Visual Novel Progress (part 1)

I don't know how many updates I'll really be able to give on the Solar Echoes visual novel video game, because from here on most of what needs to happen is a lot of work that can't be reported on without spoilers. Much of that will consist of the writing, the coding, having the artwork done, and putting everything together eventually, but there has been some progress this last week that I can share. Last week I spent some more time trying out different ideas with the visual novel software I'm programming with, and I've been able to get it to do some neat things. I won't spoil anything, partly because I'm not even sure some of what I'm doing will make it into the final game, but last week I figured out how to bring video into the game program. Most of you have probably seen my “Solar Echoes RPG Video Comic” on Youtube, so you already have some idea, but here's what I managed last week: I designed 18 art frames of a planet with moons rotating around it, animated and recorded the video, brought it into the game, put the video in an infinite loop as a background, and then added over the top a starship graphic moving across the screen. I also added in the typical visual novel text with a few branching choices, and finally added on a character sprite, all while the planet and its moons continually rotated in the background. Although I won't be using any of the art assets this experiment in the final game, I know better what the program can handle now, so the experiment was a success!