time for our demo release and KS campaign.