So, this second week of February was mostly dedicated to script work. I started out by working on Keiichi‘s investigation route and made quite a bit of progress on it. I did, however, run into some parts that gave me difficulties, mostly in regards to flow and tone.
I know exactly what I want to do here, or rather where the goal is, but I still need to find the best path to actually get there.
Since I got stuck, I decided to jump ahead and continue with Rei‘s investigation route, rather than potentially waste a couple of days desperately trying to find solutions that might eventually present themselves. And I think that was a pretty good move, as work on Rei‘s route went much smoother. I made a lot of progress and feel generally very satisfied with what I’ve written, even though it will definitely require a bit more polish. A full first draft might very well be done in a couple more days if I keep up the pace.
In any case, I’m having quite a lot of fun working on this, as some of you may have noticed if you’ve seen one of my recent tweets.
Rei‘s route is a fine example of the fact that, no matter how perfectly you plan things out, there are always going to be surprises along the road, even for me as the author. At some point while I was writing, the characters simply took over the script and started doing their own thing and there was nothing I could do to stop it, haha.
To me, those are always some of the most fun parts about writing and it’s a nice change of pace compared to all the struggles I went through a little while ago.
Anyway, I will definitely continue working on Rei‘s route and then tackle Shinketsu‘s next. And hopefully, while working on those, I will also come up with a solution for Keiichi‘s route.
Now, in other news, I have continued asset work as well, but mostly took care of a couple very simple things. The character introduction cards have been adjusted one more (and final) time. Ever since the SHINRAI update back in September, the kanji writing for some of the character names has changed and thus needed to be adjusted in GENBA as well. So Nobuhiko‘s family name “Shinpuku”, for instance, is now written as “新福” rather than “信服”.
While I was at it, I also took the opportunity to finally change Terano‘s family name from “Umou” (羽毛) to “Takamori” (鷹森). To be honest, “Umou” had originally only been a placeholder anyway, until I’d come up with something better. After using it for all this time, I kind of got used to it, but in the end, looking at it again last summer… I still wasn’t too happy with it. I had quite a few other possibilities to choose from, but in the end, I settled on “Takamori” mostly for the sound, especially in combination with “Terano”.
If you’re curious about the meaning, “taka” means “falcon” and “mori” means “forest”. It’s a name you actually find in RL as well.
Now, speaking of characters, with the base sprites for the witnesses done, I’ve started working on the one for our victim. Although he may be dead at the start of the game, he will still make an appearance in various flashbacks, although he will have few variations.
I guess that about wraps it up for this week. Next time, rather than a progress report, I might actually make a post about writing in general, as there are a few things I’d like to talk about, so maybe that will be interesting!
But for now, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
(And have a nice Valentine’s Day, too! I sadly didn’t get around to it this year, so there won’t be a Valentine’s artwork… but!
You can always check out the old ones in our gallery w)
