[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

I appreciate the posts above for being mindful and patient, but as usual I have some cool storyboards of new pages for my manga, with the upcoming 30+ page fight with Vivian vs. Aria in the EX Chapter. It's Vivian's Frogadier vs. Aria's Blaziken inside of a technique called Flame Vortex: Fire Wall, an Arte that Aria created specifically to trap Vivian for this fight.

 

And for those of you unfamiliar with how my manga artist does things, essentially: there is the story-boarding phase, then sketching, then inking, and then finally toning the pages.

 

There is some interesting Tech used in the manga that isn't present in the game, such as a device used on every Trainer's wrist which allows them to instantaneously teleport Poke Balls from there PC's to wherever they are, up to the limit of 6 times. It is referred to as the Temporal-Paradigm Poke Ball Transportation Device. It essentially allows for anti-theft of Poke Balls and removes the necessity of having them on your person, and each ball carries a special "tag" associated with it, so it can be called and teleported anywhere and ONLY by the Trainer who owns it with their Trainer Number.

 

Another bit of interesting Tech is the Aura Reader, which is indeed based off of the Scouters. And no, there is no over 9000 joke if you were expecting one.

 

 

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

So, here is a little something demystifying everything for everyone as to why I don't do daily updates on my game at the moment:

 

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

So, weekend post of the day: Ariana, what do you think of the recent goals set for progress on the game?

 

 

Yup, sounds about right XD In-case anyone is wondering, this is more conceptual art of a character who already exists in the game, but I decided to give special treatment, because I just like her so gosh-darn much.

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

On 2/20/2018 at 1:15 PM, Dypatome said:

Glad to see more stuff coming along well!

If things continue to be on track, i look forward to being able to support you this summer and buy a copy of the manga.

Glad to hear! Things have been running smoothly and it's been looking good so far ^^

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Also, just for funzies, here are some sketches of the manga, with Vivian doing her thing:

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Since I don't have school today, thanks to snow days and whatnot, it's show and tell time with artwork:

 

This is Gelda Lorelei is one of the main villains from the prequel game: Verdant Tales and has two forms, one where she has white hair, and her Aether Spirit form, where she grows a tail and her hair goes full on Amethyst. Oh wait... XD

 

 

 

 

Also, this is a sneak-peak at the most difficult Superboss in the entire game: Celia Magnus, as a preview for Symphonic Horizon 2:

 

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

So, progress goes as well as progress goes when you have 3 jobs, plus full-time college this semester and as of right now I have finally finished the Draco Sanctuary which is where you get Ashera on your team and where the hardest superboss in the game is located: Celia Magnus from Symphonic Horizon 2. This screenshot is of the highest point of the Draco Sanctuary:

 

Don't worry about seeing the bottom of the map, since... you kind of can't which is why it looks like the tower just sort of... stops at a point on the map. You won't be able to see the bottom anyways, so it's no big deal.

 

 

So, after you have beaten the game and come back to this location you will be greeted with foreshadowing of the 2nd game's main antagonist: Celia Magnus who travels to this era of time by a rift in spacetime. She is the hardest boss in the entire game and will kick your ass.

 

 

Symphonic Horizon 2: Verdant Form of Celia.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Here's a little update for the manga of my game. The EX Chapter is currently going smoothly, which in case no one knows: the EX Chapter is a chapter in the manga that is exclusive to it, and does not appear in the game. It was left out of the game, due to technical limitations or things that I just didn't want to have to finagle with, such as puzzles for the Forest Sanctuary. This is a sketch for one of the pages, and it leads up to Vivian kicking ass, because she and her sister are total badasses.

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

So, here's a new mechanic added into my game and it is called: No Mind, and it is based off of the real life, martial arts discipline of Mushin. This is usable by Vivian, after the Next Dimension Tournament, when she is beaten by one of the Masked Trainers, where she uses it for the first time. How it works is that: if Greninja's HP hits 0, and is transformed already, then what happens is that Greninja's HP is restored to full and gains the transformation into No Mind, and the ability: No Mind. What this does is that for 3 turns, Greninja cannot and will not be able to take any damage, and all of it's attacks will hit no matter what. The idea is that Vivian activates this ability while Synchronized, due to the build up of physical strain by Greninja getting beaten, and by that end allows her to activate this ability when in a pinch and cannot be transformed into freely. Also it requires you to have a full Focus Meter, so you can't abuse being low on health constantly.

