5 posts tagged with "devlog"

There’s a specific feeling you get when writing is going really well. It doesn’t feel like you’re inventing a story from scratch. It feels like you’re uncovering something that was already there.

Jorge Luis Borges wrote about a "Library of Babel". This is an imaginary place where the shelves contain every possible book. Most are gibberish, but if you look hard enough, you can find anything. Somewhere in those stacks is the true story of your life, the history of the future, and the perfect explanation of the universe.

In that library, you don’t write a story. You find it.

When we started mapping out our sample project, we wanted to capture that feeling of discovery.

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The Address System​

Usually, visual novels rely on branching paths. You make a choice, and the story splits.

In that kind of world, the question "What else could happen?" has a limited answer. The answer is: "Only what the developer decided to write." The possibilities are fixed, and you can exhaust them. Once you’ve seen every ending, the world stops growing.

For this anthology, we wanted "What else?" to feel different.

We didn't want a flowchart; we wanted a landscape. We wanted a system where the empty spaces are just as real as the filled ones.

As I touched on in the first devlog, the experience begins with a Tarot spread. You draw five cards.

The order and orientation of these cards become a unique Story Address. When the cards are dealt, you're looking up a specific location in a vast narrative landscape.

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The Empty House​

But in a landscape this massive, most locations are unexplored.

So, what happens if you dial in coordinates for a story that doesn't exist yet?

You arrive at the address, but the lights are out. The lot is empty.

In a normal experience, this would be an error. In this anthology, it’s an invitation.

"No fate has been written here yet. Would you like to write it?"

If you accept, you become the architect of that specific timeline. You aren't just writing "fan fiction." You're filling a void in the geometry of the world. You're claiming that coordinate in the library and building a home there.

That address isn't empty anymore. The next reader who draws those five cards will find your story waiting for them.

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A Geometric Memory​

This system turns the project into something more than just a collection of short stories. It becomes a collaborative labyrinth.

Because the Future-Person (FP) is the constant 5th card, she exists in every story. But she's shaped by the four cards that came before her.

• In one address, she's the tragedy you can't prevent.
• In another, she's the hope you didn't expect.
• In yet another, she's a mystery you never solve.

The MC is wandering through infinite variations. The reader is searching for the story that resonates with them. And you, the writer, are providing the answer to a specific question posed by the cards.

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The Engine vs. The Story​

We built a labyrinth because that’s what we like to geek out about. But Inkweaver didn't demand this structure.

The Tarot logic, the address system, the story rules—that isn’t the engine. That’s just the story we chose to tell.

We built Inkweaver on the promise that it will support your vision, whatever that might be.

We created this sample story to prove we could keep that promise. We pushed the engine into weird, non-linear territory specifically to show you that it wouldn't break.

If Inkweaver can handle a collaborative, infinite library, it can handle your world too.

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Outside the Walls​

We’ve spent this series inviting you into our "Library of Forking Paths." But while the Library is infinite on the inside, it still has walls. The story you want to tell may live outside those walls.

We invite you to come in, explore, and write a fate with us. But eventually, we hope you step outside the library entirely.

We’ve shown you how we built our world. When you're ready, we want to see how you build yours.

When I look back at the moments that changed my life, I know I was surrounded by people.

Friends, family, strangers in a crowd. They were there. But when I try to replay those scenes in my head, most of those faces are blurry.

It’s not because they didn’t matter. It’s because they weren’t the center of the story I was living. They were the forces pushing and pulling me, but they weren't the focal point.

These are the supporting characters of our lives. We might not remember them clearly, but they shaped us all the same.

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Concrete Future, Abstract Present​

We had to make a choice about reality.

In our story, the Future-Person (FP) is a paradox: she exists in a future the MC hasn't reached yet, but she is the only thing that feels solid.

To make that contrast work, everyone else had to be uncertain.

So, we decided to render the supporting characters abstractly. They are soft silhouettes, simplified forms, and impressionistic shapes.

To be honest, this was also a practical necessity. Our goal is to build an anthology where you can write stories. We couldn't possibly provide a bespoke art asset for every neighbor, shopkeeper, or rival you might envounter.

