The episode begins…I almost forgot to delete Kazuya from the classroom, but as you can see here, his desk is now empty.

Chie discusses the latest gossip, from main character dating to speculation over Akane and Kazuya’s disappearance. The simplicity of this tileset can be attributed to the fact that I made it myself.

Another home made tileset cobbled together from anime screencaps and RPG Maker defaults plays host to what is probably the most amusing scene in the episode.

I initially tried to make my own tileset for this scene as well, but when I cast my eye upon the disastrous result I resolved to stick with the defaults.

Away from the party, Natsuki starts to strip.

Hands up who didn’t see that coming.

Takeda gets knocked out, and Natsuki gets another party member.

Taking a boat out to an island reveals that the floating above lifeboat problem is still in evidence.

It’s far from perfect, but I quite like this map.

This facility was originally going to be home to the stealth events, but now it is just this one dull room.

Natsuki reveals that the reason for coming to her mother’s old office was to pick up a plush dog.

In the anime, the girls surrender themselves to police custody at this point, but since the episode has been rather dull up to now, I decided a little artistic licence was in order.

Not the greatest battle graphic, but it was that or a side view of him bending over.

Natsuki explains what happened in the anime version.

Even though I changed the plot, the end result of the girls getting stranded on a mountain road remains the same.

This one’s for the fanboys.

Poor Natsuki.

Next episode: Cooking Wars.

The Child summoning system is also undergoing an overhaul; the current system allows a HiME to dismiss the other party members and fight alongside her Child instead. There are a few issues with this system at the moment, which I will list below.

· To limit the number of turns a Child can remain, it is summoned with a Poison-like status that slowly drains its HP; ideally, I’d like to replace this a stamina bar or make it an SP cost per turn like dragon transformations in Breath of Fire 4.

· Items can be used on or by the Child; I’d prefer it if they could not use or be targeted by items.

· After battle, the party has to be manually reverted to normal, which is possible but tedious, and would be more problematic in a real RPG.

I’ve yet to encounter any scripts that could help with these issues, but if anyone happens to know of some, please let me know.

Anyway, without further ado, let’s stop talking about what I can’t achieve and move on to what I have actually done. Also, before I forget, thanks to everyone who’s left feedback and positive comments on the game so far.

Akane and Kazuya visit the Fuuka anniversary celebrations.

Mikoto is there too.

Miyu, on the other hand, must wait outside the church.

Akane has high hopes about her future prospects.

Mai agrees to help move some desks.

Tate starts teasing Mai.

Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t take well to it.

Mai falls through a hole in the floor, and the others soon follow.

Akane reveals that she too is a HiME.

Akane and Harry fight an Orphan; for obvious reasons, the HiME and Child cannot be to scale.

A mysterious cave- where better to ask someone out?

For a sick boy, Takumi can run fast…Tate is supposed to be keeping up with him but this scene still needs tweaking.

Mai fights the Orphan.

Once again, Tate and Takumi are kept in the dark about Mai’s powers.

The Orphan may have been defeated, but Akane is not out of danger yet.

Veterans of the anime will know that Akane cannot win this battle…after five turns, poor Harry goes up in green flames. I named Miyu’s killer attack R-Blade in homage to KOS-MOS of Xenosaga.

With the loss of Harry, Kazuya turns into green sparkles.

Nagi explains what just happened.

Mai and the others get out of the caves just in time to watch a fireworks display.

Next episode: sand, sea, swimsuits…and the challenge of making a beach episode interesting.

It was something of a disappointment to find that anime episode seven wasn’t as good as imagined; the episode that introduced Nao wasn’t exactly poor, but as far as RPG material goes, it wasn’t the best I had to work with. The result- a lot of fiddly and troublesome scenes that took an age to complete (and if I’m perfectly honest, still contain a few bugs).

Mikoto heads into town to search for Ani-ue, only to end up encountering Nao and one of her dates.

Nao’s date is more than a little surprised when Julia shows up.

I’m afraid this isn’t a battle that the player can actually participate in; in fact, it ends right after this message.

The next day, Mikoto is scolded by Mai.

This scene is somewhat amusing in that all the characters relentlessly march across the screen in unison before building up on the right hand side. Needless to say, I will have to adjust this.

Midori and Youko reunite, causing all kinds of speculation from HARD YURI fans.

At lunchtime, the upcoming anniversary celebrations are discussed.

Mikoto angsts to Nao about how Mai treats her like a child.