 

So, details of the ability is that it allows the Pokemon to instantly react to anything, without being able to be aware of it happening, allowing for instantaneous reactions, dodging and attacking while having the power of Synchronized strength, speed and endurance for 3 turns before you revert to base form. Also, your Trainer Emotions will be automatically set to Calm once you transform into this state.

 

 

Aptly put, because really... they can't beat you anymore, unless it's a named boss fight in which case, it will take more than 0 hits to KO a boss Pokemon.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

So, in terms of the manga's progress, we have come a very long way since we started out, last May. This summer we're hoping to get Volume 1 finished and ready to sell by either the end of summer of fall. Below is all the pages we have done/are doing at the moment. The ones that look clearly like storyboards are in-progress pages:

 

Overall, I am supremely happy with my manga-artist and all that she has done with me over the past 4 years. We have worked together on various mangas, and we're hoping to continue working together for... who knows how long. She has been able to nail my character's personalities, characteristics, mannerisms and subtle qualities better than I ever could. Same goes for a lot of the locales in the manga, as they were designed with absolute care and delicacy that puts the biggest, dumbest smile on my face. I seriously couldn't be happier with how this turned out, as it managed to be even better than the game as it has everything corrected from plot-holes to even subtle aspects about character backgrounds and their motives which were... a little off in the actual game, and I still need to get around to fixing sometime.

 

 

For those of you still waiting on my game, I sincerely apologize, as I mentioned before in previous posts, as school has become ultra sluggish, harsh and the fact that I need to hammer through this last semester before I can readily get stuff done for the game. Currently though I have found time during the weekends to get work done, as I've went and made many changes to several of the game's core components to make things a little better overall. However, don't expect another video from me, about my game, until I decide it's necessary or if I have anything relevant to show off.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

4 minutes ago, BRS swag said:

I should say great work freezing the whole place Dreyah. awesome art mate. I see Mega Mewtwo XY. Hmmm....

Yeah, it's meant to have both aspects of Mega Mewtwo's X and Y form, and can change between both forms at will. I am still working on a sprite for it's XY form and not its separate X and Y form, if that makes sense.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Whoa, hey, I didn't see you there, guess what? New maps!

 

 

This scene occurs, after the Northern Base Arc of the game, and as you can see Dreyah is in a state of being frozen, permanently. This was due to her using her Pokemon's ultimate technique: Absolute Zero, which froze the entirety of the Northern Base, Richter in Mega Mewtwo XY's body, and herself as the attack froze everything around her permanently that even the atoms themselves are unable to experience any kind of molecular motion. This concludes the Northern Base Arc, as you can no longer enter the base, and any attempt to come back here will only allow you to see the aftermath of Dreyah's Sacrifice.

 

Also, here is a preview of some new pages of my manga, for chapter 3, which is a Vivian exclusive chapter that isn't in the game itself and is manga exclusive! Well, these are just the storyboards, but it is something to look forward to ;D

 

 

Also, here are some snippets of other pages:

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

tbh, I'm not the kind of person who posts an unfinished game, especially when I'm not in the mood to work on it. Currently I'm working on the game sparingly, until I can get my groove back, which at the moment is taking a little bit. Also, I just now upgraded to a 1TB SSD and I have some essentially compression programs that I wrote on there, which prevents me from having my game tested for a bit, until I can get my enclosure in the mail.

 

You all will have the game when it's finished, because I prefer to do this professionally.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

On 1/5/2018 at 3:34 AM, DreamblitzX said:

Well, good luck with IRL stuff and mental health, taking care of yourself should always be a priority.  No matter how long it takes, we'll be here, as excited as ever for your amazing work.

(Draco Sanctuary looks hella incredible by the way =)

 

Yeah, I do partake in working on my project in my free time, when I get some, but for at the moment I'm just taking it easy. Glad you like the Draco Sanctuary tho, I'm actually quite proud of the work I've been putting into it, including the puzzles

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

For as much work as I've put into my game this Christmas Break, my school schedule and work schedule has gotten to be incredibly overbearing on me, as of right now, and I fear that I won't be able to put in time to work on my game, as much as I would like. So, for this semester, I'm going to be putting the game on hiatus, until the summer, when my motivation returns and when I'm out of my lonely depression that I'm currently suffering from right now.