The solution was mindful constraint. By keeping the supporting cast visually abstract, we solve the production problem, but we also reinforce the theme that the future is clear in a way that prevents the past from properly connecting to it.

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Archetypes, Not Individuals​

Instead of trying to design specific people, we built a set of archetypes.

These aren’t characters with complex backstories. They are roles that the MC projects meaning onto.

Even without detailed faces, they remain recognizable because the emotional weight they carry is familiar.

And just like the rest of the world, these silhouettes react to the engine’s lighting system. They absorb the feelings in the scene. When the world is angry and red, they are too. When it’s cold and blue, they fade into the background.

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The Carnival Mirror​

The supporting characters have a specific job.

The MC is stuck in his own head. If something feels true to him, it is true. He needs something to disrupt that certainty.

The supporting characters act as reflective surfaces.

They don't have deep inner lives of their own. They exist to bend, exaggerate, or distort the MC’s beliefs just enough to create tension. Sometimes they reinforce what he thinks. Sometimes they show us a different perspective.

They're like carnival mirrors. They don’t pretend to show the objective truth. They just prove that the MC can't always trust how he feels.

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Worlds Apart​

As we were scripting the first few scenes, we stumbled onto a rule that surprised us. It felt strict, but it also felt right:

Supporting characters never share a scene with the FP.

• They never stand beside her.
• They never talk to her.
• They never even acknowledge her.

This isn't just because she might be imaginary. It's because she represents the Future, while the supporting cast represents the Past and Present.

These two worlds are pulling the MC in opposite directions. By keeping them visually separate, we reveal the core conflict without saying a word: The MC cannot hold onto his past and his future at the same time.

Eventually, everything will change, whether he wants it to or not.

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Closing Thoughts​

While designing these silhouettes, I kept coming back to one thought:

Not everyone who shapes our lives does so with clarity. Some leave impressions instead of memories.

The supporting characters in this VN are built from those impressions. They are the outlines of people the MC didn’t fully see, but still change the way he sees the world.

In the next devlog, we’re going to pull the curtain back on the final piece of the puzzle: The Library. We'll talk about how the Tarot system works technically, and how we built a collaborative labyrinth where every possible story has its own home address.

When I look back at the people who stuck with me, I don't remember the speeches they gave.

I remember the way they looked at me in the quiet moments. The way they leaned in when they were curious. The way their attention drifted when something inside them changed.

Those details can be subtle, almost invisible. But they're the things that give shape to a memory.

When we started designing the Future-Person (FP) for our visual novel, we wanted to capture that specific gravity. A sense that we genuinely understand her, even in a world where everything else seems vague or uncertain.

As the story unfolds, the FP is the only person who feels fully real. Everyone else is brushwork and color. But she stands there clearly, as if she stepped out of a memory that hasn’t happened yet.

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Constraints Create Clarity​

Here was the challenge: We wanted an anthology. The world needed to be open enough to support any story a writer might dream up.

But a system that tries to do everything usually ends up doing nothing well.

So we embraced a constraint: The FP is fixed. She is a single, clearly rendered character. Everything else—the side characters, the crowds—is abstracted. They're silhouettes and archetypes.

What started as a way to limit scope quickly became a philosophy. By giving the FP clarity and giving the world ambiguity, we created a fulcrum. The narrative pivots around her.

It means we can’t tell every story. But we can tell stories about the connection between the MC and the FP exceptionally well.

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Expressions vs. Identity​

Here is a trap I fall into a lot: I feel that if a character has more sprites, they must have more personality.

But in practice, giving a character "infinite" expressions can makes them feel generic. They become an actor being told what to do, rather than a person genuinely expressing how they feel.

To avoid that, we stopped thinking in terms of "emotions" and started thinking in terms of masks.

In real life, we feel more than we show. Our inner world is messy. But what we let people see is usually fixed and practiced.

We approached the Future-Person the same way.

Instead of giving her every possible expression, we gave her a limited palette. A small, consistent set of reactions that she has practiced, and is comfortable with. She can still feel anything, but she doesn’t show everything. She only shows what she wants the world to see.

That constraint anchors her. It collapses infinite possibility into a real person.

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Gaze and Posture​

Body language usually hits us before words do. A slight lean forward feels like an invitation. A turned shoulder feels like a goodbye.

