OS-tan Visual Novel!

[Chocofreak13]

bring it up in the site glitches thread, since that's kinda important. :\

you know i'm here for script, art, and potential voiceacting. :3

that said, i like the motivations you've laid out. i think another personality quirk for 3.1 could be her age compared to the other -tans there. she's arguably the oldest, and with that age comes wisdom, and a potential for head-shaking at the childish antics of her "contemporaries". methinks she'd be great for advice if XP can prove to her that she's not just another turnover-type OS and that she's going to be responsible and mature with her task.

i get the feeling that if XP approached Vistan humbly and asked for help,  she'd be very receptive. unless XP did something to piss her off earlier. then she'd be willing but very cocky.

as for other characters....

95-tan: very aware of the day's events (unless it's the route where she doesn't know, in which case she'd find out later) and very wanting to be involved in everything. she'd likely flaunt her age as 'wisdom' over XP and claim that her leadership skills make her the obvious choice for the task. she might need to be plied with something, and XP would have to be very careful not to make the task she assigns her not sound trivial. if 95-tan thinks she's being messed with, it's definitely going to backfire later.

95-tan (if he's in it): he'd know about the events and likely would want to stay as out of it as possible. however, he'd be friendly and polite, and if he was assigned a task he'd do it to the best of his ability. considering his laid-back nature, he'd likely take a semi-apathetic look on things, and roll his eyes wholeheartedly at any drama that may ensue. he'd get along well with 3.1-tan given the chance, only that his attempts to ply her with sake might irritate her after awhile.

98 & SE: they'd both know what's going on, but likely wouldn't be doing much about it on their own. they'd probably be excited but otherwise would be treating it like a normal day. 98-tan is more likely to worry over the whole thing, so is more serious than her sister. despite this, she is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when given a task, happily doing it to be of help. ^^ SE-tan's major concerns include having fun and messing with boys (Homeo, ME-kun, Kyourou-kun if he shows up). she'd do assigned tasks, but with a sigh and a pout. she might be likely to try to finish whatever task she's assigned early, so as to continue goofing off. the exception to this, however, is watching inu-t, as this is an ongoing task.

ME-tan: cheery as ever, she'd be super excited about the day's events and would be "helping" without even having a task assigned. what she might be "helping" with before XP talks to her first might be determined by other events, such as what XP does first or who she wakes up. ME-tan would give 120% in any task she was assigned, regardless of whether or not she knew what she was doing. xD she'd do her best to get along with everyone, and would be great at resolving minor conflicts/keeping the peace, or greeting the guests. though she might get a little confused on referring them of where to go in the house. xD

ME-kun: like 98-tan and SE-tan, he and homeo would know of the events but might not care much. he'd reflect SE-tan's attitude of "knowing but not caring" and would likely want to goof off. however, unlike SE-tan, he would be bright-eyed and cheerful about any tasks assigned, as he likes feeling useful. :3

Homeo: (first sentence of paragraph above) he'd reflect 98-tan, but with less worry. something of a combo of 98-tan and ME-tan in attitude, he'd be both excited and concerned, with the former outweighing the latter. he'd likely ask to be assigned a task, something not seen in anyone else in the game (outside of maybe ME-tan or Inu-t). though he'd be a good watchdog over potential troublemakers, he'd be powerless to break up any conflict himself. :\

Homeko: Homeko doesn't know what's going on and doesn't care. provided she gets her supplies early on, she'll stay out of sight, and out of mind. it still might be a good idea to visit her, however, as it doesn't speak highly of diplomatic relations when your sister comes stumbling downstairs in a dirty sweatsuit in search of [beverage] or [snack].
if she doesn't get her supplies, however, she could prove to be quite the foil. this could include eating the prepared snacks, drinking the tea, or just being a nuisance. she might even mess up the living room or something, under the guise of "well, if i can't draw, might as well watch tv." she wouldn't be purposely trying to mess things up, but without something to do she might get bored. and even if she's assigned a task, she'd likely huff and puff about it like SE-tan, only she'd do it at a slower pace.

