Glowing Stones : Heroes' Awakening News

Hello there!

So, how are things going? Me? Oh, yes...
From my side, I've started the big rush/crush, with six weeks off from my day job, so full time on GS!
So, yeah, it's going pretty well. I'm quite pleased with myself right now. I'm beginning to see the production potential with full-time work, and it's clearly not bad at all. In the end, I'm much more productive than when I was part-time (Yes, it sounds obvious when said like that, but not so much). Indeed, even in the evenings, I'm not tired (well, of course I am...) after a long day of working for someone else. So, I still have energy to take care of my child, and then go back to GS for 3 hours (or more!)

And what about GS specifically, any news? Well, since the last report... I've set up all the remaining "classic" scenes (6 in total) as well as a quite heavy scene, but with an animation that I'm very, very, very proud of! I sincerely hope you take the time to watch it, it lasts more than 40 seconds (I know, it's huge for an AVN, but honestly, I loved making it) and it only took me a day and a half to set up (well, and 4 days for rendering, but that's hidden time). Plus, just for it, the game has new music! Some might say it's a waste of time and money, but honestly, I think it really adds something extra for a character. I got some flak for the music choice for the Aurora scene in the country bar... So she was a bit upset... So now I think she'll be happy!

Okay, here's just a tiny piece of that!



For the rest, I'm very happy with how the other scenes I've set up turned out, one in particular, you'll see, it's... romantic ^^

And here are the numbers:

1150 renders and 300 more waiting to be rendered
9400 animation frames rendered, and 1000 more waiting to be rendered
4550 finished script lines

I still have to do one and a half naughty scenes (I'm currently setting up the first of this chapter) and two small action scenes. I also have some tweaks here and there, and to finish scripting the variables, the music, that sort of thing.

In short, we've never been closer to the next chapter, and anyway, I sincerely hope this report will be the last before release!

Thank you, and have a great day!

Hello here!

Things are going well! Really well, even. Several scenes have been set up, with multiple animations. And I'm very happy because I had the opportunity to reuse what I had learned about Blender and Daz. And this without any problems, and even without losing much time (less than a day to do a whole animation, including the Blender part).

Oh, I can't help myself, I have to show you!



This gif is at 25 fps, while the original animation is at 60 fps. Honestly, I feel like the result is really professional. It really bodes well for what's coming next, and I'm very pleased with it!
And there are 4 animations in this scene. Some short, some longer, for a total of 25 seconds.

Otherwise, I didn't just do 4 animations over the past month. Oh no no! Far from it. I also set up 4 more classic scenes of "character building," but also we're starting to put the finishing touches on some story plots.

It might not seem like it, but these scenes are the biggest part of the game's renders. And when there are multiple characters in the scene, it's even longer because you have to pose all the characters, etc...

Anyway, here are the numbers!

963 renders (yes!)
6500 animation frames (109 seconds)
3500 scripted lines and 500 more to script
3200 finished scripted lines

For this chapter, I'm making good progress, I have one classic but heavy in animation scene left, 3 classic scenes, 1 fairly short scene with one or two animations, two naughty scenes, and two action scenes, one not too heavy and the other a bit larger.

I know it's taking a long time, and I thank you immensely for your patience. Know that this chapter will be the biggest in terms of animation, game time, and scenes :)

See you soon!

Hello there,

This month has been a very special one for me.
First off, I had to manage my grandmother's estate, and believe me, in France, we love our paperwork and bureaucracy! It's enough to drive you mad. Add to that it's also the start of tax season, and you get the picture...
However, on a much brighter note, the game had a very good rebound on Steam. Sales are much better than they were before the bundles, although they are still far from incredible. But it's very pleasing!
Moreover, the game has had a very favorable rating of 100% positive reviews over the last 30 days for over a month and a half now. A big THANK YOU to everyone who posted their reviews, it really makes me happy, truly motivates me to continue, and helps the game tremendously on Steam!

I've also activated Steam Cloud for GS. Now, if you enable it, your saves will be accessible from any device! I've done the tests myself, but if you have any issues, don't hesitate to discuss them in the forum!

Regarding the development of the next chapter, there are several things to note.
I have continued writing, and I have about 75% of the dialogues written at this point.
I have continued making renders, and it's progressing quite well.
I have started setting the first animations for this chapter. And there, there will be something new. I've decided to switch to videos at 45 or 60 fps, depending on the videos. I still need to get used to this new format, but it must be said that it looks nicer! Plus, you may know this, but for some animations with special effects, I use another software (Blender). Until now, it was quite haphazard, but I took some time to rework the workflow between my two software (Blender for the special effects and Daz for everything else), and it has become much smoother. And frankly, the result is crazy! I bet you've almost never seen animations with these kinds of special effects in Visual Novels!

Anyway, just know that it's progressing well and this chapter will likely be a bit longer than the others. We'll know more next month!

For the numbers:

465 static renders
685 animation frames (11 seconds) and 480 (8 seconds) more currently rendering in the next few days
1900 lines of script, 800 additional lines of dialogues to be scripted
1600 lines with renders.

Thanks and see you soon!

Hello there,

Here's the first monthly progress report on the development:
March has been quite eventful: between the bundles (Made in France and Romance Beyond Reality), PC issues (my power supply had a faulty module, which cost me about a week...) and preparing for what's next in terms of visibility...

But I've also made significant progress on Chapter 5, rest assured! It's exhausting to have to do all this, but well, no choice if I want to one day be 100% on GS, without having another job on the side.

For the numbers:

305 renders
0 animations
1030 lines already scripted and posed
600 story lines already written, waiting for script and pose

No animation for now, the first days of Chapter 5 will be rather dedicated to starting to answer several plots, and to introduce the last intrigues of this Book 1, as well as character building.
But don't worry, at least one lewd scene is planned, maybe two (with at least one other romantic scene, maybe without lewd content), two action scenes... in short, there won't be a lack of animations anyway!

No new features coded for now, but I'm planning a new gallery (for the special renders and trailers) for Chapter 5, and maybe some additional accessibility elements concerning the new GUI.

I'm also going to launch a survey regarding the "default" name of the hero, since the current name is the name of a super villain in another universe :s

By the way, if you'd like, share your hero's name in the comments! ^^

See you soon!

Hello there!

Minor update to apply a lot of correction to the English version of the game.

See you soon!