Ciel Fledge: A Daughter Raising Simulator

The original post can be read on our website post here: http://studionamaapa.com/2018/07/ciel-devlog-29-aging-music/



Hello there, Fledglings! Jasmine here to talk about what has been going on in the audio department.

The Goal
A lot has taken place since the demo launch and Kickstarter. Majority of the audio for Ciel’s child phase was sketched out, which helped set the stage for melodies and themes to be re-experienced as she aged. As stated in the K.S., the music grows with Ciel – child (80s pop, American and Japanese influenced),teen (Funk/Jazz inspired), and adult (Jazz Orchestral).



My goal is for you guys to feel Ciel’s adolescence, her ‘too cool for school years’, and her years of maturity.

The Workload
As of now, I am 95% done sketching adult themes for Ciel, and 80% done sketching teen themes!

What’s left:

• Create sketches of the remaining themes

• Write sheet music for instrumentalists (squee!),

• Finalizing mixes and balance.

This doesn’t include edits for the voice over artists (which will be discussed in another update)!



(Beginning work on a theme!)

*(Sketching = a rough outline of a piece, before final audio recordings, mixing, etc).

The Inspiration
To give you guys an idea of what I have been chewing on as I work to finalize ideas and soundscapes, I decided to post a few tracks that heavily influenced Ciel’s teen and adult mood:

Ciel Teen
Casiopea – Midnight Rendezvous

Tatsuro Yamashita – Someday (but honestly, the whole album)

A Gilchrist – Time

Ciel Adult

Reijoruo Koroku – Aura Battler Dunbine Anime OST

Osamu Shoji -Pastorale

Nozomi Aoki – Hokuto No Ken Anime OST

The (WIP!) Results
Now, this update wouldn’t be complete without giving you guys a taste of this musical “aging”, featuring the Conversation and Exploration Menu themes! I hope I have done them justice!

Disclaimer: The audio below is still a work in progress. It does not, in any shape or form, reflect the quality of the final product. Also, please enjoy the *horrible* trumpet solo, played by yours truly, in the adult exploration menu theme. This is why you hire professionals, guys.

https://soundcloud.com/user-917901857/sets/ciel-fledge-audio-aging-snippet

Thanks, everyone! This wouldn’t be possible without each and every one of you.

Sincerely,

Jasmine

Also don’t forget to join our discord server to find out more about the game: https://discord.gg/KywHrWV

Hello everyone, I realize that I rarely post development log from our website here, from now on, after posting on our website, I will also mirror the devlog content to gamejolt too. Also, if you want to follow the development more closely (and interact with the devs), you can join our discord channel here: https://discord.gg/KywHrWV

That aside, here’s the content from our latest devlog which you can also find here!

NPC Characters Development, Battle Technique, and Exploration
Hi everyone, it’s time for another developer blog. This time it’s my turn to write our current progress so far on the perspective of graphic designer and writer. In this devlog, I want to highlight one of the difficult aspect in this development for me, which is writing. The other two aspect, I will only touch it lightly from the grafix side, with further technical explanation I leave for the next devlog entry from the programmer (wltr3565).

NPC Characters Development
With the writing of main story of the game complete, now I’m moving to write NPCs story. This is the most difficult things to write so far, with the game set over the span of 10 years, there is so much to put in consideration when developing each NPC story. People change, their ideas, their values, their appearances, this is what I want to convey into the writing. How to make them at least believable as human being that grows with Ciel. Her happy-go-lucky friend in childhood may become a bitter, vengeful adult over 10 years time, her uninteresting, stingy childhood friend may become the most altruistic person as an adult, and so on. Especially correlating NPCs character development with main story event is very stressful. So many things to synchronize and recheck to avoid plot hole.



There is also a problem of NPC relationship level (shown with stars icon) with Ciel, which you can already see in the current playable demo as the separate tab in the focus tree. At first I want to tie characters cut-scene and event with how close Ciel is with the NPCs. But I realize with how the time passage in the game works, this is not viable. An NPC event/cut-scene that must happen in Ciel’s childhood chapter may be postponed into her teen or adult chapters if the required relationship levels aren’t reached yet, and when this event/cut-scene happen outside of childhood chapter, the context and correlation with what’s currently happening in the present will get unbelievably messy.



Thankfully we have resolved such problem with new system that is currently in the implementation phase. In a nutshell, NPC related story event and cut-scenes will be tied to each chapter, it will no longer have the steep requirement of leveling (read:grinding) characters relationship level, instead you only have to do a simple objective on the focus tree to unlock the cut-scenes. The event will still fire regardless to avoid plot hole if you choose just to ignore the simple objective, but you may miss the reward incentive that you may get if you do the simple objective. Character relationship level will now tied strictly to NPCs power in battle and to unlock battle technique which I will talk about below.

