I'm not super concerned with the quality of my demo because this is more of time management test to me than anything else. But it doesn't mean I have the luxury of just slacking off, so you'll at least see me putting up a fight against the time! The biggest effort I obviously need to put in is Jonathan and Claude sprites as we're going to see those the most, but I also definitely have to make sprites for the boy group, Thomas and preferably to two teachers too, although I could live without them having sprites for now. Playing Fata Morgana and realizing how many of the characters don't have any sprites is actually somewhat reassuring in a way.
Writing wise I'm basically done with the demo's first draft, only day 3 is still in progress and the rest are either done or need some small details I have to add later when I get some character designs nailed down. I'm doing my best to get it all fixed and neat and at least once read by other people too during this month, so I can use March in actually putting that text into the game.
Walter and Jet still lack the info page character profiles and I kind of want to do one for Thomas too, but I have to prioritize the character sprites for now. I have one Claude sprite set somewhat done, but his main sprite is still in clean sketch stage. But at least I drew all his faces there so it's really just a matter of sitting down and linearting. Thankfully Sinfonia is going to have a pretty limited palette for the ~ aesthetic ~ so I don't need to worry so much about the colours.
I have picked some backgrounds already, and at least for the demo I'm using free stock photos I just edit to look like old photos. All I need to do is find the right style to edit the pictures to get the result I want + make them match the sprites in terms of colours.
Here is a concept of the general design I want to use. The colours are still off and I have fixed the sprite shown in this pic but I was too lazy to put the newer one here when it's only supposed to work as a guideline to me.
I still do have a lot of doubts though and I'm nervous someone will misunderstand my original intentions with this game and think I unintentionally just ripped off all 70s shoujo tropes and character types and even designs. Sinfonia is not a work where I'm priding myself in unique designs or concepts, it's an experimental game for me and my main focus is the interactions between the characters and their feelings and thoughts. I also think it's very exciting to take tropes and then try to shape to your own liking and giving them flesh around the bare bones, so I'd like to make the characters memorable despite their designs.
I still definitely feel more at ease about Sinfonia and don't feel as doubtful as I felt at first, but I suppose it's because I have gotten numb to this project already. I know it and I know its details and the direction it takes, so it feels totally different for me and someone who might not even know much about the context of Sinfonia.
But really, all I want is to get this done so I can get my hands on the full version and also get to work on other things; I have promised myself April is going to be TBOL month because of camp nano, and I'd like to write Kasnian for July's nano.