 

I've been suffering from a depression all year, because of how much I want to work on my game, but just cannot do it. I cannot bring myself to work, because of school bringing down my mood and work occupying the extra time that I have left over. Also, I've been feeling increasingly lonely as time goes by, as I haven't been able to keep a lot of my friends online for awhile, as they disappear and now I am left all alone with no one to talk to. Sometimes I feel inadequate and underwhelming to others and it just brings me down to not want to work on my game at all.

 

That said though, I am still continuing my work on my manga, since it doesn't require as much of my time to supervise its development, since I'm merely the writer and author of it as my manga artist illustrates it. I am contemplating opening up a separate thread somewhere that is dedicated to that entirely so I don't completely vanish from the forums for the next few months.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Update: First off, Merry Belated-Late Christmas as I was away due to being at my cousin's for Christmas. Secondly I have some awesome concept artwork of Mia Vance. I already showed her off, well over a year ago in her colored and shaded artwork. However, in this version of her concept art, I plan on using her for an alternative project in Unreal Engine 4, and I chose her to be used for the first character I have 3D Modelled. Why am I doing that? Mostly because I can. But, here she be:

 

If you're wondering why she has her arms like that, in the center, it's called a "T-Pose" in 3D modelling speak and it's used as a way to properly model a character. But, this is essentially professional levels of conceptualization that I decided to take upon for not just my current game, but also unrelated projects.

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Here's another update for ya'll! This is the Draco Sanctuary with Vice being as impatient as ever. Finally got the right amount of lighting down through parallel processes and I now have Goomy lamps on the wall, which animate

 

Also, Vice's animation resetting during the gif is only because the gif resets after a certain amount of time.

 

This is turning out to be one of my favorite areas to work on, especially since it's one of the final areas of the game!

 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Update: So, I've started working on a new series of maps for one of the final areas of the game: The Draco Sanctuary, and the Heaven's Sanctuary. These areas are where you will find both the Draco Fragment (Dragon Type) and the Heaven Fragment (Flying Type), and these reside on trope island floating island. This is the second to last area of the game, and the final sanctuary of the game, where there are 8 in total. The reason there are only 8 sanctuaries and not 18 is simple: most of the fragments were either already stolen by thieves or have been already claimed by the Dark Fangs, which makes visiting other Sanctuaries pointless. This is also where you find Ashera and she becomes part of your team as a Support Character, but is sadly not playable. 

 

That said, the screenshot I will be showing you is only of the Tower of Guidance - AKA the Draco Sanctuary.

 

Below is the entrance, showcasing the new tiles that will be used for this segment, and have been stylized appropriately to fit this final area of the game, before the Next Dimension Tournament. It still needs some work and some final touches, as I'm still working out new things that I will be adding to my custom tileset.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

13 hours ago, Twilightwing said:

This game came so far from development, it's crazy how much mapping you did 

Well, there are 770 Maps, currently, in the entire game, with the soft-cap being 999 for maps. I mean, you can increase the soft-cap, through programming so really it's not much of a cap at all. I'd say there's about a good 100 or so more maps to go, left in the entire game that aren't "filler areas" of the game that don't pertain to the story.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Update and shiz: So, I did a livestream for the first time in literal months, and I finished up a map that is linked to the climax of the Northern Base arc of the game, and it is referred to simply as the Northern Base - Valley. This is the where the last battle of that arc concludes.

 

 

I wanted to make it a lot more rugged and more like a valley, as it is in the center of a mountain, and surrounded by rivers both frozen and not. But, yeah, expect some more updates in the coming future, on my Christmas break ;D

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

2 hours ago, Commander said:

I'm not really against donations but my money flow is uh...not a reliable monthly thing I can just give away as I really only have two different dates in a year where I can actually buy stuff I like. Also, I'm totally with you on feeling like an a-hole if I have to ask people for money. I guess that's kind of why I don't have a Patreon account at all, but if I did something very costly or absolutely needed it then of course I'd consider.

 

Anyways, I'm finally freed up as well and you know I silently watch these projects continue. Take care, don't stress yourself out, and don't throw your computer out the window every time a PBS error pops up due to a minor spelling error.

I'm free now, which is great, since I can now make up all the lost time that I spent the past 3 months doing nothing! Well, I did do some things, here and there, but good lord... I didn't do a noteworthy amount of work this semester.