Vistan: She knows what's going on, and like 95-tan, sees XP-tan as unfit to be leader. she'll butt in whenever she gets the chance unless XP assigns her to do something. and if XP doesn't take care when assigning it, her rage at XP might prevent her from doing a good job, or worse yet she might screw it up on purpose and blame poor XP! that said, if she is calmed down, she'd likely be an efficient, passionate helper with the power to break up conflicts.

Nanami: She knows and is eager (almost overeager) to help. Nanami will do any task assigned, can break up conflicts and is super-efficient. her only drawback is that she might end up annoying XP or making the others feel less important due to her being able to take on multiple tasks. this makes her a great canadate for watching Inu-t, since it would help even out the playing field a bit. plus, since Nanami is so cheery, she wouldn't get tired of hanging out with Inu-t. this would also make her a great door greeter, and if Inu-t was with her, would have the added bonus of making Inu-t feel important, provided she can keep her from barking at their feline guests.

[Pitkin]

Try the attachment now, Aurora. It was disabled for new attachments in the settings. Not all file types are accepted as attachments, so to be certain it works, you can for example zip the file.

edit: Also, I might add that the maximum filesize for attachments is very limited, that of 128 kilobytes (this is to avoid server burden). For files bigger than that, I'd suggest uploading them somewhere and posting a link.

[Aurora Borealis]

@Choco: Wow! I completely agree with your descriptions, and they will really help me with the dialogue and further character interactions! I hope you can also help me with the Tiger scenario.

@Pitkin: Thanks! I see the attachment option now!

=======

I'm still making progress, and have some character art templates nearly completed- I'll attach them when ready.

Here is the first character map for the Tiger scenario, I don't have the interactions written down yet, but this character map shows where each of the Macs at the Mac House are aligned, and their difficulty persuading them. Also, in the original concept, I didn't intend to have System 3.4-tan stay, but now she's teamed up with Tiger-tan, and is the 'loose cannon' of the team.

I have this balanced so that at the start, there are 5 neutral characters, 5 on or favor the protagonist team, and 5 on or favor the antagonist team. However, keep in mind that 'protagonist' and 'antagonist' are relative, especially if Tiger's team ends up undermining their own efforts.

[Chocofreak13]

i don't know much about the mac's personalities, maybe bells can help you with that. ^^;;

that said, i'm glad to be of help. do you need me to do any art or are you and bella covering that?

[Aurora Borealis]

@Choco: I hope this helps give an overview of the main characters:

[Krizonar]

My eyes burn after that small odd font, but I read it thoroughly.

Looks pretty legitimate and well thought out to me, Macs that like conflict or are more easy to anger are on the right. We got Terminator, Dominatrix, The Boss and little warrior on the right.

System 5 is mischievous but not as far right as the others.

The middle is the more sophisticated Macs that don't have time for pranks and overall aren't very aggressive. We got crazy nice waitress, elegant connoisseur, the time traveler and herself and retired god.

Jaguar and System 9 are artsy fashionable types and are closer to what is called lawful good.

Macs on the right with the protagonist follow orders well or just like doing hard work. We got humble maid, daredevil and our protagonist on the left.

[Aurora Borealis]

Glad you agree! I hope you'll help me with the story for this one.

My eyes burn after that small odd font, but I read it thoroughly.

Sorry! I know not everyone has the same level of tolerance for small fonts (I have a high tolerance for them), but I wanted to prevent the image size from getting unwieldy.

Looks pretty legitimate and well thought out to me, Macs that like conflict or are more easy to anger are on the right. We got Terminator, Dominatrix, The Boss and little warrior on the right.

