Game over, man, game over!

The IDHAS Dream of the Skies Anniversary contest is over! I will be posting links to the entries tomorrow. Reviewing will conclude on the first and we will post the winners then. We ended up receiving 5 art entries and 3 writing entries, which is more than I thought we’d have last night!

 

Gonna be Queen Kika’s finest fling

Hellooooooooooooo, folks! Chief here with another blog post talking about that ever-shifting development of Rising Angels. Today, we are going to talk about the important things we are considering and a certain sassy princess.

 

There aren’t a lot of new changes to talk about other than these…

  1. Kika and Termin’s sprites have been changed up a bit. I wasn’t too happy with how they looked; they didn’t really fit the roles that I pictured them. Kika didn’t quite have the “Prestigious governor’s daughter” look, and Termin… just didn’t feel right.
  2. Still haven’t add in the menu options so…

The game contains 6,100 screens of dialogue.

These screens contain a total of 70,412 words,

for an average of 11.5 words per screen.

The game contains 0 menus.

  1. Preparations for a beta release are getting setup. We are aiming for 04 March 2013. Part of this is tied to a competition between myself and an IRL friend.
  2. However, before we can decide on when the beta will be, we need to decide what is going to be in it. So, I’m back trying to decide on the release order. I agreed with Samu-kun that I needed to make this a little more manageable. As I refuse to reduce characters and cast, my next option was to split the release into two versions; a GxB and a GxG version. Right now, my vote is on GxG going first and then the GxB expansion later because I love the female cast a lot more. Unless I get a sudden uproar that demands the male routes first… I know that my data suggests that a GxB would be more popular, but the otome crowd has been pretty quiet with little support.

 

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s start talking about one of the major characters, one with a new sprite, Kika Starr.

 

Name: Kika Starr
Age: 20

Birthday: February 1st
Gender: Female
Species: Kitsune
Homeworld: Duster Station

Bloodtype: A+ [Grigori virus]

Sexual Preference: Unknown
Bio: The daughter of the leader of Duster Station, an independent trade station. Used to having the best that money can provide and the success that tends to accompany it, Kika grew up incredibly spoiled. Loud, brash, and determined, Kika’s princess mentality tends to rub everyone around her the wrong way. Most people tend to bear with it, as her father’s money overrides their dislike, leading her to further believe that not only is she the best at anything she does, but that she is also the most loved girl in the universe. When she finds out that her father cannot buy her a fleet of her own, she decides to join the Katajion Space forces to become the greatest admiral of all time.

 

Chief’s notes: Kika Starr is a character with a very long history. I’ve played with Kika in my stories since around 2002. She’s a very, very old character to me. However, this is the first time that she’s ever been involved in something public. This is also the first time she’s ever been something other than a reporter as well. Nevertheless, Kika has always been a very determined, very outspoken girl who has always led the fight from the front.

 

When I was rounding up characters for Rising Angels, Kika wasn’t the first one I thought of. Faye, Lenna, and Yoi were. As I went down the list of characters, I realized there wasn’t another lupide/kitsune girl to go alongside Faye. I had no rival that wasn’t such an unlikeable character like Sol. Originally, I was just going to use one of Faye’s other hairstyles and have the running joke of lookalikes. In the end, I decided to commission four more characters, one of which would be a kitsune to run against Faye.

 

There has never been any art for Kika since she was always just a character in my head. When I looked at the sprites for the first time, I automatically wanted to use the drill hairstyle. As amusing as it looked, it feel just right. I backed away from it, though, and went with the twin braids. I’ve since decided to go back to the drills, since it made me think of Kika as the hero she thinks she is instead of the sidekick.

 

One misconception of Kika that I’m sure many people might make is that she only cares about herself. When Kika says that she believes that she is the hero, she means it. Kika will always be the first to put herself between danger and those she believes are under her charge. When push comes to shove, Kika will take up the banner and fight the villain. When that fight is over though, she expects that the world will bow down and recognize her brilliance and bow down to her.

 

Kika is going to be an interesting character in Rising Angels. Faye and Kika aren’t going to be friends, even if I do say they are alike. Kika’s presumptions that she is the best aren’t going to work well with Faye’s everyone is unique mentality. What starts as a simple misunderstanding is going to ramp up into a pretty heated rivalry. In most routes, Kika serves as our primary antagonist alongside Sol. In Lenna’s and Kika’s route, you’ll get to see a lot more of the determined kitsune who wants nothing more than to be the hero she’s always dreamed of being.

 

That’s it for today! And what would will be out video of the post? Only her theme song…