-August, 30, 2022

TNT Tuesday Devlog #1

Current word count: 55,345!

Hyello! My name is Joy, the creative director and lead writer (only writer) for Tattoos and Tulips (TNT). Not only is this TNT’s first devlog, it’s my first devlog ever! There is SO much to say about this project, but I will do my very best to keep it concise and informative.

Tattoos and Tulips is a Kinetic boy’s love visual novel. It’s slice of life, comedy, and of course romance. It originally derived from a My Hero Academia fanfiction of all things, really leaning hard into the Flower Shop/Tattoo Parlor AU. It’s come a long way since then, (the original fanfic was like, 1,000 words or something lol) And barely has ties to its trope-y original.

It was used as the blueprint for a yaoi jam entry back in 2021, but due to lack of time we were unable to make the deadline and decided to just come back to the project later with fresh eyes. Later turned out to be July 25th of this year. Just a little over a month ago and we are so so so much further than we ever were.

We’ve got a completed rough draft totally 55k words, (I am currently in the editing phase for the month of September and will be adding some words- not sure if it will be up to 60k or not.)

I didn’t think I’d ever complete a story like this, I only wrote one shot fanfictions to avoid having to finish a long term project. But, I think passion is what I lacked, as I managed to finish this project in under a month surprisingly enough! And for one of those weeks I was severely ill. I was in bed for 6 days straight with a 101 fever, and for my non-American readers (38.3 degrees Celsius). So I was really struggling. I had set a month deadline for myself at the beginning of August and somehow managed to finish the entirety on August 26th! 

I’m still whirling at that btw, this is the second major piece of fiction I’ve ever finished. And I couldn’t be more proud! I have been writing for a long time, and finishing projects was one of my greatest obstacles so being able to prove myself wrong, that I can in fact finish what I set out to do is really fulfilling.

Up until 3 days ago, I had believe that writing was inherently a rough process, you’d struggle and hate parts of it no matter what but, I can say with the upmost confidence that, that is not true. In fact, this was the most positive writing experience of my life and I just know, whom ever gets the chance to read it will see the love I put into it.

Now that sappy nonsense is out of the way. I can talk about the cool stuff! Like, art- more specifically sprite art!

Our sprite artist (our being “Meant to Bee Studios” founded by myself, and my programmer/idea bouncer/friend Lanae) Our sprite artist VeryFatCat or ‘Cat’ as she likes to go by, is a super talented, super friendly, super wonderful teammate or “TNTeammate” as Lanae and I like to call it.

Cat’s sprites have not only captured exactly what I always imagined these characters to look like, it wasn’t exactly a seamless process of course, at least for our main character Chrys. 

He was always imagined to have fluffy curly hair, but somehow I managed to not explain that correctly and went like 2 weeks fidgeting with his design because as good as her concept sketches were, they weren’t what I had envisioned.

We ended up going with 1 originally, then switched to 2 as his split bangs were more appealing at the time.

His hair wasn’t the only struggle, as shown above, there were also wardrobe malfunctions. But Cat, she remained vigilant! 

And with some time, and lots of hard work and listening to Lanae and I’s feedback we eventually got his final design.

I couldn’t be happier with his final design, from his hair, to his freckles, to his super cool outfit! He is my precious, precious baby, and I adore him.

I’ve always had a soft spot for grumpy characters guarding their fragile hearts. So if that sounds like a bit of you, I’d strongly recommend keeping up with us here on Itch, and Twitter!

Shay on the other hand our sexy, friendly, tattoo artist was a near seamless process.

He was near perfection from the first time he was drawn, we ended up going with the 3rd one’s face and the 4th one’s outfit.

All the way to his final design, if you’re wondering why he’s naked it’s because we have characters who wear multiple outfits throughout the story! As well as showing off all his tattoos, and for no other reason at all……

The cast of the game is pretty small, only 3 characters have outfit changes, and there are a grand total of 7 characters. Some of which only show up for a small amount of time.

At the heart of TNT is its characters: everyone has an aesthetic, a diet, fears, hobbies, jobs, a family! I think that aspect of TNT is one of its greatest strengths. 

The TNTeam has the single most talented and kind individuals imaginable. I don’t know where this project would be without them.

We’ve got original everything: sprites, backgrounds, UI, even music! Which seemed highly impossible when we started but, slowly we’ve obtained a team of really talented individuals! All voluntarily as this is a free project, to have such high quality art (in every respect) is a blessing I do not take for granted!

We are all working hard to deliver the best end product possible. Mostly to meet our goal of releasing a 1 hour demo in January of 2023. So far we’ve made so much progress in the short of amount of time we’ve been working together, I believe that demo release is possible then, and a full release come April-June.

I feel like I’ve learned so much in such a short amount of time, and have no doubts I will learn much more before the project is completed. But it will be completed, and all of our hard work will bare fruit and TNT will blossom. (That’s just a taste of the flower puns to come.)

Thank you for reading! And see you next week!

-Joy