We wanted to capture that, so we designed four distinct poses for the FP. Each one represents a different level of emotional distance:

1. Leaning in – Curiosity or connection.
2. Standing near – Soft, conversational intimacy.
3. Neutral – A pause, a breath, a moment of uncertainty.
4. Turned away – Retreat or hesitation.

These aren't dramatic anime poses. They’re the kind of shifts you might not even notice someone making. But they change the temperature of a scene instantly.

To add nuance, each pose has two gaze variations: direct and averted.

This is a tiny amount of effort, but has a huge impact on expressiveness. Eye contact can feel intimate or dangerous. Looking away can feel shy or protective. By offering both, the FP can communicate even when she's silent.

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Dynamic Color​

I mentioned in the last devlog that our backgrounds shift color to match the mood. We wanted the FP to do the same.

When a scene glows in warm golds, her highlights soften to match. When the world cools into distant blues, her palette shifts too.

This works because Inkweaver doesn't just treat images as flat stickers.

The engine respects the structure the artist built. It reads the character as component layers—albedo (color), occlusion (shadow), and lighting. Because the engine understands the difference between the "paint" and the "light," we can manipulate those layers individually in real-time.

It allows us to "re-light" the character on the fly without ruining the art.

This makes the FP feel connected to the space. She isn't just pasted onto the scene. She is the scene.

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Closing Thoughts​

There’s a line I keep coming back to while working on this project:

People don’t become important to us all at once. They become important in small, quiet moments we didn’t expect.

That’s how we want the FP to feel. Like someone you've known forever, but only just started to notice.

To do that, we didn't need a massive library of assets. We needed an acting system—a character who moves, looks, and hides her feelings in her own unique way.

In the next devlog, we’ll look at the flip side: the silhouettes, the abstract figures, and the people who influence the MC without ever stepping into the light.

When I think back on the places that mattered to me, I don’t remember them the way a camera would. The details soften, shapes blur, and the colors shift into something warmer or colder than they actually were.

But the feeling of the place stays.

A station just after the last train departs. A quiet corner of a café where you waited for someone who never arrived. These memories aren’t always accurate, but they’re honest.

For our sample visual novel, we wanted the world to feel like that.

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Uncertainty, Shape, and Color​

As I mentioned in the last devlog, our story is guided by the Major Arcana. Each card defines the metaphorical place we inhabit for that chapter.

As the cards change, the world shifts with them. A new Arcana means a new metaphor. Because of that, the backgrounds couldn’t be strict, detailed illustrations. They needed to be softer. More expressive. A little unreal.

We went with painterly backgrounds—loose brushwork and bold color. It lets us focus on how the scene feels without being pinned down by perfect geometry.

In that sense, the backgrounds behave just like memories: uncertain in form, but certain in tone.

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INT. and EXT.​

In a screenplay, location changes are signaled by headings called sluglines. By convention these locations are always defined as happening inside, or outside (interior, or exterior). To support this, every Major Arcana location comes as a matched pair.

Scenes can happen anywhere, of course. But having both options allows us to establish the scene with an exterior shot, then cut to an interior one.

This is a classic filmmaking technique that helps the reader understand where a scene takes place, grounding them in the physical space. But this transition from exterior to interior can also be symbolic. It signifies crossing a threshold—moving from one context into another.

Public vs. Private Worlds​

One interesting thing about memories is how people tend to blur into the scenery.

Sometimes I recall a place full of strangers—faces I never looked at, lives I passed by without noticing. Other times, the memory feels completely empty because I was too deep in the moment to notice anyone else.

To capture this, every background has a toggle:

• Public – A suggestion of crowds, soft silhouettes, vague figures.
• Private – An empty space, quiet and still.

It’s a small change, but it lets us adjust the intimacy of a scene with almost no effort.

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Night and Day​

We also created day and night variants for each background. Again, not to mimic real lighting, but to shape the tone.

• Day – Open, honest, vulnerable.
• Night – Introspective, fragile, secretive.

A street under a midday sun has a completely different weight than the same street under faint neon. By tweaking the light layers, we change the meaning of the setting without ever moving the camera.

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Right-Side Up, Upside Down​

In tarot, a card’s meaning changes depending on how you hold it. Drawn upright, it means one thing. Reversed, it means another.