Battle Technique
Battle technique is that little neat three icons in a column in the battle interface, with so little explanation on what it do and how to activate it. I realize that along Exploration, Battle Technique, or just Tech in short, is one of the many aspect of the game that is very obscure. I can’t really explain it in this blog since tech (and exploration) is programmer territory (wltr3565) but its function is similar to special attack for Ciel. You can unleash this “special attack” to help her in battle.



To acquire this battle tech, among many things, increasing NPCs character level is one of the ways.

Aside of battle tech, there is also addition of morale, deck switch button and NPCs auto attack in battle. I think the best short explanation can be seen in the mock video below, with caption from our facebook post. The previous screenshot in-action! With working deck switch and you can see that the NPCs will also help by auto attacking the enemy without the need to “clicking” their portrait to trigger their attack. Every NPCs have their own signature auto-attack. Juno will tackle the enemy, Becky shoot with her “wolves”, and Sylphine passively healing Ciel’s HP (each auto attack gfx not implemented yet).

video link here:


Exploration
Exploration is finally getting the love. This past few weeks, I have completed all the background images for each exploration stage, with improvement in some of them thanks to the suggestion from our discord users, many thanks to them! Here are moving gifs of some of the stage (two of them is using placeholder intro sprite movement).







Exploration will also get an overhaul, but the detail I will leave for the next devlog entry.

Thank you all for reading, see you in the next devlog!

-num

Now if you have read this far, you might also want to check our previous devlog here:

Back To Devlog

Main Story and Voice Acting Progress

Ciel Fledge Alpha 5 demo is here!

This demo contain a balancing overhaul for how stamina is being used in activities/jobs and how skipping encounter works. Ciel’s stamina will no longer replenish each week now to prevent activity/job spamming when her stamina is high enough, so you must pay attention to her schedule better by utilizing rest and item usage in-between schedule better.

Skipping encounter will not incur massive penalties now. Instead it does nothing, while accepting and doing encounter will net you more benefit in terms of stats increase and item “loot”.

Basic trait system has also been added, although it’s still in the works. You can access trait on Child > Status > Traits

Just like the previous demo, the demo will run up to year 2 month 4 week 2.

Feedbacks and critiques are welcome, you can also chat with us directly about the game in our discord channel here: https://discord.gg/yvecEAn

We are also running a Kickstarter campaign right now to help fund some of the development cost, if you are interested, you can visit the Kickstarter campaign page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1878957206/ciel-fledge-a-daughter-raising-sim-game?ref=1c7iuv

Hi. wltr3565 here. alpha 0.4 demo was out, and you guys must be wondering about the new things that have been implemented but are yet to be explained within the devlog. Well, here we go!

Firstly, have you guys noticed that her HUD circle can change color?



We have implemented a way to tell her actual willingness to do anything! When it’s green, she will not Skip anything at all. But yellow and red will tell you that she may Skip the activities. Make sure to keep her Discipline high!

Also, we have added colors to numbers in battle whenever they increase or decrease. It will help you to see if things are increasing or decreasing while in the heat of Battle.



Also, have you guys seen the Administration? Nope? Haven’t gone that far within the game, huh? We have made a lot of new backgrounds to make the scene there as great as it can be! Here is one of them:



Where is the rest? Well, we can’t show spoilers. So it will be best for you to play the alpha 0.4 now, don’t you think?

Not only that, we have done remaking the visuals of the Airbase and Business District. What do you guys think?



The new Airbase



The new Business District.

Remember about the Calendar and the dates that got marked? When you enter that day, you and she will do the Holiday instead. We intend to do more about it, but for now, they’re still glorified Rests.



Last but not least, we’re going to show you guys Traits.



As she gains Traits, she will gain many effects. It can affect many things. From her Activities, how much money she will gain, her health, and most importantly, how she will fight in Battles. For example, with the right Traits, it will be possible for her to have all of her Yellow Cards to be turned into Green Cards. You will want to gain as many Traits as possible, but some Traits may give undesirable effects, so keep an eye on what Traits you want her to have!

How to make her learn Traits, though? Simple! Raise her Skills! As she fills the Focus Tree, she will gain more Traits. There are other ways to gain new Traits, like her figure relative to her age, but most Traits will be gained by raising her Skills, which is done by having her participate in Activities. Make sure to keep track what she has become!



You can give her Traits not only from having her learn them. What she wears will determine the Traits she can use too. It does feel good to make her look as good as possible, but as a responsible parent, you will want her to be at her best when the situation calls. Of course, the effects of the Traits gained from Equipment will be gone when she doesn’t wear it anymore. Choose her attire wisely… When required.

That’s all we can tell for now. See you later!

Hi everyone, we are preparing to release Alpha 4 build and is currently finishing and polishing the build, with possible release date sometimes next week. While you wait, you can see the new updated screenshots of the game on the game’s main page!

Alternatively you can also browse the new screenies on our press page here:
http://studionamaapa.com/press/sheet.php?p=Ciel_Fledge