Once again, we’re going to have a rather quick update, but despite its shortness, we have actually accomplished quite a lot again this week! Not only has Natsu finished coding the entirety of Shinketsu‘s route, the first third of Rei‘s is now playable as well!
The remaining two thirds will follow shortly, as I am about to finish the last few things that were still missing to complete it.
I have, for instance, just taken care of the sound effects and a couple more cut-in images that will be used for visual variety.
All that is left to do now is to give the script two or three more passes to ensure that everything makes sense and clicks together.
Rei‘s route proved to be quite challenging to write, as it is, for the most part, about examining evidence. Some of the objects she inspects required me to look up the proper technical vocabulary and others took me numerous revisions to really make clear what’s going on, especially in a way that flows well and sounds natural. As a player, you will only get Rei‘s thoughts and some pieces of 2D art, after all, and there is a lot she will comment on that is only visible to her and not to you. These parts would have been easier if we had capabilities such as The Great Ace Attorney, for instance, where you can inspect a 3D model of the evidence from all angles. But alas… we don’t and I can’t draw an endless amount of art to make up for it “orz
Another thing that made this a bit more difficult than Raiko‘s investigations in SHINRAI is also the fact that Rei is a properly trained crime scene technician. If Raiko misses something important or doesn’t know what to do with a piece of evidence, that’s fine. She’s only a teenager. With Rei, on the other hand, I have a little less leeway. She may be a rookie, giving me a little bit, but it’s important for her to be much more professional. So I have spent an enormous amount of time just double checking everything and thinking about every piece of evidence in all sorts of ways to hopefully ensure that she won’t come across as a bumbling buffoon.
That’s already Kei-chan’s role, haha.
This weekend, I will wrap up her route and then there will only be Himatsu‘s left. Since we also have to account for play-testing, I guess the next demo release for Patreon will have to be pushed to March, unfortunately. That said, I’m still pretty proud that we got so close to hitting our initial deadline.
Anyway, there isn’t much else to say, so I guess I’d better get back to work! As always, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3
