Today, we’re excited to properly announce our next visual novel project: a follow-up to SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair, titled…
A teaser page is already live and can be accessed via the “SHINRAI” drop-down menu in the “home” bar at the top of this site, or by simply clicking here. It contains a brief description of what the story will revolve around, along with some key points as to what you can expect from the project. But let’s just go right ahead and take a closer look at everything, shall we?
(Note: It’s recommended to check out the teaser page first, as this post serves to elaborate on the things mentioned there!)
- Timeline & Project Scope
Thursday, December 2, 2010. That’s the precise date this story will take place, so almost exactly two months after the events of Broken Beyond Despair (and three weeks before those of Withering Without Hope).
During this time, Raiko‘s entire school grade has traveled to the country’s cultural capital, the city of Tenrintou, for an excursion spanning a total of four days and three nights. Saku (as we will be referring to this project in short from now on) will only cover the evening of the final day of this trip, however.
Consequently, it is going to be a much, much shorter project. How long it will ultimately be can’t really be said yet, but going by the current script length and how much of the outline still needs to be fully written out, I’d expect it to be somewhere around the length of GENBA no Kizuna‘s shortest chapter, so in the 30,000 word range.
- Story & Genre
Saku is primarily going to be a character-focused story. Its purpose is to check in on Raiko and her classmates and to see how they’re doing in the ongoing aftermath of that tragic Halloween party. While some have seemingly overcome it, reverting back to their usual shenanigans, others are still very much affected by it and struggling with various problems.
So while, over the course of the evening, Raiko will get roped into some of her classmates’ antics again, she will also end up having some serious conversations and, towards the end, even get confronted with a bit of a situation that will require her deductive skills.
As such, it’s a bit hard to pin down a proper genre, but one thing I can state for certain is that this will not be another murder mystery! Even the little mystery aspect it does have going… well, you can think of it as more of one of those situations when Sherlock Holmes or Conan Edogawa deduce the truth purely through observation.
And yes, that means there won’t be any investigating or evidence presentation, which in turn means that, this time around, you won’t come across any interactive gameplay elements, either. In fact, this is going to be a purely kinetic visual novel, without even choices.
I really want to stress this to properly set expectations, so once again, in summary: Saku will be a relatively short, kinetic visual novel project, mainly showcasing character interactions, both of the silly and serious kind.
- Withering Without Hope
I know a lot of people have been waiting for a very long time now for a “proper” sequel to Broken Beyond Despair. Another murder mystery in the same vein, with a similar vibe. And, as mentioned in the recent postmortem posts, some people already were a bit disappointed that GENBA no Kizuna didn’t quite deliver that. Because of that, I was all the more concerned what they’d think of Saku.
However, this is what I want to work on next. That doesn’t mean that WWH is cancelled, though. I wouldn’t even really say that it’s going to be further postponed, either. Because at least 50% of the stuff you will find in Saku was originally going to be in WWH.
I’ve essentially just decided to take it out, mix it with another idea I had long ago, and turn it into its own little thing.
But yeah, if you’re disappointed to hear we’re still not really getting back to WWH yet… I’m really sorry about that!
At the very least, I can assure you that the completion of Saku will not take us another eight years, ahahah…
- Plans For The Next Weeks
Anyway, that’s about all I want to say on the project for now. You can expect to hear and see a lot more in January, though.
(By the way, patrons can already check out some character design sketches and sprite previews, another one following within the next couple of days, so if you’re supporting us on Patreon, keep your eyes peeled)!
Before we delve deeper into Saku, however, we will first take a look back at 2024 in our annual retrospect next week and then talk about our general plans and goals for 2025 the week after! And once those posts are out of the way, I should also have a lot more to show and talk about regarding our new project. Something I’m personally very excited about and, hopefully, you as well!
But for now, I wish you a chill and pleasant Christmas countdown and that you’ll be able to thoroughly enjoy the Holidays!
Until next time, take care :3
