2024 was the year of the dragon. And although dragons are obviously a little different from dinosaurs, I’d say they’re close enough! So, in my mind, this was also the “year of the dinosaurs” and, as such, I really wanted this to be the year for us to finally release our second murder mystery visual novel GENBA no Kizuna! And on August 26, exactly eight full years after the release of our previous VN SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair, we did just that! GENBA is now finally available on Steam and itch (it’s even currently on sale)!
- Unleashing The Dragons
It was a long, arduous journey to get to this point, with development taking significantly longer than expected (the reasons for which I’ve discussed in detail in our GENBA postmortem series). But of course, that made the moment we could finally share it with the rest of the world that much sweeter and more exhilarating!
Honestly, it’s really crazy to think that we’ve finally made it. For the longest time, working on GENBA was part of my daily routine.
There were so many moments when I was thinking about all the work still lying ahead of us, feeling overwhelmed by it and even a bit desperate. Like, no matter how much progress we made, there was still so much left to tackle, it felt like it was never gonna end.
I remember well when I finally got to the beginning of chapter three in 2022, for instance. On the one hand, it was exciting to finally get closer to the halfway mark, but then that also meant that half the game was still left to develop! And there were so many difficult parts in the latter half of it, from serious conversations about delicate subjects to unraveling all the mysteries…
You have no idea how many times I got disheartened and wondered if I could really do it. How many times I got stuck on something, thinking I’ve reached my limits. Like there was no way out. No way to move forward. Sometimes, it could be a single scene in the script making me realize that there’s a big flaw in the story. An angle I somehow never considered before, that suddenly changed everything. How was I supposed to overcome it? How to make it still make sense? Was there even a way to do that…?
Self-doubt, worry and insecurity were my closest buddies on this journey. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned (or rather realized once again), it’s that there’s always a solution.
Many times throughout my life, I found myself confronted with seemingly insurmountable tasks and challenges. But somehow, I’ve always prevailed. Sometimes, it may take a while, but as long as you keep pressing on, you’ll eventually reach the finish line.
And so we did. After all, here we are, already four months past the release! With all those worries and fears that had defined my present for so long… now lying in the past. And some, if not most of them, feel pretty silly and insignificant in retrospect.
There is really something surreal to it. Maybe because development did take so long and I did receive occasional comments along the lines of “GENBA will never be finished“, it’s so difficult for it to truly sink in, even in this moment. But we really did it.
To be honest, I’m still not quite sure how to feel about the release for a variety of reasons. There is some sadness left that it’s over. Releasing GENBA was also a sort of goodbye. Not only to a big chapter of my life, but also to this fictional world and the characters in it, who I’ve spent so much time with and who seriously helped me get through the toughest and most painful times of my life.
Of course, I’d like to bring some of them back in the future, but in regards to others… their story is now told and I will never again call the Kaseki Residence my “fictional home”, haha. It’s time to move on and go to new places. And that’s where some more excitement obviously comes into play again. Because, even though one project may have ended, I can finally have a fresh start with another!
- Blooming Of A New Project
Just a week ago, we officially announced SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair. I will talk about the project much more in the weeks to come, but it’s an idea I’ve had for a very long time now and it’s great to be able to finally make something more out of it than just a collection of keynotes. This is what I’ve been working on for the past four months. While dedicating the website to the aftermath of the GENBA release, I’ve (somewhat) secretly started addressing the aftermath of SHINRAI through this new project!
My goal was actually to have made much more progress on it by now. Given that it’s going to be a rather short story, it would have been such an amazing way to conclude 2024 by having a first draft of the full script typed up already. But alas, that sadly didn’t quite work out. December was once again a month that bore rather sad news and, for the first time in a long while, I also managed to catch a cold that temporarily affected my productivity.
Though, to be completely honest, I also took a lot of time to chill and recuperate following the GENBA release, spending many hours gaming or finally drawing fanart again for the first time in years, which I’ve also used as an opportunity to try to improve my art skills and play around with the idea of creating merch. If it hadn’t been for all that, Saku could have been along much further already, but…
Overall, this was still a very successful and exciting year for us! And less progress made is still more than no progress made!
‘Sides, self-care is important, too (I sure don’t wanna keep repeating the same mistakes I’ve addressed through Ryuu, ahahah).
Anyway, now that the Holidays are over and a new year about to begin, my primary focus will shift over to Saku, though! I’ve actually just published another new sprite preview over on Patreon for 5$+ tiers, featuring our good boy Taiko! And I really can’t wait to also share more visual glimpses publically, so for that reason alone, I gotta pick up the pace!
But as always, the specifics of what’s gonna be next will be the topic of our first blog post in the new year!
- Thanks
Before we conclude today’s post, I would like to once again thank everyone who has accompanied and supported us throughout GENBA‘s development. An especially huge “thank you” goes out to those who have even helped us with beta-testing and getting it ready for release and those who were there the very moment it went live, so that they could immediately delve into our prehistoric murder case! And then, of course, also a big shout-out to all those who took the time to leave us their impressions and who helped our little game break the 10 review mark on Steam so quickly, allowing for it to get a rating and a boost in visibility!
Then there are the peeps who reached out to me privately and sent fanart or who shared their impressions elsewhere, such as on the TV Tropes page. Which, by the way, I’m still baffled by whenever I take a look at it. To think that some people would dedicate so much of their time to analyzing something I’ve created to such a meticulous degree, categorizing all the various tropes, picking out all the Easter eggs, providing a timeline and so on and so forth… it’s truly crazy to me, but there honestly could be no greater praise.
I feel incredibly flattered and just knowing that there are people who enjoyed GENBA so much, well… it really makes me feel like all this time and energy spent on it was worth it. I’m really grateful and even though Saku will once again be something very different from what came before… I hope that you guys will stick around for this new adventure, too!
Now then, please enjoy the final days of 2024, stay healthy and safe, and have a successful transition into 2025!
We love you all!! See ya next year ;3