 

But, yeh, anyone can donate to that link above, but again: I'm not your dad, and you spend your money how you want. I still feel like a total asshole for even asking for donations, for the manga (CLARIFICATION TIMES A MILLION! ONLY THE MANGA).

 

Donate if you want: 

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Just now, Twilightwing said:

If you're struggling with financial stuff why not open a Patreon? 

I do have a Patreon, but every time I mention it I feel like an asshole. If anything, I'd only use it to help fund the manga, as I prefer paying for things related to my game, myself. For the sake of my own pride, and because I'd rather not have people yelling at me saying how much of a scumbag I am for setting up a Patreon for my game.
 

But, here is the Patreon, as I'm having trouble even deciding what to have for incentives on there: https://www.patreon.com/SymphonicHorizonManga

 

So, if anyone wants to chip in, feel free to. Or don't - I'm not your dad.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

So, finals are over with, and I am now free to work on my game as much as I can now! First off: new artwork coming soon, secondly: I'm broke af! But that's to be expected. Since school started I've been working on the manga primarily and supervising the work going into it, since it was easy for me to do, and didn't take up a lot of my time, but now that I'm free I can do whatever I want, whenever I want! No more obligations to stupid shit that no one likes, ever. Also, I just needed a break, ya know? But, I think a 3 month break isn't too bad of a thing, since it could've been worse: I could've closed the project entirely :V But, I'm not a loser and I don't give up on anything, so ya'll are still gonna have to be putting up with my constant delays of b.s.

 

Also, I wanted to announce, one new "transformation" for Vivian Vance, and it's exclusive to her and her race. It is referred to as Synchronize: No Mind. This was something that I had planned back in August to do, as I wanted to have Vivian master Synchronize and have her use the perfected version of it that is based off of the real life, Martial Arts concept of Mushin while utilizing the ability to Synchronize as well. If you want to read up about Mushin I implore it, since it's super fascinating, but this will be her new transformation that is a step-up from her normal Synchronize and it requires a set criteria to occur for you to use it in battle, such as:

 

• Greninja must be at less than 30% maximum health
• You must have half of your focus meter filled
• And you must already be Synchronized in order to transform, so it requires 2 turns at least to use.

Footage on that, soon to come!

 

Manga related news and whatnot:

 

Since I am in a financial struggle, as per usual, the manga is only limited to 5 pages, at most, per month. The first volume of the manga is set to be around 110 pages, estimated and we're almost to that goal. Below are some screenshots of some of the pages you all can expect to see later on! Also, btw's, if you live in the New York area, both my manga artist and I plan on hosting a panel for the release of the manga. So, if you're there, you should like... stop by and shit, because I'll be there, and I may or may not sell you a copy

 

 

Ahem: 

 

 

Oh, and btw's: Now Playtesting.

 

 

Yeah, I am getting to THAT point in the game, atm. Lots of cool shiz, coming soon!

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

On 12/7/2017 at 10:58 PM, Layback80 said:

@DylanrockinI only just made a profile but I've been watching out for this game a couple years now(mainly on youtube)And I gotta tell you this awesome work you've been doing and I'm waiting patiently for the full game because this sounds to good.

Much appreciated, however, I've been extremely busy these past couple of months, which has hampered my progress a bit. That said, I've been working very hard, now, since finals are over, and I can now make steady progress to getting stuff done. Pretty much now I can get things done around the clock and start making up lost time, due to this semester being nothing more than a huge drag on me.

[Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon]

Manga Update: So, what I have to show is a bunch of new pages for the manga that will be released this summer (hopefully). These pages are work in progresses, but they are sketches and among other things, inked pages that are being finalized. Also, the two pages with colors are the cover and back cover, respectively. Those two need to shaded, and toned before they're finished. So, if the cover and back-cover look weird, it's because they haven't been shaded and the final details are only included in the final toning and shading processes.

 

 

Also, in regards to my game, I've finally mustered up the drive to put in some good-hours into my game, especially with Thanksgiving break finally cutting me some slack. With that said, I've managed to get a solid 5% more progress done with my game, and begun programming in some new functions, and some scripted battles, which I may or may not show off at some point. I've been lazy with livestreams and actually recording my work, because... well, lazy as I mentioned.