Yup- they're all Boisterous Bruiser types to some degree, though among them are disagreements as to what's acceptable or going too far, plus some clashing personalities. Not all of them are that easy to anger, though OSX-tan and possibly Cheetah-tan are; but they are all characters who really shouldn't be pushed too far.

*It goes without saying that there will be a "Terminator" reference somewhere in the dialogue.

*System 6 is is very competitive, and formidable, but she can't stand the power struggle (either one- the OSX vs. Tiger conflict, and the current conflict between their groups if it escalates); yeah, she's a softy at heart, never wanting to hurt others unprovoked again, and also remembering how the family almost got torn apart in the OS Wars, but there's no way she is willing to admit that around her comrades or the rival team!

(However, isn't it strange that she's not the leader of the group, having several years of seniority over them, and is worried about losing OSX's respect?)

*Cheetah is usually too busy trying to keep up appearances, thinking she needs to be as tough as possible (risking invoking hostility) to continue to be respected by them, OSX-tan in particular. Instead, she should be more concerned about her stability first! While rather indifferent to the meeting, she does care about the OSX leadership struggle between OSX-tan, Tiger-tan and Lion-tan (who might not be in this except as a cameo character due to difficulty constraints), and thinks that OSX-tan is the best leader of the three.

*OSX comes off as being a Jerkass because aside from her personal-level power struggle with Tiger-tan, she wants things done efficiently, believes her team is more efficient, and sees Tiger's team as getting in the way. Obviously she won't take kindly to any of her team mates leaving. She should know that the whole family all work together- obviously it's one of the family's ideals, but she is so caught up in this competition that she's going against her better judgement.

*Mac OS8-tan likes challenges as much as her comrades do, but doesn't think the hours before the meeting are the right time and place for them, and is -trying- to be the most reasonable one! She's actually not that easy to anger, though she can be mistaken for such. She is good at motivating her team mates, which ever team she is on.

System 5 is mischievous but not as far right as the others.

The middle is the more sophisticated Macs that don't have time for pranks and overall aren't very aggressive. We got crazy nice waitress, elegant connoisseur, the time traveler and herself and retired god.

Leopard-tan is neutral in the sense she doesn't start off aligned with either team, she is antagonistic towards both sides, and also the closest thing to being aggressive in the neutral group- she's kinda cranky today?

The other characters can get involved in different ways, but I need help with that. So many to keep track of, and I haven't even gotten to the extra characters yet!

Jaguar and System 9 are artsy fashionable types and are closer to what is called lawful good.

Good point- they're Lawful Good while many of the others are either Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral.

Macs on the right with the protagonist follow orders well or just like doing hard work. We got humble maid, daredevil and our protagonist on the left.

The protagonist group is kinda dysfunctional too, being a rag-tag group, and among other things.

*Puma-tan, lacking self-confidence, isn't using her abilities to their fullest; this may be the difference between success and failure. Ultimately, she is her worst enemy. Tiger-tan and System 3.4-tan both need to be patient with her.

*System 3.4-tan doesn't care about the meeting because she doesn't live at the Mac House, though she is good friends with Tiger-tan and genuinely wants to help Puma-tan. Instead she's more interested in challenging OSX-tan's team. Her daredevil and Blood Knight tendencies need to be kept in check to prevent her from picking fights with others.

*Tiger-tan is in a bad mood from having a lousy start to the day, and to have teammates with opposite personalities just makes a lousy morning harder. She needs to get own mindset together before she can help others.

[Krizonar]

Glad you agree! I hope you'll help me with the story for this one.

Sorry! I know not everyone has the same level of tolerance for small fonts (I have a high tolerance for them), but I wanted to prevent the image size from getting unwieldy.

I was hoping to be aloud to help for this one, yeah.

It's not really the size that bothers me really as is how curvy it is, it's just a bit hard to read.

[Aurora Borealis]

@Krizo: Sure! Feel free to help!

that said, i'm glad to be of help. do you need me to do any art or are you and bella covering that?