Tate tries to get Mai to take Shiho shopping.

Even though Mai refuses, Nagi tells her it is important to the plot that she goes to the shopping district.

Mai angsts about the fact that Mikoto is missing, whilst Akane is worried that she won’t have her dialogue memorised in time for episode eight.

After work, Mai searches for Mikoto.

Nao persuades Mikoto to pick up a guy for a date with Julia.

Mai and Natsuki stumble upon Mikoto’s activities and decide to tail her.

Mai and Natsuki confront Nao.

Natsuki finds herself at odds with Nao, and initiates another battle where the player cannot do anything (a different battle background will appear in the final version).

Midori arrives and breaks up the fight.

Nagi appears to put a stop to anything that would ruin the plot. Midori should be in this scene, and has since been added.

Nao decides to make a dramatic exit.

Thanks to Nao, the whole place has collapsed, but luckily Reito appears in time to save Mikoto.

Mai visits Mashiro in order to properly take up her role as the destined main character.

Next time: Akane.

Tate meets Shiho on the way to school.

Tate and Shiho enlist Mai, Mikoto and Takumi’s assistance for a wedding being held at the shrine over the weekend.

Jin (correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that was his name) puts Mai and the others to work.

Once the coast is clear, Midori decides to investigate the storeroom. I’m still having a few issues with timing for this scene, but they should be worked out by the final release.

As luck would have it, Mai comes along and locks Midori in.

Fortunately, Midori finds some reading material.

Mai, Mikoto and Shiho get to spend the night in a more comfortable setting.

In the men’s bedroom, Tate and Takumi have a frank discussion.

Mai finds Midori in the storeroom. I wasn’t fast enough to screencap them, but there are a couple of anime screencaps in this scene that show Midori accidentally ripping the seal off the door at the back.

Mai rushes over to put things right.

Both girls end up in a cave with the infamous falling rocks. For some reason the picture that is supposed to display here doesn’t show up, but that’s something else I’ll be tinkering with (in fact, said picture may not even be necessary).

An Orphan is encountered, and a new HiME is revealed.

As well as adding Midori, I’ve reworked Natsuki and Mikoto’s battle graphics; Natsuki has a smoother border and Mikoto has been resized to be in proportion to the others. Midori’s skills are Spear Throw, Spiral Dash and Tornado (the last two involve summoning Gakutenoh, or, as Bandai calls it, Gakuten O).

After the battle, who should turn up at school but Midori herself? In the final version, Midori will walk all the way over to the desk, but I was feeling too lazy to go through the episode again just to screencap the end.

Next episode: Nao.

I’ve also continued to clean up a few things from earlier episodes, whilst fanboys will be pleased to hear that Midori is almost ready to make her debut as a playable character.

Class is over, and Mai explains why she can’t go out with everyone else.

Mai’s friends come to visit her at Café Lindenbaum.

I had to use an industrial tileset for the station, so it looks a little grey and uninviting.

On the way home, Mai encounters a bus of evil.

Ironically, when Mai is free, everyone else decides they are busy.

Mai decides to go out by herself.

This battle wasn’t seen onscreen in the anime, but I included it to make the episode slightly more exciting. Fighting with Natsuki alone makes it tougher than usual, but the Orphan runs away after five turns.

Mai arrives in time for some more exposition.

Mai and her classmates reconcile.

Mai sustained cheerfulness finally becomes too much for her.

Tate buys Mai a canned coffee and comforts her.

Next episode should be more interesting.

As well as tidying up a couple of things from earlier episodes, I’ve decided to alter my Kagutsuchi and Dhuran animations. I’ll also be attempting a tentacle attack animation which hopefully won’t look too awful.

Mai is caught sleeping in class. This scene isn’t vital to the storyline, but I kept it in since it clarifies the fact that there is a jump in time between the end of episode three and the beginning of four.

After swimming class, Natsuki’s class discovers that their underwear has been taken.

Over lunch, Chie, Aoi, Mai and Mikoto discuss the underwear thefts.

Natsuki’s attempt to avoid being seen without her panties fails spectacularly.

A freak wind shows off more than Natsuki ever wanted anyone other than Shizuru to see.

In the bathroom, Mai has a good laugh at Natsuki’s expense.

Outside, Natsuki warns Mai that they are not the only HiME in the school, whilst Mikoto suddenly remembers seeing the panty thief earlier.

