Once again, I’m going to keep things relatively short for this update, since I don’t have much time and nothing too major to report.
I mostly spent my time working on the background artwork for Ryuunosuke‘s room in GENBA no Kizuna again. Patrons can see the newest preview here, while non-patrons can check out the very first preview in this public Patreon post.
The BG is coming along pretty well. I have added a lot more detail to it now. The problem with this one is the fact that it’s not only tied to an investigative gameplay segment, but also contains some important details regarding the overall murder case. While working on SHINRAI, I never needed to spend too much thought on most of the resort backgrounds. The only ones that really mattered were those tied to investigations: the dining hall, the breaker room, the guest room with the bodies inside…
When you look at those, you’ll be able to clearly tell that they contain noticeably more detail than the corridors of the resort or the entrance hall to Raiko‘s home, for instance. So, they took me much longer to draw. However, there’s another reason for that.
The BGs for the guest room were especially hard to make, because they contained a lot of important visual details regarding the murder. It doesn’t matter where I place a candlestand in a hallway, but it matters a lot where you can see the bodies and blood spatter. You absolutely need to get those kinds of things right, since they pertain to the solution of the mystery. And if you make a mistake, it can lead to players falsely interpreting what they see and prevent them from reaching the proper solution.
In other words, I try to put a lot of thought into these kinds of BGs. There is always the possibility to fix things later in development, of course, but I’m a fan of getting things right from the get-go, so I don’t have to worry about it no more.
“Unfortunately”, every GENBA BG I have worked on so far is going to be examinable, meaning that I had to put a lot of detail and thought into them. There are going to be much simpler BGs later on, but in general, a lot of those you will see in GENBA are going to be examinable. I guess that’s one of the major reasons why it’s taking me so much longer to finish the BGs for this game.
Anyway, another really major one is going to be finished soon and I can’t wait to tackle the next task afterwards.
But for now, I’ll have to spend a bit more time in Ryuu‘s room!
As always, I hope you will enjoy the rest of your weekend! Until next Saturday, take care! :3