I'm partially doing the character art, and Bella said she might want to work on completing the character art and/or doing backgrounds. I don't know if she's fully decided on either or both of those, but certainly I want you to be able to take part in this too.

There's not just the character art and backgrounds, but also cutscenes (comedic and dramatic), the character select splash screens, and the title screen.

Any of those you want to do?

[Chocofreak13]

it's a type of comic font. looks familar, but it's not anime ace, which is like, the stereotypical font for every anime-inspired comic ever (and even some unaligned webcomics). maybe a more neutral font like mincho would be easier to read. :\

@aurora: read it, and it seems that you already have it down. i'll be popping in and out, but the only macs i've ever gotten a real personality read on were OS9 and OSX, due to my hours spent trolling the japanese galleries. as a result, my specialty lies with windows, os-kuns, and the nijiura characters.
however, i think kriz is the right person for the job here. :3 i'll be in and out, so let me know when you need me! ^^

(you replied just as i was about to, so in response to your latest post:
shouldn't one person do the character art throughout so it matches? none of us are wrong for the job, but our art styles are quite different between the three of us. :\
are the cutscenes going to be animated?
what did you have in mind for the splash screens and title screen? (tbh, i'm not even sure of what the former is; a type of background, maybe?)

[Aurora Borealis]

@Choco: The font I used is called Indie Komicks Sketch.

The character art will be done with vector graphics- I'm making the character templates, and someone else will use those in a vector program and draw the details on for each character; so 2 people would be working on this, and I check for consistency in character details, and the art style used.

The cutscenes aren't going to be animated, and are allowed to use a different style from the main character art. The gag scenes will mostly be done in a chibi-style, while the dramatic scenes would have the characters full-bodied, and everything would be more detailed.

XP-tan and Tiger-tan will both have their own splash screens that show up on the character/scenario selection menu. When the player clicks one of those options, a full-screen background that depicts the character will show up, along with a menu asking if the player wants to play that scenario. When an option is clicked, the splash screen disappears since the player will either go back to the main menu ("No"), or start the game ("Yes"):

"Which scenario will you play?"
menu:
    "Windows XP-tan":
         show bg xp_splash_screen
          "Play as XP-tan?":
           menu:
              "Yes"
              "No"

"Mac OSX Tiger-tan":
         show bg tiger_splash_screen
          "Play as Tiger-tan?":
           menu:
              "Yes"
              "No"

[Chocofreak13]

i'll do those. and if you want to assign me a particular type of cutscene, i'd be willing to try for that, too. you'd just need to give examples on what you want for it (which characters, what expressions, how many of each type, etc).

[Aurora Borealis]

I'll have to draw storyboards of the cutscenes to give you an idea what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, my only scanner doesn't work with my main computer (Leopard does not support it), and my Mac Mini running Tiger, which I use for that scanner doesn't seem to be working. I don't know when it will be until I can get something scanned, but we can still continue with discussing the story for either scenario in the mean time.

@Choco: I was wondering if you could also help me with the dialogue for the XP scenario since you know what the Windows-tans are like so well. There are some parts I've been able to do, but am struggling with others.

[Chocofreak13]

just lemme know. :3

(also, this is one of the problems i have with macs. as soon as the new version comes out, all the software is obsolete. >>;

not backwards compatible? nothing enabling it to be run through an emulator or something?)

[Krizonar]

just lemme know. :3

(also, this is one of the problems i have with macs. as soon as the new version comes out, all the software is obsolete. >>;

not backwards compatible? nothing enabling it to be run through an emulator or something?)

Sounds like the fault of the scanner manufacturer if it works on Tiger but not Leopard. Both are ancient.

I also have the opposite opinion to you when it comes to compatibility.

-Nanami can't read my external
-Nanami can't read my flash drive
-Nanami can't see our router
-Nanami can't find the printer on our network
-Nanami cannot see my other computers on the network

What compatibility? She's quite literally incompatible with everything.