Hello everybody, sorry for not updating here earlier, I first announced it on Discord and since there were some bugs I was waiting to fix some to be able to have a better version before posting here.
If you want to check around Discord, go down a few posts for the link, is where I hang around the most now.
So yeah, it’s done, I have some plans to keep fixing things and maybe add a few more things, but for now this is it.
I’ll fix the game page here soon, for now go directly to itch.io, the DLsite version will be available once I get the Japanese translation, I don’t know exactly when but it can’t be much longer, maybe a couple of weeks.
Thank you for your patience and your support all these years, I’ll see you around with more fixes and eventually plans for what’s next, I hope you enjoy it.
It’s been close to a year since the last post!!?? I seriously hate this, I didn’t think it was that long, FACK!!
Anyway…
I just finished what I called the “first polish pass” and it took a while, probably close to 2 years alone on that, since that’s basically the main bulk of the game, replacing placeholders, final timing of events, etc, so what follow is the “final polish pass” I guess.
What follows is, in no particular order:
>> Adding 3 or 4 scenes/events that I skipped and left for later, now is later.
>> Finalizing any sprite/backgrounds missing (some colors were exported wrong, I noticed a missing ponytail at one point, (maybe) add some in between frames so some animations don’t look too choppy, etc.)
>> Adding and finalizing all sounds and music.
>> Finalizing texts and dialogues and send them for translation and (maybe) voice recording.
>> Maybe add a playable prologue so you have more time to, you know, PLAY the game before all the dialogue, right now I think it starts a bit too exposition heavy, but who knows yet.
>> Finishing and properly testing all system code/logic (menus, load/save, checkpoints, load screens, time/day prompts, etc.)
It’s very likely I won’t be finishing the Gallery for release, I hate galleries but since they are an obligation I rather leave it for a future update and finish the more important parts first.
From all this the more likely to take the longest is the first point, we are still several months away to the end though, maybe by the end of the year, CAN’T BE SURE THOUGH, so please keep your cool.
As said before I don’t use this blog as much anymore (as you can tell), I’m more active on discord, check the previous post for the link if you’re interested.
Thank you for your support and patience, see you later.
Posted in Uncategorized on September 9, 2022 by Vosmug
Hello,
As you have noticed I haven’t been active here in a while, I’ve been working on the game this whole time don’t worry about it, but I’ve been more active on Discord so if you want to pass by:
If you do please check the rules, please don’t be a jerk, also not a meme friendly server (I hate fun, and memes are the death of art and communication, just saying).
I’ve heard that you have to give a phone number to join Discord, I don’t remember doing that but if anyone knows how to bypass that please let us know in the comments, it’s understandable if giving out your phone number is something you don’t want to do.
I probably won’t be using this blog as much anymore other than for releases and maybe more important announcements, it’s just easier to drop a few WIP images and some quick words every once in a while over there.
Sorry for the lack of updates, but it has nothing to do with progress, it has been steady all this time.
Posted in Uncategorized on September 18, 2021 by Vosmug
A couple of days ago I finished the main skeleton, I don’t know how to call it anymore, basically the game is playable from beginning to end but with placeholders most of the way, so it looks like this:
Going back some stuff broke from changes done at the end that ripple back to the beginning, but they’re easily fixed, at least until now, what’s left to do is start the graphic replacements, on top of sound, music, maybe voices, etc. final polish basically, most backgrounds are already done but what is left, sprites and the rest of the graphics is another huge time sink.
That’s the update for now, it’s a big milestone that doesn’t really mean much for now but it’s significant for the internal side of things.
(August 2021 update: Updated to 1.10b, fixes a text dispaly problem, only necesary to redownload if you use custom fan translation files.)
Translation to a few other languages available in the dowload page.
Important: If you already purchased it before you just have to use the same link to download the update same as before, in your email inbox use the search function to look for GHV, if you can’t find it or if it’s already expired, send me an email to vsmg-help@hotmail.com with your name or the likely email which you could have used to purchase it and I’ll re-send you the link.
Edit: If you update via purcahse link, you don’t need to apply a Key anymore, you’ll get a full new download, the link might say GHV Key still, but it’s the full game.
If you purchased through DLsite you can download it again there, but as always, the DLstie version takes several days to update, I’ll let you know when it’s ready.
This update is not as big as Xenotake’s update was, in fact there’s nothing new or heavily changed or fixed, GHV was already “more complete” so to speak, except for a 3 year old bug I was able to fix, the one at the big door with the 2 statues, several people reported it, thanks for letting me know and sorry it took so long to fix.