We wanted the world to reflect that duality. The geometry stays the same. The place is still recognizable. But something is off. Maybe the light hits at an unsettling angle, or the shadows get heavier. The space feels tighter, lonelier, or unstable.

We handle these reversals through layers instead of brand new art. This allows us to preserve continuity, but twist the meaning just a little bit.

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Color As Mood​

We made a rule early on: each scene gets defined by a simple palette of three colors.

We aren't trying to match reality. We’re trying to capture an emotion.

A background might bathe the reader in warm pinks during a moment of closeness, or wash everything in deep blues during a moment of fear.

Here’s the cool part: this flexibility is possible because of how Inkweaver handles art.

The engine reads the artist’s layers exactly as they created them—blended, masked, tinted, and arranged with intention. We can manipulate light, shadow, and color shifts right in the engine, just like you would in Photoshop.

It means a single drawing can shift and breathe as the story demands.

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A Palette for Creators​

The goal here wasn't just to make a pretty visual novel. It was to build a toolkit.

Instead of staring at your assets and asking, “Which location fits this script?” we want you to ask:

“What should this moment feel like?”

The backgrounds answer that question because they’re not just places. They’re moods.

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Closing Thoughts​

It’s easy to think of a setting as something external—just a box for the characters to stand in. But in this story, the world is shaped by emotion as much as by light and color.

The places you see aren’t maps. They’re feelings.

They’re the way the MC remembers, or fears, or longs for certain moments. They are the shapes of thoughts he hasn’t fully understood yet.

In the next devlog, I want to talk about the only character that matters to our MC: the mysterious future-person. We'll dig into how we designed her expressions and poses to create a character who feels impossible to ignore.

I’ve been digging into a specific feeling lately.

It’s that moment when you sense something slipping just beyond your reach, long before you understand why. Like realizing a friend is drifting away even while they’re smiling at you. Or noticing that the future you imagined has quietly changed shape.

I wanted to tell a story that lives inside that feeling.

Not a tragedy, exactly. And not a puzzle to solve. Just the gentle ache of recognizing a future too late to hold onto it.

That became the seed of our story about fate.

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Why Fate?​

In order to explain what Inkweaver is, and what it can do, we need an example.

To be honest, that sample novel had a tough job to do. We needed a story engaging enough to welcome newcomers, but big enough to show writers what Inkweaver can actually do.

A deck of tarot cards turned out to be the perfect answer.

The symbolism does the heavy lifting—it sets a mood without forcing a plot. Plus, a four-card spread maps beautifully to a four-part kishotenketsu arc (Introduction, Development, Twist, Conclusion), which already resonates with VN readers and authors alike.

It lets us share a complete story while leaving the door open. It’s a world you can enter instantly, where you can explore the engine without the pressure of designing a whole novel from scratch.

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A Quiet Shop on a Rainy Day​

And so our story begins... Our MC gets caught in a sudden downpour and ducks into a small fortune-teller’s shop to escape the rain.

He doesn’t believe in that sort of thing. But the rain is cold, and sitting for a reading feels easier than walking back out into it.

The reading unfolds across four chapters, each driven by a tarot card. A fifth card represents a future-person—someone whose life becomes unexpectedly entwined with his own.

As the visions unfold, the MC realizes something unsettling: the future feels more vivid than his actual life.

By the end, he comes to believe not only his fate, but the nature of fate itself: He is powerless to stop it.

But the fortune-teller hands him the deck.

“Maybe you can’t change your future,” she says. “But someone else might.”

That someone is you.

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Community Anthology​

This is the part I’m most excited about.

After the story ends, you can draw a new set of cards. These five cards represnent an address that points to a new version of that story. A different set of cards, with a different fate.

If a story exists at that address, you can read it. If it doesn’t? You’re invited to write it.

We wanted to make it possible to shape something new in a matter of hours, not months.

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Closing Thoughts​

For our first impression, we wanted something small and sincere. A short story, but one treated with the polish and gravity of a full-length novel.

In the next few devlogs, I want to dig into how this world actually works—why only one character is fully rendered, how we use color to hack the "mood," and how we built a story that feels like a memory you dreamed before you lived it.