Haruka resolves to catch the panty thief and show up that ‘bubuzuke woman’.

When the Orphan that has been stealing the panties drops a pair on Takeda, Haruka’s underlings assume he is the culprit.

Natsuki explains that she does not believe Takeda is the culprit.

Natsuki’s collection is used to lure out the culprit.

Natsuki asks Mai to contribute her bra to the effort.

Unfortunately, Natsuki and the others are caught napping, enabling the thief to get away with the precious collection.

Upon following it out to the school field, Natsuki discovers the thief is not alone.

The first battle of the episode is against a squad of panty thieves.

Once the smaller thieves are defeated, they combine to form a huge Orphan. This is the enemy that will have the tentacle attack.

Episode four ends, but the underwear collection is now in pieces.

For now, I haven’t got to adjusting the monsters’ strength and the items they drop after battle; that’s something I’ll probably go back and do once the basic flow of events is done and the battles are set.

The episode begins with a battle against the first Orphan.

Once the battle ends, Mikoto slices the Orphan in half in a cut scene, but Nagi warns them there is more to come.

The next battle is against the two halves of the Orphan; Mai gains the ability to summon Kagutsuchi here. I had to make my own animations for Kagutsuchi and Duran’s summons, but since I can’t extract them and am having little luck with the screen recorder, they can’t be shown here just yet.

After the battle, the cave is rather the worse for wear.

Everyone ends up on the scorched side of the mountain; right now, however, there is a short delay between teleporting to this map and having it turn to night.

A screencap from the anime is used to demonstrate the extent of the damage.

Natsuki visits the student council office to look up information about Mai.

Reito interrupts before HARD YURI can begin.

Mai and Takumi wake up in the infirmary.

Tate takes Mai to see Mashiro.

Mashiro’s mansion.

Inside the mansion, Mashiro explains Mai’s importance to the plot.

Episode three ends in Mai’s dorm, as she and Mikoto decide whether or not to fight the Orphans. The misplaced curtain-door on the left will be lowered

Finally, once you have slaved over your game for hours, the time comes to playtest it, at which point you discover that nothing works in the way you intended it to, and that you’ll have to spend another three hours tweaking everything so that it does. By the time everything is perfected, you’ll have spent the entire day at the computer, with about one minute’s worth of game to show for it.

Haruka gives Mai a grilling at the student council room, but Reito tries to calm things down. I only noticed on my second viewing how often Reito seems to talk about tea.

Mai meets her classmates.

I never really understood why Takumi thought wandering around a suspicious-looking forest would take him to Mai.

My plan for a ‘Takumi drops his pills’ event was abandoned due to lack of pillbox sprite.

Mai prepares to fight her first Orphan. I finally learned how to use ‘extract foreground objects’ in GIMP to save myself hours of work when extracting a single item from an image.

I don’t yet have a ‘Takumi downed’ sprite, but it’s something I may go back and add later.

The game is fairly simple as RPGs go, consisting of cutscenes that follow the TV series storyline, and set battles corresponding to the ones seen in the relevant episodes. There are no random battles or opportunities for the player to wander around by themselves, but since it’s made using the RPG Maker engine, I’m still calling it an RPG.

The title screen. Background music is the OP, “Shining Days”.

Mikoto is found floating face down in the water. Right now I’m not skilled enough to use my own tilesets, so all the maps are either made from the RPG Maker defaults or modified tilesets found online. Generic sprites are also RPG Maker defaults, but I made the named characters myself (don’t flame me for their awfulness, this is my first time doing something like this).

Mai sacrifices her first kiss in order to revive Mikoto.

Mai, Takumi, Tate and Shiho get to know each other below decks.

Natsuki arrives, and her fanboys cheer.

The first battle is Mikoto vs. Natsuki. Once Natsuki’s health gets below 25% of its maximum, she summons Dhuran in her place. Natsuki can use a regular gun attack, Ice magic or Frozen Shot. Dhuran has a regular gun attack, Glacial Saber and Chrome Cartridge. I’m using Mezame as the battle music but I might have to cut down the opening of the track to make it more suitable.

After the battle, the whole boat is on fire for some reason.

Mai and Mikoto end up in the water until Kagutsuchi appears to rescue them.

Currently everyone is floating above their lifeboats, but it’s either that or have them sticking out of the bottom. There’s probably an option I can adjust to make it look less unnatural, but I haven’t found it yet.

It takes about five minutes to play episode one, but making it all work properly requires many hours.

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