So it was mostly small fixes as a re-release for itch.io, since as you know, I stopped using direct paypal purchases, so if you already played it, this update is not that necessary.
If you purchased it through this site, you can download the update with your original purchase link.
IMPORTANT: Since it’s likely you don’t have that link at hand, you can look for it on your email inbox with the words Xeno or VSMG, if you can’t find it or if it’s already expired, send me an email to vsmg-help@hotmail.com with a name or an email with which you purchased (or likely could have purchased) it and I’ll reactivate it and send it back to you. It can take some time if I receive too many requests or if I’m sleeping.
You don’t have to copy and paste anything anymore, this version is a completely separate download incompatible with previous versions.
If you purchased it through DLsite, just download it again from there:
This was a terrible idea, but at least for the most part it’s already done. Thank you for your patience.
Update:Imporant last minute update to 1.2c, 1.2b is still playable but your save can break if you quit after the 2nd throne room scence before reaching the next chekpoint, if you did this and your save broke you can fix it doing this: https://vosmug2.wordpress.com/2021/04/14/xenotake-update-1-2b/#comment-14862
Sorry for not posting before, I’ve been doing a few things,
First, when it comes to Lunar Crisis I had to rewrite the last 2 days completely so I spent a couple of weeks just on that, now everything is written so I can focus only on actual dev work, in placeholder mode still, I’ll have to replace everything with the final polish later, its going well IMO.
Remember when I said gameplay was going to change a bit after a while, well that’s gone, I couldn’t work it in properly, so unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your preference) it’s all going to retain the same pointy-clicky gameplay style (with keyboard).
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, I’ve stopped Lunar Crisis for the time being [for a few weeks to a month] because I’ve been doing something extremely stupid, before continuing I have to put previous games out on itch.io first [because they’re not available anywhere right now], then possibly steam, but because I like to complicate my existence unnecessarily I want to update Xenotake to Gamemaker Studio 2, and since I’m at it I want to make a few fixes (mainly these ugly black outlines), not a lot, but the engine itself needs some rework, save system, music system, item pick up system needs a huge update since originally it worked with instance IDs and that works completely different now (already figured it out tho), etc, sad thing is none of that will look any different it will just work as intended, since doing a direct transfer without code work will break a lot of things.
Originally I wanted to increase the resolution, meaning all graphics needed to be upscaled, but that would require months and months of work, so the engine update and a few fixes is all I will be able to do, because of the outlines, all human character sprites need to be fixed and re-exported, that’ll take several weeks, I also want to update the “CG” images, I’ll try to hire someone but as always I’m having artist problems, everything else will be the same, it’s just an update not a remake, if that were the case I would have to include time traveling ghosts and nobody wants that, right, RIGHT? What kind of hubris filled maniacs would EVER do that?
The main reason I didn’t want to say anything yet was because I expected even a few comments would want to talk me out of it and seeing how incredibly counterproductive this is I would probably agree, but now I’m in the middle of it so it’s too late to stop, I’m almost done with fixing sprites, problems is the art CG things, I always have such bad luck with hiring artists.
It’s unnecessary but I feel if I’m going to re-release it, it needs an engine update, not that it didn’t work before or anything, but I felt it was the right thing to do.
Then I’ll put GHV out too with minimal possibly no updates, then I’ll get back to work normally.
If you want to yell at me for being stupid, this is your chance.
EDIT: Come yell at me on discord, I don’t know if somthing interesting can come out of it:
Posted in Uncategorized on January 4, 2021 by Vosmug
Happy new apocalyptic year.
Hello, sorry I won’t talk about the game today, I’m working on it even though I’ve taken a small break for the past couple of weeks, but I’m already back to work, kinda, I’m rusty and readjusting.
What I did in the meantime was play around with blender, I want to fully transition from 3dsmax to blender, so far some things are way easier and faster to do in blender all you have to do is get used to the new interface which is easier than it looked at the beginning, I still prefer 3dsmax in certain areas tho, like animations and some render options, but things like UV unwrapping are such a breeze in blender compared to the eldritch nightmare that it’s in 3dsmax. Any blender users here to share opinions? I would like to know your take especially if you transitioned from other software.
I use 3d mainly for backgrounds and base character models to keep proportions consistent, so is not like I’m going full 3d game or anything.
But anyway, the main reason for this post is that as of today I won’t be using PayPal for direct purchases anymore, I’ve already disabled direct purchase from this page, it’s becoming increasingly risky; after getting two warning emails from two different friends (I guess independently but who knows) and hearing notice that Kyrieru had his account suspended, I think it’s time to jump ship, I don’t want to risk it since I need that account for other stuff including DLsite.
For now, Ghost Hunter Vena and Xenotake are only available on DLsite, until I find another way of distribution.
So if you want to yell at me about Patreon (and help me decide a good model *wink* *wink*), this is your chance, I’ve been considering it for a while now even with my negative towards it, I still don’t like the monthly subscription method, I can’t justify monthly anything with my work schedule and they are also dubious with their adult content policy, so honestly, I don’t know yet. I’m still leaning towards no but seems like there are no options. Maybe steam is more plausible, who knows.
Either way, this post is mainly to let you know Paypal is dead.
Take that you tyrannical overly censorious corporation, I was going to give you 7 dollars, but now, nuh uh, your loss.
Oh yeah, Geminis won the poll, unsurprisingly, while Sallika which is the one I’ve heard the most about got last place, Sai who is my favorite is also behind, weird too the one I’ve heard was the most boring got second place, the sample is not that big but except first place, the rest was not what I was expecting.
Hope you’re doing fine, see you.
Update:
Sorry, there were several comments hit by the spam filter, I tried to recover some but if I missed one feel free to post again.
Thanks for all the feedback, some thoughts so far:
Steam seems very likely, way more legal and financial steps tho.
Patreon sounds less and less likely every time.
Subscribestar has a dedicated adult section which is cool but payment methods are limited.
Pixiv haven’t checked yet.
Itch.io tho, good stuff so far, I’ve seen several rapey games there, meaning the rules are not as strict and you can actually pay with paypal, very cool.
Why do I complicate my existence so much? I don’t know, you tell me.
Posted in Uncategorized on October 27, 2020 by Vosmug
Hello.
I’ve been working with placeholders and I want to keep doing that for a while, polishing and finalizing graphics takes time and derails work by a lot so I want to keep that for later, I’ve also fixed a few technical things since the demo but it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep track of everything, due to drone and cameras every room needs to be tracked at every step of the way manually and I’m feeling a bit of spaghettification going on, I don’t think it’s that bad but it could be waaay better, every time you think you have, you really don’t.
I don’t know when or if I want to update the demo, maybe I’ll post only the sprites when I have them, we’ll see, for now I’m focused on the skeleton, polish comes later.
If you’re interested in dowloading the current demo you can find it in this post:
Traducción en Español por alex_vazquez999, extrae los archivos en la carpeta “gamefiles”.
I have many things to say but honestly, I’m just going to let you play and decide for yourself, most things I’ve already said like it being a simpler take on adventure games, of streamlining puzzles and the like, so you be the judge if it’s too much or if it works for what it is, considering this is pretty much an accurate depiction of the final version, except for some small gameplay changes later on than you haven’t seen, and to be fair I haven’t worked much on it (the gameplay change) either so I don’t know how it’s going to eventually turn out.
I realized this ended up being more of a slow burn than I expected, so eeehhhhhh, I don’t know man, you’ll be able to skip the introduction sections even in the final version, but then again, that’s the kind of game this is (but you’re already aware of that *wink* *wink*) but yeah, it’s a bit slow. Or maybe it feels to me that way. I dunno. You tell me.
I’m interested in knowing how much it takes you to finish this demo, maybe that’ll help me pace this better in the future, a timer appears at the end.
After the demo ends, you can still play but everything is broken front hat point forward.
[ESC] – Quits the game without warning, so be careful
[Q] – Goes back to the main menu, also without warning.
[P] – Shows a bunch of meaningless numbers.
Some details:
The music is most likely temporary; I will dedicate more time to it or just commission a real musician, not yet though, not a priority for now.
Red framed images that appear sometimes, twice for now one in the bridge scene and one at the end, is something I want to do but if I can’t make the character ones look good, I’ll probably ditch them. It’s the same story again, I will always have problems with bigger character images. That’s just not my strong suit and never will be, you would think after 2 games I would be better at it, but nope.
No grunts and moans yet, I don’t think I’ll be focusing on that for now, again, not a priority.
The big one, there’s a continuity error on how a certain event plays out, I left it on purpose because I don’t know how to fix it yet, try to spot it, or find more (if you want or care of course).
Let me know of any bugs, glitches, problems, or whatever. A few things broke after the update to the newest GMStudio version (2.3, pretty great update btw) I hope nothing is broken anymore AAAAAghh!
Vosmug 
